New York Times columnist, co-host of Advisory Opinions and The Dispatch Podcast, and Nashville-based evangelical, David French, returns to the pod once again. This time, we had one big question on our minds: What’s with all the Christianity cosplaying taking over politics right now? But an Uncertain Things episode wouldn’t be an Uncertain Things episode if we stuck to just one topic! We ended up discussing, among other topics, Jesus Christ, the American Civil War, the likelihood of the dissolution of the union today, Venezuela, C.S. Lewis, and more. As always with Mr. French, it was a delightful, thought-provoking, and nerdy conversation.

On the agenda:

-A quick question about Jesus Christ [0:00-3:50]

-Countdown to our country’s dissolution [3:51-22:57]

-A tangent on Venezuela [22:58-27:15]

-America, the Fundamentalist [27:16-1:09:50]

-Advice to a burgeoning Christian [1:09:51-1:20:00]

Further reading/listening:

* Time to Talk about Secession? (David French on Uncertain Things)

* America, The Lonely (David French on Uncertain Things)

* ‘I’m a Liberal Who Lost His Faith’ (Tom Holland on Uncertain Things)

* Divided We Fall (David French)

* Attack Upon Christendom (Søren Kierkegaard)

* The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday rumination, subscribe to: uncertain.substack.com.

Journalist Ben Dreyfuss (writer of Calm Down and co-host of Central Air) joins us for a conversational grab bag: Zohran Mamdani’s agenda; the Left’s ideologues (and how to distinguish them from the cosplayers); the challenge of maintaining personal relationships across political divides; Luigi Mangione’s appeal; the dearth of humor amongst Millennials; and more. If these topics leave you spinning down a dark apocalyptic hole of cynicism, remember (as Ben reminds us at the end of this episode): calm the f*ck down. And consider telling a joke or two.

On the agenda:

-Mamdani, the DSA, and the Left’s ideologues [00:00-21:31]

-Keeping friends after October 7th [21:32-29:30]

-Fake, lying social media and the “noticers” [29:31-35:54]

-Playing footsie with murders (the Luigi Mangione story) [35:55-45:21]

-Changing people’s minds — and finding common ground [45:22-1:01:22]

-NIMBYism, Abundance, and back to New York City [1:01:23-1:10:27]

-Why it’s hard to be funny [1:10:28-1:14:31]

-Blindspots on the Left & Right [1:14:32-1:22:00]

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday rumination, subscribe.

Adaam is joined by James Lindsay, author of Cynical Theories and founder of New Discourses, to play the epistemology drinking game: you take a shot every time either speaker uses the word! They talk about how higher education in America became a racket, whether we can revivify classical liberalism in the age of social media, whether we need to exclude bad actors from the public discourse, whether James’ Twitter persona is a force for good or for chaos, and how to tell a PsyOp when you see one. They of course also discuss the “woke right,” Tucker Carlson, and why scapegoating Jews is still the rage.

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday rumination, subscribe.