Naming the Real

Religious and political movements often begin with transformative vision. But what happens when preserving the institution becomes more important than embodying its values? Using evangelicalism as a case study, Brandon...

Purity cultures divide the world into rigid categories. This episode explores non-duality, both/and thinking, and unitive centrism as a more spacious way of discerning reality—one that maintains moral conviction without...

We reduce Jesus when faith becomes a system for sorting people into saved and unsaved, pure and impure. This episode explores how distorted ideas of heaven and sin help us avoid transformation—and invites us toward a...

We rarely encounter Jesus without bringing our own fears, hopes, politics, theology, and longing for certainty with us. In this episode, we explore how purity cultures can shape the way we see him—and how genuine...

In this episode, Brandon explores how religious, political, and cultural purity codes can become a trap—turning morality into anxiety management and faithfulness into control. Through a Zen parable, John 9, Dallas...

In this episode, Brandon explores religious rigidity as the attempt to manage anxiety through certainty, purity, and control. Through Jesus' warnings, the older brother, and the rise of politicized faith, he asks how...

Brandon explores religious rigidity as the attempt to manage anxiety through certainty, purity, and control. Using Jesus' warnings, the parable of the two sons, and the rise of politicized purity codes, this episode...

In this third episode of the Spirituality over Purity series, Brandon explores the limits of religious purity cultures and the necessary crisis they create. Religion can offer belonging and structure, but it cannot...

What if purity culture is not ultimately about morality, but belonging? Brandon Cook explores the inner psychology beneath political, religious, and personal purity systems, revealing how anxiety, inner critics, and the...

Why do we keep dividing the world into "us" and "them"? This episode explores purity culture as the hidden force shaping our religion, politics, and identity—offering certainty and belonging while quietly distorting...

Part II continues the conversation with a deeper look at how evangelicalism shaped political imagination and spiritual formation. It explores transactional faith, the loss of moral imagination, and the need for a third...

Brandon Cook, host of Naming the Real, joins The Vining Center to reflect on growing up evangelical, where faith shaped but eventually constrained him. He explores polarization, collective illusion, and spiritual...

What if the "other side" actually holds something you need? This episode explores how left and right each protect essential values—individual and communal, past and future—and invites a more human way forward. By...