The Human Condition

This is the second part of the conversation with Flame, Grammy-nominated hip hop artist, about his faith journey. He talks about vocation, essential things, and why he's no longer a Calvinist. Mere Caffeination is an Inklings-inspired podcast about cultivating a winsome Christian witness produced by the Center for Worldview and Culture at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO. For more information, visit sbuniv.edu.

Grammy-nominated and award-winning hip hop artist FLAME and I talk about C.S. Lewis's metaphor from Mere Christianity of a great hallway. We discuss how we should think about the Church, the gospel, and Snoop Dogg's Christian rap album.

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior helped us wrap up season one of Mere Caffeination and she joined us again or this the second episode of season two. This season will include several interviews with remarkable Christian leaders and a survey of the peaks of Mere Christianity, the book for which this podcast's name is inspired.

In the final episode of this season of Mere Caffeination, we're joined by literature professor Dr. Karen Swallow Prior (aka. the Notorious KSP) as we explore C.S. Lewis's themes of church and heaven in the Screwtape Letters. I lead off the interview with Karen by asking her about all the time she's spent behind bars. True story.

A cigar smoking, monocle wearing, young lady once beat C.S. Lewis in a public debate. Or so some say. We'll talk about how that relates to Lewis's demons in the Screwtape Letters and wrap up our conversation with Ameen Hudson from the Southside Rabbi podcast. We've packed all that into this espresso-infused episode of Mere Caffeination.

In this caffeine-infused episode we look at how C.S. Lewis found his voice and how his demons understood adolescence. We're joined by Ameen Hudson, a theologian and writer who focuses on the intersection of theology, art, and culture. He's also the co-host of the Southside Rabbi podcast.

"Where the Hell are we?" President Kennedy asked C.S. Lewis on November 22, 1963. Stay tuned for the second half of the program if you want to hear his response. First, we're going to wrap up our conversation with author and all-around-great-person, Trillia Newbell. Then we'll survey three summary points of Lewis's view of Hell as enunciated by his demons in a letter about romance. We've packed all that into this caffeine-infused episode of Mere Caffeination.

Was evil C.S. Lewis's favorite apologetic? It was evil that led him into atheism, and, ironically, what led him out. How did a nun save Lewis's demons? We talk about all that in this episode as we're joined by the wonderful and ever cheerful Trillia Newbell.

C.S. Lewis dedicated the Screwtape Letters to his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien, beloved author of the Middle Earth stories. But did Tolkien even like the Screwtape Letters? Unrelated, what was the cave where Tolkien and Lewis’s spent so much time together? Were these two authors into spelunking? And why didn’t Tolkien’s wife let him hang out at C.S. Lewis’s house? Is that why C.S. Lewis and Tolkien weren’t very close at the end of Lewis’s life? We’ll talk about their unique friendship in this episode as we consider some introductory topics related to the Screwtape Letters including the question, “Did C.S. Lewis believe in the Devil?” Oh, and we’ll get back to our guest Sam Allberry for the second and final part of our interview to hear what he has to say about whether pastors should be fired for being jerks on social media. We’ve packed all that into this coffee-infused second episode of Mere Caffeination.

In the first episode of Mere Caffeination we talk about how Hitler and a boring sermon inspired the former atheist, C.S. Lewis, to create a diabolical conversation about how to avoid temptation. Author, pastor, and all-around-good-guy, Sam Allberry, joins the program mainly to make fun of the host. Join us in this first season for a guided tour of The Screwtape Letters with some amazing guests along the way.