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Conversing with Mark Labberton

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Conversing with Mark Labberton invites listeners into transformative encounters with leaders and creators shaping our world at the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life.

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#282
Tuesday · 55 min
Attention, Agency, and Power, with David French
In a country splitting apart over so much, three words point toward a better way to live: attention, agency, and power. David French returns to Conversing to take up all three. A New York Times opinion writer since January 2023, French writes from a conservative theological background about law, culture, religion, and armed conflict, and has found himself writing directly into the middle of divided hostilities. French comments on how attention, agency, and power took shape in him, and how each gets distorted by partisan fundamentalisms (on both the right and left) built to shut conversation down rather than open it up. He and Mark discuss the courage required to seek out the strongest version of an opposing view, the ways we extend ourselves grace we deny to everyone else, the spiritual danger of believing you must hold power before you can do any good, and the Civil Rights Movement's commitment to "reconciliation over victory" as a promising model for Christian public life today. Episode Highlights "One of the things that was so damaging … was that humility was often seen as inconsistent with conviction." "A lot of life is … embracing agency and … becoming more and more aware of the tidal forces that brought us to a particular point." "Curiosity and openness requires courage because you're told what to think about everybody, and if you … question that, you can be thrown out of your tribe. You can lose your community." "We must pursue justice, but when we think we have to have power to pursue justice, then we're on the road to perdition." About David French David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times writing on law, faith, and politics. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he spent much of his career as a constitutional litigator and once led the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He grew up in the Churches of Christ in Kentucky, studied at Lipscomb University—where he now teaches—and served in Iraq as a US Army judge advocate, earning a Bronze Star. With Russell Moore and Curtis Chang, he created The After Party, a curriculum for Christian political engagement. His most recent book is Divided We Fall. Helpful Links and Resources David French's New York Times column, where he writes on law, faith, and politics: https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-french David French on X: https://x.com/DavidAFrench The After Party, the Redeeming Babel curriculum for Christian political engagement French made with Russell Moore and Curtis Chang: https://redeemingbabel.org/the-after-party/free-course Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, French's book on American polarization: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250836731/dividedwefall Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, a study of American individualism: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520254190/habits-of-the-heart-with-a-new-preface Show Notes Three words to guide public life: attention, agency, power A born contrarian shaped by a fundamentalism: "collectively contrarian" yet "individually very conformist" Harvard Law exposed how "contingent and place-based my own beliefs are"; experiencing a pull toward "the story behind the story" Attention as discipline—seeking "the best expression of opposing views," never the other side's worst Partisans slander rather than engage: "language designed to shut off conversation, not to invite it" Reading the Bible cover to cover in sixth grade, arriving at the lesson that "we're way too dogmatic about stuff" How to embody a faith that can hold conviction and humility side by side Agency according to Gandalf: "It's not up to us to determine the times in which we live," only how we respond Curiosity requires courage, since dissent threatens loss of community Power's real peril—"the spiritually corrupting power of power" and fooling yourself into virtue The undermining of justice by seeking to hold and maintain power; examples in Rosa Parks and Jim Crow segregation / Jesus and the Roman Empire Christian nationalism as "for the nation to be good, Christians must rule" Restoring the Civil Rights Movement's commitment to the way of Jesus: reconciliation, not victory #DavidFrench #Conversing #FaithAndPolitics #ChristianNationalism #Attention #Agency #Power #Curiosity #CivilRights
#281
September 15 · 54 min
Reclaiming Civic Agency, with Michael Wear
Underneath all the political polarization, rage-baiting, punditry, and aggression, there is a crisis of civic agency. American citizens feel politically disempowered and undermined. And the effect, over time, will be that we lose our ability to self-govern. What is needed is a path between belligerence and withdrawal. In this episode, Michael Wear (Center for Christianity and Public Life, author of The Spirit of Our Politics) joins Mark Labberton to discuss provocation and political effectiveness; the value of gentleness in public life; concrete signs of hope in local political action; the open horizon of the 2028 primaries; and what it would take to reset America's political "agency quotient." Episode Highlights "Checks and balances is just a longer way of saying agency." "I think gentleness is profoundly underappreciated. I think that people are on guard for being taken advantage of, for being imposed upon, for being manipulated, for being used." "In parenting and in politics … we could really, especially in the moment, delude ourselves into thinking that to get a reaction and to be effective are synonymous." "Christians have an alternative imagination that our politics desperately needs, and we're actually robbing the public of that." "We continue down this crisis of … both a real and perceived lack of agency, in such a way that the project of self governance is made incoherent." About Michael Wear Michael Wear is the founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan Washington nonprofit that contends for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. He directed faith outreach for President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign and served in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, among the youngest White House staffers in modern history. He is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics and Reclaiming Hope, and co-author of Compassion and Conviction. Helpful Links and Resources Michael Wear's website, with his writing, speaking, and social channels: https://www.michaelwear.com/ The Spirit of Our Politics, Wear's most recent book: https://www.michaelwear.com/spirit-of-our-politics Reclaiming Hope, Wear's first book: https://www.michaelwear.com/reclaiming-hope The Center for Christianity and Public Life: https://www.ccpubliclife.org/ "Politics should not just happen to you": https://theheartofthepublic.substack.com/p/politics-should-not-just-happen-to For the Good of the Public Summit, October 5–7, 2026, Washington, DC: https://www.ccpubliclife.org/summit Settled, the Minnesota nonprofit building church-based Sacred Settlements: https://www.settled.org/ Civic Trust, Matt Harder's participatory budgeting organization: https://www.civictrust.us/ Michael Wear on X: https://twitter.com/MichaelRWear Show Notes Contending for the credibility of Christian resources in public life CCPL turns four this October; the For the Good of the Public summit, Oct 5–7 in DC Why pairing a think tank with intensive leadership formation is personally sustaining, not just strategic Gentleness as an underrated public virtue; bodies relaxing once people sense they won't be imposed upon Parker Palmer on a politics made of brokenhearted people Getting a reaction versus being effective; the diminishing returns of provocation, until the mission's telos shifts unnamed Jesus writing in the sand as an interruption at a moment primed for violence Dallas Willard on formation: not the practices but who you are, on the spot Pope Leo fielding American-frame questions and answering in ways that break the frame's logic The pastor who mistook refreshing RealClearPolitics five times a day for civic involvement A caution against a posture toward the church more dour than reality calls for Settled's church-hosted Sacred Settlements in Minnesota, built on bipartisan zoning reform: https://www.settled.org/ Leaving the Obama White House more hopeful than arriving A decade that stripped ordinary agency: contested elections, COVID isolation, AGI moguls, social media reversals San Francisco AI planning, where "top-down imposition" meant opposite things to technologists and theologians Congress's dereliction—Yuval Levin's institutionalism, plus the Chevron and unitary-executive critiques Abdication that disempowers not just 435 House members but the voters who sent them East-West contrast: California's robber-baron drive and agency reserved for the wealthiest Resetting the agency quotient; participatory budgeting via Civic Trust: https://www.civictrust.us/ Open 2028 primaries in both parties as a possible reopening of the horizon Christian agency surrendered through alignment versus exercised through accountable loyalty Checks and balances as another name for agency #CivicAgency #SpiritOfOurPolitics #FaithAndPolitics #Gentleness #ParticipatoryBudgeting #CivicRenewal #ChristianityAndPublicLife #MichaelWear Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#280
September 8 · 54 min
Loud Justice, with Sharon Cohn Wu
"It is not just that God has a heart for justice," says Sharon Cohn Wu (International Justice Mission), "it is that it is inextricably his character and cannot be otherwise, and that it is so perfectly married with mercy and grace that we somehow survive." Sharon Cohn Wu has served for more than twenty years with IJM, where she is now regional president of North America. A lawyer (JD, Harvard Law), she has spent her career calling for "loud justice"—that is, visible, swift, community-wide accountability—using the criminal justice system and political will to help IJM achieve its mission to increase freedom and safety for the most vulnerable. She's a key voice in pursuing IJM's stated goal: protection for 300 million people across 46 jurisdictions by 2030, and freedom for more than a million. With Mark Labberton, she reflects on her calling as a lawyer to stand between vulnerable people and those who would crush them; why we need systems to seek and secure justice for the most vulnerable to violence; the economics of vulnerability and the predators who exploit it; how public accountability changes expectations and what society will tolerate; and what decades of looking at the worst of human behavior have done to Cohn Wu's emotional, moral, and spiritual life. Episode Highlights "Hope is as contagious as despair." "In the early days, let's say I might have accidentally over-indexed on rage from time to time." "It is not just that God has a heart for justice, it is that it is inextricably his character and cannot be otherwise, and that it is so perfectly married with mercy and grace that we somehow survive." "There's nothing inevitable about this type of violence." "We need consistent and loud justice. 'Loud' meaning the whole community knows that someone was held accountable for this crime against this small child." About Sharon Cohn Wu Sharon Cohn Wu is regional president of North America for International Justice Mission, where she has served for over two decades. She began in casework, went on to lead all of IJM's field programs, and pioneered its Justice System Strengthening projects. She built anti-trafficking operations across South and Southeast Asia, including IJM's first USAID police training grant in Cambodia, and most recently advised the organization on violence against women and children. She studied at the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School and practiced at Arnold & Porter. Helpful Links and Resources International Justice Mission: https://www.ijm.org Ending violence against women and children: https://www.ijm.org/our-work/violence-women-children IJM's research library and external program evaluations: https://www.ijm.org/studies Good News About Injustice, by Gary Haugen: https://www.ivpress.com/good-news-about-injustice The Locust Effect, by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-locust-effect-9780190229269 The Prophets, by Abraham Joshua Heschel: https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9780063335363 Become an IJM prayer partner: https://www.ijm.org/get-involved/pray Show Notes Sharon Cohn Wu's vocational background: law as a family trade among lawyers, judges, rabbis, and teachers Experience: DOJ Criminal Division; corporate law Gary Haugen's Good News About Injustice Early years at IJM: gratitude for every single person freed from slavery, prostitution, and dire circumstances Shifting from case volume to public justice system performance: police, prosecutors, courts, social services "Hope is as contagious as despair," sustained by survivors, staff, and externally audited reductions in violence Violence against women and children as a distinct crime: economic exposure, family dissolution, and a justice system survivors avoid Justice made loud and public, with visible, swift accountability as social and moral deterrent, leading to cultural change IJM's 2030 goal of 300 million protected across 46 jurisdictions and over a million freed—with half a billion as the horizon Reality over strategy: a night walk to a Guatemalan police station, Ghanaian survivors warning families about Lake Volta recruitment Rage mitigated by conviction that God cares more, praying for the fear of the Lord, and Heschel's The Prophets on injustice as offense against God #InternationalJusticeMission #IJM #HumanTrafficking #ModernSlavery #JusticeSystems #ViolenceAgainstWomen #FaithAndJustice #Conversing #CommentMagazine #FullerSeminary Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#279
September 1 · 1 hr 5 min
Win or Lose, Run for Something, with Jeanelle Austin
In February 2026, Jeanelle Austin filed for Minnesota Senate District 62. She started canvassing her district during a polar vortex, and persisted through triple-digit summer heat. And in August she lost in the Democratic Primary. In this episode, she sits down with Mark Labberton to reflect on what this experience has taught her about power, democracy, and what citizenship and neighbor-love means in the South Minneapolis neighborhood where she grew up. The executive director of Rise & Remember—the nonprofit that preserves the memorial at George Floyd Square—Austin followed a conviction, that if running for office meant she could save just one person's life, she would do it. She reflects on what it means to "run for something rather than against someone," the win-win campaign she designed by first answering what she would do with power if she lost, and the democratic machinery most voters never see: caucuses, delegates, conventions, endorsements, and party mailers that carry only the endorsed name. She reveals the shadow side of running against an incumbent in her own party: friends who could not endorse her, the party regular who said challengers to progressive incumbents should be punished, the front-porch conversations, the youth-built platform she carried to a rural Republican youth group, and the value a campaign loss is still worth when first-time voters turn out. Episode Highlights "I remember telling myself I would run for office if it meant that I could save somebody's life." "My dearest friends advised me to not run against someone, but to run for something … this was the first moment where I felt like I would be running for something, and something that really mattered." "I also understood that my power did not come from this seat. My power came from my community, my family, my cultural identity." "This is my home. This is where I grew up. This is my neighborhood. These are my people." "Is it not our responsibility to lift up our best leaders and choose from among them? We are oftentimes choosing between the lesser of two evils." "What are you willing to give up if you say that you love us as your neighbor?" "We have the power as people to make this democracy what we need it to be. But we first have to believe in ourselves." About Jeanelle Austin Jeanelle Austin is executive director and co-founder of Rise & Remember, the Minneapolis nonprofit that preserves thousands