Persons of Interest

The long awaited Gaga podcast. Ben and Kendall respond to the somewhat predicable wave of criticism unleashed by conservative Christians upon Lady Gaga in response to her recent video "Judas".

Ben and Kendall mainly discuss hipsterdom, its style, substance, and criticisms. Who are the hipsters? Why do people pick on these skinny androgynous boys? Are they, in the words of Holden Caulfield, just a bunch of phonies? Ben and Kendall also talk about music, Twitter, and how quickly people abandon their civility when what they think can be said without attribution.

This bonus episode is composed of material edited out of "Facebook is So Over." Ben and Kendall offer some tips on being a good Facebooker.

Facebook's number of unique visitors per month appears to have leveled off. Several bloggers and tech pundits have already predicted the decline and demise of Facebook. Ben and Kendall sound off on these accusations of peaking and even "jumping the shark". Kendall further suggests that Facebook may be a risky investment as rumors of an IPO are brewing. The Facebook gravy train may be running out of gravy and Mark Zuckerberg and his pals may take the money and run.

Kendall and Ben discuss Easter traditions including the common tradition many Americans have of going to church, if only on Easter.  They segue into how odd Christians can be and how alien church services must appear to people outside the fold.  In 1 Peter 2:9, the King James version calls Christians a "peculiar people." Never mind that this is a poor translation, many Christians make a concerted effort to live up to this moniker.  

Facebook is not in the social network business--they are in the business of stealing other people's good ideas and then repackaging and marketing them as their own. But Facebook, Google, and many others are in a much more nefarious business. Ben and Kendall discuss this crazy world we live in where a few people get ungodly rich while so many others make little or nothing.

Kendall and Ben respond to a recent Christianity Today opinion article titled Not Many Should Presume to be Bloggers. The both presume to be bloggers and podcasters. Kendall rejects the professional-amatuer divide in the church. Ben also tempers his previous enthusiasm of the Partial Preterist eschatological view point.

Ben read a new book by Martin Trench and Harold Eberle, "Victorious Eschatology" and it gave him a lot of new ideas to consider when approaching a Biblical understanding of the end of the world. He and Kendall discuss an optimistic view of the end times and how that marries with other theologies they are considering.

Kendall recently watched the 1972 Academy Award winning documentary "Marjoe". The documentary raises issues that he and Ben had discussed in a recent podcast. They then discuss how little things have changed in the church in 40 years.

Like so many others Ben and Kendall decide to review Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, before reading it. They discuss universalism, annihilationism, judgmentalism, and some other stuff like Tom Hanks films.

Ben and Kendall discuss friendship and how American culture conspires to retard or destroy it.

Ben, Kendall and guest, Eric Rahn discuss the populist movements breaking out across the Arab world and beyond with a particular interest in the meme in the media about whether the Arab world is "ready for democracy" or not.

Ben, Kendall and guest, Eric Rahn, discuss Mike Huckabee's plans for a Palestinian state, outside of Palestine.

Subtitle: What the !#@ is up with that?

Kendall and Ben talk about "What's wrong with the church." They expound on the popular approach to ministry and community which values conformity over intimacy, authenticity, and reality. This episode includes bonus "cutting room floor" material after the outro. Correction: This episode was pre-empted by last week's "Lebanon Travelogue" so it is numbered episode 18 and not 17 as stated in the outro.

Ben and Kendall give the low down on their trip to Lebanon, highlights and recommendations. The Skype connection was pretty lousy so our apologies for the poor audio at times, but the content is still high quality.

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