Ministry of Ideas: Recent Episodes
Zachary Davis
At the dawn of European exploration, the Renaissance polymath Francis Bacon dreamed of resurrecting the Garden of Eden. Driving this vision was a relentless quest to fully understand—and catalog—God's created order.
Guests Ann Blair, Harvard University Rebecca Bushnell, University of Pennsylvania Staffan Müller-Wille, University of Cambridge James Rosindell, Imperial College London Amy Tigner, University of Texas at Arlington Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Absorbing the full reality of climate change will require more than a scientific approach. Some American Jews are showing how religious ritual can help us metabolize catastrophic grief while also pointing towards a future rebirth. Guests: -Jennie Rosenn, Founder & CEO of Dayenu -Andrue Kahn, Central Synagogue -Malkah Binah Klein, Community leader This episode was produced by Liya Rechtman. Zachary Davis is the host of Ministry of Ideas and Writ Large and the Editor-in-Chief of Radiant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s common to feel that technology removes the magic of the world, but Hindu worshippers in Bangalore have shown that it's all in the approach.
Guest
Tulasi Srinivas, associate professor of anthropology at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College. Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Indian Sociological Society. Author of Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism, among other books.
Do scientists ever reject science? Research data on the controversial topic of extraterrestrial life has met with resistance from some in the scientific community and openness from communities of faith.
Guests
Avi Loeb, professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Harvard University, where he serves as the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science. Author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.
Kate Dorsch, associate director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania .
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), longtime U.S. Senator (1987-2017) from the state of Nevada and former Senate Majority Leader (2007-2015. *The Senator died in December 2021.
Have faith and science always been enemies? The story of Robert Hooke, a revolutionary working in the Scientific Revolution, exemplifies the ways in which Christianity has actually provoked scientific inquiry.
Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Patricia Fara, director of studies and affiliated lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Department of the History and Philosophy of Science.
Jim Bennett, Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum, London and professor emeritus of the history of science, University of Oxford.
Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory and president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Stephen Barr, professor emeritus at the University of Delaware’s department of physics and astronomy.
This episode was produced by Rosalind Rei and Maria Devlin McNair.
Illuminations is supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Have faith and science always been enemies? The story of Robert Hooke, a revolutionary working in the Scientific Revolution, exemplifies the ways in which Christianity has actually provoked scientific inquiry.
Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Patricia Fara, director of studies and affiliated lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Department of the History and Philosophy of Science.
Jim Bennett, Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum, London and professor emeritus of the history of science, University of Oxford.
Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory and president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Stephen Barr, professor emeritus at the University of Delaware’s department of physics and astronomy.
This episode was produced by Rosalind Rei and Maria Devlin McNair.
Illuminations is supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Illuminations is a limited series that reveals the untold friendship of religion and science. Through interviews and stories drawn from a range of cultures, faiths, and eras, this series reveals the unknown and unexpected histories of how religion and science have been entangled across time. We hear why the Dalai Lama loves quantum mechanics; why the Mormon faith inspires a search for extraterrestrial life; why the Scientific Revolution was catalyzed by a religious quest to uncover divine craftsmanship. These surprising narratives explode the myth that faith and science are destined to be enemies and reveal how they worked as mutual inspiration.
Illuminations is produced by Zachary Davis, Maria Devlin McNair, Liya Rechtman and Nick Andersen. Script editing by Galen Beebe. Sound Design by Stephen Larosa. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Illuminations is supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Illuminations is a limited series that reveals the untold friendship of religion and science. Through interviews and stories drawn from a range of cultures, faiths, and eras, this series reveals the unknown and unexpected histories of how religion and science have been entangled across time. We hear why the Dalai Lama loves quantum mechanics; why the Mormon faith inspires a search for extraterrestrial life; why the Scientific Revolution was catalyzed by a religious quest to uncover divine craftsmanship. These surprising narratives explode the myth that faith and science are destined to be enemies and reveal how they worked as mutual inspiration.
Illuminations is produced by Zachary Davis, Maria Devlin McNair, Liya Rechtman and Nick Andersen. Script editing by Galen Beebe. Sound Design by Stephen Larosa. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Illuminations is supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Illuminations is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that reveals the untold friendship of religion and science. Through interviews and stories drawn from a range of cultures, faiths, and eras, this series reveals the unknown and unexpected histories of how religion and science have been entangled across time.
