{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Progressive Christians Podcast","title":"Spiritual But Not Religious? Liz Bucar on Wellness Culture and the Theology Nobody Notices","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":4457,"description":"Is wellness culture actually spiritual, or just another consumer trend? If you identify as spiritual but not religious, there is no shortage of wellness trends promising peace and health without the \"baggage\" of religion. But when you remove the religious meaning from practices like yoga, you are left with a pretty shallow spiritual practice.\nThis week we sit down with scholar and author Liz Bucar to dig into her new book, Beyond Wellness. Liz's argument: wellness culture — Goop, energy healing, \"manifesting your best life\" — runs on Protestant theology with the \"god\" quietly removed. To go mainstream, every wellness practice had to be \"Protestantized\": individualized, interior, something you do alone.\nWe go deep on:\n* The \"Not God\" problem — Liz's candid story about her father's alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous, and why the hardest and most theological step in recovery is simply admitting I am not the higher power.\n*Why individualism fails us — Liz's case that real community isn't just who shows up for you, it's who you show up for, and that comes with actual obligation Tech-bro eschatology — how a pessimistic belief that \"AI is going to kill us all anyway\" quietly gives billionaires permission to stop being ethical right now\n* Race, whiteness, and wellness culture — why Liz naming her own entitlement as a white scholar matters, and how that framing lands differently than when marginalized voices are forced to do it alone\n* Discomfort vs. danger — the distinction that growth requires sitting in discomfort, and that our instinct to avoid it is really a desire for control\nThis conversation also continues a real dialogue between our two projects: our take on one of Liz's Substack essays shaped an earlier episode of ours on State Rep. James Talarico — and Liz wrote a follow-up essay directly responding to what we said. Read both: \"What if Trevor  Noah  is right about...\" and her response, \"Your Eschatology Is Showing.\"\nChapters: 0:00 - Cold Open & The Hidden...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/y-Gf_09Rl-mTEgIh2HhENVexgw2OzV9Z0FUFpGUksFk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hOWQ5/MWZmMDdlYzc1OWM4/NjE0M2NlZWMzZTk2/YTA4YS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}