Continuing our series on the Christian afterlife, Father Chuck and JP discuss HELL. We go over all of the cultural depictions of Hell and how they compare to what's described in the Bible, where these depictions originate, and how we've come to understand Hell. We also talk about how we personally understand the concept of Hell, and push back on a lot of common understandings of the underworld. Is Hell really a place where one lives out an eternity of torture and punishment, or is it a temporary...
Feb 10, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Hello once again MoD Squad! We've got an exciting month lined up for you, as JP and Father Chuck will be discussing the theologies behind the Christian afterlife. This week, we'll be taking a look at Heaven. What do Christians get wrong about Heaven? Turns out, a lot! Father Chuck explains the early Christian belief of Heaven and how it should affect the beliefs of today's Christians. It's a doozy. It's fascinating. You don't want to miss it. Check out our site: www.themastersofdivinity.wordpres...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 12 min
The Salem Witch Trials, The Red Scare, The McMartin Preschool Trial, The War on Drugs, Netflix's Cuties...they're all vastly different events, with some based on real events, and some based on events that were completely fabricated, but they all have one thing in common: they created widespread fear and panic. This week, JP and Father Chuck take a look at the phenomenon known as "moral panic." Believe it or not, there's a formula to how a moral panic begins and spreads, and the Masters of Divini...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 10 min
This week, Moderator JP, Father Chuck, and Occasional Matt are all here to talk about the Netflix sensation, COBRA KAI. Cobra Kai is a kind of spin-off/legacy sequel to the Karate Kid series of movies, mostly from the perspective of famous 80s bully Johnny Lawrence. Naturally, this is perfect fodder for the Masters of Divinity: 80s nostalgia, martial arts, stories of redemption, and so much more! They touch a little bit on their love of the Karate Kid movies, their surprise at the quality of the...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 34 min
This week, in the final episode of 2020, JP and Father Chuck are here to talk about one of their favorite subjects: conspiracy theories! This time, they discuss how conspiratorial thinking can be damaging to not just the the individual, but also society, and how it can take the place of a person's spirituality. With everything happening in the news, it felt like an appropriate topic to broach. We at Masters of Divinity recognize that it's been A Tough Year, but we hope that we were able to bring...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 15 min
It's Halloween! Which means The Masters of Divinity get SPOOKY! And what better way to Get Spooky then watching a good old fashioned horror movie? Well, not THAT old fashioned. It's pretty post-modern, actually. This week, our very fearless trio sits down with Wes Craven's meta-horror slasher film, SCREAM. They touch on what the period was like when SCREAM was released, how it influenced modern day horror, and how it impacted them as teens. We mention SCREAM a lot on this podcast, we figured tha...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 31 min
Well, we've reached the end of MODAKU. Don't look so sad, you knew this was a test run baby, we wish we could go all out like we do with Music Mayhem, but that all depends on you! Let us know if you enjoyed MODAKU, and if we should tackle it against next year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! We've got one more episode, and this week's it's Matt's turn to bring the anime goodness with WITCH HUNTER ROBIN. There were a ton of shows in the early 2000's that had a similar premise to ROBIN, but ...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 13 min
In this week's edition of MODAKU, Moderator JP brings us the cyberpunk classic AKIRA! Akira was what started it all in the U.S. It's influence is felt in not only countless anime, but also in countless science fiction films and television shows. With its technical achievements in animation, its intricate storytelling, and twisted visions of body horror, AKIRA remained a cult classic for years in the U.S. among nerds and movie buffs. It wasn't before long that its influence bubbled to the surface...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 30 min
This week, Father Chuck brings us MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO to officially jumpstart our new series on anime, MODAKU. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO is a timeless children's classic created by Hiyao Miyazaki, by way of the landmark animation studio Studio Giblhi. Father Chuck is very familiar with TOTORO, while JP and Matt only just recently watched it for the series alone. Check out their collected thoughts and opinions, and see if TOTORO is enough to bring JP and Matt in the fold as newborn anime nerds.
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 15 min
One of the goals of our podcast is to explore, observe, comment, and sometimes satirize the various spaces within the vast universe of fandom. Four years after the creation of the podcast, we finally feel that we have the strength and capacity to explore the wild world of anime. Even though anime has been a staple in Japanese culture for decades, in the United States it started as an underground, cultish fandom that only recently sprung into the American mainstream, along with various other fand...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 32 min
This week, JP and Father Chuck have themselves a little old fashioned riff-session. You remember those, right? This episode's packed with everything. There's talk about preferring art & media that's a bit more off-beat and rough around the edges, there's some reminiscing of McGee & Me, JP rants about CGI blood and demands that Hollywood action films return to using squibs...a real grab-bag of an episode, is how I would market this episode. Smash play, and prepare yourself for...stuff.
