Subversive Orthodoxy
Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise
Subversive Orthodoxy is a podcast for people who sense that something vital has been lost in public life, moral imagination, and religious conversation. Many listeners carry fatigue with politics and ideological conflict, yet remain drawn to the depth and realism of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
This podcast often resonates with listeners who no longer fit comfortably within dominant religious or political categories, yet remain committed to truth, responsibility, and love of neighbor.
The conversations on this show are largely shaped by the book Subversive Orthodoxy and the wider body of literature it engages. Episodes draw from theological, philosophical, and literary voices that take faith seriously as a way of seeing and inhabiting the world.
The podcast explores how an ancient faith continues to form human dignity, responsibility, and hope within modern life. Attention is given to formation rather than commentary, and to meaning rather than alignment.
Through conversation, reflection, and creative engagement, the show seeks to recover humility, restore attention, and re-humanize our neighbors in a distracted age.
If this way of thinking resonates, you are welcome to listen and join the ongoing work.
Hosted by:
Travis Mullen and Robert "Larry" Inchausti, Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Episodes
19 episodes
Episode #19: The Most Radical Thing She Did Was Stay — Dorothy Day (part two) on Presence, Personal Conversion, and Why Holiness Might Be What You Actually Want
“True worship is to work for justice and care for the poor and oppressed” sounds inspiring until you remember what that work actually feels like at 2 a.m. when you are tired, irritable, and out of patience. We sit with Dorothy Day long enough t...
Episode #18: Don't Call Me a Saint — Dorothy Day (part one), the Woman Nobody Could Domesticate
Dorothy Day is the kind of person everyone tries to claim and nobody can fully control. One side calls her a socialist. Another side calls her a saint. She answered both with the same refusal: don’t use a label to dismiss the demand her life pu...
Episode #17: The Diagnosis You Didn't Know You Needed: Walker Percy on the Malaise, the Moviegoer, and the Art of Being Actually Alive
WALKER PERCY: EPISODE SUMMARYYou can be comfortable, busy, and entertained and still be in despair. That’s the Kierkegaard line Walker Percy puts at the front of The Moviegoer, and it becomes our doorway into a bigger question: wha...
Episode #16: The Saint of Holy Groveling: Jack Kerouac, Catholic Mystic, and the God He Could Never Outrun
The Saint of Holy Groveling, the Hungover Mystic, and a deep, aching longing for GodJack Kerouac is remembered as the voice of the open road, speed, freedom, and excess, yet beneath the motion lived a deep spiritual loneliness. He carrie...
Episode #15: Field Notes #1: What Existentialism Gets Right — and What It Costs You
We trace existentialism from Kierkegaard’s pivot to the single individual before God to the secular push for meaning without God, then test what still helps in a noisy, anxious culture. We offer a grounded practice of stillness and a challenge ...
Episode #14: The Silent Kiss That Answers Everything: Dostoevsky, the Grand Inquisitor, and Why Freedom Terrifies Us — Part Three
We trace Dostoevsky’s polyphonic craft through the Karamazov brothers, probe Ivan’s moral revolt, and unpack the Grand Inquisitor’s claim that people prefer miracle, mystery, and authority to freedom. A silent kiss, not an argument, becomes the...
Episode #13: The Man Responsible for Everyone: Dostoevsky on Goodness, the Underground, and the Love That Won't Collapse — Part Two
In Part Two of our Dostoevsky series we move from diagnosing the underground to exploring the way out. Dostoevsky shows us that the true hero is not the exceptional man but the good man, and goodness is only remarkable in its ability to love wh...
Episode #12: The Psychology of the Underground: How Dostoevsky Mapped the War Between Mind and Heart — Part One
Fyodor Dostoevsky revolutionized literature by creating battlegrounds of the mind and heart where faith and darkness constantly struggle for dominance. His concept of "the psychology of the underground" offers profound insights into human natur...
Episode #11: Avoiding Spiritual Nihilism: How to Deconstruct Every System and Still Keep Your Soul — Nikolai Berdyaev (Part Two)
Episode #11: Life After Deconstruction, How to Be Free Without Losing Your Soul: Nikolai Berdyaev (part two)
Episode #10: No System Can Contain the Soul: On Freedom, the Creative Act, and the Person — Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev challenges both Marxism and bourgeois liberalism with his prophetic vision of freedom rooted in Orthodox Christianity, not in political centrism.• Exiled Russian philosopher who viewed freedom as cosmic and primordial—t...
Episode #9: Joy as an Act of War: Chesterton on Nihilism, Technology, and the Orthodoxy That Refuses to Stop Laughing — Part Two
Travis Mullen and Professor Robert Inchausti explore G.K. Chesterton's insights on how Christianity transcends cultural collapse and continually renews itself throughout history. They examine Chesterton's paradoxical understanding of orthodoxy ...
Episode #8: The Most Joyful Apologist Christianity Ever Produced: Chesterton, Wonder as Rebellion, and the Wit That Outlasts Despair — Part One
Wonder as rebellion. That's the surprising path Gilbert Keith Chesterton blazed through the intellectual landscape of early 20th century England—and precisely why his voice feels so startlingly relevant to our screen-addicted, anxiety-ridden mo...
Episode #7: The Patron Saint of Deconstruction, The Apostle of Paradox & Radical Faith — Soren Kierkegaard
This episode dives deep into the restless brilliance of Søren Kierkegaard — the 19th-century philosopher, outsider theologian, and reluctant father of both existentialism and Christian authenticity. If you've ever doubted the plastic gods, burn...
Episode #6: Grace Finds the Man Who Never Earned It: Goethe's Faust, Restless Striving, and the God Who Saves Anyway
What if grace isn’t something you deserve, or even understand—but something that finds you in the middle of your restless, stumbling search for meaning?Did Faust accidentally find grace?That’s one of the most provocative ...
Episode #5: Every Creature Is Cherished: William Blake on Divine Love, Miscarriage, Mercy, and the Infinite Hidden in Small Things — Part Two
William Blake's visionary poetry represents a revolutionary approach to spirituality, offering a third way between rigid religious dogma and cold scientific materialism through the power of imagination as a divine faculty.• Blake's poem...
Episode #4: The Prophet Against the Enlightenment: William Blake on Imagination, Newton's Dead God, and the Third Way — Part One
The latest conversation on Subversive Orthodoxy plunges deep into the heart of creativity and belief through the lens of two iconic figures: William Blake and Johann von Goethe. This episode invites you on a journey as we unravel the intricate ...
Episode #3: The Artist Who Refused to Disappear: Boris Pasternak on Creation, Tyranny, and the Soul That Outlasts the State
Boris Pasternak’s life exemplifies the struggle between art and tyranny, highlighting how literary expression can serve as an act of resistance against oppression and a journey toward spiritual rediscovery. Through his experiences, Pasternak ch...
Episode #2: The Witness Who Broke the Soviet Lie: Solzhenitsyn on Truth, Suffering, and the Soul That Tyranny Cannot Touch
This episode explores Alexander Solzhenitsyn's transformative journey from a loyal communist and soldier to a profound voice against tyranny through his experiences in the Gulag. We discuss the themes of resilience, faith, and truth as vital to...
Episode #1: Intro: Outlaws, Mystics, and Revolutionaries — What 20 Forgotten Christians Can Teach a World Losing Its Mind
What do these 20 outlaws, revolutionaries, and mystics have in common? What if timeless wisdom from unlikely figures could speak prophetically into our present day? In this episode, we explore this question with a...
