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 51: Guilt

    March 16th, 2016  |  34 mins 32 secs

    In this episode of the show we discuss about guilt. We talk about how  it feels and what to do with it when it’s weighing you down.

  • Episode 49: Loss

    March 6th, 2016  |  38 mins 5 secs

    The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths. -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross In this episode we deal with loss.

  • Episode 48: This American Religious Life: Greg Strawbridge

    March 3rd, 2016  |  44 mins 30 secs

    We’re going to do a non-scientific profile of different religious communities and personolaties and how they shape the American religious landscape. We’re not sociologists, but that’s never stopped us before. This is the first edition of the series,

  • Episode 46: Trump Vs. Francis

    February 20th, 2016  |  37 mins 51 secs

    Pope Francis alluded to the fact that Donald Trump might not be a Christian in a recent press conference on his flight back from Mexico. Is he wrong or right? Is it even his place to make these kind of judgments.

  • Episode 39: The Faces of Jesus

    January 12th, 2016  |  32 mins 25 secs

    This [pop culture]  Jesus may be our champion and friend, but he is no one’s mediator. The news he brings may be pleasant, or it may be harsh, but it is not urgent or particularly new—not for those who are perishing. In sum,

  • Episode 36: Is The God Of Muhammad The Father Of Jesus Christ?

    January 1st, 2016  |  28 mins 44 secs

    There’s been some recent controversy at Wheaton College involving a professor who was put on administrative leave for statements she made about the relationship of Christianity and Islam. In response to the controversy Miroslav Volf wrote an op-ed piec...

  • Episode 35: Is This A Wonderful Life?

    December 22nd, 2015  |  32 mins 7 secs

      won·der·ful adjective 1. inspiring delight, pleasure, or admiration; extremely good; marvelous. Is this a wonderful life? It’s the question behind one the great Christmas films of all time. It’s also a question people find themselves asking in a worl...

  • Episode 34: There’s Something About Mary

    December 15th, 2015  |  38 mins 45 secs

    There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I’ve seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students’ backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don’t think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient,

  • Episode 33: Mirror Mirror On The Wall…A Demographic Reflection Of American Values

    December 11th, 2015  |  33 mins 50 secs

    Donald Trump made headlines yet again with a proposed plan to ban all Islamic entry to the United States. Almost every candidate and public political figure rushed to condemn Trump’s proposal. But a recent comprehensive study of American values and att...

  • Episode 32: The Official Guide To Surviving Political Arguments With Family and Friends During The Holidays

    December 8th, 2015  |  32 mins 1 sec

    We're living in one of the most divided times in our country's history since the period that preceded the Civil War. It seems that more and more we have less and less in common as a country. We're divided into red states and blue states and increasingl...

  • Episode 31: Where Do We Sleep When Our Beds Are Burning?

    December 4th, 2015  |  30 mins 20 secs

    The “Benedict Option” refers to Christians in the contemporary West who cease to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of American empire, and who therefore are keen to construct local forms of community as loci...

  • Episode 24: How Do People Change?

    November 6th, 2015  |  29 mins 30 secs

    We have the capacity to imagine changing into something different than we are. This can be the blessing and the curse of the human condition.

  • Episode 21: Fight or Flight?

    October 20th, 2015  |  28 mins 44 secs

    What do you do when your back is against the wall? Most of us either run in hope that we're faster than whatever frightens us, or we fight thinking that we're stronger than it.

  • Episode 20: I Think Therefore…?

    October 17th, 2015  |  26 mins 41 secs

    ...how much do we know about our thought process? And how important is what we know? Is it is important as being known?

  • Episode 18: Friends

    October 6th, 2015  |  33 mins 22 secs

      We need not view a friendship with another human being either as having no other end but itself or as being solely a means to friendship with God. God is known in communion, but of course communion, the eucharist,

  • Episode 17: Don’t Worry, Be…Happy?

    October 1st, 2015  |  26 mins 44 secs

    JOY IN NONSENSE. How can men take joy in nonsense? They do so, wherever there is laughter-in fact, one can almost say that wherever there is happiness there is joy in nonsense. It gives us pleasure to turn experience into its opposite,