Folk's we're on high alert here at the magnificast, because we are just DAYS away from Pope Francis dropping his follow up to Laudato Si, Laudate Deum. To get ourselves in the right headspace for this big moment, we're revisiting some of the big themes in Laudato Si. Everyone talks about the environmental themes, but we're really interested in the Pope's use of dependency theory. Put on your studying hat and let's get down to business preparing for the hottest Papal document of 2023!...
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 356
In China Mieville’s book A Spectre Haunting , he notes that the communist manifesto has an almost religious function. Mieville says it’s a type of catechesis and confession that the world does not have to be as it is. The Manifesto calls people to a type of “committed fidelity” to a world where a small group of people do not disadvantage the many for the sake of profits. In that spirit of committed fidelity not only to the Christian faith but also a communist faith, we thought we’d make some spa...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 355
This week on the show, we're joined by William Gibson, from SCM Britain, who recently attended a protest against the DSEI arms fair in London. Throughout the episode, we talk about the DSEI protest, theology, labor, and solidarity. You can follow William Here (https://twitter.com/willgibsongla) and find all of William's other projects here: https://www.liinks.co/william.gibson Also, find out more about the Kirkridge Retreat Center here: kirkridge.org
Sep 18, 2023•55 min•Ep. 354
Folks, we're back with more Planetary Theology. In this episode, we're going to tackle what Tissa Balasuriya thinks about ecumenicism and pluralistic worship and then we'll talk about his spirituality of justice. It's cool! Check out Planetary Theology by Tissa Balasuriya here https://archive.org/details/planetarytheolog0000bala/page/224/mode/2up?view=theater Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-tec...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 353
On this podcast, we’ve talked about radical theologians from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, The US, and China, but this week we’re bringing in the voice of Tissa Balasuriya, a Catholic theologian from Sri Lanka. This week, we’re talking about some pieces of his Book Planetary Theology, Published in English in 1984 by Orbis Press. There’s a lot going on in Balasuriya’s work, but it’s a really interesting example of a theologian creating the groundwork for a contextual liberation theology t...
Sep 04, 2023•59 min•Ep. 352
Nonviolent direct action has been a part of faithful expressions of the Christian left for a long time, and this week, we're talking about it! Here are the articles we talked about https://sojo.net/articles/dutch-military-arrest-25-nonviolent-anti-nuke-protesters https://geezmagazine.org/magazine/article/eucharist-at-gunpoint http://supportjessicareznicek.com/about Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-do...
Aug 29, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 351
Liberation theology is cool! But, what about theology done from inside revolutionary contexts like Cuba? This week we're discussing Cuban theologian Sergio Arce Martinez and his book The Church and Socialism. You can check out his book here on archive.org. What's interesting about Arce's work is that rather than theology as a critique of capitalism, you get theology as a constructive project of what Christians should do in a socialist society. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by thei...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 350
Hey Folks, Dean is away on holiday, so we're giving you an episode from the archives this week. This episode about Jessica Reznicek is once again timely as the two year anniversary of Jessica's incarceration has just past. Listen in and sign her petition if you haven't! http://supportjessicareznicek.com/ Jessica Reznicek is a Catholic Worker and water defender who sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline and was sentenced to prison time for in 2019. Jessica's story is really fascinating, and her sen...
Aug 12, 2023•37 min•Ep. 349
Folks, we're not done with Franz Hinkelammert. This week we're back with an essay from Hink called Liberation Theology in the Economic and Social Context of Latin America. Broadly, this essay is about liberation theology and its discontents. But, there's a really interesting piece about the IMF's anti-liberation theology that you're not going to want to miss. Also, this is our first transatlantic episode of the pod! Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theill...
Aug 05, 2023•53 min•Ep. 348
It's Matt's last episode in the USA, and we're talking about one of its greatest critics among liberation theologians, Franz Hinkelammert! Tune in to hear why even leftists can have a little idolatry critique, as a treat. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Get Magnificast Merch* https://www.redbubble.co m/themagnificast...
Jul 29, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 347
Hey Folks, this is (hopefully) our last transitory episode, and we'll be back after this. But, for this week, we're bringing back reddit questions and current events. Vibe with us as we consider how demons influence the world if there are dinosaurs in heaven, and what current events there are this week.
Jul 22, 2023•47 min•Ep. 346
The docuseries The Secrets of Hillsong recently dropped, and evangelical megachurch Hillsong is back in the discourse of Christianity. In this episode, we talk about why these documentaries are popular, the perverse draw of these stories, and what's missing from the conversation.
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 345
Ya boys are in a bit of a transition period, so episodes have been a bit slow to produce. We'll have a new one up shortly, but until then, here's some of that good classic content! This week on the show, we're talking about a really neat book called Revolutionary Forgiveness: Feminist Reflections on Nicaragua by the Amanecida Collective. The book is a reflection on 13 theologians who took a number of trips to Nicaragua in the early 80's. The book highlights a lot of interesting interactions betw...
Jul 14, 2023•59 min•Ep. 344
This week we welcome Dr. Shannen Dee Williams to the show to talk about her book Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle. Tune in to find out how religious sisters went to Black Panther meetings, how Black sisters and the Civil Rights Movement called out segregation and racism in the Catholic Church, what US sisters were doing with Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, and more! Pick up Dr. Williams' book here: https://www.dukeupress.edu/subversive-habits Follo...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 343
Evangelicals are always paranoid about a type of Christianity that follows cultural norms more than "Biblical" norms, but what if evangelicals are doing the same thing without knowing it? In this episode, we're vibing about cultural Christianity, how it works and just goofin.
