Beer Christianity Jonty Langley

Welcome to the liberated zone, Oxford edition.
To mark Nakba Day 2024, Beer Christianity co-host Laura visits our local protest encampment to hear from the demonstrators at our local Gaza solidarity encampment.
If you have been reading about the student protest encampments at Columbia, UCLA and Berkley universities in the USA (or, better, been seeing videos shot by the people involved), you may have questions. The billionaire-owned media have been providing a narrative that, at best, seeks to ‘both-sides’ both the genocide in Gaza and the police-enabled violence at the protests and, at worst paints the protests as anti-Semitic.
Attempts by US officials to suggest the encampments are dangerous (‘evidence’: an Oxford reader about terrorism and how to stop it) and co-ordinated by sinister world powers (‘evidence’: lots of students buy the same cheap tent) would be entirely laughable if they weren’t a symptom of a political and media class in lock-step with colonialist militarism, happy to bless America’s steady slide into actual fascism.
So, instead of talking about the encampments and presuming their motivations, we thought we’d join the many voices of conscience speaking to the people involved. And because we’re Christians, aware of the terrible role Christian Zionism continues to play in the suffering of Palestinians (including Palestinian Christians) as well as Israelis of all religions, we spoke to some of the Christians at the Oxford Gaza solidarity encampment. (“We” here really means Laura, who conceived, recorded and produced this episode.) They told us why they are there, what they think about using privilege for good and how they view the risks, as well as what happens in these vilified encampments. WARNING: they do talk about bake sales. Scary stuff.
Follow Oxford Action for Palestine @oxact4pal on Insta here for more from the people standing up for justice.
 
 
New to Beer Christianity?  Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, helpful and entertaining.
Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. He updates it according to his own wildly inconsistent neurodivergent schedule, but it’s a good read. Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 



Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and, probably, loads of other places. We love hearing from listeners. You can email us at beerchristianity AT yahoo DOT com. We often respond to mails we get on the show. And if you leave us a voicenote on Insta we might air your question on an episode.





There's also a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and random chat.
Support Beer Christianity...
Putting the show together costs a bunch of money in hosting fees, editing software, equipment and time. If you can, please help out by donating via Buy Me a Coffee (or in our case, a beer) where you can make one-off donations or do the membership thing.
Other things… Malky’s design work has graced many good magazines and music videos. You can find his stuff and even commission him if he’s not too busy, here. Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not literature but it’s quite fun if you like Supernatural, Africa or the Goth scene.
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be, while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice. 

Is evil structural, spiritual, or a bit of both?
Do acts of selfishness or sin have cascading effects that reverberate through history? Can we shine a light on contemporary Western politics by imagining how our politicians would react to a figure like Jesus and the movement he inspired?
All these questions and more (mostly about Israel and its war on the people of Palestine) are covered in this discussion between Jonty and Justin Butcher, Author and star of The Devil's Passion, which you can watch in London on Palm Sunday 2024.
The Devil's Passion is a one-man play that blends historical timeframes and spiritual metaphor to present Jesus as a threat not only to the earthly status quo but to the spiritual realms of darkness. Beer Christianity got to watch a performance recently and loved it. You should check it out too, if you're in Italy or London over the next few days, or get hold of the play's text here. 
Watch The Devil's Passion in London on Palm Sunday, 24 March 2024 . 
More info about Justin and the play. 
 
 
New to Beer Christianity?  Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, helpful and entertaining.
Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. He updates it according to his own wildly inconsistent neurodivergent schedule, but it’s a good read. Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 



Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and, probably, loads of other places. We love hearing from listeners. You can email us at beerchristianity AT yahoo DOT com. We often respond to mails we get on the show. And if you leave us a voicenote on Insta we might air your question on an episode.





There's also a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and random chat.
Support Beer Christianity...
Putting the show together costs a bunch of money in hosting fees, editing software, equipment and time. If you can, please help out by donating via Buy Me a Coffee (or in our case, a beer) where you can make one-off donations or do the membership thing.
Other things… Malky’s design work has graced many good magazines and music videos. You can find his stuff and even commission him if he’s not too busy, here. Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not literature but it’s quite fun if you like Supernatural, Africa or the Goth scene.
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be, while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice. 

Do you feel like you belong at your church? Have you found your people? Do you feel at home?
 
In this episode we explore how much dogma, belief, diversity, relatability and stage of life determine whether we feel 'at home' in church. 
Along the way we ask what makes a really good home group (spoiler: it may be Jonty and Malky), we discuss  wehter the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints is right for people who dislike Joseph Smith, and Laura stages a coup d' podcast with the help of her fancy new mic. 
Identity, dogma, community and inclusion, all in this episode of Beer Christianity. 
 
New to Beer Christianity? Hallelujah. Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, helpful and entertaining.








Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. He updates it according to his own wildly inconsistent neurodivergent schedule, but it’s a good read. Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 
Putting the show together costs a bunch of money in hosting fees, editing software, equipment and time. If you can, please help out by donating via Buy Me a Coffee (or in our case, a beer) where you can make one-off donations or do the membership thing.
Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and, probably, loads of other places. We love hearing from listeners. You can email us at beerchristianity AT yahoo DOT com. We often respond to mails we get on the show. And if you leave us a voicenote on Insta we might air your question on an episode.








There's also a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and random chat.
Other things… Malky’s design work has graced many good magazines and music videos. You can find his stuff and even commission him if he’s not too busy, here. Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not literature but it’s quite fun if you like Supernatural, Africa or the Goth scene.
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be, while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice. 

Is the essence of Christianity basically Judaism through a Zen lens? Can we understand some great artists and theologians better if we assume performative masculinity? Is there really a crack in everything? Is it where the light gets in? 
In Episode 92 of Beer Christianity we answer these and other important questions (like: Is later Leonard Cohen better than his earlier oeuvre? Is Avalanche the most devastatingly romantic song in history? Do you know what I'm thinking and who does vengeance belong to?) with Matthew Anderson, Pauline scholar, Leonard Cohen aficionado and author of Prophets of Love: The Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul. 
New to Beer Christianity? Welcome! Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, to be helpful and entertaining.
Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. 
Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. 
Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 
There's a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and weird chat. It's not terribly serious. 
Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not available in all good bookshops, but if you bought it and left a review that would probably make that more likely. 
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice. 
 

AI is going to save the world. Or kill us all. Or another, secret, third thing.
Trying to find a pattern of truth within all the cultural noise about Artificial Intelligence is pretty hard right now, so we turned to someone who has been working on and with AI since the 1980s.
Jean-Louis Ecochard has been in on the development of everythting from caller ID and online banking to video conferencing and e-health, and was one of the people behind what became WebMD. He now heads up the Center for the Digital Nonprofit and is Senior Head of Innovation for Nethope, an organisation that acts as a bridge between large NGOs with Big Tech. 
He's also a whole lot of fun, and helped us reframe our thinking about AI.
In this episode, we asked JL about the dangerous intersection between capitalism and AI (of course we did), the ethics of big data and what, if anything, humanity has to fear from this latest great jump forward in technology.
It's a fascinating conversation that we hope will help you think about this much-hyped subject in a fresh way.
We should also make clear that, if we didn't like JL so much or think this might reflect badly on him, this is the title we would have gone for:

See the kind of restraint we show? You are all very welcome. 
You can find out more about the Center for the Digital Nonprofit, its mission and research here. 
We also recommend The Eye of the Master: a Social History of Artificial Intelligence for a left-wing academic take of what, really, is being automated. 
 
New to Beer Christianity? Welcome! Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, to be helpful and entertaining.
Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. 
Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. 
Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 
There's a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and weird chat. It's not terribly serious. 
Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not available in all good bookshops, but if you bought it and left a review that would probably make that more likely. 
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice. 

Socialism means 'bad', right?  That's what many of our churches assume. Whenever anyone suggests Socialism as an option, many Christians have a set of anti-Socialist questions locked and loaded, ready to fire. We decided to put some of them to an expert.
To us, Socialism is really just a system of making sure nobody is left behind, of controlling greed and making sure it doesn't result in needless suffering. 
It's not a perfect system/ideology (and there are many variations, versions and expressions), but if you've ever felt like the Capitalist system most of us live under is not working, this episode may be for you.
In it, we talk to Matt McManus, a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan, and ask him for his responses to the most common Christian chestnuts (roasting on an open fire) that make Socialism out to be the devil. 
Questions we ask in this episode:
What about 'If you will not work you will not eat'? Isn't forcing people to be generous bad? Shouldn't Christians and churches help the poor rather than governments? Without the threat of poverty, won't people be lazy? If society got better, how would hte Church witness? Matt helps us understand Socialism, the long and rich history of Christian Socialism, and some potential answers to common objections to Socialism, while having a beer with Jonty. Malky and Laura were either unavailable or have become filthy capitalists. You decide.
Check out Matt McManus' writing for Jacobin magazine and his book, The Political Right and Equality.
You can find more from Beer Christianity at beerchristianity.co.uk, on most social media and on Substack.
 
New to Beer Christianity? Welcome! Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-imperialist, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, to be helpful and entertaining.
Follow Beer Christianity on Twitter: @beerxianity and find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. 
Beer Christianity also has a newsletter in which Jonty and guest authors comment on the news, theological issues and stuff that matters. 
Sign up to the Beer Christianity newsletter on Substack. 
There's a connected Show With Music on Spotify called New Old Music. Check it out if you like eclectic music and weird chat. It's not terribly serious. 
Jonty's novel, Incredulous Moshoeshoe and the Lightning Bird, is not available in all good bookshops, but if you bought it and left a review that would probably make that more likely. 
We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice.