Podcasting John Jay

When you’re at your Fourth of July barbecue tomorrow, and the topic of the Founding Fathers comes up, you’ll need something to say, right?

Well, I have just the ticket for you: an entire podcast on John Jay, religion, and politics.

I recently had the chance to record a podcast with Tony Gill, the Creative Genius™ behind the “Research on Religion” podcast. Tony is ensconced at the University of Washington, but the podcast is associated with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. Over the past three years, Tony has hosted scholars working on all sorts of interesting projects. I highly recommend you subscribe to the free podcast in iTunes.

In honor of the Fourth, Tony had me on to talk about John Jay. The direct link is here. Listen and enjoy. And afterwards, be sure to tell somebody at that barbecue what you’ve learned about John Jay.

And, since we’re approaching the Fourth, I’ll close with some important thoughts from Jay that I used in the podcast:

“Providence has been pleased to bless the people of this country with more perfect opportunities of choosing and more effectual means of establishing their own government, than any other nation has hitherto enjoyed. [Hence] for the use we may make of these opportunities and these means, we shall be highly responsible to that Providence, as well as to mankind in general, and to our own posterity in particular.”

-John Jay, The Charge of Chief Justice Jay to the Grand Juries of the Eastern Circuit (1790).