Sep 16, 2020•1 hr 12 min
This week, JP and Father Chuck talk about an interesting corner of the internet dedicated to what's inside your pocket. It's called "EDC" which is short for everyday carry, and you'll be surprised that there are whole communities and brands revolving around the stuff we carry with us in our day-to-day. Flashlights, knives, pens, and leathermans are all part of the "EDC" uniform. But what kind of stuff do the Masters of Divinity carry? Find out by pressing play today!
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 22 min
DC and Warner Bros. broke new ground by giving us the first ever virtual conference (I have no facts to back that up, but you can't accuse me of shilling, because I'm admitting that I'm not sure if that's even true). We learned about Suicide Squad 2, the long-awaited Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League, and the trailer for The Batman. In this week's episode, we talk about all of those things and bask in the glow of speculative movie punditry. Remember when movies came out, guys?! Also, you might'v...
Sep 02, 2020•1 hr 13 min
"Adventure has a name," said one of the many taglines used to describe the character of Indiana Jones, the brainchild of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK should be considered classic cinema by now, as well as a window into an even older form of cinema, the cliffhanger serials made famous Republic Pictures that Spielberg and Lucas grew up watching. What the auteurs created when they conjured Indy was a tradition started even further back than those cliffhangers, and that...
Aug 14, 2020•2 hr 8 min
In Disney • Pixar's ONWARD, elvish brothers Barley and Ian embark on a perilous journey through a fantastical realm that also happens to resemble our modern times in order to meet their father who passed away before Ian was born. Needless to say, Father Chuck and Father Fun, who themselves are dads and big fantasy nerds, have a lot to say about ONWARD. Smash that play button and listen to the Fathers talk all about what drew into ONWARD'S unique fantasy setting, the moving story, and how they re...
Jul 09, 2020•1 hr 13 min
You might be familiar with cyberpunk, the dystopian science fiction subgenre popularized by William Gibson's NEUROMANCER and Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER. You also might be familiar with steampunk, a science fiction subgenre known for its obsession with goggles. But have you heard of solarpunk? Solarpunk, unlike cyberpunk, is a much more optimistic view of the future, a concept that might be completely alien to anyone currently surviving 2020. This week, Father Chuck is joined by Father Fun as th...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 15 min
Well, here we are, at the end of all things -- not really, just Music Mayhem. We're sad to see it go, as Father Chuck, JP, Matt, and Father Fun have had a blast, as usual, surprising each other with albums and challenging our tastes and just enjoying some great music. You should all know by now how the Wheel of Mayhem works. We each select one "good" album and one "bad" album, we put them on a wheel, and fate decides what the last episode of Music Mayhem will be about. We'd like to thank Father ...
Jun 24, 2020•1 hr 14 min
For our penultimate episode of Music Mayhem 2020, Matt chose one of the most successful albums of all time, Michael Jackson's THRILLER. THRILLER has it all: Beat It, Thriller, Billie Jean, that song with Paul McCartney, that one ballad, that other ballad, a couple of other ballads, and You Wanna Be Startin' Something, a song that has yet to come to an end. Listen, we all know why everyone picked up this album, and it was because of those three singles and their classic music videos. We definitel...
Jun 17, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Guest Co-Host Father Fun selects Florence + The Machine's sweeping and epic sophomore album, CEREMONIALS. If you're not familiar with Florence + The Machine, the first thing you'll notice is how powerful Florence Welch's voice is. It's the kind of voice that can overshadow the rest of your group, but thankfully, in CEREMONIALS, The Machine accompanies Florence's voice with grand, sweeping instrumentals that can only be found in ancient, gigantic churches whose halls are filled with booming choir...
Jun 10, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Father Chuck's favorite band of all-time is a little band from Boston known as Guster. Guster is known for their busker style music, their on-stage antics, and a guy who is absolutely wicked on the drums, dubbed the Thunder God. Listen to why Guster is Father Chuck's favorite band (Spoiler: It does involve a "Crow Phase"), and what the rest of the group thought of the album. There's also an aside all about why none of us are big fans of Pearl Jam, who may be a contender for the Wheel of Mayhem! ...
