Where were you when the Ruth Bader Ginsburg news hit the screen of your smartphone?
When I saw the news, the first thing I thought about was that recent Jess Fields podcast in which political scientist and data-chart-maestro Ryan Burge was working through some key points about the 2020 White House race and last-minute factors that could come into play.
This brought him to his “black swan” prediction. If you didn’t check out that podcast several weeks ago, you are going to want to flash back to it now. It’s the one with this headline, “Jess Fields meets Ryan Burge: As you would image, they’re talking ‘nones,’ ‘evangelicals,’ etc.” If you prefer audio only, click here.
So what is a “black swan”? Here is that online definition from the previous post:
A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.
So do I need to tell you what Burge picked as his ultimate 2020 black swan?
He dropped me this note last night:
I was actually in the middle of taping a podcast and switched over to Twitter during the middle of the conversation and saw it. And I had to interrupt the host and tell them. I don’t have the video of it, but I bet the color drained out of my face.
I think this is the most precarious position our country has been in since I was born (1982). The government of the United States runs on norms more than it does on laws. And both parties seem ready and willing to violate norms in a tit for tat fashion in ways that only do damage to the future of our country.
So that’s one podcast you need to check out this morning. Before that political earthquake, I had already written a post centering on a blitz of podcasts that I knew would interest GetReligion readers-listeners.
That’s not your normal newsy Monday GetReligion, of course. However, I had a medical reason for getting something ready to go in advance.
On Friday, I headed into the hospital for one of those “minor surgery” operations. But you know the old saying: Minor surgery is surgery on somebody else. Let’s just say that this was my latest round in decades of run-ins with a painful medical curse that only the sick mind of Gary Larson could find a way to make funny (classic Far side cartoon here).
So here is the rest of the post that I had on a computer timer in case I was still out of commission today. Enjoy this collection of high-grade video and audio podcasts, several featuring truly world-class experts on important topics in the news. Several of these are worthy of columns by, well, scribes like me or other folks who walk the religion beat.
* First, here is a JuicyEcumenism.com podcast featuring a conversation with historian Philip Jenkins, one of the world’s most influential writers about big trends in religious history and contemporary life. He is probably best known for his 2002 cover story for The Atlantic Monthly entitled “The Next Christianity,” and the book from which that material was drawn, “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.”
This podcast focuses on his latest book, which will probably have newsworthy hooks in every chapter: “Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions.” Here’s an early glimpse into that content (there is a transcript to scan):
MARK TOOLEY: I guess the obvious question is does secularization precede the fall of fertility or does the fall of fertility fuel the secularization?
PHILIP JENKINS: My answer would probably be yes, and yes they run together very closely. And very closely in times and a great example that for instance is in the 1970s in Catholic Europe, secularization runs very quickly, fertility rates collapse, and they’re so closely linked it’s very hard to tell which comes first. But as I say, I point out a correlation. So like I said, this used to be regarded as a European phenomenon, a protestant phenomenon. Then it was Catholic Europe as well. Then it was Latin America, and now it’s global with the great exception of Africa, which as far as we can tell is going to have an ever-larger proportion of the world’s religious believers, Christian or Muslim.
* For those who want to invest quite a bit of time in one of the major religion stories of the past century or so (how’s that for a recommendation), there is a new 10-part “true crimes” series available through Apple podcasts entitled “Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church.”
This is the first major effort from “The Catholic Project,” working with The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. The first episode starts exactly where one would expect, but the series will cover more than a half century of material. Catholic Project director Stephen White is one of the hosts and here is part of a Catholic News Agency piece on the series:
The first episode covers the scandals of 2018, including discussion of the abuse of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, and Archbishop Vigano’s open letter. It also discusses the response by bishops in both the U.S. and Rome.
In subsequent episodes, White said, the podcast will dive into the scandals of 2002 and go back even farther to some of the earliest warnings the bishops received about clergy sexual abuse in the 1950s.
One episode discusses the case of Father Gilbert Gauthe, the first priest to face a publicized criminal trial for sexual abuse of minors. The hosts talk to Jason Berry, who pioneered investigative reporting into the clergy sex abuse, and Ray Mouton, the lawyer who defended Gauthe.
* Next is a podcast featuring one of America’s most articulate voices on religious liberty issues — law professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia.
One of the reasons he is quoted so often in the mainstream press is that he remains an old-school liberal on the First Amendment, by which I mean he is pro-religious liberty and pro-gay marriage at the same time. It is fascinating that many reporters quote him as a “conservative” voice, merely because he defends the First Amendment rights of people on the right as well as the left.
In this case, Laycock is speaking in a conservative setting — the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary “Thinking In Public” podcast, with seminary President Albert Mohler, who has been active in audio commentary work longer than just about anyone in mainstream evangelicalism.
* I wrote an “On Religion” column the other day about the Jerry Falwell, Jr., scandal and the future of Liberty University. That was the main topic that podcaster Jess Fields and I were supposed to discuss during my most recent visit to his Houston-based show. Click here for the audio version of that hour-long talk (and the YouTube should be online any day now).
We ended up spending most of our time talking about — wait for it — the 2020 election. As you might expect, I kept arguing that Rust Belt Catholics, and maybe evangelical Latinos in Florida, will be more important than the alleged white-evangelical monolith.
* Finally, here is a timely interview from the Catholic apologetics site Word On Fire. This isn’t an audio feature, but it is a Q&A transcript of a recording that I hope will show up online eventually.
The headline tells you all that you need to know: “Why Mark Galli, former editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, decided to become Catholic.” Here is a crucial — while vague — chunk of that:
Of course I’m still uncomfortable with some things in the Catholic Church; I’m still uncomfortable with some things Jesus said. (“Loving my enemy, Jesus? You’ve got to be kidding!”) One does not convert to Catholicism, or Jesus for that matter, and immediately enter into an intellectually pristine state. There’s a learning curve as I try to understand the depth, breadth, and beauty of all that Catholicism teaches. That’s the point of conforming oneself to the Church and its teaching — to allow the Church to shape my mind and soul. That’s what I’m really looking forward to in the years ahead.
Dig in. I am sure that I have missed some great podcasts in recent weeks, since there is never enough time for this form of news and commentary (and I no longer have an hour-plus DC Beltway region commute every working day).
Please leave some worthy URLs in the comments pages!
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