Save the best for last? In this episode, Dad and I finally get around to the First Gospel, as it is sometimes called. We talk over our previous prejudices against Matthew and how on this read we came to a new and fresh appreciate of just what this evangelist is up to.
Notes:
1. Related episodes: Mark 1, Mark 2, Luke 1, Luke 2, John 1, John 2, Sermon on the Mount, Sarah's Sermon on the Mount, Sarah's talk on the Sermon on the Mount for CCET
2. Check out my book Sermon on the Mount: A Poetic Paraphrase
3. Albright, Anchor Bible commentary on Matthew
4. See Dad's review of Peter Ochs's "Another Reformation" in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 13/2 (December 2014).
5. See the Luz essay in ed. Stanton, The Interpretation of Matthew
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Matthew, Part 1

Get the audiobook of my first novel, A-Tumblin' Down, direct from Thornbush Press, or from Audible, or pretty much any audiobook retailer of your choice!
Not quite convinced yet? Then listen to these excerpts introducing you to the Abney family: Kitty, Donald, Carmichael, Saul and Asher.
Prefer to read rather than listen to your novels? No problem! Jump here to find links to the book in paperback, hardcover, and ebook.

2023 Bonus #1: A-Tumblin’ Down audiobook

Welcome to season 5 of the Queen of the Sciences podcast! Vocation is a topic near and dear to me and Dad, both as a central theological focus of the Lutheran Reformation and also because we just plain take a lot of pleasure in our work. But David Graeber's astonishing book Bullshit Jobs came as a serious wake-up call to us both. In this episode, we review Graeber's case for the precipitous shift from meaningful to meaningless and even actively harmful paid work in the world today, and what it means for an ongoing commitment to the doctrine of vocation.
Notes:
1. Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
2. The short story "Gold" in my collection Protons and Fleurons is a skewed look at vocation, but not as skewed as Graeber's.
3. The classic study of Luther on vocation is Gustav Wingren's appropriately titled Luther on Vocation
4. Related episodes: Hannah Arendt, Cybertech and Personhood
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Vocation vs Bull**** Jobs

Dad's second talk for the NALC Atlantic Mission Region's theological conference, "Stand Fast and Be of Good Courage: The Lord Will Fight for You."
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2022 Bonus #6: Divine Providence

Dad's first talk at the NALC Atlantic Mission Region's Theological Conference, "Stand Fast and Be of Good Courage: The Lord Will Fight for You."
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2022 Bonus #5: Divine Violence

Sarah's lecture at Johannelund Theological School in Uppsala, Sweden, at a daylong conference on Sanctification in Lutheran Perspective.
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2022 Bonus #4: Luther Discovers His Doctrine of Sanctification in the Saints of Genesis

Dad's talk at Roanoke College reflecting on his 22 years of service there as a professor of theology.
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2022 Bonus #3: Happiness, Despair, Hope--22 Years at Roanoke College

What's beyond the land, the earth, and outer space? Heaven and hell. Unless, that is, we don't exit the created cosmos to get to them, but they come to us (preferably the former and not the latter). In this episode, guided by a book from N. T. Wright, Dad and I explore the unexplored and unexplorable territory of the life to come, speculating mildly, not wildly. And that's a wrap for Season 4 of Queen of the Sciences. Thanks for being with us! Bonus episodes coming your way till we resume with Season 5 in January 2023. Meanwhile, brag to your friends about how you listen to the best theology podcast in the known universe!
Notes:
1. Wright, Surprised by Hope
2. Zahl, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience
3. Becker, Denial of Death
4. Sarah's Pearly Gates
5. Past episodes that relate to this one: Triple Predestination, Resurrection, Cybertech and Personhood
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Heaven, Hell, and the Life to Come

From the land, to the earth, to infinity and beyond! In this episode Dad and I contemplate the vastness of the universe and the itty-bittiness of subatomic particles, the astonishing rareness of life in any form and the likelihood of meeting aliens, what this cosmos-view does to our God-view, and what it means to be an Earthling, i.e., an "Adam," assisted along the way by science fiction novels, shows, and movies. But most importantly, I finally get to indulge my decades-long desire to crack a joke about "alien righteousness."
Notes:
1. Luther's commentary on Ecclesiastes
2. John Palka's blog Nature's Depths
3. Vainio, Cosmology in Theological Perspective
4. Brooke, Science and Religion
5. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength
6. Russell, The Sparrow
7. Wells, War of the Worlds
8. "Passengers" (2016 film)
9. Le Guin, Worlds of Exile and Illusion, plus see the volume of critical studies edited by Harold Bloom
10. Worthing, God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics
11. Wisnefske, Could God Fail?
12. Check out this episode of the fantastic Enter the Bible podcast talking to Alan Padgett about protological and eschatological science
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Outer Space

