New Persuasive Words

"The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones." - Thornton Wilder

About the show

New Persuasive Words started as two guys talking about life with what we thought (hoped?) was wit and insight, on our good days anyway. Then...a podcast.

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Episodes

  • Episode 151: The Lost Prophecy of Father Joseph Ratzinger

    July 26th, 2017  |  33 mins 16 secs

    In this episode we discuss a 1969 radio address about the future of the church in a secular age. It was delivered by a young priest known as Joseph Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

  • Episode 150: Happy Anniversary To Us!

    July 20th, 2017  |  34 mins 35 secs

    We celebrate the milestone of our 150th episode with listener and friend Josh Retterer. We reflect on where we've been and where we're going.

  • Episode 149: Friendship Revisited

    July 14th, 2017  |  42 mins 29 secs

    We revisit one of the themes of our earliest podcasts, friendship.

  • Episode 148: Judge Not...

    July 10th, 2017  |  30 mins 43 secs

    In this episode we talk about the powerful temptation to judge other people, which most of us give in to all the time.

  • Episode 147: Fight or Flight Revisited

    July 8th, 2017  |  33 mins 47 secs

    As we approach our 150th episode, we're revisiting some topics we did early on at the beginning of the podcast. This episode is about the human tendency to go into fight or flight mode in response to anxiety provoking realities.

  • Episode 146: Secular Modern Life?

    July 3rd, 2017  |  37 mins 33 secs

    In this episode we reflect on a 2008 article by the recently deceased Peter Berger which originally appeared in First Things.

  • Episode 145: Freedom then and Now

    June 30th, 2017  |  33 mins 24 secs

    In this episode, in light of the upcoming Fourth of July celebration, we reflect on the nature of freedom and life together in the United States.

  • Episode 144: Why The Saved Need Saving

    June 28th, 2017  |  36 mins 27 secs

    Do you think you're right and they're wrong? Who's on your heretic list? Liberals? Conservatives? Calvinists? Vegans? Valentians? We continue our musings on truth, heresy and learning the art of life together.

  • Episode 143: Truth, Heresy...can you know the Difference?

    June 26th, 2017  |  32 mins 55 secs

    In this podcast we talk about a recent statement by Pope Francis, an article about Rob Bell, and the nature of disagreement in communities that care about their convictions.

  • Episode 142: Love The World?

    June 23rd, 2017  |  32 mins 43 secs

    We go back to Tomas Halik's work "I Want You To Be: On The God Of Love", considering how Christians can really love the world.

  • Episode 141: Narcissism and the Love of Self

    June 19th, 2017  |  28 mins 46 secs

    We go back to our teacher Tomas Halik to consider narcissism and the possibility of really loving and being loved.

  • Episode 140: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

    June 17th, 2017  |  38 mins 10 secs

    In light of the recent shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise and the combative political and cultural rhetoric of the day, we consider what it means to be in the American project together.

  • Episode 139: Highway to...Hell?

    June 15th, 2017  |  35 mins 17 secs

    Our guest for this midweek Bullgeschichte episode is Jason Micheli. He's an author, pastor and podcaster and he's not sure he believes in hell, which is the topic for our conversation.

  • Episode 138: Can God Be God Without Us?

    June 12th, 2017  |  32 mins 6 secs

    In this episode we talk about Pope Francis' recent statement, "God Cannot Be God Without Man."

  • Episode 137: Friday Night Lights: More on the Spirit

    June 9th, 2017  |  29 mins 16 secs

    In this Friday Night lights episode, recorded on Bill's birthday, we continue reflecting on the Holy Spirit and spirituality.

  • Episode 136: The Holy Spirit

    June 5th, 2017  |  34 mins 54 secs

    In this episode, the day after Pentecost, we talk about the Holy Spirit.