Doug Hammack: Recent Episodes
Doug Hammack
I went to a university that specializes in evolutionary biology. The faculty included Nobel laureates, one of whom passed electrical current through inorganic compounds to produce nucleic acids, the building blocks of life. His experiment demonstrated how evolution got us from not-life to almost-life—from primordial ooze to living cells. It was a big deal. Students […]
The post The Bible Is Right. Everything Else Wrong. (no) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Janet’s mother-in-law is wicked mean! I’ve met her. She’s a piece of work! Syrupy sweet to her face, she says horrible things behind Janet’s back. Even face-to-face her sweetness drips with subtle digs. It hurts Janet’s feelings. She’s tried to make the relationship work, but ran into a steady drumbeat of criticism and rejection. Now […]
The post Stories Matter: Janet’s Mother-In-Law appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Here’s a story I picked up in church. You might know it. We human beings began our journey innocently enough, in a garden. But evil invaded our souls and destroyed our intrinsic goodness. It altered human nature and broke the whole planet. Everything became forever corrupted, and every subsequent person was born irredeemable. Now, everything […]
The post Stories Matter: Bad Stories. Bad People. appeared first on Doug Hammack.
I learned a phrase in school: creatio ex nihilo. It’s Latin, so it made me feel smart. So much so, I was ready to own it before I understood it. It means “created out of nothing” and refers to how the world was made. God created it, the story goes, out of nothing. Creatio ex […]
The post Myths Matter: What the World is Made Of appeared first on Doug Hammack.
For a decade as a young adult, I couldn’t believe in God. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d grown up devout, but I just couldn’t make myself believe. Around that time I ran into Heinrich Zimmer, a religious historian and anthropologist. Writing about transcendence, he said something like this. The greatest things are too […]
The post God as Dirt appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Amanda grew up in religious home. Her religion nudged her toward a career in social work. But five years in, realizing the gap between need and resource, she was pretty demoralized. Imagining the future, she saw herself either becoming jaded, or leaving the career all together. We talked about her sense of loss, giving up […]
The post Our Father in Heaven — Pretty Bad at His Job appeared first on Doug Hammack.
My kids were in elementary school… …when reality TV and the pause button showed up. We stumbled onto a clever way to teach them virtue. We watched Survivor. With my finger on the pause button, I’d wait for the game to elicit some negative behavior, and then I’d pause and ask my question. “Hey. Why […]
The post A Mean God. A Mean Religion. appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Some friends were concerned I’d lost my senses. I was leaving a great job at a great church in L.A. I was going across the country to start a new church in Raleigh. “Doug! There’s a 90% failure rate! Don’t do it!” But when it was clear I was going, they gathered a care package […]
The post We’re Not in Toxic Religion — It’s in Us! appeared first on Doug Hammack.
After three years of doing everything religion told him to do — and then four, and then five — Jackson's life was in the same mess it had been before religion. Maybe worse. When religion stops working, stop religion-ing!
The post When Religion Stops Working — Stop Religion-ing appeared first on Doug Hammack.
I'm thinking about a new book -- can religion be redeemed? About to start posting again.