The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof! We start off this episode with some appreciative words for the agrarian background of the Bible, though also some cautionary words against modern industrial people cheaply romanticizing the agrarian past. But most of this episode is Farmer Paul's personal testimony to his own hands-on care for a neglected and degraded patch of earth, now flourishing under his care. Sleeping flounder, Swiss bears, and runaway honeybees all make an appearance. Plus you get to hear me sing the opening lines of "I've Been Picking These Darn Peas," the "spiritual" that my brother Will and I composed during our childhood bondage to the family garden.
Notes:
1. Wirzba, Agrarian Spirit
2. Davis, Scripture, Culture, And Agriculture
3. Shellenberger, Apocalypse Never
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The Earth

The meek shall inherit the earth... or maybe the land. And if the land, which land—the land of Israel, to be exact? In this episode Dad and I admit to lacking anything like a robust theology of the land of Israel for today, despite being rather more theologically robust on this topic when it comes to the biblical writings, as well as having some political convictions about the current state of secular affairs. But do we need to have an active theology of the land of Israel today? To guide us through, we turn to studies by, on the one hand, a Messianic Jewish theologian, and, on the other, a Palestinian Lutheran theologian, and wrestle our way to a conclusion that is guaranteed to satisfy nobody. That's what we're here for.
Notes:
1. Dad's commentary on Joshua
2. My moonlighting on Fresh Text to talk about Psalm 37
3. Article 17 of the Augsburg Confession
4. Kinzer, Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen
5. Isaac, From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth
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The Land

This episode started out as an experimental bonus: I asked Dad to think through with me what it can mean to bear witness in these days when a) everything sounds like propaganda, b) public and private are endlessly confused but I'm unwilling to expose to public scrutiny matters that are relevant to public discourse yet intrinisically private, and c) rebuttal and critique automatically vault the rebutted into martyr status. In other words, is it even possible to say truthful things in public anymore? Listen in for our provisional answers.
Notes:
1. Related episodes: Theology and Experience 1, Theology and Experience 2, James
2. Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
3. MacLuhan, The Medium Is the Message (beats me why this is spelled everywhere on Amazon, even the book covers, as "Massage" instead of "Message")
4. Weiss, "Hurts So Good"
5. Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self
6. Augustine, Confessions (current favorite translation)
7. Merton, Seven Storey Mountain
8. My "apocalyptic parables": Pearly Gates and Protons and Fleurons
And by the way, if you'd like to support our efforts at truthful public speech, please consider joining our Patreon supporters. Or just tell a friend about podcast. Thanks!

Private, Public, and Propagandistic

If everything's postmodern, then nothing's postmodern. In fact, according to Dad, postmodernism is actually just modernism continued by other means. Perplexed yet? No worries, that's part of the plan. If you can't conquer the body, then conquer the soul, and the rest will follow. In this episode we sort out postmodernism and its doppelgänger, then explore ways to keep sane and whole amidst the insanity. Surprisingly, I give words of hope, encouragement, and peace. So listen in just for that surprising development!
Notes:
1. Related episodes: Critical Social Theory, Pragmatism, Hannah Arendt, What Is a Person?, Cybertech and Personhood, Bonhoeffer's Life Together, Powers and Principalities
2. Nelson, "The Convening Power of the Pastor," Lutheran Forum 51/1 (2017): 50–51.
3. ed. Helmer, Truth-Telling and Other Ecclesial Practices of Resistance, including Dad's "Complicity and the Christological Path of Ecclesial Resistance"
4. eds. Stjerna and Thompson, On the Apocalyptic and Human Agency: Conversations with Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther, with Dad's “Augustine, Luther and the Critique of the Sovereign Self”
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Postmodernism for the Perplexed

Miracles seem like straightforward things to define, if rare to experience, until you start to think about the topic more deeply. In this episode, Dad and I discuss C. S. Lewis's book Miracles, the danger of accepting the definition of miracle as "violation of natural processes," what the Creator has to do with the Redeemer, how prayer affects providence, and biblical ambivalence about miracles.
Notes:
1. Lewis, Miracles
2. Related episodes: Illness and Healing, Revival and Renewal with the Blumhardts, Nenilava Prophetess of Madagascar
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Miracles, with Some Help from C. S. Lewis

Already in our first year of podcasting we expressed sympathy with Bonhoeffer's view that the time was coming when faith would need to come to the aid of reason. Three and a half years later, it seems even more acute than that: faith to the aid of science! In this episode we discuss scientific reasoning as an extremely valuable form of reason that nevertheless, like all human forms of reasoning, is subject to both limitations and distortions, not to mention exploitation in the service of authoritarianism. Then Dad walks us through the difference between a worldview and a Godview, why a change in the former makes people feel that they're losing the latter, and what is resilient about a Godview as science continues its necessary task of questioning and challenging received knowledge.
Notes:
1. Have a listen to our previous episodes Faith to the Aid of Reason and The Empiricists Strike Back
2. Knoll, A Brief History of the Earth
3. In Dad's Beloved Community, see the discussion of "creation faith and the scientific understanding of nature" (pp. 735–640), and see also his article "Retrieving Luther on Prayer: Spirituality in the Production of Christian Doctrine" in The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Prayer
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Faith to the Aid of Science

