Another Life with Joy Marie Clarkson

Hannah Long, Leah Libresco Sargeant, Alastair Roberts, and Susannah Black Roberts discuss the Barbie Movie exploring its critique of contemporary masculinity and femininity, the conflicting views of femininity, the lack of conflict and development between the Ken characters, and the themes of consumerism, capitalism, and representation in Barbie's Dreamhouse Adventures.

Clare Coffey says that in multilevel marketing, friendship is not the means to the sell – it is the thing being sold.

The PloughCast team talks with a philosopher and cultural commentator about money.David Bentley Hart reflects on how his experience translating the New Testament impacted his understanding of Jesus’ teaching on mammon. How are we supposed to live out these extreme and demanding teachings? What is the role of Proverbs-style Old Testament prudence in the life of a New Testament disciple?They also discuss why joining a community like the Bruderhof is not enough, and why the separation between private piety and political economy makes no sense. In a world where we are still waiting for the kingdom to finally come, how can we pursue living in that kingdom?

The first chapter of Eugene Vodolazkin’s new novel, A History of the Island, the chronicle of an island from medieval to modern times.

The PloughCast team talk with Paul Kingsnorth about artificial intelligence and demons.Kingsnorth, an environmental activist, novelist, former Wiccan priest, and recent Christian convert, joins Susannah, Madoc, and Alan to talk about the eternal temptations represented by technological society.How has his recent conversion changed the way he experiences the world? What insights from his earlier life and work have persisted, which ones have been transformed, and what is the relationship between the worship of Mammon and the dangers posed by AI?They also discuss how to live well in the coming age, and the lessons to be drawn from the Desert Fathers.

In this excerpt from his book Salt and Light, Eberhard Arnold writes that God and money are enemies. We must choose one or the other.

Clare Coffey and Dan Walden discuss influencer culture, MLMs, and the monetization of friendship.They also go entirely off script and end up in so many different rabbit trails that it is frankly difficult to write a podcast description that even begins to reflect the reality here.Among the topics covered: Whether Blackwater is kind of a MLM for guys, whether Clare is willing to take CIA money to write mean essays about Mary McCarthy for The Partisan Review (she is), the plight of the lumpen bohemian, and what it would take to make a really good American Iberico cured ham.

Sharon Rose Christner speaks with Anna, a woman who lives in a former Roman palazzo that has been converted into a homeless shelter.

Alastair, a biblical theologian and Susannah’s husband, examines the story of Mary of Bethany’s anointing of Jesus’ feet before Holy Week as a powerful image of what our relationship with money in the Kingdom ought to be.It’s not that prudence and careful management are bad things. They are very good. But overflowing generosity, the Christian version of the Classical virtue of magnificence, is the most proper response to Christ’s own overflowing generosity.They then discuss the life of the late Tim Keller as an example of this generous investment of time, talent and treasure in the kingdom.

This issue's forerunner profiles Hudson Taylor, an early missionary to China.