We hear why the Dalai Lama loves quantum mechanics; why the Mormon faith inspires a search for extraterrestrial life; why the Scientific Revolution was catalyzed by a religious quest to uncover divine craftsmanship. These surprising narratives explode the myth that faith and science are destined to be enemies.
Illuminations is produced by Zachary Davis, Maria Devlin McNair, Liya Rechtman and Nick Andersen. Script editing by Galen Beebe. Sound Design by Stephen Larosa. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Learn more at ministryofideas.org/illuminations and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
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Illuminations is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that reveals the untold friendship of religion and science. Through interviews and stories drawn from a range of cultures, faiths, and eras, this series reveals the unknown and unexpected histories of how religion and science have been entangled across time.
We hear why the Dalai Lama loves quantum mechanics; why the Mormon faith inspires a search for extraterrestrial life; why the Scientific Revolution was catalyzed by a religious quest to uncover divine craftsmanship. These surprising narratives explode the myth that faith and science are destined to be enemies.
Illuminations is produced by Zachary Davis, Maria Devlin McNair, Liya Rechtman and Nick Andersen. Script editing by Galen Beebe. Sound Design by Stephen Larosa. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Learn more at ministryofideas.org/illuminations and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
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Scientists discovered that some stars have heartbeats and that some of them can be used to measure the longest distances that exist.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
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Scientist Alfred Kinsey tried to differentiate human sexualities on a seven-point scale. In so doing, he brought us the basics of bisexuality. But the scale leaves a lot to be desired. Instead of a spectrum, Special Guest Kate Sisk leads us into a gay fog.
GUEST
Kate Sisk (she/they/he) is a professional stand up comedian, amateur drag king, and co-host of the award-winning podcast, We’re Having Gay Sex.
This episode was produced byAndrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
The Intelligence Quotient is a measure of intelligence that has life-or-death consequences. Should we trust it?
GUEST
Alan Gouddis is a Partner with Sherman & Sterling. He was recognized by The Legal 500 as a “Leading Lawyer” in M&A Litigation Defense in 2021.
This episode was produced byAndrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
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Taste is a subjective experience. We know this because eggs pickled in human urine, cheese with live maggots living in it, fertilized and mostly-developed duck eggs, rotten shark, calf blood and cheese whiz are all delicacies somewhere. But there is a flavor that we can measure and compare objectively. Kind of.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
Special thanks to our taste-testers: Brian Sexton, Daniel Siegel, Grace Gouddis, Gregory Fredle, Lois Rosson, Maiya Zwerling, Michelle Tigchelaar, Simon Brown, and Val McGraw.
We’d rate today’s episode a ten out of ten, five star, certified fresh, two thumbs up. But we can’t speak for its IMdB score.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
Measure for Measure is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas.
We’re hitting up against the very nature of measurement: How can we best describe the world around us, in its infinite complexity, with finite measures? In other words, how hard are rocks?
This episode was produced byAndrew Middleton andLiya Rechtman.
Measure for Measure is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas.
Jews are ritually obligated to eat matzah during Passover. But how much matzah? Well, that depends on your views on the size of an olive.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
Special thanks to Rabbi Natan Slifkin, founder of RationalistJudaism.com for his work on olives and biblical measurements.
We love a good chart or graph but we think measurement is more complex and interesting than the data points. The fathom is a measure of depth from the surface to the ocean floorwhich is critical for navigating the Mississippi River and the Suez Canal. The fathom also shows us what’s beyond measurement: The unfathomable.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
Measure for Measure is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas. The show is executive produced by Liya Rechtman, created by Andrew Middleton, and sound engineered by Greg Fredle.
Could you pick a white-breasted nuthatch out of a lineup? We explore the value - and limits - of birdwatching, categorization, and measurement.
This episode was produced by Andrew Middleton and Liya Rechtman.
Measure for Measure is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas. The show is executive produced by Liya Rechtman, created by Andrew Middleton, and sound engineered by Greg Fredle.
Introducing Measure for Measure, a new limited series from Ministry of Ideas.
We love a good chart or graph but we think measurement is more complex and interesting than data points. In each episode of the Measure for Measure, we look at a different unit of measure as a fundamental grammar of our lives.
Learn more at ministryofideas.org/measure
PRODUCTION TEAM
Liya Rechtman is Executive Producer and co-host of Measure for Measure and Managing Producer of Ministry of Ideas. She is a climate activist and Jew about town.
Andrew Middleton is Creator and co-host of Measure for Measure and a Producer of Ministry of Ideas. He is a cartographer, diver, and the founder of Open Dive Sites.
Greg Fredleis Sound Engineer for Measure for Measure. He is a freelance filmmaker and audio producer.
Zachary Davis is Executive Producer and Host of Ministry Ideas, Writ Large and Making Meaning; advisor to Measure for Measure.
Tyler Morrisette is the art director for Measure for Measure.
DESCRIPTION
It's common to equate meaning with depth, but the surface of things, with its wild and rapturous beauty, can coax us into life.
GUEST
Stephanie Paulsell is the Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies in the Harvard Divinity School and served as the Interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church from 2019 to 2020. An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she is the author of Religion Around Virginia Woolf, (2019), editor (with David Carrasco and Mara Willard) of Goodness and the Literary Imagination (2019), and a regular columnist in The Christian Century.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
We are finite creatures who struggle to accept our finitude. But if we can learn to embrace our limits, we will find that our relations with one another, the created world, and God allow us to experience a love so exquisite, it need not last forever.
GUEST
Matthew Ichihashi Potts is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. He studies the thought and practice of Christian communities through attention to diverse literary and theological texts.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Meaning paradoxically has to be both made and discovered, an inescapable entanglement of the singular and the universal. And though the fruit of such wrestling may not be uncomplicated happiness, it often leads to a deeper awareness of the sweetness of existence, the holiness of an hour.
GUEST
Zohar Atkins is the Founder of Etz Hasadeh, a Center for Existential Torah. He is a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He holds a DPhil in Theology from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and semikha from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Science often draws a picture of the world as a giant machine, a meaningless mechanical clock ticking and tocking forever. But religion and poetry offer a different view, one that is teeming with life and overflowing with spirit.
GUEST
Michael Ruse is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Though life’s ultimate meaning may be elusive, the goods of love, work and play are so deeply rewarding that for most people they are sufficient for creating a happy life. And with new advances in neuroscience, we increasingly understand why that is at a molecular level.
GUEST
Paul Thagard is a philosopher, cognitive scientist, and author of many interdisciplinary books. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo, where he founded and directed the Cognitive Science Program.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
There is a deep mystery to the existence of the universe. And although a final answer to the question of meaning is not possible, it is our highest responsibility and greatest hope to seek one.
GUEST
Francis J. Ambrosio is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Georgetown University. Dr. Ambrosio’s teaching interests are in the areas of Plato, Dante, Existentialism, and Postmodernism.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Meaning is less an objective thing to be discovered than a life-project, a narrative that unfolds over time. This doesn’t mean that every detail of our life fits a perfectly coherent plot, but rather we forge a beautiful expression of our deepest values.
GUEST
Todd May is Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University and the author of A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
We inherit a world that is already made, full of stories and structures and significance. But all of us have the capacity to remake the world and the meanings available in it.
GUEST
Simon Critchley is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His work engages in many areas: continental philosophy, philosophy and literature, psychoanalysis, ethics, and political theory, among others. His most recent books include The Problem with Levinas and ABC of Impossibility, though he has written on topics as diverse as David Bowie, religion, and suicide.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Meaning is more than pleasure or even happiness—it is an intense and fulfilling engagement in projects and relationships that bring forth the best within us and disclose mysterious, beautiful worlds of love.
GUEST
Susan R. Wolf is the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Wolf’s interests range widely over moral psychology, value theory, and normative ethics. Her research has focused especially on the relation between moral and nonmoral values, the nature and conditions of responsibility, and the idea of meaningfulness as a dimension of a good life.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
We have a tendency to view our lives as meaningful only if we are involved in heroic acts of service, creativity, or achievement. But this is misguided. Even when we are ordinary, we are all, as living creatures, capable of an intense engagement with the world that infuses life with significance.