Hegel was our first family dog, which probably tells you all you need to know about our family. Before that, Hegel was a German philosopher, famously one of the most impenetrable, and yet weirdly influential for all that. In this episode, Dad shines a light in the fog. Don't worry if you come to this topic with nothing but Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis. I didn't either, but it all made sense in the end. Kind of.
Notes:
1. Related Episodes: St. Paul Among the Philosophers, Critical Social Theory
2. See Dad’s Divine Simplicity and Divine Complexity; plus, with his colleague Adkins, Rethinking Philosophy and Theology with Deleuze
3. Adkins, Death and Desire in Hegel, Heidegger and Deleuze
4. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
5. Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
6. O’Regan, The Heterodox Hegel
7. Moltmann, The Crucified God
8. Agamben, The Time That Remains
9. Žižek and Milbank, The Monstrosity of Christ
10. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy
11. Małysz, "Hegel's Conception of God and its Application by Isaak Dorner to the Problem of Divine Immutability," Pro Ecclesia XV:4 (2006): 448-471

A Hegel with All the Fixin’s

Yikes. You know the end is nigh when a couple of Lutheran theologians produce an episode on James longer than the one they did on Romans. In this episode, we first sort out what Luther did and didn't say about James, "epistle of straw," clearing up a lot of misapprehensions and faulty inferences, but either way we strongly suggest that the rest of the history of interpretation of James need not be controlled by a few remarks of the reformer early in his career.
From there, we discuss at length why there is so little plainly said about Jesus in this five-chapter letter—though there is a lot about God the Father, and there's no Father without a Son! We also argue that Paul and James really were addressing different errors in their respective discussions of faith and works, so pitting them against each other is neither exegetically nor spiritually illuminating.
All right, let's just admit it: we both like this book. You should, too.
Notes:
1. If you insist on making Luther's comments continue to determine the course of James interpretation, you can find them in Luther's Works vol. 35.
2. The other podcasts I mentioned are Fresh Text and The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
3. Other relevant episodes from us are: How to Hack the Law, Justification by Faith, Faith to the Aid of Reason, The Certainty of Faith, Justification by Faith Revisited, and Faith. Just Faith.
4. L. T. Johnson, The Letter of James
5. If you enjoy Woe-itudes, check this out
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you cool stuff. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

James, Epistle of Straw?

After three and a half years of dropping not-so-subtle hints, Dad finally persuaded me to read Reinhold Niebuhr's The Nature and Destiny of Man... though in this episode we cover only vol. 1, the "Nature" part. (Stick around with us in Season 5 and you might just get vol. 2!) In this episode we examine Niebuhr's sweeping summation of Western intellectual history and whether it holds up to scrutiny, how the divorce of Renaissance and Reformation gave us all the intractable problems of modernity, the difference between universal sin and unequal guilt, and zero in on the one place where Niebuhr talks more about God than man.
Notes:
1. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man; see also his Moral Man and Immoral Society
2. James, Varieties of Religious Experience
3. Related episodes: Hannah Arendt, On Putin's Invasion of Ukraine
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man vol. 1

Robots are not people, information does not want to be free, and the internet has no consciousness of its own. Meanwhile, human society trades on outrage and no one can tell what is true and what is false. Among the many enduring themes of human experience is how we create tools that in turn re-create us, and the past couple decades are only an accelerated and amplified version of that. With the help of tech critic Jaron Lanier, in this episode Dad and I explore the roots of how the whole world has gone mad, what it means to be and remain a person in the midst of it, and the urgency of doing so. Otherwise, "those who make them become like them," as Psalm 135 puts it.
Notes:
1. All of Lanier's books are highly recommended: You Are Not a Gadget, Who Owns the Future?, and Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.
2. Scott, Seeing Like a State
3. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
4. Asimov, "Robbie," in I, Robot
5. For more on this topic, see my blog post "Quitting Facebook... Again," our previous QotS episodes What Is a Person? and How to Hack the Law, and my new podcast with my husband Andrew, The Disentanglement Podcast, with explanations of digital tech and practical tips for getting free of its tentacles.
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Cybertech and Personhood

Lincoln observed that both slaveholders and abolitionists appealed to the Bible to make their case—but who was right, and why? Slaves appear throughout the Old Testament, yet the core story is the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The Pauline and Petrine letters exhort peace and fair treatment between masters and slaves, but do not openly advocate for manumission. In Paul's shortest letter, a personal address to Philemon, he sends home a (runaway?) slave, Onesimus, not making it clear what Philemon ought to do with him—and yet, at the same exact time, Paul radically transforms the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus, and between the two of them and Paul, too. Joyful exchanges abound in these twenty-five verses, which proved to be a leaven in the lump of toxic human social systems.
Notes:
1. Saarinen, The Pastoral Epistles with Philemon and Jude
2. Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon
3. Ruden, Paul among the People
4. Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church
5. Here's a few of me moonlight on Fresh Text podcast (highly recommended if you're a lectionary preacher): Psalm 37, 2 Corinthians 5, James 5.
6. Zahl, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience
Do you rejoice every other Tuesday to see a new Queen of the Sciences episode appear? Then consider supporting us on Patreon. You can start at just $2 a month; more gets you swag. Or just pay us a visit at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

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