Jul 01, 2023•59 min•Ep. 342
Climate change seems bad, right? But won't some genius entrepreneur come along and just invent some kind of more efficient energy source? No probably not. In this episode, we're talking about the idea that you can decouple growth from environmental factors. Here's Timothee Parrique's study on Decoupling we talked about: https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Decoupling-Debunked.pdf Here's a link to the Future is Degrowth: https://bit.ly/3Nl8z6l Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by...
Jun 24, 2023•59 min•Ep. 341
You might remember a few weeks back we talked about Angels from the perspective of a weird book by Michel Serres. Well, we decided we couldn't leave the conversation there. We needed an angel expert. So, this week, we're joined by Marika Rose to talk about angels, cyborgs, and her new book, Theology for the End of the World. If you're in the UK, you can preorder Marika's book here: https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334060666/theology-for-the-end-of-the-world You can get it in late July if...
Jun 17, 2023•55 min•Ep. 340
Pat Robertson is dead and we've got some things to tell you about him. You've probably already heard about all of the goofy stuff he's said on the 700 Club. You also probably know about his short-lived political career, but do you know he supported genocidal Guatemalan dictator, General Efrain Rios Montt? Tune in and get straight on some PAT FACTS. Here are the articles we talked about https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/17/rev-pat-robertson-and-gen-rios-montt/ https://www.thenation.com/article...
Jun 11, 2023•53 min•Ep. 339
Ok, folks, don't get too excited--we are talking about angels, just in the weirdest way possible. This week on the podcast, we're indulging our most basest desires to talk about French philosophy. We're reading through Michel Serres' book Angels: A Modern Myth. Throughout the episode, we talk about metaphysics, messages, the angelic, and the problems of defying humans.
Jun 03, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 338
A few weeks back we talked about St Francis and what some Marxists thought of him. But this time, we're bringing you Leonardo Boff's thoughts on St Francis and how Boff thinks Francis relates to liberation theology. Go to Archive.org and read it for yourself! https://archive.org/details/francisofassisim0000boff Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Get Magnificast Merch* https://www...
May 27, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 337
Exploitation? Yeah, it's bad. But, superexploitation? It's super bad. In this episode, we talk about Ruy Mauro Marini's theory of dependency and superexploitation. As it turns out, the exploitation of workers in the global south is just the way capitalism works. Read the article about Marini in the Monthly Review here: https://monthlyreview.org/2023/04/01/superexploitation-and-the-imperialist-drive-of-capitalism-how-marinis-dialectics-of-dependency-goes-beyond-marxs-capital/ Intro Music by Amary...
May 20, 2023•53 min•Ep. 336
This week we're talking about Leonardo Boff's brother, Clodovis Boff, and a letter he wrote parsing out the connections between socialism and democracy and the nod he makes toward Christianity and socialism. In the episode, we talk about the ways Boff thinks socialism and democracy go together and whether or not Christianity is rediscovering its socialist roots. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-...
May 13, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 335
Christians get a lot out of engaging the left, but like we're always saying on this show, it's harder to see what people on the left get out of engaging Christianity as a tradition. But one guy keeps showing up in left literature and weird postmodern philosophy, everyone's favorite silly saint, Francis of Assisi! In this one we chat through how Francis shows up in Karl Kautsky, W. E. B. DuBois, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Peter Sloterdijk, Vilem Flusser, and others, including a wild petitio...
May 07, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 334
This week we're back to talk through another of Tricontinental's dossiers. This time we're talking about fundamentalism and evangelicalism and how those theologies are connected to imperialism in Latin America. Read the dossier here: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-59-religious-fundamentalism-and-imperialism-in-latin-america/
Apr 29, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 333
Buckle up because we've got a big chat about everyone's favorite finance villain, the International Monetary Fund! Liberation theologians are always talking about the IMF, but a lot of us in the Global North have either neglected to keep up with it or haven't gotten around to understanding it. Thanks to a dossier on the IMF, debt, and Africa from the Tricontinental Institute, we've got some explaining to do. Bonus: how Keynes engineered a famine in India... The dossier: https://thetricontinental...
Apr 23, 2023•51 min•Ep. 332
Degrowth is becoming an important framework for thinking through capitalist production and consumption for the left, but what if Catholic social movements were already ahead of the curve on this one? The moral, economic, and internationalist thinking in the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching has predispositioned Catholic Social Movements toward degrowth as a paradigm. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-...
Apr 15, 2023•53 min•Ep. 331
On this podcast, we talk a lot about the crucifixion but not much about resurrection. Since it's easter, we're changing that! This week we're discussing João Batista Libânio's essay Hope, Utopia, and Resurrection and how resurrection is a political idea!
Apr 08, 2023•58 min•Ep. 330
In the immortal words of Blink 182, "Work Sucks, I know." This week we're talking about Paul Lafargue's book The Right To Be Lazy and working through the mythology and moralism of labor! The Productivity Pay Gap: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Apr 02, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 329
March 24th was the feast day for Saint Oscar Romero and we're celebrating! This week we're talking about Romero's address, "The Political Dimension of Faith from the Perspective of the Option for the Poor." In the episode, we talk about Oscar Romero in relation to liberation theology, the relationship between faith and politics, and what it means for the Church to throw in with the poor. Read Romero's address here: http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/1980-02-02%20Louvain.pdf Listen...
Mar 26, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 328
This week we're diving into the discourse around Pope Francis' papacy at 10 years. Some people like him, some people don't like him. but the question that no one is asking is what do we think? Listen in as we talk about the good takes, the bad takes, and most importantly our takes on Pope Francis's papacy at 10 years! Here's the bad Ross Douthat article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/opinion/pope-francis-catholic-church.html Here's the good NCR Article: https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vat...
Mar 19, 2023•57 min•Ep. 327
