A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Text us your questions!In this episode, we speak with science writer and award-winning journalist Jessica Nordell about her book The End of Bias: A Beginning. It's an extraordinarily well-researched and compellingly written explanation of the science of implicit bias, covering its manifestations in many areas, including sexism, racism, policing, and more. Our conversation tackles how to understand implicit bias, as well as evidence-based methods of attempting to solve the problems it creates. Along the way, we discuss practical police reforms, the benefits of mindfulness, the difficulty of judging past actors, and recognizing the bias and judgmentalism in ourselves. It's probably one of the most important conversations we've had on the show.The beverages we sample in the episode are Strawberry Hibiscus and SRV from Manic Meadery.The beverage tasting is at 3:20. To skip to the interview, go to 10:44.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains discussion of violence and some mild profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!In this episode, we reflect on the documentary from Discovery Plus, Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed.  If you haven't watched the three part miniseries, it's gross, tragic, and maddening, and yet it feels like many of us in the church find a part of our story in this broken story of manipulation, abuse, and consumerism. We talk about the fine line between being welcoming and being manipulative, how easy it is to abuse "volunteers," and how easy it is to throw anything and anybody under the bus in the name of "redeeming the world."  It's scary stuff, but these are conversations we need to have in the church if we're going to have any integrity whatsoever. We tasted Old Elk Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey from Old Elk Distillery, who are doing some pretty cool things.The beverage tasting is at 7:20. To skip to the main segment, go to 10:23.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains mild profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!We speak with philosopher Scott Coley about the phenomenon of pastors and internet theobrogians publicly critiquing the work of credentialed scholars. Why is this so popular, how are those that do it so confident, and how are normal people fooled by it? As Scott asks in an article, "What conditions make it possible for otherwise reasonable people to believe that the carefully considered arguments of accomplished scholars are vulnerable to obvious and devastating objections raised by non-experts?" That article, published on his blog, made us want to speak with him, and the conversation evolved from there. We discuss expertise, misinformation, intellectual ghettoization, ideology, propaganda, truth, logical positivism, cults and psychopaths, and more. Scott names some names and pulls no punches.The bourbon featured in this episode is Eagle Rare from Buffalo Trace Distillery.The beverage tasting is at 2:54. To skip to the interview, go to 4:47.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!We've been excited to talk to a Jewish scholar for some time now...and not just for the obvious episode title opportunity, either. For those of us who consider ourselves Christians, to understand Judaism is to understand the roots of our faith tradition. In this episode, we interview Rabbi Or Rose from Hebrew College in Boston, MA. Rabbi Rose specializes in inter-religious studies and takes us into the world of inter-religious dialogue, the value of it, along with ancient Jewish practices of arguing and debating the Scriptures, and seeing that practice as holy. This is a fascinating episode. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.We drank The Prisoner Wine Co. Finish II by Bardstown Bourbon Company. It's phenomenal. The beverage tasting is at 1:50. To skip to the interview, go to 5:25.You can find the transcript for this episode here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!There's a little secret pretty much every pastor has that they can't share with their congregation. Well, actually, a number of secrets. We're not talking about dark and hidden sins (hopefully, at least). We're talking about things your pastor believes or thinks that they don't feel safe enough to share with your church. Pretty much all pastors have beliefs and opinions that they feel passionate about, but if they said them publicly, they'd worry about losing their jobs, or losing a major part of their church. So, they hold these beliefs and opinions in and pretend.We reached out to a bunch of Evangelical-ish pastors and asked them what they wish they could share with their congregations, but can't. In this episode, we share (anonymously) how these pastors responded. The responses are both fascinating and saddening. We need to do better.The bourbon we sampled is Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Bourbon by Nevada H&C Distilling Co.The beverage tasting is at 5:33. To skip to the main segment, go to 8:44.