GUEST
Michael Hauskeller is the head of philosophy department at the University of Liverpool. He is a generalist, trying to come to terms with this "deeply puzzling world" (to borrow an expression of Mary Midgley's), to understand it and to understand our place in it. Philosophy, he says, is about finding out what is actually going on and what we are doing here.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci . Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
The vast range of choices we can make about our lives is one of the great blessings of modernity. But that very freedom makes it hard to know what to believe or where we belong. Even more difficult is that capitalism is constantly shaping our values and perceptions towards its own ethos. Perhaps there is a way out through making our worlds smaller.
GUEST
Paul Froese is a Professor of Sociology at Baylor University and the Director of the Baylor Religion Surveys. He is the author of three books, his most recent is On Purpose: How We Create the Meaning of Life.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
The realization that our lives are incredibly brief and we are almost certainly not going to be remembered by anyone 100 years from now can cause deep angst—but it can also liberate us to abandon work and activities that smother our spirit and instead embrace the exquisite pleasures of friendship, nature and simply being alive.
GUEST
Wendy Syfret is a Melbourne based writer, editor, and author of The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Experiencing a crisis of meaning, a time when our life and world no longer cohere, is painful and wrenching. But these encounters with the abyss can also be moments of rebirth and expansion, when we lay down our smaller selves and discover deeper and more abundant ways of relating to the earth and one another.
GUEST
Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist and writer, with an interest in ancient philosophy, and a focus on the skills and insights that illuminate our inner lives. His most recent book is Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Music is not merely entertainment—it is a living tradition, a connective tissue linking generations together in a shared pursuit of joy and significance. And through those links across time and space, we build a world of meaning, one improvisation at a time.
GUEST
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer, and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway." Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship,a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. In 2014 he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he is jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Meaning is more than an abstraction—it is a sense that we matter to one another, woven together with threads of reciprocity. But in those times when we feel lost and cut off from our sources of strength, we may have to simply move forward in faith, holding out hope for renewal and restoration.
GUEST
The Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Crumpton is a professor of practical theology at McCormick Theological Seminary. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor of practical theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She taught and lectured at Hood Theological Seminary, Chicago Theological Seminary, Candler School of Theology at Emory University and the Interdenominational Theological Center.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
The experience of existence is one of bewilderment and even anguish. Anguish because we feel that we are incomplete beings longing for completion, mired in immanence yet yearning for transcendence. Often, that questing spirit can lead us on the journey to God.
GUEST
John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading and an Honorary Fellow, St John’s College at Oxford University. He has published over thirty books—including In Search of the Soul and How to Believe.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
In music, Kimbra found a way to create and share gifts. And through that gifting, she provides space for others to find deep connection and belonging. But music also offers something more mysterious—a language to wrestle with meaning, an attempt to capture and express the experience of life.
Guest Bio
Kimbra is a two-time Grammy Award and six-time Aria winner who mixes pop, R&B, jazz, and rock. Some of her most famous singles include “Cameo Lover,” “Belong,” and “Somebody that I Used To Know.”
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
The human being is a storytelling animal, and no story is more important to us than our own. But we don’t write that story in a vacuum. We are born in media res and must develop ways of making sense of ourselves if we want to truly flourish.
GUEST BIO
Jennifer Frey is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina and host of the philosophy and literature podcast Sacred and Profane Love. She writes about virtue, action, practical reason, and what it might mean to live well as a human person.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
It’s common to look beyond life—to eternity or God—for meaning. But as the experience of seeing a cherry tree in bloom reveals, there is deep value in the immanent, the immediate, the now.
GUEST BIO
Julian Baggini is a philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine and has written for numerous international newspapers and magazines. In addition to writing on the subject of philosophy he has also written books on atheism, secularism, and the nature of national identity.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Organizing our lives around the pursuit of happiness—defined as positive feelings—can ultimately leave our souls hungry. Instead, we should try connecting ourselves to deeper things: compassion, community, ritual, and awe.
GUEST BIO
Emily Esfahani Smith is a writer, editor, and speaker in Washington DC. She draws on psychology, philosophy, and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering. Her book The Power of Meaning, an international bestseller, has been translated into 16 different languages.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Meaning is less a secret to discover than an emergent property, a byproduct of engaging with the world. Through experimentation and an orientation of openness, we can weave ourselves into a broader cloth of coherence.
Guest Bio: Michael Steger is the Founder and Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose, and Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. He also serves as an Extraordinary Professor by North-West University in South Africa. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Macalester College, his MS in Counseling from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and Personality Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2005.
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
The ideology of capitalism, which drives us to find happiness in endless exertion and economic gain, dulls our emotions and blinds us to the source of our most abundant meaning—relationships and solidarity with other people.
GUEST
Kathryn Lofton is a scholar of religion and has written extensively about capitalism, popular culture, and the secular. She’s the author of three books: Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon; Consuming Religion; and Woman’s Work: An Anthology of African-American Women’s Historical Writings. Lofton earned her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005. She has taught at Yale since 2009.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
We’re often given the following choice: either there’s a cosmic, eternal purpose to our lives or nothing matters at all. But perhaps the meaning of life is the meaning in life—witnessing the dance of light on leaves or the catching of a perfect wave.
GUEST
Aaron James is philosophy professor at UC Irvine and the author of Surfing with Sarte: An Aquatic Inquiry into the Life of Meaning.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness. Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci. Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Feelings of meaninglessness often are caused by how we understand ourselves. If we change how we think about our worth, we’ll discover radiant meaning can be found in even the most ordinary aspects of our lives.
Guest Bio
David Burns is a leading psychiatrist and a pioneer of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. His best-selling book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy has sold over 4 million copies and is the book most frequently “prescribed” for depressed patients by psychiatrists and psychologists in the United States and Canada.
Show Description
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
When I was 25, the world I had known ended. I no longer believed the religion I was raised in was true, and I found myself having to build a new foundation of meaning.
Show Description
Making Meaning is a limited series from Ministry of Ideas that explores how life can be lived more meaningfully. Featuring meditations by some of the world’s most sensitive and insightful thinkers, Making Meaning will give you fresh perspective and encouragement to live with greater intention and fullness.
Making Meaning is produced by Jack Pombriant and Zachary Davis. Artwork by Dan Pecci.
Learn more at ministryofideas.org and find us on Twitter @ministryofideas.
Climate change and war have flung millions of people on the move, who often seek safe harbor in the very countries responsible for their displacement. But despite the lofty ideals and supposed simplicity of international refugee law, it turns out borders are not really the fixed lines on a map we imagine them to be.
GUESTS
Deborah Anker is Clinical Professor of Law and Founder of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC).
Celeste Cantor-Stephens is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, writer, teacher and activist.
Chowra Makaremi is an anthropologist and tenured research scholar at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.
Adrian Rennix is a writer and an immigration attorney practicing near the southern border.
We live in a time of anger. Yet most of us feel guilty for getting angry, wishing we could stay calm and turn the other cheek. But though anger can never be fully morally pure, we still need it because it alerts us to injustice and catalyzes change.
Guests
Agnes Callard is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and a columnist at The Point.
Myisha Cherry is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.
This episode was produced in partnership with Boston Review.
Ministry of Ideas is a proud member of Hub & Spoke.
Visit us online at www.ministryofideas.org.
Many of the earliest time technologies were used to mark sacred time -- time set apart for the divine. But with the Industrial Revolution, efficient time use became its own sacred value. We now live in the age of capitalist time, where time is money and must be spent as productively as possible. As we struggle with a global pandemic, it’s time to rethink what we hold sacred.
Guests
Ahmed Ragab, Richard T. Watson Associate Professor of Science and Religion, and affiliate associate professor of the history of science at Harvard University.
Mary Gray, associate professor of informatics at the University of Indiana at Bloomington, fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research.
We have usually relied on public intellectuals to provide facts, ideas, and cultural leadership--though not all have lived up to the ideal of “speaking truth to power.” Today, however, online networks and social media mean we are all public intellectuals, and we have new responsibilities that come with this role.
Guests
Dr. Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary and author of, among other works, Black Prophetic Fire.
George Scialabba, author of What Good Are Intellectuals Good For?, and many other works.
The work of Ibram X. Kendi distinguishes between two forms of racism: segregationism and assimilationism. Segregationists argue that some groups are inferior by nature; assimilationists, on the other hand, argue that some groups are inferior by 'nurture,' but can overcome this inferiority if they conform to another group's cultural standards -- in America, always a White cultural standard. Black leaders past and present have challenged these racist assumptions while revealing the liberatory potential of a cultural engagement based on equality and mutual exchange.
