Episodes

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! $50 for the whole year! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/  Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, ...

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! $50 for the whole year! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Our monthly bonus episode begins with a visit from Dr. Leah Payne, author of God Gave you Rock and Roll: A History of Contemporary Christian Music. Brad and Dan ask her about the cultural significance of God rock and the ways that it reflects White evangelic...

+ The UMC Does Something Right

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ “In essentials, Unity; in non-essentials, charity.” This is a Christian “slogan” or theological aphorism that dates back almost 2000 years. But we still here it within diverse Christian contexts today. What is the impulse behind it? What does it tell us about Christian identity and “unity...

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! $50 for the whole year! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Arthur Finkelstein is not a household name. Yet, he may be one of the most consequential political figures of the last century - he volunteered with Goldwater, grew up with Ayn Rand, helped Nixon and Reagan into the White House, and then orchestrated the asc...

Hush Money, SCOTUS, Abortion, Israel, Gaza, and of course, TikTok.

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ In Dan's second conversation with Michelle Dowd, author of Forager: Fieldnotes for Surviving a Family Cult, they discuss the ways patriarchy and authoritarianism often mix in high-demand religions, how trauma from these experiences lives in the body, and the lifelong practices of h...

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! $50 for the whole year! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Sometimes we have to pivot from analysis to organizing. From study to action. In order to do that, Brad speaks with the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, President of Interfaith Alliance. They discuss ways to organize and mobilize for the 2024 elections in order to bui...

+ The Case for the Hush Money Case and What Americans Lost When They Left Organized Religion

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Brad is joined by his brother, Dr. Brian Onishi, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Penn State Altoona, to breakdown the politics, horror, spectacle, and meanings of "Civil War" - the new film out now. Weird Wonder by Dr. Brian Onishi: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3...

SWAJ Premium IS ON SALE! Subscribe to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ In this episode, Dan interviews Michelle Down, author of Forager: Fieldnotes for Surviving a Family Cult, about her experiences and insights growing up in an extreme high-control religious community founded by her grandfather. Michelle helps us understand some of the dynamics of hi...

+ AOC, Mike Johnson, and the 2024 Scenario That Keeps Me Up at Night

+ Immunity is a Bad Choice, says everyone but Trump

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ In this episode, Dan continues talking with Beatrice Marovich, author of Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying. In this episode, she talks with us about the concrete social and political effects of a Christian and cultural fixation on death, particularly as it relates to...

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Kaylee Peterson is running for congress in Idaho. She's a thirty-something working-class mom who saw her hometown taken over by extreme right-wing politicians through coordinate funding and marketing campaigns. She explains why big money interests and Christian nationalists are teaming up...

Surprise! Brad sat down with Rev. Angela Denker to discuss Fargo Season 5 , a series rife with Christian nationalism and related themes: violence, patriarchy, and right-wing authoritarianism. It's also a series full of love, forgiveness, and the hope of going home. Angela Denker is a Lutheran pastor and veteran journalist. She has written for many publications, including Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, and FORTUNE magazine. Denker has appeared on CNN, BBC and SkyNews to share her resear...

+ Trump 2028

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Life and death are commonly seen as representing the starkest of binaries: Death is the ultimate adversary of all that lives. Dan talks with Dr. Beatrice Marovich, faculty at Hanover University, who argues that such understandings of mortality have been deeply influenced by a strain of Ch...

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ On this two-hour bonus episode, Brad and Dan are joined by Brad's former ministry partner and friend of 25 years Jason Thompson. They recount an absurd, whimsical, and somehow instructive story of flinging fresh fish at a wall with teenagers in order to build the Kingdom of God. From ther...

+ Bonus Content: Conspiracy Theories and the Baltimore Bridge Disaster

+ Embryos Get Life Insurance in South Carolina

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ In this final episode exploring the idea that the Bible is without error, that it is “inerrant,” Dan looks at what happens if this doctrine is abandoned. The doctrine of inerrancy appears as a key foundation supporting high-control religion’s house of cards. When that foundation is remove...

Conspiracy, Resentment, Racism, and Christian Nationalism

+ Christian Nationalism - Smear or Savior?