Your Sunday Drive

The country has never seemed more divided. New data suggests that many Americans think it's "time to split the country." Are we in for a new Civil War?
We use an article by David French, a quote from Andrew Yang, the recent controversy surrounding Facebook, the current congressional fight over Biden's infrastructure bill and the debt ceiling, and other angles to take a look at this topic. What underlies such division? How is media and social media involved? Would there even be something ultimately "wrong" with an actual split in the country? Most vitally, how should individual Christians and the church navigate the *opportunity* of our polarized times?
In our second segment, we shift focus to the uber popular Netflix show Squid Game, relating it to another current cultural obsession, the Gabby Petito case. Why are people fascinated by "true crime" stories and violent media such as Squid Game? What are the dangers and what elements of the redemptive can we discover in this human impulse?
Come along for Your Sunday Drive - quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.
Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive
Required attributions: Straight Through by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/; Source images via Google.

With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there is war in Europe. We discuss the current crisis, asking questions such as: How should Christians think about war and physical conflict in general? Is pacifism the right way? Is there ever a time to *not* "turn the other cheek?" What is it about such times that evokes powerful ideas about good and evil, heroes and villains? What deep truth lies behind these conflict-borne intuitions?
We also take a moment for the pop cultural pulse, quickly covering The Batman, Elden Ring and In Search of a Kingdom.
Come along for Your Sunday Drive - quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.
Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive
Required attributions: Straight Through by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/; Source images via Google.

Have you ever wondered "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid" ? We attempt to give an answer by looking at a popular Atlantic article with that title from cultural commentator Jonathan Haidt. Points of discussion include social media, its influence and some possible ways to curtail its negative effects.
Sure... social media is a problem and has amplified our fragmentation, like languages at the Tower of Babel, but isn't there a deeper issue? Yes - what's currently being discussed as "The Meaning Crisis" by a growing number of voices, such as Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, Jonathan Vervaeke, Paul Vander Klay, Johnathan Pageau, Tim DeRoche and others. We look at this current moment, try to unpack some of its causes and history, and ultimately contextualize it with the Christian faith.
Popular (and excellent) show This Is Us reaches its final few episodes and Nate has thoughts. What does our current pop culture have to say about things like love and marriage? How should a Christian respond when non-Christian ideas about such topics are presented and even celebrated in our pop culture?
Come along for Your Sunday Drive - quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.
Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive
Required attributions: Straight Through by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/; Source images via Google.

There's always so much in the news and current culture! How can a Christian develop a solid take on so many things? Does a Christian even need to always have a take? Why? What principles can guide us as we attempt to see and communicate things correctly from a Christian point of view?
With wisdom on having a solid Christian take in place, we tackle a grab bag of current topics to put it into practice. Things that come up (in rando order): Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, Spotify, Wordle, The Oscars, The Superbowl, The Olympics, Pokemon GO, The Book of Boba Fett, God Reforms Hearts by Thaddeus Williams, the current Canadian trucker protests, mask mandates, abortion, free will and predestination (more later?), ice skating, small groups at CiD, Epic by John Eldredge.. plenty more unremembered items :)
Come along for Your Sunday Drive - quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.
Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive
Required attributions: Straight Through by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/; Source images via Google.

Back to school time is always busy and full of new beginnings. In this new episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast, we get together (for the first episode since June!) to catch up and have a catch-all conversation about all things related to this time of year.
In the end, we reflect on how easy it is to be anxious at times like these... and how good it is to be able to cast our anxieties on God.
Note: When we say catch all, we *mean* catch all :) Topics include: What's new at the Church in Drive, cancel culture, book bans, education in general, sharing back-to-school photos on Facebook, how we create community even when it's more challenging, how college kids are still kids, how there's a sweet-spot agewise for politicians, the Forward party, avoiding the ditches of extremes, Randal Rauser and *Progressive Christians Love Jesus Too,* grammar quibbles and the constructedness of language, the new football season and the Big 10 going "coast to coast" (like Space Ghost), *1177 B.C.,* *The Old Man,* *Better Call Saul,* *Nope,* *Everything Everywhere All at Once,* chilling and doing bird stuff, etc. etc.
Come along for Your Sunday Drive - quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.
Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive
Required attributions: Straight Through by Groove Bakery | https://groovebakery.com; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/; Source images via Google.