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Interior States
- Essays
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
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Publisher's summary
Winner of The Believer Book Award for Nonfiction
"Meghan O'Gieblyn's deep and searching essays are written with a precise sort of skepticism and a slight ache in the heart. A first-rate and riveting collection." (Lorrie Moore)
A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere.
What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts?
The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country". She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still", and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the 15 superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection.
The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture ("Hell"), a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design ("Species of Origin"), the paradoxes of Christian Rock ("Sniffing Glue"), Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages ("Midwest World"), and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity ("Ghosts in the Cloud").
Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a wholehearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
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Critic reviews
"One of the most consistently absorbing collection of essays I've read in a long time. Meghan O'Gieblyn is at times rueful, at times hard-hitting, but hers is a distinctly independent-minded and nuanced voice." (Daphne Merkin)
"For insight into America's eschatological mind-set, and into fundamentalist culture generally, there may be no more eloquent guide than Meghan O'Gieblyn, who was raised in the faith and then - painfully, reluctantly - abandoned it... What she captures most vividly here is Christianity's indomitable reach... Thrillingly alive, her essays are testaments to exquisite attentiveness, each painstakingly stitched and emitting a pleasing, old-fashioned whiff of starch." (The New York Times Book Review)
“Comparing O’Gieblyn’s writing on the Midwest to Didion’s essays on California might seem too easy, but the comparison is apt. Both authors seem to be looking for a way out of their homeland, even as they admit they’ll probably never leave.” (Bookforum)
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In this compelling new book - drawn from conversations with and narrated by award-winning Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. - Barron, founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, proclaims in vivid language the goodness and truth of the Catholic tradition. Through Barron's smart, practical, artistic, and theological observations - as well as through personal anecdotes about everything from engaging atheists on YouTube to his days as a young die-hard baseball fan from Chicago - To Light a Fire on the Earth covers prodigious ground.
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Not by Bishop Barron
- By M. Waters on 05-22-18
By: Bishop Robert Barron, and others
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The Next Christians
- The Good News About the End of Christian America
- By: Gabe Lyons
- Narrated by: Gabe Lyons
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Turn on a cable news show or pick up any news magazine, and you get the impression that Christian America is on its last leg. The once dominant faith is now facing rapidly declining church attendance, waning political influence, and an abysmal public perception. More than 76% of Americans self-identify as Christians, but many today are ashamed to carry the label. While many Christians are bemoaning their faith’s decline, Gabe Lyons is optimistic that Christianity’s best days are yet to come.
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Optimistic about the church
- By Ellen Gilmartin on 09-12-24
By: Gabe Lyons
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Sex, Mom, and God
- How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics - and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway
- By: Frank Schaeffer
- Narrated by: Frank Schaeffer
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Alternating between laugh-out-loud scenes from his childhood and acidic ruminations on the present state of an America he and his famous fundamentalist parents helped create, best-selling author Frank Schaeffer asks what the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs and the paranoid fantasies of the “right-wing echo chamber” are really all about. Here’s a hint: sex.
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Entertaining and enlightening
- By Listens-a-lot on 11-16-11
By: Frank Schaeffer
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Speaking of Faith
- By: Krista Tippett
- Narrated by: Krista Tippett
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating story of her life and conversations, the host of public radio's Speaking of Faith describes her journey of spiritual exploration - a journey shared by countless others.
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Clarity of Faith
- By Charles on 06-01-07
By: Krista Tippett
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Church: Why Bother?
- By: Philip Yancey
- Narrated by: Maurice England
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Insights from Philip Yancey's personal pilgrimage away from and back to the church. Why are there so many more professing Christians than churchgoing Christians? Is it because something is wrong with the church? In his candid, thought-provoking manner, award-winning author Philip Yancey reveals the reasons behind his own journey back from skepticism to wholehearted participation in the church, and weighs the church's human failings against its compelling worth as the body of Christ.
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Indeed, Why Bother with Church?
- By David on 07-10-17
By: Philip Yancey
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The Faith Club
- A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew - Three Women Search for Understanding
- By: Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, Priscilla Warner
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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After September 11, Ranya Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, faced constant questions about Islam, God, and death from her children, the only Muslims in their classrooms. Inspired by a story about Muhammad, Ranya reached out to two other mothers to write an interfaith children's book that would highlight the connections between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
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Wow I'm so glad I read this. I had no idea.
- By Michelle Pierce on 05-06-15
By: Ranya Idliby, and others
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Finding God in the Waves
- How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science
- By: Mike McHargue
- Narrated by: Mike McHargue
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In Finding God in the Waves, "Science Mike" draws on his personal experience to tell the unlikely story of how science led him back to faith. Among other revelations, we learn what brain scans reveal about what happens when we pray; how fundamentalism affects the psyche; and how God is revealed not only in scripture but in the night sky, in subatomic particles, and in us.
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For those wrestling with the Christian faith
- By steve on 09-14-16
By: Mike McHargue
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America's Prophet
- Moses and the American Story
- By: Bruce Feiler
- Narrated by: Bruce Feiler
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The exodus story is America's story. Moses is our real founding father. In this groundbreaking book, New York Times best-selling author Bruce Feiler travels through touchstones in American history and traces the biblical prophet's influence from the Mayflower through today.
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Another great book
- By TR on 11-06-09
By: Bruce Feiler
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Costly Grace
- An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love
- By: Rob Schenck
- Narrated by: Rob Schenck
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Rob Schenck’s extraordinary life has been at the center of the intersection between evangelical Christianity and modern politics. Attacked by partisans on both sides of the aisle, he has been called a "right-wing hate monger", the "ultimate D.C. power-broker", a "traitor", and "turncoat." Now, this influential spiritual adviser to America’s political class chronicles his controversial, sometimes troubling career in this revelatory and often shocking memoir. He reflects on his path to God, his unconscious abandonment of his principles, and his return to the convictions that guide him.
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One of the most moving testimonials ever heard!
- By E. Wright on 07-10-18
By: Rob Schenck
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A New Kind of Christianity
- Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
- By: Brian D. McLaren
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren. In this much anticipated book, McLaren examines ten questions facing today's church - questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is....
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Clear, Careful, Considerate Confrontation
- By Celia on 09-10-12
By: Brian D. McLaren
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The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Rumors of God
- Experience the Kind of Faith You've Only Heard About
- By: Darren Whitehead, Jon Tyson
- Narrated by: Darren Whitehead, Jon Tyson
- Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Where is the life God promised us? Life is busy. We live like slaves to our fast-paced, suffocating schedules. We spend our energy and time in triviality, relegating God to the background. He seems distant to us, and we resist the idea that God wants to give, say, and show us more; we dismiss it as rumor. But Jesus calls us to a better way. Another dream - an unimagined future. Close the gap between what you hear about and what you see.
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Excellent book
- By S. HARRIS on 06-24-15
By: Darren Whitehead, and others
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The Harvard Psychedelic Club
- How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America
- By: Don Lattin
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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It is impossible to overstate the cultural significance of the four men described in Don Lattin's The Harvard Psychedelic Club. Huston Smith, tirelessly working to promote cross-cultural religious and spiritual tolerance. Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, inspiring generations with his mantra "be here now". Andrew Weil, undisputed leader of the holistic medicine revolution. And, of course, Timothy Leary, the charismatic, rebellious counterculture icon and LSD guru.
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A Fascinating, Engaging Story, Expertly Told
- By Gillian Culff on 12-12-19
By: Don Lattin
What listeners say about Interior States
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Penny Diggs
- 07-28-19
More than just essays an explanation of Trump
This was a collection of essays from and about the impact of Midwest US culture. I found it enlightening and most importantly was introduced to a couple of new concepts: Transhumanism and the #Exile movement within the Evangelical community. The latter actually clarified for me the question of how "Evangelical Christians" can support so unwaveringly a man such as Donald Trump. It was an eye opener to say the least. I give this book the highest of recommendations to those of you trying to make sense of Trump's popularity among the Religous Right
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- Roy
- 09-27-23
Love the content, and the narration
I loved God human animal machine, and was very happy to find more from this author.
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- Colby
- 11-11-18
If you FLYOVER this one, you will miss out!!
As a fellow flyover state resident, I loved the push and pull of how we are perceived. Yes, our lives are a bit quieter than the streets of Manhattan, and we do not have the same political gravitas of San Francisco, but we are populated with real people, real issues, and real writers talented enough to tell our stories with a gravitas of their own. Sometimes we even like the fact that we are underestimated. I live in Nebraska, which recently made national headlines with our new tourism slogan, - Honestly, It's Not for Everyone - This slogan is next to pictures of people having a lot of fun, and secondary taglines that mock the misperceptions of what Nebraska is like.
Meghan takes us on an adventure, not just of some truly beautiful places in the Midwest, but to some of the beautiful spot in her soul. She shares with us the real struggles everyone can relate to, whether on a farm or a beach. She even proves to us that there are beaches in Michigan.
Regardless where you live, who/what you believe in, there is something for you in this book.
This is O'Gieblyn's first full-length book, but I feel it brings together a collection of essays that are great stand-alone pieces you can read one at a time in any order, yet have a connectivity that makes it a great audiobook to listen to - perhaps on a long drive to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving in Iowa, where there really is nothing to see...(take that, Iowa!) #spiritual #funny #Midwest #loveofplace #home #tagsgiving and #sweepstakes
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- LH
- 12-19-22
Love Meghan O’Gieblyn!
I first read God Human Animal Machine and just couldn’t wait to read more of her work! This volume of essays did not disappoint and provided a fuller picture of her thoughts, perspectives, and life experiences - we share a very similar upbringing and a nearly parallel path out of religion, as well as being the same age so I find her perspectives particularly relevant and enlightening in understanding my own past. I will continue following her work and look forward to more volumes of essays and listening to this collection again. Narration was excellent as well!
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