The longtime editor-in-chief of World magazine discusses the Zenger Prize, his new gig at Christianity Today, the temptations of conservative politics (compassionate or otherwise), and his memoir Pivot Points. Highlights 1:00 Aspiring galactic editor and globe trotter 5:45 Street level reporting v. suite level pontification 15:15 BREAKING: Flatwater Free Press on the Zenger Prize long list 18:00 Welcome to the jungle . . . and Phoenix 25:00 Adventure is out there! 30:00 A young communist hears J...
Apr 12, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 30
After a life of physical and spiritual adventure, an innovative homesteading teacher and pastor turns green with gratitude. Highlights 1:00 California to Idaho (before everybody was doing it) 12:00 The plane, the plane! 19:00 Picture pages, picture pages 26:00 Raising the dead with his students (and Robert Redford) 37:00 Finding Jesus in the mountains 45:15 Turning green in the pulpit 57:00 Timber Butte homecoming 61:00 Looking for the real thing 66:00 Thanks and love Resources Tri's homestead w...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 29
The editor-in-chief of the FPR website discusses the recent conference in Grand Rapids and his latest book, Words for Conviviality. Highlights 1:00 Pacific Northwesterner in western PA 8:00 Prospects for localism and trad wives now 11:00 Bilbro’s obsessive bibliography 17:00 Printing press 2.0 and Postman problems 25:30 Frederick Douglass, cancer patient 30:00 Margaret Fuller, proto-podcaster 35:00 Melville’s pilgrimage and Jeff’s truck stop oats 40:00 A convivial reading Resources Jeff's bio an...
Oct 21, 2024•44 min•Ep. 28
The AEI scholar and author of American Covenant joins John to talk about a document that he believes could unify we the people, again. Highlights 1:30 Second home 8:15 The national “we” 13:45 A dignified basis for unity 21:00 Changing culture by changing institutions 25:00 Make Congress boring again 29:00 What women want 32:00 Cheese pizza and Tip O’Neill 37:00 Think Tank U 41:00 A hunger for scallops and solidarity 47:00 Plausible deniability? 50:00 A hopeful Constitution Day Resources Yuval's ...
Sep 17, 2024•54 min•Ep. 27
Longtime ghostwriter Nancy French tells her own tale in the Ghosted: An American Life. French was raised in rural Tennessee and would later provide the words behind famous talking heads but found her own enchanting voice amid political and personal tumult. Highlights 1:15 Mud pies for Parisians 6:00 Hillbillies on the run 9:30 Romney/Palin ‘08 11:00 Prison break with the Kardashians 13:30 Pulling political punches 20:00 Google University School of Journalism 27:30 French Holy Ghost revival 31:30...
May 06, 2024•45 min•Ep. 26
Timothy Carney, an AEI senior fellow and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, talks about the village it takes to raise a child and the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) rise of “No Children Allowed” signs. Highlights 2:30 A lively home and coffee shop 4:00 Trumpy Christians? 7:15 Find a secular van fam, win a free book! 16:30 Was Hillary right? 22:15 Trickling down to Fishtown? 29:30 House plans, town plans 36:30 Work from home 4...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 25
Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state). Bill Kauffman, author and regular conference closer, weaves Wisconsin professors of the past and the robo-umps of tomorrow into a seamless and side-splitting localist garment. Rory Groves introduces the duo and ponders a porch free of PhDs. Highlights 1:30 Rory Groves, unlikely agrarian Ashley Colby: “Doomer Optimism: Life Adj...
Jan 29, 2024•45 min•Ep. 24
Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm. Highlights 1:30 Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer 5:45 A monastic text 11:15 Man of letters 14:00 Pesto chango 15:30 Remote control 18:00 Growing pains 23:00 Lamb on the lam 27:15 The rest of the story Resources Buy the book An excerpt at FPR Brian’s farm and blog Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer”...
Jan 22, 2024•31 min•Ep. 23
Adam Smith, a philosopher at the University of Dubuque, counterattacks the disenchanted War on Suffering. FPR President Mark Mitchell goes biblical to bring down a heightened politics of insanity. Brass Spittoon podcaster John Murdock looks at a key architect of religious politics and wonders what might happen if his blueprints were followed. Gerald Ford groupie and FPR perfect attendance award winner Jeff Polet opens by reflecting on political goats. Highlights Jeff Polet: Introduction 1:30 Sta...
Jan 17, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 22
Jeff Bilbro, FPR’s super-beaver EIC and Grove City College professor, looks to ancient mythology to assess modern technology and fiction of the future. Cassandra Nelson of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture is stuck in the middle, a bit like AI itself. Author, teacher, and mother Tessa Carman looks for life in abundance in Minnesota and Maryland. Writer and Berry Center board member Kate Dalton Boyer introduces the speakers. Highlights 1:00 Kate kicks things o...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 21
Eric Miller, biographer of Christopher Lasch and a professor at Geneva College, plus longtime porcher Jason Peters of Hillsdale College address the role of imagination in shaping our shared reality. Matt Stewart, an associate editor of the FPR website, introduces this duo that has impacted his life in important ways. Highlights 1:00 Matt Stewart, teacher’s pet/pest and herb connoisseur Eric Miller: “The Instructed Imagination” 6:00 Hannah Coulter v. Mark Heard 13:30 Collegiate conscience and ima...
