Pop Culture Pastors Hour Podcast

Just a quick conversation with the excitement of the 4th season of Ted Lasso coming out later this summer! So just our quick histories with the Richmond crew, what the original meant to us, what are hopes are for S4, and also some of the things we noticed in the teaser. And a quick reminder that our next “full” episode is this coming Wednesday (5/6) at 12:30pm ET as we talk with Amber Groomes,Ph.D. (she/her) about the AppleTV show, Shrinking. Dr Groomes (Amber) writes here on substack and is a licensed therapist and counselor and will help us navigate this really unique and wonderful show. Here’s a few links from our conversation today…The Ted Lasso Season 4 TeaserThe song that plays during the trailer is Rubber Band Man by Mumford and Sons and Hozier…And of course… May the Fourth Be With You!See you Wednesday!MaryAnn and Ed This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

What a wonderful conversation with Fr Pete the Wilderness Priest as we talked about getting into Nature - Pop Culture Style. Father Pete Nunnely is an Episcopal priest in the Washington DC area and is on the cusp of his first book being released out into the wild! Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of FishingWe round-robin’ed it with three nature-centric Pop Culture items for each of us - could be movies, shows, books, music. Here’s what we came up with:Fr PeteField of Dreams (movie)A River Runs Through It (mostly the movie, but also the book)Beasts of the Southern Wild (movie)EdThe Way (movie)Orbital (book by Samantha Harvey)Finding the Mother Tree (book by Suzanne Simard)MaryAnnTiny World (AppleTV Nature Documentary)Into Thin Air (mostly the book, but also the IMAX movie)My Neighbor Totoro (Studio Ghibli movie)We also snuck in a few other connections…* The Lord of the Rings (of course) and its emphasis upon harmony with the natural world versus exploitation of resources* Radiolab’s recent podcast episode, Forests on Forests - incredible insights of what is found in the canopy of the gigantic redwoods of the Pacific Northwest…Our next PCPH is on Wednesday, May 6 at 12:30pm ET as we talk about the AppleTV show, Shrinking, with our guest Dr. Amber Groomes- a real life therapist - to help us reflect on this show about therapists! We won’t be necessarily talking about a specific episode but instead some senses of what we have seen in the show as a whole over its (so far) three seasons. Off to the woods! MaryAnn and Ed This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

This may have been MaryAnn’s favorite episode so far. The Pitt is a hyper-realistic peek into a trauma ED (emergency department, not the co-host), with lots of wisdom and heart—deserving of its many accolades—and it was awesome to hear from Amy Snow and Christine Vaughan Davies, two chaplains with deep experience, about the work chaplains do in all kinds of hospitals and contexts.As mentioned at the end of our conversation, April is National Donate Life Month. Please consider giving the gift of life by opting to be an organ donor, and letting your loved ones know of your choice. You can reflect this on your drivers license, or even in the Health app of your iPhone. All major religions in the U.S. support donation as a final act of compassion and generosity (which was reflected in season one of The Pitt!).See you on April 28 at 3 p.m. EDT for our next episode of PCPH. We’ll be joined by Fr Pete the Wilderness Priest, author of the upcoming book Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing to celebrate spring and talk about our favorite works of pop culture about nature. Link to join.Follow Pop Culture Pastors Hour on Substack or in your favorite podcast app. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Amaze amaze amaze! Directors Lord and Miller hit it out of the solar system with this creative and heartfelt adaptation of Andy Weir’s warm-hearted and science-stuffed novel. The conversation explores Ryland’s bravery, the power of friendship, the nature of sacrifice, and more. There’s also a little bit of conversation about cilantro too! Yum!Articles referenced in our conversation are here and here. The Jamar Tisby book mentioned is called The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance.See you next Monday, April 6 at 1 p.m. EDT as we take up the HBO Max show The Pitt. Two bona fide chaplains will join us and make the case for that wonderfully chaotic ER needing some chaplains on staff… See you there! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

This. Was. So. Fun!Three days and counting until we get to see Andy Weir’s charming, funny, optimistic, humanity-affirming book brought to life on the screen. In this conversation we recommend some space fiction and discuss our favorite Project Hail Mary themes, our hopes for the film adaptation, and more.We started our conversation by talking about some of our favorite “space” books, so if you’re looking for a new read…* Project Hail Mary (duh)* The Martian* Artemis* Ender’s Game* Orbital* Sea of Tranquility* Dune* The Story of Your Life (short story)* Thrawn Trilogy (Star Wars)* Lost Moon / Apollo 13* Hitchiker’s Guide to the GalaxySee you March 30 when we take up the movie version of Project Hail Mary. See you at 3 p.m. EDT via this link. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Today, we welcomed Marlon Weems of The Journeyman substack to PCPH to talk about the Ryan Coogler film, Sinners. Wide ranging conversation from the technical aspects of the film to theology to racial histories to how this film can be a side door into conversations about race, oppression, diversity, and cultural identity. As I said...wide-ranging! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Pluribus, Season One!It’s the mark of a good show that we talked for almost an hour, going deep on a number of themes in the show, and somehow didn’t get to some major plot points, like how the Others get their sustenance. I’ll just leave it at that.But we did talk about the show as commentary on AI, what makes a human a human, and the appeal of complex characters. Plus: how would we preach this show?Here’s the podcast episode Ed referenced about the Darien Gap. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

