The Magnificast

After goofing around with spooky stuff in October, the Magnifiboys are back with their new arc on Postmodernism. In this episode, Matt and Dean talk about the rhetoric around Chritianity's impulse toward hospitality and also how John Caputo and Jacques Derrida complicate that idea. intro music by Amaryah Armstrong outro music by theillogicalspoon

Halloween is done, but spooky capitalism is never done with you! This week, we're doing that big Marxist monster mash by looking at all of Marx's spooky metaphors for capitalism. This episode is full of Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Ghosts, and even a Frankenstein or two.

So, once Jesus comes back and takes all the Christians to heaven? The Tribulation! Check out Matt and Dean while they discuss the end times as it is presented in Kirk Cameron's Left Behind II: Tribulation Force.

Last week we said we were done with evangelicalism but is evangelicalism ever really done with you? This week the Magnifiboys watch that classic Christian horror film, A Thief in the Night and talk about the rapture.

We've come a long way in this arc! We've done some rhetorical analyses of conservative and progressive evangelicals and we've learned about the overlapping histories of big business and Christianity. Though, to wrap all of this up, we thought we'd ask our friend Heath Carter, who is an expert on Christianity and social movements in the US, just what is evangelicalism? Intro music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon

American Christianity is full of characters that are really larger than life--one of the biggest, however, is Jim Bakker. Jim Bakker was a hugely popular and successful televangelist, Christian theme park creator, and apocalypticist. In this episode, we get to know Jim Bakker through Martyn Wendell Jones, a Toronto based writer who covers religion. You can find more of Martyn's work here: https://martynwendelljones.contently.com Also, If you want to learn more about the Bakkers check out John Wigger's book "PTL: The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Evangelical Empire" (https://www.amazon.com/PTL-Tammy-Bakkers-Evangelical-Empire/dp/0199379718)

Based on our conversation last week, you might think that Wal-Mart is the big force behind evangelicalism in the world--and you're right. But, there are even more ways capitalists have come to shape evangelicalism! To tell us about that, this week we're joined by Darren Dochuk, Professor of History at Notre Dame and author of Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America. Check out his book here:https://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Oil-Christianity-Modern-America/dp/0465060862

Mapping out how evangelicalism and capitalism work together is pretty difficult and abstract, so in this week's episode we picked up Bethany Moreton's case study To Serve God and Walmart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. Moreton's book gives a solid example of how Wal-Mart has adopted Evangelical culture and political networks to reproduce the material conditions that make them successful and powerful. Into music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon

Last week we did some introductory investigation into conservative evangelicalism, but since we're fair and balanced journalists we're back this week to talk about progressive evangelicalism and its political shortcomings! While conservative evangelicals are happy to use political power to achieve their religious goals, some progressive Christians are happy to reject political power and just embrace being politically ineffective. into music by Amaryah Armstrong outro music by theillogicalspoon

Alright, we're done talking about unions for a bit and we're on to our next big arc. Over the course of the next few weeks, we'll be digging into just what is going on with the evangelicals! In this first episode, we introduce the topic and work out some of the big questions we want to answer.