Michael begins the 2026 season of the Renew the Arts podcast with an exploration of the benefits and costs of technology, the history of the book, and how the adoption of AI will force humanity into a crisis of meaning and discipline.
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Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Michael answers an international mailbag full of great questions to close out 2025 on the Renew the Arts podcast, including discussions of how Christians should approach non-family-friendly biblical content, what makes art good, baking and cooking as an art, the Holy Spirit’s role in improvisational art as a prayer offering, and much more. Stay tuned at the end for “Spirit Move,” by Civilized Creature, featuring Isaac Wheadon, from the 2024 album Whose House.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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26k for 2026 Renew the Arts Fundraiser Sex ’n Hip-Hop with Sho Baraka Hosea, by Rachel Wilhelm 1:07 — Go Bleep Yourself The Nothing Human Podcast (first fifteen episodes on Three Powers of the Human Spirit) Sight (2024 Angel Studios Movie) The Martyr Made Podcast (Daryl Cooper) Julianna Schlager (Ballet 5:8) “Fellowship with the Worms,” by Lindsey Priest “Forever Overhead,” by David Foster Wallace Photay J. Lind, Rotations Kevin Schlereth, Settle In Brother James, Be Alive Zane Vickery, “All Things New” Warbler, “America!” [Official Music Video] Prayerbook, by Mike RoelofsMichael collects together the top five things he thinks churches should communicate to their artists, based on his decades of work in the Christian arts space. One thing you might realize after listening to this episode: these five things should be communicated to pretty much every member of a church. Nonetheless, Michael discusses why artists typically don’t hear or feel these things communicated in most churches.
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Two Biggest Lies Christians Believe about the Arts Why Are So Many Christian Artists At Odds With the Church? Incarnational Evangelism: Preaching the Word to a Words-Weary WorldMichael explains the popular dismissal of fiction and the imagination, and explores the edifying uses of fiction for overcoming the limitations of one’s own lived experience and to bypass our natural resistance to the truth.
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“Are Sermons Enough to Preach the Whole Counsel of God?” (Part 1 and Part 2) “If You Don’t Get Poetry, You Don’t Get the Bible” Ep. 58: Art and the Evangelical Imagination (with Karen Swallow Prior) The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane “Sonny’s Blues,” by James Baldwin Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky 1984 and Brave New World Compared Demons, by Fyodor DostoevskyMichael compares and contrasts the great way that seeks first worldly prominence with the little way of the cross, defending and explaining the priority that Renew the Arts has placed on the little things that actually accord with obedience to God.
Stay tuned at the end to hear “Love Everybody,” a track from Be Alive, the just-released new record from Porchlight artist Brother James.