May 27, 2020•1 hr 44 min
In case you haven't noticed, Music Mayhem is here, and this week your moderator JP has chosen NEVERMIND by Nirvana. NEVERMIND was one of the most successful albums of all time, with banger after banger in the first half alone. Nirvana took the world by storm with the first track on the album, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and rock music was never the same again. This year's theme for Music Mayhem are favorite bands, and JP has been a massive fan of Nirvana and gone-to-early genius frontman Kurt Cobai...
May 20, 2020•1 hr 50 min
Listen, we love Star Trek, and you know the drill: when we talk about Star Trek, we ask Father Fun to join us. For those who've lost track, Father Fun hasn't been on the podcast since...two Music Mayhems ago? His episode was Hamilton, so it's been a while! And we're excited to have him, because we're talking about Star Trek: Picard, a show that was HIGHLY anticipated by all of us. Did it live up to the hype? Was it like reuniting with an old friend? Make it so and press play! Also, next week is ...
May 13, 2020•1 hr 32 min
This week, we check in on Masters of Divinity JP and Father Chuck to see how they're holding up during quarantine. Father Chuck joins us from Hawaii as he and JP talk about Covid-19, Dracula 2000, and so much more. The Dracula 2000 talk is right you're really here though, right?
Apr 23, 2020•1 hr 33 min
A couple of things to keep in mind before consuming our latest episode: 1) This is not our last episode! JP just had a shower thought about how nothing ends these days, it's not a cheap ploy to trick you all into thinking this is our last episode. We're far from done here. 2) This was recorded before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by WHO, and the disease is commented on a bit lightly at the beginning. This is our way of informing that Matt does not, in fact, have COVID-19. There used to be a t...
Mar 20, 2020•1 hr 17 min
Every show has a Hawaiian episode, and JP & Father Chuck are here to make sure we're no exception. It's been a WHILE and a LOT has happened in the lives of our Masters of Divinity, and this week we're here to reveal some of the exciting things happening in Father Chuck's life: he's moving to Hawaii! So, I hope you're in the mood to hear about Hawaiian culture, history, and Top 5 Movies JP thinks Father Chuck should watch to prepare for the his move. And it wouldn't be Masters of Divinity if ...
Mar 11, 2020•1 hr 18 min
MTV, The Rise of Skywalker, Meditation, and a dash of politics...what do these things have in common? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Folks, we aren't professionals. We are a simple, slightly bearded trio of enthusiasts and artists. Sometimes we have the perfect topic for an episode. Other times, we have the intense urge to record an episode but don't have anything planned...and that's when the real magic of podcasting happens. I'm not even sure why I'm typing this intro out for you, as I can't eve...
Jan 22, 2020•1 hr 24 min
JP and Father Chuck are back to discuss the final chapter in the Skywalker Saga. Folks, the new Star Wars movie is here, and we were very surprised to see that not many people had opinions or thoughts on the film. Very strange. So we decided to take on the burden of doing what no one else has the courage to do on the internet: bitch about Star Wars. If you haven't seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, be warned, there are a LOT of spoilers, and we go very in-depth on some very big reveals. You'...
Jan 08, 2020•1 hr 17 min
This week, it's JP and Father Chuck talking about one of their pet topics: the generational divide! You may have seen the "Ok, Boomer" meme making the rounds on social media, but have you seen Gen Z's latest social media war on Gen X? This, to us, is an alarming development, as we all know Gen X's penchant for nihilism -- which is something we talk about in the episode! We talk about Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and those whippersnapper zoomers, Gen Z. Press play, and let's get busy bridging tha...
Nov 20, 2019•1 hr 28 min
This week, Father Chuck and JP talk about perfection, a topic that the Masters of Divinity have been kicking around since the beginning of the podcast. Since the topic of perfection is so broad, and defining perfection is so difficult, you'll come to see why it took them so long to finally tackle this subject -- and tackle it they did. They talk about the perfect movie, the perfect wave, the perfect McDonalds menu item, the perfect cheeseburger according to Anthony Bourdain (this episode is prob...
Nov 12, 2019•1 hr 13 min
This week, a bewildered JP and an amused Father Chuck talk about Kanye West's latest album. Ol' Yeezy recently became a Born Again Christian, and his latest album, JESUS IS KING is the first album he's recorded since said conversion. Naturally, they give their thoughts on the album, the legitimacy of Kanye's conversion, and what exactly this means for the Christian world, Millennials, and the future of Kanye's career. It's like a bonus Music Mayhem episode, you see. Also, because it's a JP and F...
Nov 05, 2019•1 hr 25 min