Jan 06, 2024•57 min•Ep. 20
Paul Kingsnorth delivered the keynote address at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin. With help from a diverse band of fellow travelers including Jewish-Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, Anglo-Catholic social critic Malcolm Muggeridge, and the prophetic French-Egyptian Sufi Rene Guenon, the unexpectedly Irish Orthodox Kingsnorth takes listeners on a tour of techno-mirages, holy wells, and green deserts in a search for culture-seeding saints. Highlights 2:00 Jeff introduces Paul 3:30 P...
Nov 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 19
Paul Kingsnorth, the keynote speaker at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin, begins things with a bonus talk on the power of prayer in a desecrated western world. Highlights 1:15 Mark Mitchell’s welcome 4:00 Paul flies in 5:30 A long list of labels 7:30 Roots and power 8:15 My neighbor Vinny (and his dying cousins) 12:30 Centering work 14:00 Citizen culture 19:00 Two trinities 23:00 Our like will not be here again 24:30 Candles to blow 37:30 The still point in the turning world 30:00 A...
Nov 11, 2023•34 min•Ep. 18
Bill Kauffman, author of multiple books including Poetry Night at the Ballpark and long the closing speaker at FPR conferences, talks about the origins of Front Porch Republic and his unique life of letters. Host: John Murdock Guest: Bill Kauffman Highlights 1:30 Defending the homeland 2:30 The Closer 7:45 Muckdog memories 12:15 Perfectly sized 15:00 First Man and Senate staffer 18:00 Morning drinks and Mormon journeys 22:15 Life on the fringe 24:00 Not a murderer 26:15 Jimmie Foxx found dead 29...
Sep 24, 2023•38 min•Ep. 17
The After Virtual conference podcast series closes with a focus on civics and cemeteries. Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism, talks on, well, plutocrats and socialism (plus the importance of property ownership to maintaining the republic). Rachel Ferguson, author of Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, highlights the historic role of roads in undermining minority communities and current efforts at neighborhood stabilization. Regular conference closer Bill Kauffman regales the cr...
Feb 02, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 16
The penultimate session from the FPR conference After Virtual: The Art of Recovering Lost Goods addresses health. Philosopher Adam Smith from the University of Dubuque and medical doctor Brian Volck, author of Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words, take on the medical/industrial complex (with assists from Alasdair MacIntyre and Wendell Berry). Speakers: Adam Smith and Brian Volck Highlights 2:15 Adam Smith—Medicine After Virtue 3:15 Medicine in the New Dark Ages 5:00 Out of ...
Jan 12, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 15
Chris Arnade, the keynote speaker at the After Virtual conference, has traded global finance for skid row photography. Chris discusses his journey from Wall Street board rooms to a booth at McDonald’s and the associated rejection of careerism and self-definition. Speaker: Chris Arnade—An Address in the Universe of Meaning Highlights 3:00 Prayer time around the world 6:45 The liberal emancipation project (of destruction) 10:30 Transcendent values first seen in a traffic jam 16:00 “Everything we b...
Dec 20, 2022•40 min•Ep. 14
The second episode from the FPR conference After Virtual: The Art of Recovering Lost Goods looks at education. Jeff Polet discusses walking away from Hope. Angel Adams Parham talks about the elementary power of a rapping Homer. Jason Peters goes back to the future of the educational machine. Speakers: Jeff Polet, Angel Adams Parham, and Jason Peters Highlights 1:15 Jeff Polet—Why I Left the Academy 2:00 The news from Nineveh 5:30 Signs of declines 8:30 Searching for a pony 16:30 Jargon, gymnasts...
Nov 30, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 13
For the first of our episodes from September’s FPR conference After Virtual: The Art of Recovering Lost Goods, we go to church. Carl Trueman, Gregory Hogg, and Charlie Cotherman share thoughts on technology and embodied worship in a time of pandemic. Speakers: Carl Trueman, Gregory Hogg, and Charlie Cotherman Highlights 1:15 Carl Trueman 3:00 Is it all Protestantism’s fault? 4:00 How to take over an empire 6:15 Reformations and technology 11:00 Overlooked revolutionary sausages 13:45 Our age of ...