The post Rebuilding — in The Ruins of Religion appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Knowing What’s Up the Road . . . Can Change How We Go “Forewarned is Forearmed.” A professor taught me that a long time ago, and it has informed a lot of my life. If we understand what’s coming, we can be ready. The sexual journey is like that. When we start out, it’s romance and getting into […]
The post A Sexual Roadmap: What’s Coming? appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Are You Ready for the Question? It’s a tricky one. Our society undergoing a seismic, economic, technological, cultural, and social upheaval. One of the by-products of which, is that we marry later. It used to be 3-4 years from the time of sexual maturity until we married. Now it’s 15-16 years. Our young people are at the height […]
The post “When Should I Start Having Sex, Mom? Dad?” (part 3) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Are You Ready for the Question? It’s a tricky one. Our society undergoing a seismic, economic, technological, cultural, and social upheaval. One of the by-products of which, is that we marry later. It used to be 3-4 years from the time of sexual maturity until we married. Now it’s 15-16 years. Our young people are at the height […]
The post “When Should I Start Having Sex, Dad?” (part 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Are You Ready for the Question? It’s a tricky one. Our society undergoing a seismic, economic, technological, cultural, and social upheaval. One of the by-products of which, is that we marry later. It used to be 3-4 years from the time of sexual maturity until we married. Now it’s 15-16 years. Our young people are at the height […]
The post “When Should I Start Having Sex, Mom?” (part 1) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
What Is a Problem? What Isn’t? Conversations about porn are often laced with hurt feelings — feelings of inadequacy, being uncherished. Sometimes they come with recrimination and blame. And when porn conversations go badly, it’s often because our starting point is affected by the dirty-sex instincts in history. In these two episodes, we’ll explore the question: […]
The post Pornography: Is It Really a Problem? (part 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
What Is a Problem? What Isn’t? Conversations about porn are often laced with hurt feelings — feelings of inadequacy, being uncherished. Sometimes they come with recrimination and blame. And when porn conversations go badly, it’s often because our starting point is affected by the dirty-sex instincts in history. In these two episodes, we’ll explore the question: […]
The post Pornography: Is It Really a Problem? (part 1) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
“It’ll Make You Blind.” “It’ll Grow Hair on Your Hands” (and other craziness) The starting place for a talk about masturbation is affirming the goodness of sexual hunger and curiosity. However, many grew up with anything but that! The message many grew up with about sex in general, and in particular about exploring and giving our […]
The post Masturbation: A Handy Talk with the Kids appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Waiting is Hard. Waiting for Sex . . . Harder! Timing sexual experience well is developmentally important. In earlier episodes we’ve explored how long it takes for important psychological and emotional processes to unfold, to form healthy sexual bonds. But since young people come to sexual maturity in their early teens, and since few have undergone those processes […]
The post Waiting for Sex . . . And Feeling Blue (part 3) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Waiting is Hard. Waiting for Sex . . . Harder! Timing sexual experience well is developmentally important. In earlier episodes we’ve explored how long it takes for important psychological and emotional processes to unfold, to form healthy sexual bonds. But since young people come to sexual maturity in their early teens, and since few have undergone those processes […]
The post Waiting for Sex . . . And Feeling Blue (part 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Waiting is Hard. Waiting for Sex . . . Harder! Timing sexual experience well is developmentally important. In earlier episodes we’ve explored how long it takes for important psychological and emotional processes to unfold, to form healthy sexual bonds. But since young people come to sexual maturity in their early teens, and since few have undergone those processes […]
The post Waiting for Sex . . . And Feeling Blue (part 1) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Have It Early. Have It Often. For a lot of reasons, sex talks with our kids are tough to have. In this episode we’ll try to make the conversations about as normal as talking to our young people about food. Some tips. Some pointers. A few stories. Have a listen, Doug 1. Subscribe to the […]
The post Having the Sex Talk . . . Before Things Get Hairy appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Getting Ready for Sex Talks with Our Young People Two things… First, people screw up their lives with sex all the time. It’s such a deep part of our lives, when we create pain there, it goes deeply! Second, we love our kids more than life itself. And if trends continue, they’ll be jumping right in […]
The post Part 3: Getting Practical About Sex-Ed appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Chastity is kind of a joke Chastity belts… Up-tight prudes… But chastity used to be a virtue. It used to have more to do with good timing than suppressing sexual pleasure. If we dig past the up-tight parts, maybe we can unearth the helpful wisdom the word once carried. This is part 2 of 2. Have […]
The post Chastity and Timing (2 of 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Chastity is kind of a joke Chastity belts… Up-tight prudes… But chastity used to be a virtue. It used to have more to do with good timing than suppressing sexual pleasure. If we dig past the up-tight parts, maybe we can unearth the helpful wisdom the word once carried. This is part 1 of 2. Have […]
The post Timing and Chastity (1 of 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
When Religion Gets Sexuality Right… We have a lot to offer. Our ancient sexual wisdom speaks to a healthy and helpful pacing for sexual relationships. In these three episodes, we look at the research of zoologist and anthropologist, Desmond Morris. He has studied the psychological and emotional processes necessary to form stable sexual bonds. Which, it turns […]
The post A Slow Hand, An Easy Touch (3 of 3) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
When Religion Gets Sexuality Right… We have a lot to offer. Our ancient sexual wisdom speaks to a healthy and helpful pacing for sexual relationships. In these three episodes, we look at the research of zoologist and anthropologist, Desmond Morris. He has studied the psychological and emotional processes necessary to form stable sexual bonds. Which, it turns […]
The post A Slow Hand, An Easy Touch (2 of 3) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
When Religion Gets Sexuality Right… We have a lot to offer. Our ancient sexual wisdom speaks to a healthy and helpful pacing for sexual relationships. In these three episodes, we look at the research of zoologist and anthropologist, Desmond Morris. He has studied the psychological and emotional processes necessary to form stable sexual bonds. Which, it turns […]
The post A Slow Hand, An Easy Touch (1 of 3) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Masculinizing Society. Masculinizing Sex. It’s an age old story. Males win. Females lose. It happens in our society. It happens in our beds. And when it happens, everybody loses. In the East there is a way of thinking that offers us a path forward. There is a way of non-oppositional cooperation between masculine and feminine energy. Have a […]
The post Christians, Sex, Yin, and Yang (2 of 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Masculinizing Society. Masculinizing Sex It’s an age old story. Males win. Females lose. It happens in our society. It happens in our beds. And when it happens, everybody loses. In the East there is a way of thinking that offers us a path forward. There is a way of non-oppositional cooperation between masculine and feminine energy. Have a […]
The post Christians, Sex, Yin, and Yang (1 of 2) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Christian Sex: Doubling Down on a Bad Hand Back in the 1960s, the sexual revolution presented an opportunity to Christians. It invited us to rethink the “dirty sex” instincts we picked up back in the second century. But that’s not what happened. Instead, church folk doubled down on a bad hand. Now, fifty years later, we […]
The post Religion and Sex: We're in a Pickle appeared first on Doug Hammack.
. Saying sex is dirty, is pretty uncool these days. So Christian folk don’t say it out loud. We’re much more subtle now. However, instincts as ancient as our dirty-sex ones, don’t go away easily. In our case, they just went underground. Which makes them harder to deal with, because we don’t see them (or their […]
The post Christians and Dirty Sex: Subtle Like Cancer appeared first on Doug Hammack.
. We’re Sorry! Through the centuries, we Christian folk have gotten pretty twisted up about sex. Most don’t know how it happened, which makes it really hard to get untwisted when we try. But we’re trying. You’ve probably never heard of Clement of Alexandria. He died way back in the second century, but he really messed […]
The post Christians and Sex: We Owe Folks an Apology appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Church folk have a reputation for being sexually repressed. Thank goodness it’s not always true! But unfortunately it’s true often enough. All that sexual repression came from somewhere — and Greek philosophy played a major role. If we religious folk are going to have a place at the table as our society rethinks sex education, […]
The post How Sex Got Dirty (Thanks a Lot, Plato!) appeared first on Doug Hammack.
The sexual journey is a tough one. Young folks could really use someone who has been on the journey a while. They need a road map to help them navigate what’s coming. But that’s easy to say . . . not so easy to do. There are a lot of reasons it’s tough to talk […]
The post Talking About Sex is Tough! appeared first on Doug Hammack.
. The Climax of The Sexual Journey… Doesn’t Happen During Intercourse The sexual journey culminates in our deep and primal desire to connect being fulfilled. Erotic hunger serves that deeper desire. Biology, and loneliness, and chemical madness — all serve our deeper desire to connect. Uninformed of the journey’s destination, it is easy to get lost along the […]
The post Going All The Way: The Sexual Journey appeared first on Doug Hammack.
In the last several episodes, I’ve been making the case that our sexuality thrusts us forward on a journey much more expansive than the singular experience of eroticism. When we don’t see the whole picture, we limit our sexuality — which costs us. It inevitably shortchanges the full experience our sexuality offers us. Finishing well, then, demands a full […]
The post Sex for a Lifetime: Finishing Well appeared first on Doug Hammack.
