The Olympic Supper Club

Show open, docket, and merch plug

The host opens the show solo-week follow-up: last week it was just him, and the plan is to add one fellow a week back up to normal staff; Nathaniel Carson is in the studio today. The docket is a catch-up, the news of the day, and advice in an altered format — Dear LFTP 'ethically harvested' from another advice platform as 'Am I the Donkeys Behind?', including reading the top-rated secular advice. A merch plug follows: pickleball set, War Donkey coffee, vintage 70s shirts, and the 'Whosteth Yahweh' hipster-frog mug and shirt; the host says margins are in the cents, not the dollars.

Olympics viewing banter

The host and the guest trade Olympics memories and observations: the guest's parents only watch sports during the Olympics, the host's childhood of chocolate milk and 99-cent Little Debbie fudge rounds, confusion over gymnastics scoring scales and surfing as a judged sport ('the big kahuna' vs 'the big kathunk'), the comedy proposal that a regular office worker ('Dave in accounting') should attempt every event for comparison, and a lament for shared communal viewing in the age of streaming — the Olympics as the last whole-world simultaneous event, best taken in on a raw single-camera feed.

News: the Last Supper opening-ceremony controversy and a murdered Lao pastor

• Am I under-reacting to the Last Supper opening-ceremony controversy?

The news segment covers the Paris Olympics opening-ceremony tableau resembling the Last Supper — the guest saw headlines about a drag-queen depiction, and the host reads a Christian Post article on the ensuing backlash and a 10-minute Paris blackout the next night, with the Basilica of the Sacred Heart staying lit. The host's take: Christians should not be surprised, moral outrage over a painting is misplaced energy, and he would divert zero of 100 Christians doing real ministry to fight this battle — comparing it to the Starbucks Christmas-cup outrage while conceding the ceremony's intent was genuinely subversive. A second Christian Post item gets the real focus: Lao pastor Thankham Pilonva, warned to stop Christian activity, shot dead while feeding his chickens — 'worthy of your focus and time,' with a call to pray for his family.

Images of Jesus and crucifixion reenactments: would you play Jesus?

• Would you play a crucified Jesus in a reenactment?

A tangent on whether depicting Jesus violates the command against making images — the host notes the Last Supper is not a scriptural problem anyway, and muses on early-church icon controversies and a catechism's take — leads to the episode's hard question: a youth camp photo of kids hung on crosses. The host has a visceral negative reaction, wary of an infatuation with the violence of the crucifixion that tries to revulse people into gratitude, and of Bible stories being flattened into fables; he cites a Paul Washer sermon making the same point. The guest would happily play the crucified Jesus ('I'm in it for the theater'); the host is a hard no, though fine with playing baby Jesus, and notes the Philippines cross-dragging tradition. Listeners are invited to call or text the complaint line with their answer.

Am I the Donkeys Behind? The sister-in-law's Airbnb

• Am I the donkey's behind for canceling the sister-in-law's Airbnb trip?
• Should the letter writer just suck it up and go on the Airbnb vacation?

The guest reads the first 'Am I the Donkeys Behind?' letter: a woman whose sister-in-law booked a three-bedroom Airbnb for a joint vacation, split half-and-half, but the boyfriend let slip that the third 'bedroom' is a bunk-bed office the couple is expected to take while a six-year-old gets a queen room — plus a quietly reversed agreement about boarding the dogs in Florida. Verdict: she is not the donkey's behind; the sister-in-law is being dishonest by omission and using them to subsidize the trip. The top-rated secular advice is read with light editing ('A room with bunk beds is literally made for children'). Counsel: cancel respectfully and take the husband to Cancun instead — a vacation is optional, not a crisis demanding sacrifice.

Am I the Donkeys Behind? The father-in-law's free house

• Am I the donkey's behind for handing the house decisions back to my father-in-law?
• Should the couple take the free house and stick it out with the controlling father-in-law?

The guest reads the second letter: a generous father-in-law with 'the a-hole gene' bought the neighboring house for the couple, put his and the husband's names on the title, then refused to speak to the wife directly about renovations and demanded sign-off on any change over $5,000; she forwarded all contractor communications and told him to make every decision himself and sign a rental lease, and is now called ungrateful, selfish, and controlling. Verdict: 'half the donkey's behind' — 'you're a donkey's cheek, just one' — because she went from zero to 90 passive-aggressively instead of forcing a three-way conversation; the deeper counsel is that the arrangement should never have been accepted ('don't learn to play the guitar off the devil's skill set'). The two then split: the guest would stick it out for a free house ('ain't no thing as a free lunch'), the host would walk away, widening into a reflection on deferred living — working two jobs to pay for a kid's college while missing their childhood, and choosing the ice cream with the kid who will never be that age again over the perfect tile. The secular advice warns the father-in-law will control them until he dies.

Outro and complaint-line sign-off

The host closes the show with the joke sign-off name 'Steven Hotten... just like the podcast coming in hot,' invites legit complaints, musings, or crucifixion-reenactment opinions on the complaint line at (515) 517-0085, and ends with the benediction 'be faithful in the means, God will handle the ends.'