Nov 14, 2022•51 min•Ep. 12
Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism: The Future of Private Property and the Fate of the Middle Class and President of Front Porch Republic, joins the podcast. Mitchell and Murdock discuss the origins of FPR and the importance of widely-held productive private property in an era when the super rich and socialists have formed an odd partnership. Host: John Murdock Guest: Mark Mitchell Highlights 1:30 Mark Mitchell, happy at home chopping wood 5:00 FPR, the early days 9:00 How not to cha...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 11
Matthew Stewart, author of The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: Wallace Stegner in California, sits down (literally) with host John Murdock to discuss Stegner’s complicated relationship with the American West. A mobile youth left Stegner yearning for deeper roots. In the 1940s, he landed in the hills surrounding San Francisco Bay, an area soon set for expansive growth. Stegner’s interplay with the region and his own personal history led to the Pulitzer Prize winning Angle of Repose, a National Boo...
Aug 23, 2022•40 min•Ep. 10
Katharine Hayhoe is a professor at Texas Tech and the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy. Her most recent book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Dr. Hayhoe, a Christian, swings by the Porch to discuss faith and science; effective communication on controversial topics; and the role of disinformation in our discussions about global warming. She also shares on her personal encounters with President Barak Obama and Speaker Newt Gingrich, plus g...
Jul 01, 2022•57 min•Ep. 9
Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns and author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, discusses streets, roads, “stroads,” and the perils of the American traffic system. A trained engineer himself, Marohn once imbibed the discipline’s dominant dogmas. Today, he advocates for cities and towns where slower moving cars can get us where we want to go faster. Host: John Murdock Guest: Charles “Chuck” Marohn Highlights 1:15 A boy from Brainerd 3:45 Strong Towns explained 6:30 What’s an enginee...
May 10, 2022•52 min•Ep. 8
Michael J. Astrue has earned degrees from Yale and Harvard. He had a long and distinguished legal career and held several government positions as well as leadership posts in biotech companies. From 2007-2013, he served as the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. A.M. Juster has published something like ten books of original and translated poetry and has served as the poetry editor at First Things and now one of my favorite journals, Plough Quarterly. These two men might sound pret...
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 7
Host: John Murdock Guest: Will Hoyt Will Hoyt, author of The Seven Ranges, discusses his journey along the Ohio River into the physical, historical and philosophical interior of the strip-mined region where he lives. In the book, Hoyt transforms the area’s colorful past into a lament over the loss of an “integrative center” last seen in feudal Europe. Well read and well spoken, this carpenter joins everything from surveying techniques to Jimmy the Greek into a compelling narrative of despair and...
Nov 02, 2021•54 min•Ep. 6
Guest Host: Jeff Bilbro Guest: Joe Loconte Front Porch Republic editor Jeff Bilbro sits down with Joe Loconte of The King’s College for a spirited discussion of the book-turned-film A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War. Bonded by war and steeled by friendship, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien produced works of fantasy that have guided us back to reality. Highlights 1:30 Loconte’s Italian immigrant family 4:00 Bleak poet learns to love goodness 7:45 Myth, not just for escapism anymore 9:30 Joe finds...
Sep 23, 2021•40 min•Ep. 5
Canadian radio broadcaster David Cayley pulls up a chair to discuss Ivan Illich, a renegade priest and professor who argued against schools, missionaries, and modern medicine. Cayley, author of Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, walks listeners through Illich’s thought and its applications to current tests like the pandemic. Guest Host: Michael Sauter Highlights 0:30 Murdock asks, “Storied thinker or Tolstoy story?” 2:15 David Cayley, a man of Ideas 3:00 Sauter conversation with Cayley begins...
Jul 05, 2021•37 min•Ep. 4
Prolific author and social critic Os Guinness discusses the current challenges for liberty and his hopes for the future. The Chinese-born, English-educated, Irish-rooted scholar who lives in America also shares insights from his time at L’Abri and talks some Arsenal football. Highlights 2:00 “Home” to Os Guinness 3:30 Beer in his blood 5:15 Under his own vine and fig 7:45 Hospitality lessons from Edith Schaeffer 10:45 The 1960s, Jefferson Airplane and the long march 12:30 The Call, place, and th...
May 02, 2021•44 min•Ep. 3
Summary Filmmaker John de Graaf pulls up a chair to discuss his 1997 documentary Affluenza; a forthcoming project on Arizona politician and JFK/LBJ’s Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; the politics of beauty; and a whether John Muir should be cancelled. Singer/songwriter Wendell Kimbrough closes out the show with “The Ballad of Freida the Goose” from his album “Find Your Way Home.” Highlights 0:50 An FPR podcast, really? 2:15 “Home” to John de Graaf 3:15 Vachel Lindsay and the “Gospel of B...
Mar 22, 2021•56 min•Ep. 2
The FPR leadership has decided to make a foray into a new medium (for us). And given this transitional moment in American politics, this seems like a good time. We hosted an on-line discussion that, hopefully, provides an interesting and unique take on current events. For years now we have sought to articulate an alternative to the nationalist, globalist, uniformist vision that has so captivated the ruling classes. The Trump presidency is ending in chaos, and the Biden agenda is yet to be implem...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 1
