This week, JP, Father Chuck and Matt have a good ol' fashion RIFF-SESH. If you're not familiar, a riff-sesh is when the gang doesn't have a specific topic in mind but would rather share what's been digging in their craws and speak candidly and off-the-cuff. This week JP is feeling a little down about not being able to find the motivation to follow …

We did it! 200 episodes, baby! In this episode, we celebrate our 200th episode by covering Peter Jackson's latest opus, the hit Disney+ documentary THE BEATLES: GET BACK. Jackson's documentary is an exhaustive, fly-on-the-wall look at The Beatles during the recording of their album LET IT BE. As some of you know, all three of us here are big Beatle…

And we're BACK, BABY! After a lengthy hiatus, Father Chuck and JP have returned to talk about translating and interpreting the Bible. They not only go into the history of translating scripture, but also talk about their own experiences and frustrations with translations, as well as with people who are die-hard devoted to one translation over the ot…

This week, with an increasing interest in exploring the more fantastical and mystical side of the Christian faith, Father Chuck and JP talk about angels. They go over the hierarchy of angels, dispel some myths about their depiction (thanks in large part to Renaissance art), and develop a new class in the heirarchy: The Shoulderheim. What exactly is…

Well, it's been a minute, hasn't it? Fear not, because we're back, and unlike most media outlets, JP and Father Chuck have some thoughts on DUNE! Dune is the latest iteration of the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic, directed by Denis Villeneuve. It's taken a LONG time, but we think that we finally have an adaptation of the novel that's worthy of praise…

So for the last couple of months we've talked about every Jaws movie, tackled Christian Hedonism, recounted our favorite Seinfeld episodes about religion, defeated Capitalism, and brought you one spooky-ass playlist for your Halloween parties. So, we're a little pooped, and we thought this week we'd take 'er easy and have ourselves a good ol' fashi…

Whether you've got a Halloween party around the corner to host/attend, or you're just looking for some All Hallow's Eve vibes, you're gonna need some spooky tunes. So this week, Father Chuck and JP have curated their own playlists filled with all kinds of Halloween music goodness. Whether you're looking for a vibe like Planet Claire by the B-52s, o…

This week, JP and Father Chuck go in on that mode of production based on private ownership of the means of production: CAPITALISM. We give our thoughts, our critiques, our experiences, and also take the time to highlight the current struggle over wages in Hollywood. We don't normally get political on this podcast, mainly because we're not super int…

JP and Father Chuck are massive, devoted fans of the hit sitcom Seinfeld. And if you haven't heard the news, that joint's on Netflix as we speak. So we went ahead and watched some episodes centered on religion, yadda yadda yadda, you got this episode to listen to. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/masters-o…

So we all know that Father Chuck's the Sci-Fi Guy and JP is the Horror Guy. But what happens the two are combined for Halloween? You get an in-depth look at the Atomic Age Sci-Fi & Horror of the 1950s, baby! While people are planning their lists of horror movies to watch during October, people tend to lean toward the gothic, the spooky, and the str…

If you've ever heard the phrase, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him," then you're probably familiar with Christian Hedonism, which is one provocative title! It probably conjures images that don't belong together, like Jesus and Hedonism Bot from FUTURAMA. But it's a real thing; a theology conceived by famous modern theol…

In the previous episode, we talked about the Brothers Brody and Their Many Shark Adventures, and since you were all good sports to let us indulge in our love of these bonkers sequels, we figured why not go ahead and talk about the famed original: the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic, JAWS. There's so much to love about Jaws: the music, the performance…

When it was released in theaters in 1975, JAWS was a major hit, terrifying audiences and creating an entire generation of aquaphobes, thalassophobes, and submechaniphobes. Steven Spielberg's debut in cinemas was studded with a terrific cast, a chilling story, and horrifying special effects. The sequels? Eh...not so much. But one of them takes place…

We're finally in the middle of the wet, hot, American summer and JP & Father Chuck couldn't help but to reminisce about their summer days spent at various summer camps growing up. They talk about their shared experiences from Space Camp in Florida, while JP also tells us a few tales from his time spent at rich kid military camp. You'll hear this an…

An unofficial but ongoing series on this podcast is "Christian Curiosities," where we reflect and examine Christian trends from the days of yor. These trends permeated Christian communities and usually across denominations, and it was the Christian Bookstore that enabled these curiosities to spread and thrive. If one wanted to put their thumb on th…

This week, in another edition of MASTERS OF DIVINITY, JP and Father Chuck revisit one of the most beloved film trilogies of all time: BACK TO THE FUTURE! JP explains the process behind developing the first Back to the Future movie, Chuck theorizes on a "Rogue Marty." This is one of those episodes where we talk about a franchise as an entity, and go…

We've seen the evidence. We have some thoughts. UFO's are back baby! Seriously, it's like 1995 up in here with the UFO mania going down. In 2017 the government confirmed the existence of Unidentified Flying Objects, and just this month the Pentagon has submitted a report to congress explaining their findings. JP and Father Chuck have been preparing…

Remember way, way, way back in the distant year of 2012? Before pandemics, Donald Trump's presidency, and NFTs? There was a movie that came out that summer called PROMETHEUS, and it was a prequel of sorts to the ALIEN franchise. People were really looking forward to it because the ALIEN franchise had fallen on hard times, and legendary director Rid…

Time to smash our heads on the punk rock! In our final episode of Music Mayhem, The Wheel of Mayhem deemed Christian punk's "Prime Candidate for a Burnout" by Blenderhead worthy of closing out this year's series. Rounding out our completely unplanned series-within-a-series about the Christian recording industry, Blenderhead couldn't be further away…

This week, JP and Father Chuck visit another seismic album in the 90s Contemporary Christian scene: Jars of Clay's self-titled debut album. Jars of Clay was drastically different from dc Talk in their style and approach to lyrics, embracing metaphorical lyrics and acoustic guitars, as well as a more independent sound. Do any of the songs still hold…

Music Mayhem keeps going because Music Mayhem can't be stopped! For some reason JP and Father Chuck decided to (dc) Talk about JESUS FREAK, the seismic Christian rock album that hit the charts and even managed to get some MTV airtime, something that's very important to Christian labels. Father Chuck has a fondness for the album, and JP has never li…

Music Mayhem keeps on truckin', and this week we're truckin' to hell -- or heaven. Whichever you prefer, I guess. In 1979 Ozzy Osbourne was ousted from the legendary metal band Black Sabbath, and left a void that seemed impossible to fill. Enter one Ronnie James Dio, or as you and I know him: DIO. What should have been a recipe for disaster ended u…

Music Mayhem returns! And we're kicking it off with a pick by Father Chuck, "She's So Unusual" by Cyndi Lauper. This album is loaded with bangers, from the iconic 80s bop "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to the all-timer ballad, "Time After Time," this is the album that cemented Cyndi Lauper as an 80s icon, and would influence pop music and female voc…

For our final episode in our unnamed series about Jesus-centric films, we watched Martin Scorsese's controversial classic, The Last Temptation of Christ. In the film, Jesus is portrayed by legendary actor Willem Dafoe, depicted as a man struggling with both the human and divine natures that dwell within Him. Martin Scorsese intended for the movie t…

This week, Father Chuck and Moderator JP talk about the extremely underwhelming 1979 classic, JESUS, a movie that was made in an attempt to create a visual translation of the Bible, and these days the film is used by THE JESUS PROJECT in an effort to convert people to Christianity through the language of cinema. Amazingly, it doesn't seem to be ver…

Like Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, Jesus is a figure who's graced the screen since the advent of cinema. Some of these movies are spectacular, while most of them are...well, they tried. When Mel Gibson announced that he was going to direct a film about the final hours of Jesus' life, it became one of the most anticipated films of its time, as audien…

This week, while the Masters of Divinity are still away dealing with their offline lives, we've produced a clip show made out of a couple of outtakes from past episodes! We promise things will be back to normal soon, but at the moment, real life calls. Until then, enjoy this fun episode! Check out our site: www.themastersofdivinity.wordpress.com If…

This week, JP and Father Chuck discuss how they feel about the time-honored social media tradition of dunking on strangers. We promise this isn't just another "old men yelling about Twitter" episode, honest!SoundCloud:Check out our site:www.themastersofdivinity.wordpress.comIf you'd like to support the show, become a patron by visit our patreon!www…

All right, so it's more like an hour and fourty-five minutes, but "2 hours" just sounds cleaner. We round up here. Hey! There's a show out there on the Disney+ that all the kids are raving about, called WandaVision and it's apparently a big hit. WandaVision is the first show produced for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (there are other Marvel shows b…

This week, we cap off our month-long series on the afterlife with a fun, light-hearted discussion of Pixar's latest hit, SOUL. Soul stars Jamie Foxx as the voice of Joe, a jazz musician who finds himself in the afterlife who desperately tries to get back to the land of the living. It's a wonderful film with a fascinating emotional journey, with the…

This week, JP and Father Chuck discuss purgatory. Having grown up a protestant, JP has no idea what the doctrine of purgatory is, and Father Chuck is here to enlighten all of us. They talk about purgatory as a doctrine, as a belief embraced by CS Lewis, and why it kind of sounds like a gym for the soul. Should Christians believe in purgatory? What'…

Continuing our series on the Christian afterlife, Father Chuck and JP discuss HELL. We go over all of the cultural depictions of Hell and how they compare to what's described in the Bible, where these depictions originate, and how we've come to understand Hell. We also talk about how we personally understand the concept of Hell, and push back on a …

Hello once again MoD Squad! We've got an exciting month lined up for you, as JP and Father Chuck will be discussing the theologies behind the Christian afterlife. This week, we'll be taking a look at Heaven. What do Christians get wrong about Heaven? Turns out, a lot! Father Chuck explains the early Christian belief of Heaven and how it should affe…

The Salem Witch Trials, The Red Scare, The McMartin Preschool Trial, The War on Drugs, Netflix's Cuties...they're all vastly different events, with some based on real events, and some based on events that were completely fabricated, but they all have one thing in common: they created widespread fear and panic. This week, JP and Father Chuck take a …

This week, Moderator JP, Father Chuck, and Occasional Matt are all here to talk about the Netflix sensation, COBRA KAI. Cobra Kai is a kind of spin-off/legacy sequel to the Karate Kid series of movies, mostly from the perspective of famous 80s bully Johnny Lawrence. Naturally, this is perfect fodder for the Masters of Divinity: 80s nostalgia, marti…

This week, in the final episode of 2020, JP and Father Chuck are here to talk about one of their favorite subjects: conspiracy theories! This time, they discuss how conspiratorial thinking can be damaging to not just the the individual, but also society, and how it can take the place of a person's spirituality. With everything happening in the news…

It's Halloween! Which means The Masters of Divinity get SPOOKY! And what better way to Get Spooky then watching a good old fashioned horror movie? Well, not THAT old fashioned. It's pretty post-modern, actually. This week, our very fearless trio sits down with Wes Craven's meta-horror slasher film, SCREAM. They touch on what the period was like whe…

Well, we've reached the end of MODAKU. Don't look so sad, you knew this was a test run baby, we wish we could go all out like we do with Music Mayhem, but that all depends on you! Let us know if you enjoyed MODAKU, and if we should tackle it against next year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! We've got one more episode, and this week's it's Ma…

In this week's edition of MODAKU, Moderator JP brings us the cyberpunk classic AKIRA! Akira was what started it all in the U.S. It's influence is felt in not only countless anime, but also in countless science fiction films and television shows. With its technical achievements in animation, its intricate storytelling, and twisted visions of body ho…

This week, Father Chuck brings us MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO to officially jumpstart our new series on anime, MODAKU. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO is a timeless children's classic created by Hiyao Miyazaki, by way of the landmark animation studio Studio Giblhi. Father Chuck is very familiar with TOTORO, while JP and Matt only just recently watched it for the series …

One of the goals of our podcast is to explore, observe, comment, and sometimes satirize the various spaces within the vast universe of fandom. Four years after the creation of the podcast, we finally feel that we have the strength and capacity to explore the wild world of anime. Even though anime has been a staple in Japanese culture for decades, i…

This week, JP and Father Chuck have themselves a little old fashioned riff-session. You remember those, right? This episode's packed with everything. There's talk about preferring art & media that's a bit more off-beat and rough around the edges, there's some reminiscing of McGee & Me, JP rants about CGI blood and demands that Hollywood action film…

This week, JP and Father Chuck talk about an interesting corner of the internet dedicated to what's inside your pocket. It's called "EDC" which is short for everyday carry, and you'll be surprised that there are whole communities and brands revolving around the stuff we carry with us in our day-to-day. Flashlights, knives, pens, and leathermans are…

DC and Warner Bros. broke new ground by giving us the first ever virtual conference (I have no facts to back that up, but you can't accuse me of shilling, because I'm admitting that I'm not sure if that's even true). We learned about Suicide Squad 2, the long-awaited Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League, and the trailer for The Batman. In this week's …

"Adventure has a name," said one of the many taglines used to describe the character of Indiana Jones, the brainchild of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK should be considered classic cinema by now, as well as a window into an even older form of cinema, the cliffhanger serials made famous Republic Pictures that Spielberg an…

In Disney • Pixar's ONWARD, elvish brothers Barley and Ian embark on a perilous journey through a fantastical realm that also happens to resemble our modern times in order to meet their father who passed away before Ian was born. Needless to say, Father Chuck and Father Fun, who themselves are dads and big fantasy nerds, have a lot to say about ONW…

You might be familiar with cyberpunk, the dystopian science fiction subgenre popularized by William Gibson's NEUROMANCER and Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER. You also might be familiar with steampunk, a science fiction subgenre known for its obsession with goggles. But have you heard of solarpunk? Solarpunk, unlike cyberpunk, is a much more optimistic …

Well, here we are, at the end of all things -- not really, just Music Mayhem. We're sad to see it go, as Father Chuck, JP, Matt, and Father Fun have had a blast, as usual, surprising each other with albums and challenging our tastes and just enjoying some great music. You should all know by now how the Wheel of Mayhem works. We each select one "goo…

For our penultimate episode of Music Mayhem 2020, Matt chose one of the most successful albums of all time, Michael Jackson's THRILLER. THRILLER has it all: Beat It, Thriller, Billie Jean, that song with Paul McCartney, that one ballad, that other ballad, a couple of other ballads, and You Wanna Be Startin' Something, a song that has yet to come to…

Guest Co-Host Father Fun selects Florence + The Machine's sweeping and epic sophomore album, CEREMONIALS. If you're not familiar with Florence + The Machine, the first thing you'll notice is how powerful Florence Welch's voice is. It's the kind of voice that can overshadow the rest of your group, but thankfully, in CEREMONIALS, The Machine accompan…