There’s More to Sex Than the Orgasm Sexuality is a life-long journey encompassing a profound depth of our humanity. Over a lifetime, eroticism comes and goes. Even romantic friendship waxes and wanes. The ancient Greeks taught us an important stage on the sexual journey — that doesn’t look sexy at all. However, by ignoring it (as our […]
The post Sexuality Interrupted: A Story appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Chemical Love Is a Real Thing… But Not the Whole Thing It turns out, that the powerful and intoxicating brain chemicals that make us crazy-in-love, serve another purpose as well — they are actually bonding agents. They help two people make long-term attachments, one to another. From a brain-evolution perspective, it turns out that the […]
The post Evolution, Brain Chemistry, and the Stages of Love appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Sexuality Is Progressive — Not Static If we’re paying attention, our sexuality carries us along on a journey. Eroticism is only the first stop (a really nice one, but only the first). Margaret Meade suggested that all women need three husbands. The first for great sex, the second for stability as we raise children, and […]
The post Margaret Mead and the Sexuality of the Greeks appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Sexuality is Deep. Really Deep! As a culture, we tend to reduce our most primal drive to connect and to create — we tend to reduce it to push-up-bra eroticism, and then use it to sell cars. Not the best way to experience our deepest humanity. How are we not leading with this …when we teach our young people about their sexual energies? Have […]
The post Push-Up Bras and Six-Pack Abs appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Welcome to this new podcast on Rethinking Sex Education. In this episode, we explore the five core institutions that make up a society. When there is a society-wide problem, this is who we call upon to solve it. With personal stories and a few statistics, we look at how all but one of our five social institutions […]
The post Rethinking Sex Ed. What We're Doing Isn't Working appeared first on Doug Hammack.
A lot of new people have joined our community since we moved downtown last year. Consequently, many haven’t seen the podcast on rethinking our approach to sex education. Over the next few months I’ll be reposting the episodes.
The post Reposting Sex Podcast appeared first on Doug Hammack.
I think I’m a good guy. A few will disagree, but not many. All my life I’ve worked hard to apply the virtue curriculum. I’ve studied ethics and religion, and lived accordingly. Again, I think the general consensus . . . good guy. But growing up, nobody told me that working hard to get here — […]
The post Overwhelmed by the Homemade Self appeared first on Doug Hammack.
There’s a lake near my house circled by an asphalt footpath. I’ve walked around that lake more times than I can count. One day after a summer rain, the earthworms were out. They do that. When the asphalt gets wet, they come out to bask in puddles of wetness on a hard surface. I guess […]
The post Overwhelmed: An Earthworm Story appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Do a little bit of good where you are. Those little bits put together . . . overwhelm the world – Desmond Tutu. We Americans grow up with a pretty heavy emphasis on personal responsibility. “If it is to be, it is up to me!” (Maybe you heard that growing up too.) Personal responsibility makes us a […]
The post The Curse of the Overwhelm appeared first on Doug Hammack.
There was once a wise old woman traveling a long and dusty road. On her journey she crossed a clear, cool stream. As she knelt to quench her thirst, she saw a sparkling stone beneath the water. Reaching in, she pulled out a rare, precious, and beautiful gem. Refreshed, she continued her journey. The […]
The post How Did She Do That? appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Most coaches say caustic things about second place — all very motivating for young athletes. However… …in the spiritual tradition …second place is a position of honor. In one of our ancient texts, Paul, says something along these lines… When you awaken to the spiritual life — the “Divine-in-you” life… Your world changes. Your soul-wardrobe changes. You start to […]
The post "Second Place is the First Loser!" appeared first on Doug Hammack.
Perhaps the most important mission before our generation is to shore up the eroding structures of community life. In our increasingly hi-tech, low-touch world, and with all the media forces dividing and isolating us, more and more people sense how important it is to rebuild community — an essential ingredient of our well-being. But it’s not easy! I read a story that moved me. […]
The post Restitching the Torn Fabric of Community appeared first on Doug Hammack.