Episode Details

Brian Zahnd, a Christian leader and pastor of forty years and four-times pilgrim of the Camino de Santiago, completed this remarkable (and quite short) book, Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things. You can read it in a long afternoon or a few sessions of a couple of hours each, sitting outside – perhaps under an oak or a fig tree – with a cup of tea. It’s conversational in tone; it’s clearly the fruit of decades of writing good sermons. Brian is talking to the skepticism—sometimes cynicism—of our times to show (empirically) that more is going on than we take for granted. He also discusses God’s great project for us here in this world, building on St. Augustine, Dallas Willard, and the Gospels. I really enjoyed this insightful book and our meandering conversation.

• Pastor Brian’s website
• Pastor Brian’s website.
• The Reverend: A Fantasy by Pastor Brian, here in four parts, and here as the audio play, read by Boyd Barret.
• “The Last Train out of Monkeytown,” a poem by Brian Zahnd.
• Here is the book, Unseen Existences, from Intervarsity Press (IVP), and here it is on Amazon.
• Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (1998).
• Carlos Eire, They Flew (2023).
• The story of the radio that turned on (told by Michael Shermer about the incident happened on the occasion of his marriage).

More conversations with Pastor Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics:

• Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 122: The Tree of Life: “no one who loves the way of Grace ever comes to a bad end”
• Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 92: A Hidden Life: The Life and Martyrdom of Bl. Franz Jägerstätter (1907-1943)
• Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 82: The Wood between the Worlds: Why Death on the Cross?

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