#2408 - Prophetically Pragmatic: Mark Elsdon

Our guest, Rabbi Shai Held, talks about his recent book: Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life. Held reminds us that love is foundational and constitutive of Jewish faith, animating the singular Jewish perspective on injustice and protest, grace, family life, responsibilities to our neighbors and even our enemies, and chosenness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Miguel De La Torre returns to Things Not Seen to discuss his recent book, Resisting Apartheid America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Cain is a Jesuit who has spent his life writing screenplays for movies and television. In his 2022 book, The Diary of Jesus Christ, he reimagines the stories of the Gospels from the point of view of Jesus himself, with breathtaking results Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Leah Payne traces forty years in the formation of American Evangelical identity through a mixture of Christian bookstores, Contemporary Christian Music, charismatic recording artists, and self-reinforcing product placements. We discuss her recent book, God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Lisa Sharon Harper takes us on a four-century journey through the history of her family, showing us how it entwines with the broken history of race in America. She discusses her recent book, Fortune. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Michael Wear, has lived at the intersection of faith and politics at the highest corridors of power. In his recent book, The Spirit of Our Politics, Wear offers a distinctly Christian approach to politics that results in healing rather than division, kindness rather than hatred, and hope rather than despair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Mark Elsdon talks about the coming wave of church property transitions, and what it will mean for communities and faith at large in the United States. We talk about his recent edited volume, Gone for Good? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book, Reorganized Religion, our guest, veteran religion reporter Bob Smietana, offers an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O'Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel titled Why Do the Heathen Rage? For the past ten-plus years, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson has explored the 378 pages of typed and handwritten material of the novel, compiling everything to provide a glimpse into what O'Connor might have planned to publish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book Race & Rhyme, our guest Love Lazarus Sechrest invites listeners to explore biblical narratives in ways that enliven and ethically inform our present conditions. She discusses her method of associative hermeneutics in this far-ranging conversation about race, theology, and repairing the broken world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices