The End of Solomon's Corner
The End of Solomon's Corner
And the Beginning of Pious Reflections
Solomon’s Corner is going away. At the end of May 2024, this Substack will be shut down and the remaining active subscribers will be moved to a new publication,
. Along with this rebrand, the Solomon’s Corner podcast and channels (X, YouTube, Rumble, etc.) will also be shut down.Here is an outline of how we came to this conclusion:
Why Are We Rebranding?
What Pious Reflections Will Look Like
How You Can Support Us
Why Are We Rebranding?
Too Much To Do
When we initially started Solomon’s Corner (SC), it seemed like online content creators were just spontaneously turning on their cameras and hitting record. This is half true. Plenty of podcasts have the “candid” style that has become the hallmark of the industry. However, what’s not spontaneous is the post-production efforts that small and big channels put into their content.
The audio and video format is a lot of work. My best episode was Episode 48 - Dawkins, Tom Holland, and Jordan Peterson Walk into a Church. To do this episode, I spent all weekend pulling clips, editing those clips, recording, and then publishing. This video would have done even better had it received post-production edits, but I didn’t have the time. Outside of some divine calling on my life to this kind of thing full time, my content is not likely to become the kind of content that attracts a lot of eyeballs.
These givens and the analytics around them, make writing a more suitable place for my efforts. It is the foundational medium for all forms of content on the internet. If I master my writing, then audio and video become a more realistic option later.
Too Much 💰💰💰
Having audio and video requires technology, and technology requires money. Our current computer used for the podcast is outdated. The software requirements for our podcast have surpassed our current chip-set on our computer. Furthermore, our storage is beginning to hit its limit. All of this costs money and competes with our most popular form of content, writing.
Combine these factors with the fact that my wife and I are too small of a team to do audio, video, and writing and it’s obvious that we need to get back to the basics and do something different. That “something different” is going to be Pious Reflections.
The Catholic Factor
As I have mentioned to many of you, “business is rough, but my faith has never been stronger.” After our confirmation and first reception of Christ in the Eucharist, I knew that Solomon’s Corner could no longer remain what it is. Either it was going to become a Catholic site, or it was going to cease to exist. It’s hard to explain, but I will do my best.
I’m indebted to Christ for the graces I’ve received in his Church. In serving his Church, we ultimately serve him. That is what I intend do with
: serve the Church by presenting and defending its claims. This means that the content will become increasingly more Catholic, and by virtue of this fact, an implicit denial of Protestantism, and in some cases, an explicit challenge to it and its various forms.It is my hope that others outside the Church will experience the grace I have within the Church. In short, this site sought to emphasize unity through “mere Christianity”, but it will increasingly emphasize unity through Christ and his Church.
Had I remained protestant, I would not have experienced the love of God the way that I have in his Church. Some may take issue with this statement, but if I were to continue in indifference it would be to deny the change many of you have observed. To continue to write and commentate as if I had merely joined another denomination would be a sin, a denial of the power of Christ in the sacraments, and the teachings of the Church.
This is not because I desire to offend anyone or foment division. In fact, these days I’m finding conservative Catholics and Protestants have a lot more in common than they used to. I’m taking this approach because I know that whatever grace a Protestant receives outside the Church becomes infinitely greater within it. If I did not desire this for you, I would not be able to say truthfully that I love you all. So, while you may disagree with much of the theological content on the new site, there will still be plenty of “food for thought” on a wide variety of issues that Catholics and Protestants can agree on, but for different reasons (e.g., contraception and abortion). It’s just that this “food for thought” will be coming from a distinctly Catholic worldview, rather than a “merely Christian” or speculative view.
Here is Your Off Ramp
I could speculate on how this news will make people feel, but that would waste my time and yours. If you no longer feel you can support my content with your subscription, feel free to remove yourself from our list by unsubscribing. If you want to stay around for any reason whatsoever, subscribe to
now.We will also be purging the list of dormant subscribers. On May 31st, we will be pruning the subscriber list based on “subscriber activity”. If you’re not sure whether you will be purged, the best way to secure your subscription is to just subscribe to
before we clean the list.What Pious Reflections Will Look Like
More Writing / Less Production
Our plan is to write a lot more and do a lot less audio and video. I want to hone this skill, and so I will be writing more and also submitting my writing other publications prior to it going live on
. My goal is to increase the number of outlets on which my writing appears while simultaneously increasing my overall output.Presuming writing yields some fruit, then I will re-up the Audio ONLY podcast. This is much easier to produce than video. If we gain more traction on the audio form of the podcast, then we will consider bringing back Audio and Video. All this depends ultimately on our ability to provide you with engaging content that leads you to like, share, comment, and buy.
All Content Will Be Free
There will still be a Paid option to support the writing that I produce, but there will no longer be any paywalls on the content. Down the road, we will revisit premium content. But there is no need to get ahead of ourselves, especially when there is plenty of other premium content that, frankly, we cannot compete with at this time. So the phases we have are as follows:
P1 - Writing Only
P2 - Writing + Audio Podcast ONLY
P3 - Writing + Audio + Video Podcast
How You Can Support Us
Free Subscribers
Free subscribers really do help! Many people think that it doesn’t matter, but anytime you are trying to partner with other groups or individuals, your subscriber count inevitably comes up in conversation. This becomes especially important if you are going to interview people or get their referral on Substack. Furthermore, an active free subscriber is just as valuable, and in some cases more so, than a paid subscriber who remains anonymous. Subscribe at
.Purchase a mug from SaintsAndThinkers.com.
We started SaintsAndThinkers.com as a way to provide you with encouragement and create additional revenue streams for our publication. We don’t make much money on these mugs, but its an incredible encouragement when our friends and family decide to purchase a mug. Thank you for those who have already done so. We love you all.
Become a Paid Subscriber
As mentioned above, all the content will be free. If my writing has helped you in any way, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber on our new site. This goes a long way to help us continue making content.
God Bless You All
Thank you to all of you who started with us on this journey. God used you to bless us beyond anything we could have predicted when we started this little side-hustle.
Solomon’s Corner was God’s way of bringing us into his Church. While it’s possible that God could have used something else to bring us to this point, we must recognize his divine wisdom and avoid the temptation to allow the hypothetical to diminish the actual.
I would have preferred to have “read my way” into the Church, the way Dr. Anders or Joshua Charles did, but that’s not how God worked in our life. Instead, God made it abundantly clear that we were supposed to be Catholic, and that if we said no, we would be turning our back on him, not just another denomination.
To those who no longer feel they can journey with us, thank you for loving us enough to challenge us in our investigation of Catholicism. I’m sorry to see you go, but I hope our paths will align again in the Lord’s time.
Thank you again, for all your love, support, and prayers. I look forward to seeing the rest of you on our new adventure,
.