With great anticipation, Oliver and Ante connected with their friend and colleague Andrew Tompkins, Assistant Professor of Mission and Intercultural Theology at Andrews University, to discuss the fascinating topic of resonance. Taking the work of the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa as their starting point, they explore Rosa's critique of modernity and contemporary society, the focus on competition, control, and acceleration, the all-pervasiveness of instrumental reason, how these forces impact all levels of human interactions and institutions, including religious ones, what is lost in the process, the notion of alienation as the absence of meaningful relationships, the concept of resonance itself, whether it should be viewed as a something that happens to us or as a result of human intentionality, how our perceptions of God are themselves beholden to these cultural forces, and how a spirituality of resonance might be retrieved.EPISODE QUOTE"To an unhappy or, in extreme cases, depressive person, the world appears bleak, drab, hostile, and empty. Such a person at the same time experiences their own self as cold, rigid, dead, numb. The axes of resonance between self and world here lie mute. Does this not also imply, conversely, that a successful life is characterized by open, vibrating, breathing axes of resonance that fill the world with color and sound and allow the self to be moved, to be sensitive and rich?" (Rosa, Resonance, 9)EPISODE MATERIALRosa, ResonanceRosa, The Uncontrollability of the WorldCONNECT WITH USWebsiteFacebookEmail* * * * * NEW TO THE PODCAST?In this podcast, we engage in free-ranging conversations on life, faith, philosophy, ethics, relationships, culture, experience, and all matters existential. As the show title points out, we approach these things "in the middle of things" by grabbing hold of them unsystematically and provisionally. Concerning "about us," we are friends and verbal sparring partners who also happen to be colleagues at Andrews University. - Oliver Glanz and Ante Jerončič