Christianity
39 episodes
#5978: God Bless, Inshallah, Be'ezrat Hashem: Three Ways to Say Maybe
Same God, same syntax, three completely different social lives — how "God bless," "Inshallah," and "be'ezrat Hashem" do totally different jobs.
#5929: Who Believes God Is Personally Involved? The Data on Divine Providence
Three different ideas hide inside "everything happens for a reason" — and the polling on who actually believes God is involved in their life is str...
#5928: Believing Without Belonging: The Religion of One
A growing crowd believes in God but belongs to no tradition. The research has a name for them — and the numbers are messier than you'd think.
#5738: Exorcism: 7 Religions, 67 Rites, Zero Records
From the dybbuk to the Rituale Romanum — how seven traditions built rites for possession, and why nobody can count the exorcisms.
#5663: Did the Puritans Really Hate Fun?
The Puritans banned alcohol? Invented happy hour rules? A look at what they actually did — and the 1781 hoax we still quote.
#5642: What Archaeology Says About the Bible
From the Tel Dan Stele to the missing First Temple — what secular archaeology has actually confirmed, disputed, and refuted in the Bible.
#5627: Knock, Medjugorje, and the Church's Apparition Playbook
295 Marian apparitions studied, only 12 approved. How the Church vets visions—and what happens when it says no.
#5602: Why Crowds Kill Without Panic
Crowd crushes aren't caused by panic — they're physics. At high enough density, ordinary people suffocate standing upright.
#5588: Anchorites: Dead to the World, at the Center of It
Sealed into a church wall, declared dead to the world — and then consulted by kings. The strange, true story of the anchorite.
#5585: The Lighthouse Keeper and the Serbian Cabin
A YouTube video from rural Serbia broke one listener's whole model of what a hermit is. Turns out the anchorite image is a thousand years out of date.
#5510: Six Churches, One Roof, 270 Years of Deadlock
Six churches share Jerusalem's holiest sites — and none can move a chair without the other five agreeing. Here's how that happened.
#5500: Eight Consulates That Answer to No One
Eight countries keep consulates in Jerusalem that bypass their own Tel Aviv embassies. The reason goes back four centuries.
#5499: Jerusalem's Russian Compound: 17 Acres, Three Churches
A 68-dunam walled district in central Jerusalem has been a pilgrimage campus, a prison, and a city hall. Here's how it became Russian.
#5426: AI Wrote His Yom Kippur Prayer
A man skipped synagogue, opened ChatGPT instead, and got a prayer that knew his life. Is AI-generated prayer real prayer?
#5350: Messiah, Eschaton, and the AI Singularity
Four traditions, four different job descriptions for "Messiah" — and what the AI singularity borrowed from all of them.
#4721: New England's Puritan Legacy: Why Connecticut Feels Different
Why does Connecticut feel so different from New York? It's not just culture—it's a 400-year-old theology shaping laws, signs, and daily life.
#4144: Nuns on AliExpress: Ancient Rules for Modern Tech
What a nun picking up a package in Jerusalem teaches us about attention, technology, and intentional living.
#4120: Can Shared Faith Bridge Jerusalem’s Deepest Divides?
Do pilgrims to Jerusalem find more common ground in shared religiosity than division in theology?
#3857: Reincarnation Across World Religions: What Actually Comes Back?
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — who actually believes in coming back?
#3724: How the Pope's Letter on AI Actually Works
Unpacking the Pope’s new encyclical on AI: what it is, how Catholics interpret it, and why it matters beyond the Church.
#3720: Why Chabad's Yellow Moshiach Flags Survived the Rebbe's Death
How a Hasidic movement reconciled its Rebbe's death with messianic belief — and what it reveals about Judaism vs. Christianity.
#3707: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous? The Science and Legal Hypocrisy
Biological evidence suggests humans aren't strictly monogamous—and the law treats polygamy and polyamory very differently.
#3688: The Filioque & The Ladder: Inside the Great Schism
Why the Catholic and Orthodox churches split in 1054, what still divides them, and how it plays out in Jerusalem today.
#3581: Decoding the Teletubbies: Four Archetypes, One Sun Baby
Each Teletubby encodes a distinct psychological profile. Plus: what the giggling sun baby really represents.