Special Guests

  • Victoria Jackson — Actress, Comedian, Musician
    Appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over 20 times was just the beginning. Victoria eventually joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live and worked with the likes of Dennis Miller, Steve Martin, Demi Moore, Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman & Joe Piscopo. This comedienne, actress and musician also has a spiritual side to her that is genuine and sincere and lately, causing a few eyebrows to rise in Hollywood.
    *Victoria will be performing along side of former Saturday Night Live cast member - Joe Piscopo, and special guest Father Guido Sarducci at Fallsview Casino Resort next weekend July 22 & 23. So we thought we’d replay this spontaneously hilarious interview originally aired back in March 2008! Actually, the real reason we’re re- playing an old interview is because Drew has to leave the show early today! He’s off to the Taylor Swift concert and meeting up with her opening act, former TDMS guest - American Idol Finalist, Danny Gokey. (He didn’t want us to mention that because Paul McCartney told him not to name drop!)
    www.victoriajackson.com

  • Nina Cavey — Psychiatric Nurse
    Nina has spent years as a case manager for schizophrenic patients. She is currently working on curriculum development for the nursing program at McMaster University. Her Master’s Thesis is on the meaning and value of spirituality as a fundamental agent of healing for people with mental illness. Is religion good for someone suffering with schizophrenia, or does it cause further delusions and harm? Some studies suggest that spirituality might actually be the best antidote for mental illness. There have been documented cases of people experiencing delusions, and one voice comes through louder than the rest of the voices, as though the “messengers” (possibly God) meets them in the midst of their delusion and helps them to get back on track. We’re going to start out our discussion with Nina this week by ask our listeners this question...Do you think that mental illness is caused by demonic activity, which requires prayers of “deliverance” or do you think that the vast majority of psychiatric problems are as a result of physiological/bio-chemical imbalances?

  • Dr. Tanya Lurhmann — Psychological Anthropologist
    Dr. Lurhmann is best known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists. She received her AB summa cum laude in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard-Radcliff, then studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge University. In 1986 she received her PhD for work on modern-day witches in England, later published in her book, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft. Her second research project looked at the situation of contemporary Parsis, a Zoroastrian community in India. Her third book, Of Two Minds, explored the contradictions and tensions between two models of psychiatry, the psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) and the biomedical. Dr. Lurhmann has also performed a study of how life on the streets (chronically or periodically homeless) contributes to the experience and morbidity of schizophrenia, and written a book called When God Talks Back – a study examining the growing movement of evangelical and charismatic Christianity, and specifically how practitioners come to experience God as someone with whom they can communicate on a daily basis through prayer and visualization. She is currently on staff in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University.

Talkback, etc.

  • The Counsel Of Many!
    Need Help or Advice On An Issue In Your Life?
    Tell us your situation and Drew will ask the listeners of TDMS!

    This week on the Counsel of Many: a man is having a tough time quitting his favourite sin and wants to know what he should do.

    "This is a question to put out to the listeners for the counsel of many segment. I wish to remain anonymous! It's a struggle that I've had for the last year or so. I am a middle aged man who last year was in a job that was tremendously stressful, to the point where the stress developed into anxiety attacks. I had been hospitalized a couple of times for it. I had moved on to a new job, and have been better on the stress front. However, since then I have been losing interest in church, my friends and have been greatly lethargic. I have been falling into old habitual sins and new ones such as gambling. The gambling has gotten out of control to the point where I started compromising my rent agreement if you know what I mean. I have tried and tried again to stop, with help from good friends at my church - including the church counsellor, but I haven't been able to beat it. I believe that God has given us the free will to choose right and wrong, but this seems to be a little bit too strong for me to choose the right way in all sins currently in my life. I feel that my prayers are falling to the wayside and I'm getting to the point that i don't want to pray anymore about it, let alone pick up God's Word because I feel like a hypocrite! I really need help here! Please ask your listeners if they can (1) Pray for me please (2) Provide any tips or directions they have and (3) If they know any stories of over-comers they can share. Thanks!"

  • Bruxy interviews Drew!
    It’s been a while since Drew has been on the hot seat! Between September and December of 2010, Drew was publicly processing of his crisis of faith. He interviewed a variety of celebrities, apologists, theologians, and authors. The teaching pastor at the Meeting House and the author of The End Of Religion, Bruxy Cavey, was on that list. However, Drew was in Israel during that interview and missed the chance to speak with him. So today, we thought we’d allow Bruxy to grill/interview him. Tune in to get all the dirt on where Drew is at spiritually these days!

  • Should Muslims be allowed to attend organized prayer services in school during class time?
    A GTA school has been front and centre at the renewed debate about the place of religion in public schools. On Fridays, between November and March, orthodox Muslims pray three times a day. About 80 to 90 per cent of the students at Valley Park Middle School are Muslim and the majority of them were leaving the school to go to the mosque to pray. The problem was that many of the kids were using this as an excuse to leave classes. The school worked out a deal with the parents, allowing the cafeteria to be used for a 30 to 40 minute prayer service for 300-400 kids led by an Imam. Does this bother you? Should secular schools accommodate religious beliefs of students? Would you feel better about this if they let “The Lord’s Prayer” back into our public schools?

  • TDMS Banter
    The beginning and the end of the show is like any good sandwich. The stuff in the middle is what it's all about - The rest is just crust! Sometimes it's worth listening to. Sometimes - not so much.