Fatherhood, faith, and phenomenology - with Zechariah Mickel

What insights can phenomenological philosophy offer into the experience of fatherhood? How does a father experience the mystery of his child's soul, and how should he respond to his child's vulnerability and suffering? And how useful is the language of sacrifice in describing the burden of paternal responsibility?

These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Zechariah Mickel. Zechariah is an independent scholar working at the intersection of continental philosophy and theology. He holds an MA in philosophy from the Global Center for Advanced Studies and has worked in schools as a therapeutic skills trainer and as a marketing manager and associate editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers, where he continues to host The Theology Mill Podcast. Based in Oregon in the United States, Zechariah is a husband and a father to two young children, and he is also employed as an apprentice plumber.

Zechariah has published articles in Commonweal magazine and in the Global Center for Advanced Studies Review. He’s the author of the book The Unthinkable Sacrifice: An Essay on Fatherhood, published by Cascade in 2025, which provides an account of the experience of early fatherhood using the tools of phenomenological philosophy. He is also the co-editor of the forthcoming book The Eucharist and Continental Philosophy, to be published by Fordham University Press.

We discuss the following topics in this episode:

Zechariah's background and early influences (02:30)

Zechariah's journey from evangelicalism to Catholicism (05:16)

The experience of becoming and being a father (08:05)

Working as a plumber alongside writing and publishing (09:58)

Zechariah's work for Wipf and Stock and as host of The Theology Mill Podcast (13:52)

Highlights of Zechariah's experience as a podcast host (16:33)

The 'theological turn' in French phenomenology and the influence of Steven DeLay on Zechariah's writing (18:00)

The thinking behind The Unthinkable Sacrifice (20:10)

Is the book philosophy or theology? (24:01)

The philosophers who have influenced Zechariah's thinking (28:28)

The father's experience of his child's soul and the insights of Levinas and Marion (33:50)

The vulnerability of the child and Romano's notion of 'the event' (37:40)

Fatherhood in the context of late modernity (41:40)

The burden of paternal responsibility (47:22)

Fatherhood and sacrifice (52:38)

Responding to criticisms of the book (56:35)

Zechariah's forthcoming edited volume on the Eucharist and his plans for further research and writing (01:05:05)

Some of the writers and thinkers mentioned in the episode

Thomas Merton

Steven DeLay

Emmanuel Falque

Stanley Hauerwas

William T. Cavanaugh

Sergei Bulgakov

Emmanuel Levinas

Jean-Luc Marion

Claude Romano

Jean-Yves Lacoste

Jean-Louis Chrétien

Gabriel Marcel

Byung-Chul Han

Michel Henry

Pope Francis

Some of the publications discussed in the episode

Steven DeLay's Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction

Terence Sweeney's review of The Unthinkable Sacrifice

Martin's Substack review of Zechariah's book

Films mentioned in the episode

The Sacrifice (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)

Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele)

Other links

Foursquare Church

You can download a transcript of this episode by following this link to the Careful Thinking Substack.