We have come to the end of our journey (for now) through Middle Earth! After our first week of “Will it Preach?” and our second week of the “BIG Themes of the Stories” we come to “Category Crowns” - discussing a bit more light-hearted topics like:* Best/Worst change from books to movies* Which “villain” do you like the most, and which “hero” annoys you?* Best music cue* What meal (or scene?) that we witness would you most want to be a part of?* Best hair acting (This was put in specifically for MaryAnn to comment on Eowyn’s hair)* No LOTR actors were nominated for Oscars. Who gets best and best supporting?And some more fun ones too!We will be leaving the realms of dwarves, elves, hobbits, humans, ents, and wizards and moving back to sci-fi (of a sort) with AppleTV’s series Pluribus. We’ll be talking on this on Monday, February 9 at 12pm ET. We’d love for you to join us live or you can follow here or via your favorite podcast app!Mae govannen! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Mae govannen, friends!Haha so… MaryAnn could not see anyone logged in to this conversation due to some quirk of Substack, but they were there! We ran the themes of Lord of the Rings through Ed’s standard signoff on his posts: GPLHJ, or Grace Peace Love Hope Joy.Book recommendation: Everything Is a Story by Kaitlin CurticeAnd here’s the quote MaryAnn read from Return of the King:But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam’s plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.We’ve got one more LOTR episode next Tuesday, February 3 at 1:00 p.m ET.: Category Crowns! Favorite villain, most annoying hero, and lots more fun. Link to join. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

The Oscar nominations are out and Sinners dominated, Pluribus continues to confound and intrigue audiences, and we are… spending three episodes talking about movies that came out 25 years ago.What can we say? The nerdery must flow. And the themes in the Lord of the Rings are RICH.In honor of the LOTR trilogy’s re-release in theaters, we begin our series with a few rounds of “Will It Preach?” in which our magic wheel chose random scenes we had to wrestle some meaning out of. Tolkien being Tolkien, that wasn’t hard, but the conversation did take us in some unexpected places.Watch this space for future episodes.PS - Ed saw Fellowship in the theater tonight and it started with a rather off-the-cuff Peter Jackson commentary. I’m still trying to figure out what was on his t-shirt but I loved the fact that his cat-play-thing was just in the background. And along with the folks I saw it with, a few members of the fellowship joined me…Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and Boromir… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Thanks for joining us this afternoon!Before we dive in, here’s the audio of Dr. King reading Letter from Birmingham Jail, as Ed referenced. And there’s a lot of videos of Willie Pearl Mackey King telling the story of putting together the letter from the scraps of paper Dr. King had available while in the jail, and her work for civil rights in general. Here’s one.So, Carrie Newcomer has a song called “Take More Time, Cover Less Ground.” Well, we kind of did the opposite today, we covered a LOT of ground in not a lot of time. During this hour, inspired by the wisdom of Barbara Brown Taylor we talked about “What’s Saving Our Lives Right now.” What is meant by that is what is giving us life, what is making us laugh, what is stirring hope, and so forth. We came up with quite an eclectic list of things that are keeping us going amid ~gesturing at everything~. Art is sustaining, illuminating, diverting, and more—and you see that full gamut reflected in our choices.Viewer discretion advised on some of the items below.Also note that there’s a short outtake at the end of the video… Its actually the beginning of the video where Substack went live before we were quite ready…Our next time is scheduled to be this Friday at 11:30am ET as we do our first of three episodes on the Lord of the Rings books/films. We aren’t going film-by-film but instead three episodes on some themes from them - some deeper, some sillier, but all will be great. MaryAnn’s list:* Somebody Somewhere, HBOmax* Hank Green’s comedy special “Pissing Out Cancer”, originally on DropoutTV, now free on YouTube* “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine—the louder the better* A Man on the Inside, Netflix* Pachinko, Min Jin LeeEd’s list:* The “Time” Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time* Rooted: A Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming, Christy Berghoef (and here’s her Substack)* The Soundtrack Show (podcast)* Clair Obscur (video game)* Sports! (Go Broncos)What’s saving your life lately? Thanks to viewer Mark who shared the song “This Is My Country” by Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble.Thanks again for joining us! Our LOTR “trilogy” is coming up! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

What a great conversation about a great movie! We had a wide-ranging conversation about Wake Up Dead Man - we spent time with H Richard Neibuhr’s Christ and Culture concepts, Fr. Richard Rohr’s Four Shapes of Transformation, congregational dynamics, pastoral relationships, and so so so much more! Oh and we talked about the movie too!!!! There was even some Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Rickrolling…Suffice to say it was a great 60 minutes of movie-ing, theologizing, and pop-culture-ing. A few other links:* Ed mentioned this book - Disobedient Women by Sarah Stankorb when we were discussing the ways that the church has not listened to the abused and sought to protect the abusers. This is a powerful book profiling women who stood up to the abuses in the Southern Baptist Convention. * Our next conversation will be in early January about the new AppleTV show, Pluribus and then we’ll have several conversations later in the month about Lord of the Rings (books and movies). We’ll also be doing a few on the upcoming movie (based on the book), Project Hail Mary. So lots of great stuff on the horizon!Thanks for joining in! MaryAnn and Ed This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

The first of two PCPHs this week (second one is about Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery on Wednesday, Dec 31 at 11am)…this one is our respective favorite portrays of clergy / pastors / religious figures in media (mostly movies and TV but a few books as well). We had a great conversation around all the different figures that we had come up with (knowing there’s lots of others that we didn’t get a chance to talk about)Here are some links to the different ones we discussed:* Keeping the Faith * The Mitford Series (books) by Jan Karon* Rev - BBC TV Show* Of Gods and Men * First Reformed* Rogue One: A Star Wars Story* Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Sound of Music, Signs, Fleabag, Vicar of DibleySuper fun conversation! We’d love your thoughts! MaryAnn McKibben Dana // Edward Goode This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com

Heya - this is just testing things out to get ready to go “official” come January 1 as the Pop Culture Pastors Hour Podcast! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pcph.substack.com