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!In the conclusion of our four-part series on LGBTQ people and the church, we speak with Drs. Dawne Moon, a sociologist, and Theresa Tobin, a philosopher, who research and write collaboratively about the experiences of LGBTQ Christians in non-affirming church spaces. This conversation is frank, profound, heartbreaking, and, somehow, funny. We discuss their concept of "sacramental shame" and how it's used against LGBTQ people, what binary gender has to do with sexuality, the origin of gender complementarianism, whether it makes sense to be egalitarian but non-affirming, the importance of relationship for identifying love, how love and pride are related, and more.You can find some of Dawne and Theresa's work together at these links:Relationship, Humility, JusticeAlpha, Omega, and the Letters in Between: LGBTQI Conservative Christians Undoing GenderSunsets and Solidarity: Overcoming Sacramental Shame in Conservative Christian Churches to Forge a Queer Vision of Love and JusticeThe Politics of Shame in the Motivation to Virtue: Lessons from the Shame, Pride, and Humility Experiences of LGBT Conservative Christians and Their AlliesThe whiskey we tasted in this episode is Oppidan Four Grain Straight Bourbon.The beverage tasting is at 1:27. To skip to the interview, go to 4:42.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains discussion of clergy sexual abuse and spiritual violence.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!We return for part two of our interview with Bridget Eileen Rivera, the author of Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. In the conclusion, we discuss the common claim that the Bible is "clear" when it comes to LGBTQ issues, when (and why) the word "homosexual" was added to the Bible, what the Greek actually does and doesn't say, how sex was understood in the Roman world, trans issues and where the idea of binary gender categories comes from, whether Christians who reject their LGBTQ friends and family are bad people, and what pastors can practically do to implement change in their churches. As good as we think this content is, the book is packed with more than we could get to, so do yourself a favor and buy it.The bourbon we taste in this episode is the Fusion Series from Bardstown Bourbon Company.The beverage tasting is at 1:45. To skip to the interview, go to 4:31.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains discussion of rape and some mild profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Bridget Eileen Rivera wrote one of the most important books we've read. Period.The book is Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church, and it's a doozy. We had so much important stuff to talk about that we made this episode a two parter. We chat about the awful stories of trauma and abuse that Queer Christians experience on a regular basis in the church, how the Protestant Reformation changed everything about the way the church saw sex, and the many double standards the church embraces towards all things LGBTQ related.We tasted a spectacular Irish Whiskey called Blue Spot by Spot Whiskeys.The beverage tasting is at 2:45. To skip to the interview, go to 6:41.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains discussion of suicide, abuse, and sex.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!Finally, we talk about sexuality, the queer community, and why we're affirming. This is a very personal episode (as much as it can be for a couple of straight white dudes). In this episode, we chat about where we came from, where we are now, and how we got there. Within that conversation, we touch on the Bible, philosophy, science, reason, the beauty in the LGBTQ community, and much more. This episode begins a four episode mini-series on human sexuality and LGBTQ issues.The beer we tasted in this episode is Abraxas by Perennial Artisan Ales.The beverage tasting is at 4:42. To skip to the main segment, go to 9:02.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity and discussion of suicide and abuse.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!

Text us your questions!This one's fun. Thi Nguyen is a philosopher from the University of Utah and studies epistemology and philosophy of art, community, and games. He also used to be a food critic and enjoys great whiskey. A man after our own hearts.In this episode, we talk about things like the seduction of clarity, moral outrage porn, epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, expertise, and our gamified world. Seriously fascinating stuff. You can find Thi's work at his website: https://objectionable.net/. His recent book, Games: Agency As Art, won the 2021 APA Book Prize.In our tasting, we enjoyed the limited release Cabin Strength Bourbon from Central Standard Distillery available exclusively at Story Hill BKC in Milwaukee.The beverage tasting is at 1:37. To skip to the main segment, go to 5:23.You can find the transcript for this episode here.Content note: this episode contains profanity.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & Spotify Follow us on social media at @PPWBPodcast Watch & comment on YouTube Email us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com Cheers!