of offerings left at George Floyd Square, where she also serves as lead memorial caretaker. She founded Racial Agency Initiative, a racial justice leadership coaching practice, in 2019. She holds a BA in Christian ministries from Messiah College and an MDiv in ethics and an MA in intercultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. In 2026 she ran in the DFL primary for Minnesota Senate District 62. The fourth of seven children, she grew up in Minneapolis's Bryant neighborhood, just blocks from the site of George Floyd's killing at 38th and Chicago Avenue. Helpful Links and Resources Jeanelle For The People, Austin's 2026 campaign site: https://jeanelleforthepeople.com/ Rise & Remember, the nonprofit Austin directs: https://riseandremember.org/about/ A timeline of Operation Metro Surge, Minnesota Reformer: https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/20/a-chronology-of-operation-metro-surge/ Show Notes Jeanelle's pilgrimage in Palestine with a Black religious scholars delegation; meeting a father in the West Bank whose fifteen-year-old son was imprisoned for throwing rocks "Run for something, not against someone." What it means to a run a "win-win campaign," designed after being advised to decide what she would do with power if she lost How power is located in community, family, and cultural identity rather than in a state senate seat What it was like to challenge a beloved incumbent inside your own party Caucusing for the first time, room to room, learning the process in real time Jeanelle's campaign backdrop: Operation Metro Surge, polar vortex, No Kings protests Her journey from caucus to delegate to convention to endorsement to party resources Pre-recruited delegates and the structural advantage of incumbency; party mailers that carry only the endorsed candidate's name Section 8 notice periods and the gap that produces homelessness Youth-built priorities carried an hour west to a Republican youth group Gun safety, neighbor-love, rural versus urban gun culture Food shelves versus food stamps, and the question of dignity Primary night at the People's Way, turn out for first-time local voters Giving power back by teaching neighbors how to run for political office #JeanelleAustin #GeorgeFloydSquare #Minneapolis #RunForOffice #Democracy #CivicEngagement #FaithAndPolitics #Conversing Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#278
August 25 · 43 min
Women, Misogyny, and the Bible, with Beth Moore
Growing up, Beth Moore was taught that 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 were the whole of what scripture had to say about women: submissive and silent. The founder of Living Proof Ministries and one of the most widely read Bible teachers in America, Moore objects to a hermeneutic limited to those passages. In this episode, Mark Labberton revisits his 2018 conversation with Beth Moore, recorded in the months following her viral open letter, "A Letter to My Brothers." Almost 10 years later, debates over women in leadership and whether women are free to use their full gifts in the full service of the church still roil American Christianity. This episode is an invitation to hear Moore's unique journey—discovering what it means to receive women as teachers and instructors of scripture for the building up of the church—and about the faithfulness of God to one woman's story, as she tries simply to be heard. They discuss the cost of speaking up in 2018 and the backlash that came hardest from women, her decision to repent of her own complicity, the way gender gets used abusively in every part of the church, and what it looks like to keep going with Jesus when the way ahead is cloudy. Episode Highlights "I very much am a big believer in the harbor of the church, that when it functions well … it's such a safe place for me. It was safer than my home, Mark." "Where I have been part of this and complicit in this, I will repent. So here is what I'm fighting for. I am fighting for us, and I don't just mean women. I mean women and men, brothers and sisters." "There is absolutely no world in which I would not have spoken up. … It would've been like expecting a dog not to bark at a burglar." "Where our Christianity … departs Christ-likeness, don't call it Christianity. … So if it is not like Him, it is not of Him." "I may not get it right, but I can no longer lay down to what I know is wrong." About Beth Moore Beth Moore is an evangelist, author, and Bible teacher who founded Living Proof Ministries in Houston in 1994 to teach women the scriptures. Her books and studies, including Breaking Free and So Long, Insecurity, have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her 2018 open letter "A Letter to My Brothers" named the misogyny she had absorbed in conservative evangelical life. She left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 and now worships as an Anglican. Her memoir, All My Knotted-Up Life, won the 2024 ECPA Book of the Year. She teaches now on the podcast Living Proof with Beth Moore. Helpful Links and Resources Living Proof Ministries, the organization Beth Moore founded in 1994: https://www.lproof.org "A Letter to My Brothers," May 2018 open letter: https://www.lproof.org/blog/a-letter-to-my-brothers All My Knotted-Up Life, Beth Moore's 2023 memoir: https://www.tyndale.com/p/all-my-knotted-up-life/9781496472670 Show Notes Moore's three-generation household; instability at home; the church as a harbor Receiving her calling at eighteen, off a pre-law political science track The surprise of discovering that theologically orthodox, scripture-loving people read women's ministry