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John Murdock

Host of Brass Spittoon
John Murdock

John Murdock is an attorney and globetrotting localist who worked for over a decade in Washington, D.C.; left the Capital Beltway to write from a family farmhouse deep in the heart of the Lone Star state; taught law in South Korea; and then rode the housing waves of Boise. In 2023, John left the crisp dry air of Idaho and returned to the stifling humidity of his native east Texas. His writing is catalogued at johnmurdock.org.

Articles by John Murdock

Imagining Life Beyond the Machine: Eric Miller and Jason Peters

Eric Miller, biographer of Christopher Lasch and a professor at Geneva College, plus longtime porcher Jason Peters of Hillsdale College address the role of imagination in shaping our shared reality. …

Paul Kingsnorth and “The Blizzard of the World”

Paul Kingsnorth delivered the keynote address at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin.  With help from a diverse band of fellow travelers including Jewish-Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, Anglo-Catholic social…
John Murdock
November 14, 2023

Paul Kingsnorth’s Opening Prayer

Paul Kingsnorth, the keynote speaker at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin, begins things with a bonus talk on the power of prayer in a desecrated western world.    Highlights …
John Murdock
November 13, 2023

Bill Kauffman in Conversation

Bill Kauffman, author of multiple books including Poetry Night at the Ballpark and long the closing speaker at FPR conferences, talks about the origins of Front Porch Republic and his…
John Murdock
September 24, 2023

Bono’s Search for Home

To hear that message of tough love for which he seems to be yearning, those who represent the church to Bono will have to have the courage to break through…

After Virtual: Civic Life

The After Virtual conference podcast series closes with a focus on civics and cemeteries.  Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism, talks on, well, plutocrats and socialism (plus the importance of…

After Virtual: Health

The penultimate session from the FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods addresses health.  Philosopher Adam Smith from the University of Dubuque and medical doctor Brian Volck,…

After Virtual: Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade, the keynote speaker at the After Virtual conference, has traded global finance for skid row photography.  Chris discusses his journey from Wall Street board rooms to a booth…
John Murdock
December 20, 2022

After Virtual: Education

The second episode from the FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods looks at education.  Jeff Polet discusses walking away from Hope.  Angel Adams Parham talks about…
John Murdock
November 29, 2022

After Virtual: The Church

For the first of our episodes from September’s FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods, we go to church.  Carl Trueman, Gregory Hogg, and Charlie Cotherman share…
John Murdock
November 14, 2022

Mark Mitchell on Plutocratic Socialism 

Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism:  The Future of Private Property and the Fate of the Middle Class and President of Front Porch Republic, joins the podcast.  Mitchell and Murdock…

Two Yells for Football?

If beer and football are just the modern bread and circuses of a declining empire, then these are spectacles best avoided. However, if such gridiron microcosms of the human experience…
John Murdock
October 18, 2022