Podcast
On Culture
Hosted by Mike Sherman - a podcast of The Embassy substack newsletter - theembassy.substack.com · EN
An Island of Faith, Humanity and Grace For Understanding Our Strange World. We will talk about culture - and the intersection of culture and faith.
theembassy.substack.com
theembassy.substack.com
13episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
God as the Plot Twist
3w ago00:43:03Tap to summarizeDrew and I talk There Will Be Blood, Wake Up Dead Man, and Black Bag and what we see as a surprising trend in movies and culture - God as the plot twist.This podcast comes out of the latest article from The Embassy -We mention a few other movies that follow this trend, but forgot to mention Project Hail Mary, which has another surprising God conversation right in the middle. Our hero, Professor Ryland Grace (of all things), played by Ryan Gosling, asks the head of the project, Eva Stratt, if she believes in God. Stratt, depicted as hyper smart, hyper competent, and a fearless leader, answers, “it beats the alternative”. Well, there are better reasons, but that is still a surprising conversation right in the middle of a sci-fi movie.Thanks for listening!The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
On Culture Live
Apr 2801:04:47Tap to summarizeTrey Herweck and the people of Refuge Church in St. Charles hosted a live episode of On Culture. We talked about what On Culture is and what The Embassy is - then we talked about a lot of things we have talked about, and finished with a little bit on the latest piece: Thanks for listening, love to have you subscribe!The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Fog of War
Apr 1100:44:55Tap to summarizeTrey Herweck and I talk about living in a world without all the info. Based on this dispatch from The Embassy -As always - read the whole thing.Also - we invite you to an upcoming On Culture live event - Sunday, April 26 from 5pm to 7pm at Refuge Church in St. Charles MO. Love to see you there. There will be snacks and beverages available. We will have some audience interaction (not required, of course) along with our normal podcast banter. Love to see you there! Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Following From Here
Mar 2100:44:07Tap to summarizeView This episode features Trey Herweck, pastor of Refuge Church in St. Charles, MO and I together and in person talking about local following, local discipleship, local transformation. Along the way we talk about Lent, the Pope, the Olympic Hockey teams, John Piper, and a bunch of other things.Here is the dispatch from The Embassy that we are talking about -Read the whole piece and comment on this podcast!One more thing, Trey and I mentioned that we will be doing a live podcast event at Refuge Church in St. Charles, MO on Sunday, April 26. It will be in the evening, we’ll nail the time down soon. Hope to see you there!The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Early Winter
Mar 800:40:28Tap to summarizeTrey Herweck and I talk about winter, aging, school buses, snowballs, and memories.This episode comes out of a recent piece in The Embassy, called Early Winter - Read the whole thing!The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Warm Individuals in Rugged Community
Jan 2400:45:49Tap to summarizeTrey Herwick and I talk about what makes community necessary and what makes it difficult and how individuality and community can coexist Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Seeing, Not Believing. Believing, Not Seeing.
Dec 2000:42:14Tap to summarizeTrey Herweck and I talk about what is real - based on a recent dispatch from The Embassy - here is an excerpt:We live in a world where we, if we choose it, even if it is completely self-destructive, we can find some person or artificial companion to tell us what we want to hear, justify what we want to believe, live the way we want to live. But it isn’t real. We can’t escape reality without consequences. In attempting to do so, we embody the fool archetype in the biblical proverbs.Death and Destruction are never satisfied,and neither are human eyes.Proverbs 27:20There is no limiting principle once we exchange the truth for a lie and what is real for the artificial. What that implies for your choice of social media or news is up to you. And what that implies regarding AI companions or therapists I will also leave for you to decide. But try to find someone real.…Read the whole article here: The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
The Resistance Will Not Be Instagramed
Dec 600:42:57Tap to summarizeDrew Wendt (from DoYouLikeApples) and I talk Revolution, Resistance, Instagram, One Battle After Another, Eddington and other movies - and, also, talk about living. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Me, Myself, and The Algorithm
Nov 200:42:25Tap to summarizeTrey Herweck and I talk about ‘The Algorithm’ - and how we should respond to it.This episode of On Culture is based on the most recent dispatch from The Embassy - Thanks for listening!The Embassy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →
Funerals and Other Expressions of Reality
Oct 1800:39:09Tap to summarizeThis episode discusses the latest dispatch from The Embassy - Funerals and Other Expressions of Reality. Here is an excerpt - I officiated a funeral service for the mother and grandmother of friends of ours recently. I had never met the woman whose life we were remembering and whose absence friends and family were grieving. She was someone who lived within the big gospel story, who had, by all accounts, embodied the reality of this story for those who knew her. I spoke on the passage in John 11 describing the death of Lazarus, the grief of the family, the grief of Jesus as He wept with them - and the promise of the resurrection.Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”John 11:25-26We Christians believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and that belief in Him is life, even through death - and that those who live this life will, spiritually, never die - not in the old, final, tragic sense. Even though we grieve those we lose, it is our loss we grieve, not theirs. Theirs is the resurrection and, finally, the life that is life eternal.It is a familiar passage of scripture for Christians who are familiar with the gospel accounts of Jesus in the New Testament. The events of this account weigh heavier, no matter how familiar, with the casket holding a loved one a few feet away. That is the thing about funerals, or memorial services, if you prefer. They are the realest of ceremonies. The realest of things has happened. A thing that is somehow shocking while being the most ordinary of things, literally and actually awaiting all of us. The intruder we are apt to pretend isn’t visiting us. But it does visit. And so real things must be said, priorities reexamined, commitments renewed.Real things must be said, but what must be said is not always said and what must be done is not always done. The real things are sometimes not said, and nobody is wiser, or better, or even really comforted in their absence. Some years ago, I attended a funeral for a young man that many people I was close to knew very well. The young man, while remaining a story of redemption and renewal, and while bringing joy into the lives of many, tragically and, for those who knew him well, mysteriously, took his own life. Probably around 500 people attended, and almost all of them, many of them very young, knew that he had taken his own life. But this reality was never mentioned during the service. What hundreds of young people needed was some sort of connection for their young friend who had given into his darkest impulse, to this story of redemption. This was bypassed in favor of a message that, very likely for the sake of some in his immediate family, missed the chance to provide this comfort within the harshest of realities.Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed: we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.From ‘At the Burial of the Dead’, Book of Common Prayer ~ 1549Reality, as the saying goes, bats last - not just in death, but in life. And it is the reality that we live in a story that contains death but does not end in death (“Do you believe this?”). We avoid this reality to our own detriment and diminishing.Read the whole article here Get full access to The Embassy at theembassy.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribe →