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Young Heretics

BONUS: J.J. Kimche on Science and Religion

Young Heretics

Spencer Klavan

Society & Culture, Education

4.94.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I'm very pleased to introduce a new Young Heretics feature. Since I've been teaching at the University of Austin, Texas, I've had the chance to get to know some brilliant, energetic, and charismatic professors. And none more so than J.J. Kimche, assistant professor of religion and philosophy. I got together with J.J. while in Austin for a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation on the intertwining histories of science and religion. Does faith inform, or compete with science? Does science enrich, or undermine faith? We talked about where things are headed now and how the liberal arts can inform our high-tech age. This is the first of hopefully many conversations I'll record with J.J. and other UATX professors as part of my ongoing work at the university. Enjoy!

Sign up for J.J.'s newsletter, "The Jew from Nowhere": https://firstthings.com/introducing-the-jew-from-nowhere/

Check out the NEW episode of Klavans on the Culture, my new podcast with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://youtu.be/ZJpXAoIlbxI?si=3uzICi-kmeShxezu

Sign up for Hebrew, Greek, or Latin courses at the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics/

Take a look at my book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science through Faith: https://amzn.to/4mN9vBP

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey guys, welcome back to Young Heretics. We are in the midst. We've just kicked off our Dante series. We're going through the Divine Comedy together. I'm having so much fun. I've got another episode of that ready to drop soon. I'm going to drop those about every other week. I'm going to try to keep that pace up until we make it to paradise, so all the way through. But in the meantime, in between, I thought I'd sprinkle in some other content just to do some other subjects.

0:24.1

And I had a really cool opportunity while I was in Austin, teaching at the University of Austin, Texas, to sit down and do a podcast episode with one of my fellow professors.

0:34.6

And I think I'm going to do this anytime I'm out there. It's just chat with some of the faculty

0:39.5

because they're brilliant and so fascinating

0:42.6

and easy to talk to.

0:45.2

And this is going to be the first of these.

0:47.2

So I sat down this time around with Professor J.J. Kimchi,

0:52.4

or Kim Khe, I think, is how you say his name officially, but he's very nice about it,

0:56.4

so I'm sure he won't mind my pronouncing it one way or another. Anyway, he's a scholar of the Hebrew

1:01.8

Bible, especially and of the kind of the intellectual history of religion and a bunch of other things.

1:06.4

He's got an awesome website, or rather, newsletter called The Jew from Nowhere, which has run through first things.

1:12.4

And you should sign up there. I'll put the link in the comments. But we recorded this before I

1:16.8

started the Dante series. I'm going to drop it now, again, just as kind of like an extra treat.

1:22.0

There'll be some others of these in your feed as the Dante series unfolds.

1:28.3

But this is the first of my UATX conversations with Professor Kimchi.

1:32.3

Enjoy.

1:37.3

Hey, welcome to a very special episode of Young Heretics. We are gearing up here to do our series on Dante's Divine Comedy, which I hope you will join me for. But in the meantime, some of you know that I've been teaching out at UATX, the University of Austin, Texas, and having an absolute blast, not just because the students are incredible

2:01.8

and the teaching is really fun, but because the faculty lounge is the most dangerous place

2:06.7

in the world. You can't go anywhere in this tiny little, it's about the size of the room I'm in

2:13.2

now without bumping into somebody fascinating with something fascinating to say,

2:16.9

and I thought it would be really cool to bring some of those conversations to young heretics.

2:22.3

And I can't think of a better person to do that with than JJ Kimchi.

...

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