The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan Spencer Klavan On God And The Humanities
Spencer is a writer and podcaster. He’s currently an associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books and the host of the “Young Heretics” podcast. He’s also the author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises and the editor of Gateway to the Stoics. You can follow his latest writing on Substack.
For two clips of our convo — on finding God in the humanities, and why so many gays throughout history have been drawn to the Church — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Spencer’s upbringing in NYC and London and elsewhere; his rigorous schooling in Britain; his dad the prominent novelist; his lapsed Catholic mom and lapsed Jewish dad; Spencer as a teen converting to Christianity — “conversational, not doctrinal”; coming to terms with his homosexuality; Yale for undergrad and Oxford for a PhD in the Classics; his initial calling as an actor; learning Latin and ancient Greek; how the Greeks had two words for forgiveness; the Gospels; Aquinas; the Scientific Revolution; how evolution is compatible with Christianity; James Madison; Tocqueville; the suffering that brings one closer to God; the waning of both the humanities and religion in American life; climate doomerism; postmodernism; Judith Butler; the transing of gender-dysphoric kids; Alasdair MacIntyre; and how genetics is “necessary but not sufficient” for seeking truth.
Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Brooks on his new book How to Know a Person,” his fellow NYT columnist Pamela Paul, and the authors of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? — John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. Also: David Leonhardt, Cat Bohannon, and McKay Coppins.
Have a question you want me to ask one of those future guests? Email dishpub@gmail.com, and please put the question in the subject line. Send any guest recs, pod dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.