Guests
Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, contributing writer to The Atlantic and author of "How To Be An Antiracist" and "Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019."
Max Mueller, assistant professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and author of "Race and the Making of the Mormon People."
Dr. Anika Prather, adjunct professor in the Classics Department at Howard University and author of "Living in the Constellation of the Canon: The Lived Experiences of African American Students Reading Great Books Literature."
Linking morality and science can conjure up disturbing histories around social Darwinism, eugenics, and genetically engineered humans. But scientists today are making discoveries that moral agents shouldn’t ignore: how to overcome aggression and tribalism, and how to sustain cooperation in a modern pluralist world.
Guests
Diane Paul, professor emerita of the University of Massachusetts, Boston and research associate at the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology. Author of The Politics of Heredity and Eugenics at the Edges of Empire, among others.
Ben Allen, associate professor of mathematics at Emmanuel College.
Steven Pinker, professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard University and best-selling author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and many others.
Linking morality and science can conjure up disturbing histories around social Darwinism, eugenics, and genetically engineered humans. But scientists today are making discoveries that moral agents shouldn’t ignore: how to overcome aggression and tribalism, and how to sustain cooperation in a modern pluralist world.
Guests
Diane Paul, professor emerita of the University of Massachusetts, Boston and research associate at the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Ben Allen, associate professor of mathematics at Emmanuel College.
Steven Pinker, professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard University and best-selling author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and many others.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable communities have been hit especially hard by disruptive online attacks. But calling these attacks "violent" could jeopardize the future of disruptive protests designed to protest those same communities.
Guests
Erica Chenoweth, professor of human rights and international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs To Know.
Dr. Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.
Heathenry, a modern movement drawing on pre-Christian pagan religions, has become associated with the violent, racialized politics of the alt-right. Less well known is the fight to make heathenry — and the progressive values it can promote — inclusive and open to all.
GUESTSRobert Schreiwer, Heathen activist, founder of the Heathen tradition of Urglaawe, Manager of Huginn’s Heathen Hof and Heathens Against Hate, and Steer of the Troth (2016-2019 and again in 2020). Founder of In-Reach Prison Services.
Michael Strmiska, associate professor in global studies at SUNY-Orange and author of Modern Paganism in World Cultures.
Lauren Crow, co-host of the Heathen History podcast.
Ben Waggoner, co-host of the Heathen History podcast.
Thomas Engelmann, outreach specialist at Life After Hate’s ExitUSA.
Literary canons have come under fire for perpetuating privilege and exclusion. But some artists — including William Shakespeare and Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda — show us how canons can actually build community and democracy.
Guests
Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and editor of the Norton edition of Shakespeare’s works and the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York City’s Public Theatre.
John Ray Proctor, actor and drama professor at Tulane University.
Rory Loughnane, senior lecturer in Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent and associate editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare.
Human-caused climate change is real and growing in impact. Yet many Americans see climate change as a belief that they can opt out of. Two belief structures are to blame: American Protestantism and postmodernism.
Guests
Tanya Luhrmann, professor of anthropology and psychology at Stanford University and author of When God Talks Back.
Gary Aylesworth, professor emeritus of philosophy at Eastern Illinois University.
Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and author of Post-Truth.
Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable society. (Part Two of Two)
Guests
Elizabeth Bruenig, Washington Post columnist
EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist and Professor at Georgetown University
Dan McKanan, Professor at Harvard Divinity School
Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable society.
Guests
Elizabeth Bruenig, Washington Post columnist
EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist and Professor at Georgetown University
Dan McKanan, Professor at Harvard Divinity School
Many think modernity is about the rise of science, the spread of democracy and capitalism, or the decline of religion or superstition. But those stories ignore the bigger picture about colonialism and race.
Guests
Mayra Rivera, professor of Religion and Latinx Studies at Harvard University.
Jared Hickman, professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. Author of the book, Black Prometheus: Race and Radicalism in the Age of Atlantic Slavery.
Ever since early scientists began experimenting with immortality elixirs in the middle ages, religion has been influencing transhumanism. Now, we’re beginning to see transhumanism influencing religion.
