Young Heretics

Today I'm tackling (no pun intended) a very important philosophical question of our age: why does anyone care what Taylor Swift thinks? No, seriously--that's a real question. It's basically the one that Plato deals with in his Ion. Trying to answer it can lead us to some pretty fascinating insights about the nature of celebrity and even reality itself. Who would have thought the Biden Administration's efforts at courting celebrity would take us into 9th-century Thessalonikē and the Eastern Church's battle over icons? But here we are. Only on Young Heretics, folks. Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

"This sickness is not unto death, but..." what? On this episode of Words, Words, Words, I answer a listener question about how to understand what Jesus says about Lazarus' illness shortly before healing him. It's a juicy question that leads into all sorts of issues about ambiguity (good and bad) and how to understand the Bible. Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

People are fighting online (shocking, I know) about whether therapy is a godsend, a scam, or something in between. Without delving too deep into the Twitter weeds, we can actually extract a pretty important insight from this debate: whatever the merits or drawback of any particular therapeutic practice, our understanding of spiritual matters--our actual psychology or "study of the soul"--is badly in need of a reboot. As part of my ongoing investigation into the relationship between the inner and outer life, I take a look at what T.S. Eliot and Freud have to say about the nature of spiritual life. Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh More on the "chemical theory" of depression: https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/articles/a-popular-theory-of-depression-wasnt-debunked-by-a-new-review-it-got-debunked-years-ago-363986

In this new occasional series, I want to try and help you guys answer some of the questions you often ask about translation--how it works, what challenges it presents, and how to pick a good edition of a work originally written in a foreign language you don't speak. Each time I'll pick a small sentence from a famous work--this time it's the first line of Homer's Iliad--and talk through some of the questions that it raises. Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

Election 2024 is in motion, and no question it's an important one--but will it be the decisive cataclysm that everyone will surely make it out to be? Somehow it almost feels as if we hope it will: as if we're longing for some definitive event to deliver a verdict on where all this turbulence is headed. But deeper currents are moving beneath far beneath the surface of politics, and there is, if you can believe it, something more real than the presidential race. Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

When did we stop looking to great men gone by as role models? My guest today, Alex Petkas, is a recovering academic who founded the Ancient Life Coach podcast in order to make a more immediate connection between past and present. He's recovering Plutarch--once antiquity's most cherished moralist--as a guide for today. We discuss the transformation of scholarship from instruction to dissection, and how ancient pagans can help modern seekers get a hold of themselves. Listen to Alex’s Podcast, Ancient Life Coach: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cost-of-glory/id1580153815 Read him on Substack: https://substack.com/@costofglory Check out his website: https://ancientlifecoach.com Meet our sponsors, the Ancient Language Institute: ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics

Claudine “Fake and” Gay is out at Harvard, and there’s something about this scandal that reveals what makes academic corruption so painful and infuriating: it’s the humiliation of having to believe a lie. As it happens, this is a news story that can illustrate—with a little help from William Shakespeare—the core issue in matters of sin, art, and our present national dysfunction.  Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

Over on Substack, I’ve been gradually creating an audiobook reading of Milton’s epic poem of mankind’s fall, Paradise Lost. It’s one of the greatest works of English literature, well…ever. So this Friday, I thought I’d do something a little different: this is a free sample of the audiobook so you can get a feel for the poem and see whether you’d like to sign up to hear the rest. So here’s Paradise Lost Book 3, read aloud by yours truly. Sign up to hear the rest: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/p/paradise-lost Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh Subscribe to Story Time for Grownups with Faith Moore: https://t.co/Qfg3guKS7F

Everything is completely insane, so, in other words, it’s business as usual. Everyone seems to feel certain that we’re in for a year of madness, and it’s hard to disagree. But it’s also hard to remember that human life is always madness, playing out against the backdrop of the stars. That’s what the calendar itself represents. So on this first episode of the year, I’ll talk a bit about the history of leap years and the wisdom I want to seek with you in 2024. Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Pick up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

Discussion on the connections between Christmas, martyrdom, and Epiphany, exploring the spiritual depth of historical events in scripture. Reflecting on the martyrdom of St. Stephen and the Magi celebration, highlighting the transcendence of God over physical temples. Exploring the symbolism and significance of the Wise Men from the East, and the movement of religious ideas from East to West.