And Sons

In an effort to fight the creeping, medicating, overextended presence of our smartphones, the And Sons team and four Ransomed Heart team members gave up their smartphones for a month to see what would happen. The goal was to see if technology is really the enemy, or if we use other forms of medication in its place. It's an And Sons experiment.

The season of advent is evoking a lot of longing for us this year. It seems you can't say the word hope without feeling the pain of all the things not yet realized. There's joy to be sure, but the longing for Jesus to come again is getting to feel more like a cry for relief than any joyful carol.

"You will know them by their fruits" Matt 7:16 It's a litmus test Jesus gave us for false prophets, and yet it extends deeper than just teachings. The fruit of an action, the fruit of a train of thought, the fruit of an experience... they all tell us about the Good of the thing producing them. Can we use the fruit and work backwards, though? When we experience inner death, sorrow, grief... can we use those as breadcrumbs to find a deeper root that is producing them, and if so, can we change what's going on beneath the surface?

Friendships are one of the deepest places of pain for just about everyone these days, it seems. How do we become the kind of men who have friendships going back 30 years? What are the rhythms that sustain and invite such things?

Put on your Hebrew hat, it’s time to tackle one of the most productive concepts in the Bible. The Image of God. No single podcast can capture all that’s intended by that phrase, so in this episode, we focus on one dimension: the role. We are, in a word, tselem. Images. Idols. We are endowed with God’s authority to rule, and we affirm God’s ultimate right to rule his creation. Sam and Blaine dive in to our human ability to draw out potentials in creation that would not be realized without our intervention, and then explore the limitations put on our authority. It’s a view of humans that is both lower and higher than our everyday western view. And it’s a view that raises that stakes: the world needs you. Wherever you rule, you are able to raise the world to its highest potential, or else deeply destroy it.

In this episode, Blaine and And Sons team member Justin Lukasavige explore our idea environment as part of a continuing conversation on human nature. The team first unpacks what it means for an idea to be accurate in its essence, explores representationalism and Aristotelian hylomorphism, and finally begins to unpack the dominant views of human nature in the west. Because most people hold one of two assumptions: either human beings are rational free agents, with a mind that is separate from the body, or human beings are products of their environment, socially constrained, in which case society is the most real thing. The team explores the limitations of both paradigms, and prepares space for an alternative vision of humanity, centered in Jesus, that accommodates the insights of the two.

131 | Worldview 101 - Learning to See, Anthropology, and the Centrality of Human Nature (Pt. 1) by And Sons

This one feels like the title is the description. So, there you go.

It's too easy to focus on the damage of our story. Too easy to focus on what needs healing, or whats been stolen. We all have an innate glory in the image of God that we bare, which on its own should be enough to get our attention. But there's more: we bare a unique glory all our own, and we are called to witness the glory in the lives around us.

It's a common experience: we have a breakthrough moment with God, we see miracles, we get a taste of the life we wanted, and the next week, it's gone. In this episode, Sam and Blaine unpack practices that anchor your heart to the reality of the epic. From contemplation to the ancient practice of "tending," journaling tactics to cultures of remembering, this is an episode to keep the past present.

Inside the covers of the print magazine are things that we believe are important and somehow connected to the masculine journey, if sometimes loosely. The books inside Volume 2 are a little more obvious in that aim. They also demand a little unpacking.

We're betting you are lonely. It's something we can assume is the case for pretty much everyone on the planet, but even more so for someone trying to walk with maturity in their 20's. What do we do with it? What does community look like, and even more so, what is community for?

"Do Not Be Ashamed" by Wendell Berry You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before. It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and that you are guilty: you misread the complex instructions, you are not a member, you lost your card or never had one. And you will know that they have been there all along, their eyes on your letters and books, their hands in your pockets, their ears wired to your bed. Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed. They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them. And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you, then such light as you have made in your history will leave you. They will no longer need to pursue you. You will pursue them, begging forgiveness. They will not forgive you. There is no power against them. It is only candor that is aloof from them, only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach. Be ready. When their light has picked you out and their questions are asked, say to them: "I am not ashamed." A sure horizon will come around you. The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.

Back in the studio, Blaine and Sam talk about soul care these days. What are we doing to care for ourselves, and what do we think about to orient our story?

123 | Why We're Back Next Week by And Sons