Guests
- Calvin Mercer, Professor of Religious Studies at East Carolina University
- Meghan O’Gieblyn, writer
- Blaire Ostler, Director and Former President of the Mormon Transhumanist Association
We claim to judge people for what they intentionally do, but accidents often influence our judgments. In our justice systems, people can be harshly and unfairly blamed for bad luck—but in our personal lives, taking on blame isn’t always a bad thing.
Guests
- Fiery Cushman, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
- Daniel Statman, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa
Between the Buddhist doctrine of ‘emptiness,’ the Jewish idea of Ayin, and the quantum mechanical zero-point energy of a vacuum, it turns out there’s quite a lot to be said about Nothing.
Guests
- Janet Gyatso, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School
- Daniel Matt, Scholar of Jewish Mysticism
World’s fairs were created to celebrate industry, technology, imperialism, western supremacy, and progress; but they also led to unexpected critiques and movements that challenged those very purposes.
Guests
- Evander Price, PhD Candidate in American Studies at Harvard University
- Robert Rydell, Professor of History at Montana State University
- Abigail Higgins, Harvard University, Class of 2017
Evangelical voters made up a significant portion of Donald Trump’s base in the 2016 presidential election. Their political agenda may not be peace or prosperity, but instead bringing us closer to the end of time.
Guests
- Matthew Sutton, Graduate Studies Director, Washington State
University History Department * Katharine Hayhoe, Director, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech
University * Liya Rechtman, Harvard Divinity School student
Cannibalism has been used for centuries to define the lowest form of humanity, but the story isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Turns out, there may be a logic - or even a love - to eating people.
Guests
- Emily Anderson, Curator of “Cannibalism: Myth & Reality”
- Bill Schutt, Author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
We shouldn’t be dismissive of the popularity of children’s literature among adults, as it is often in these works of fiction that powerful themes such as death, love, and virtue are most deeply and imaginatively explored.
Guests
- Christina Phillips Mattson, Scholar of Children’s Literature
- Casper ter Kuile, Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity
School and co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text * MG Prezioso, Contributing writer for Harvard Political Review
Contemporary diet culture is only the latest manifestation of a long history of religious fervor about food.
Guests
- Isabel Foxen Duke, health coach
- Alan Levinovitz, Professor of Religious Studies at James Madison University
- Corrie Norman, Associate Director, Religious Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison
Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn’t more hope, but more cynicism?
Guests
- Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism.
- David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism
Total faith in meritocracy leads to the dangerous belief that all social winners and losers are wholly deserving. Instead, we need an economy of grace.
Guests
- Victor Tan Chen, assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy
- Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal
The decline of organized religion in the West has opened up new paths for individuals to pursue what once was once understood to be salvation.
Guests
- Craig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Institute and author of Rethinking Secularism
- Sean Kelly, Professor of Philosophy of Harvard University and author of All Things Shining
- Angie Thurston, fellow at On Being and author of How We Gather
What does it mean to be a citizen in America in 2017?
Guests
- Danielle Allen, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and University Professor at Harvard University
- Erhardt Graeff, PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media
- Shanelle Matthews, Director of Communications for the Black Lives Matter global network
16th-century glass mirrors and 21st-century camera phones actually share a lot in common; they both are technologies that shaped new forms of the self.
Guests
- Ian Mortimer, historian and author of Millennium: From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed Over a Thousand Years
- Ilan Stavans, professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and author of I Love My Selfie
Understanding race in America requires understanding its relationship to class.
Guests
- Joshua Bennett, writer and poet
- Julian Bourg, Professor of History at Boston College
- Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash
Efficiency has moved from a technique for measuring machines to a widely held moral value. But at what cost?
Guests
- Jennifer Alexander, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and author of The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control
- Tom Hodgkinson, founder and editor of The Idler
Who gets to define generational cohorts and do they obscure more than illuminate?
Guests
- Neil Howe, author of Generations
- Tony Tulathimutte, author of Why There’s No ‘Millennial’ Novel
What happens when politics becomes comedy and the jester becomes the king?
Guests
- Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker
- Avi Steinberg, writer
- Kwesi Mensah, comedian
The way we think about history can affect our belief that we can change it.
Guests
- Jo Guldi, Associate Professor at Southern Methodist University and
author of The History Manifesto * Amber Morningstar Byars, artist and Standing Rock protestor
For a written preview of the show, you can read this Boston Globe essay.