Dr Paul Allen

In a recent newsletter, Gurwinder Bhogal shares the story of Nicholas Perry, a violin-playing vegan who aspired to become YouTube famous. After a year of failed attempts, he left behind his violin and veganism and tried a new strategy: recording himself eating meals while holding a conversation with a camera. Nikocado Avocado (his YouTube handle) was a digital lunch buddy for the lonely. These new videos got traction, and Nikocado’s digital dinner mates began to ask him to try the more expansive fare. The bigger the meals, the bigger the view count. Before Nikocado knew it, he recorded himself devouring entire McDonald’s menus in a single video. Eventually, his audience grew to 6 million subscribers, but that wasn’t the only thing to expand. The transformation was complete. A soft-spoken, thin-framed vegan named Nicholas Perry had evolved into Nikocado, a brash, dangerously overweight, dauntless devourer of calories who requires breathing apparatus. Bhogal writes, “The rampant appetite...

Godly Leaders and Fallen Leaders In today's episode, David Mathis discusses the topic of spiritual authority—what it is, who has it, and how we should respond when that authority is abused. Matt Tully You open your book by noting something that I’m sure many of our listeners have noticed themselves—maybe they even feel it themselves—and it’s that we live in an age that is increasingly cynical and sceptical about the idea of leadership. You say that some of that cynicism is for good reasons, and some of it has maybe more to do with just the mood of our times. So I’d love for you to unpack both of those things for us, maybe starting with the good reasons. What are some of the good reasons for our ambivalence about leadership today? David Mathis Matt, you know we got access to a lot of stories these days through social media, through our various media, and the tide has changed on if there’s a bad leader story, whether the social pressure is to suppress it or whether the social pressur...