Christian thought with room to think.
Things Not Seen Podcast brings authors and scholars into long-form conversations about faith under pressure. Recent episodes move from Franciscan spirituality and Christian ecology to digital ethics, depression, mortality, beloved community, and literary hope.
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Things Not Seen Podcast is a long-running interview show about Christian thought in contact with culture, books, ethics, and lived struggle. Its episodes are built around serious guests and recent books, but the conversations rarely stay at the level of publication talk. They move toward the pressure points underneath: what salvation means, how communities heal, how digital life changes desire, and how faith speaks when certainty is not enough. The register is careful and scholarly. It is also humane. Recent episodes suggest a show especially interested in Christianity as a way of reading the world, not just as a set of doctrines to repeat. John Sweeney’s conversation uses Franciscan spirituality to think about freedom, captivity, and experiencing God. Professor Kate Ott’s episode connects Christian social ethics to sex, technology, and the loss of ordinary meeting spaces. Timothy Morton brings ecology, Christian imagination, and philosophical surprise into the same frame. David W. Congdon’s appearance asks how claims about true Christianity depend on defining what counts as false. Jacob Goodson and Brad Elliott Stone discuss beloved community as a guide for ordinary life rather than a fantasy of perfect social harmony. James K.A. Smith’s rebroadcast turns mortality, time, and spiritual change into questions of formation. Jessica Hooten Wilson’s episode follows Flannery O’Connor, Dostoevsky, Percy, and McCarthy through suffering, darkness, and hope. Jessica Koblenz’s conversation treats depression as a theological reality that cannot simply be reduced to a problem to fix. The show’s strength is its patience. Guests are introduced through their work, then allowed to think in full paragraphs. The discussions are rooted in Christian vocabulary, yet they remain porous to philosophy, literature, ecology, and mental health. It is best for listeners who want religious conversation with intellectual friction and emotional seriousness. The show does not flatten disagreement. It asks how people might live faithfully amid deep differences, wounded communities, fragile bodies, and changing forms of public life.
Made for: For listeners drawn to theology, Christian literature, philosophy, and public ethics who want calm, substantial conversations with authors and scholars. It especially suits readers who like faith discussed through books, culture, suffering, and community.
What sets it apart: The show stands out for patient, book-centered conversations that let academic theology meet ordinary human questions. It treats Christian faith as intellectually demanding without losing sight of grief, embodiment, technology, and communal life.
"Things Not Seen" talks with people of faith who are working to make sense of why we are here and how we can all live together despite our deep differences in belief. The show is hosted by Dr. David Dault, and features guests from a broad spectrum of public life, with in-depth conversations about real struggles at the intersection of faith and culture.
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful conversation about changing faith and the Christian urge to turn an uncertain future into a mapped road.
David Dalt and James K.A. Smith linger over how Christians inhabit time, face the future, and live with the reality that faith can change in texture across a lifetime.
Andre Henry connects racial justice with rest, asking what movements require from the bodies that carry them.
Andre Henry frames racial justice as something lived in the body, not only argued in public. In conversation with David Dalt about All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep, the award-winning musician, writer, and activist describes racial capitalism as a force that rewards constant…
Jessica Houghton Wilson traces the patient, faith-shaped labor behind Flannery O'Connor's fiction.
David Dalt's conversation with Jessica Houghton Wilson turns Flannery O'Connor's unfinished Why Do the Heathen Rage into a study of the discipline beneath the fiction.
Faith, power, history, and hard arguments.
Torah talk with Shabbat-room energy.
Skepticism with a recovery room attached.
Reality creation at full volume.
Host David Dault interviews Jessica Hooten Wilson about her book 'Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage?', which examines O'Connor's unfinished novel and writing process.
David Dault interviews Andre Henry about his book 'All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep,' which explores racial justice activism and personal fallout.
An interview with Professor Eric Vanden Eykel about his book on the Magi, their history, and cultural significance.
Interview with Dawn Eden Goldstein, a Catholic theologian and author, discussing her journey from rock historian to theologian and her work on healing sexual wounds.
David Dalt interviews Jon M.
David Dalt interviews Professor Kate Ott about her book 'Sex, Tech, and Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age', discussing how digital technology affects social spaces and interpersonal skills.
David Dalt interviews Timothy Morton about his book 'Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology' and the concept of consent in ecological thought.
David W.
Jacob Goodson and Brad Elliott Stone discuss their book 'Building Beloved Community in a Wounded World' and the concept of beloved community as a guiding ideal for everyday life.
David Dalt interviews James K.
William G.
Jessica Hooten Wilson discusses the themes of suffering and hope in the works of Flannery O'Connor and Dostoevsky.
Jessica Coblentz discusses her book 'Dust in the Blood' and a theology of life with depression, challenging the notion that depression must be fixed and instead exploring how it can be incorporated into one's life.
David Dalt interviews Dawn Eden Goldstein about her journey from rock historian to Catholic theologian and author of books on healing sexual wounds.