differently than her Passion drawn from pain; early trauma and a pattern she couldn't break Hypocrisy, pretense, and dreaming of fulfilled desires Strongholds and sexual sin: what her early context named but never taught people how to fight First Baptist Church Houston as a place safe enough to be corrected and still loved Pastor John Bisagno (1934–2018) asking her to speak on a Sunday night, and her own objection that she was a woman Palpable disesteem for a woman in ministry without academic credentials Playing by rules that others were not keeping Scripture as reason versus scripture as excuse Repenting of her own complicity Luke 8, the women at the resurrection, Paul's fellow workers at the end of Romans Backlash to Moore came hardest from women, including readers who abandoned her studies Asking questions on behalf of women without a microphone Affirming women formally while gender bias persists structurally The Samaritan woman at the well, and a Savior who gives dignity Obedience over clarity when the way ahead is cloudy #BethMoore #WomenInMinistry #Conversing #MarkLabberton #WomenInLeadership #Evangelicalism #BibleTeaching #ChurchToo #Complementarianism Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#277
August 18 · 57 min
The Human Heart, with David Anderson
Our hearts are restless, says Saint Augustine, until they find their rest in God. The biological science and the spiritual metaphor are in agreement here. Over the course of billions of beats, our hearts never stop to rest. Your magnificent heart exchanges or pumps your entire blood volume, just over a gallon, every single minute. (Athlete hearts can pump up to 10 gallons per minute!) In this episode, Mark Labberton discusses matters of the heart with his close friend Dr. David Anderson, a cardiologist of four decades who trained at Johns Hopkins and helped launch one of the first interventional cardiology programs in San Francisco. Anderson reflects on the medical science of cardiology, the profound life-saving medical advances over the past forty years, heart disease versus coronary artery disease, how the brain and the heart communicate, and what happens during a heart attack. In the second half of their conversation, they move from physiology to spirituality of the heart: Pharaoh's hardened heart, "out of the heart the mouth speaks," and the human need to find somewhere to locate the self. Anderson closes with what a cardiologist would tell anyone worried about their own heart, and with a case for medicine as a noble profession. Episode Highlights "When I first began in cardiology, if your heart was damaged, imagining that the heart could actually improve its function was like imagining someone could grow back a new arm." "One of the distinctive things about the heart is unlike other muscles, it doesn't have a time to rest. When it gets insufficient blood supply, it can't just say, 'Whoa, I'm gonna stop here.' It asks you to slow down because it starts hurting." "I think that's part of the intrigue of the heart, that it is inside us … but in some ways it's apart from us. It's responding to environmental things that we're not really even aware of. … I think it's this sense of detachment of the heart from us—but yet its centrality—that has led people to posit the soul or the will or the passions or almost anything that you would think was the real you. "Atherosclerosis … I would describe as it's like having a pimple inside your artery." "First of all, know yourself. That is, it's not a time to be fatalistic because your father had a heart attack in his fifties or your brother just had a heart attack. It's a time to be proactive." About David Anderson David Anderson is a cardiologist who practiced for more than four decades before retiring. He studied at Stanford as an undergraduate and earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He stayed at Hopkins for residency, then trained in San Francisco at the dawn of interventional cardiology, helping to build an angioplasty program in the early 1980s. Helpful Links and Resources Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Sutter Health, the Oakland hospital Anderson thanks by name: https://www.sutterhealth.org/about-us/our-hospitals/alta-bates-summit-medical-center DeWood et al., "Prevalence of Total Coronary Occlusion during the Early Hours of Transmural Myocardial Infarction," the 1980 study that identified clot as the cause of heart attack: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198010163031601 Waagstein et al., "Effect of chronic beta-adrenergic receptor blockade in congestive cardiomyopathy," the Swedish beta-blocker work behind the recovery he describes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1191416/ What Is Atherosclerosis, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/atherosclerosis Warning Signs of a Heart Attack, American Heart Association: https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack Angina (Chest Pain), American Heart Association, on the exertional pain he describes at the close: https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/angina-chest-pain Show Notes The impact of family gene pool, lifelong heart awareness How David Anderson got into medicine, and cardiology in particular A Hopkins autopsy elective, a teenager dead in a parking lot, a mentor who followed From internists interested in the heart to interventionists inside it Catheters, pressures, and the arrival of echocardiography Seeing a beating heart inside a living body for the first time, as a senior resident A colleague's heart attack in 1979 The 1980 angiography study that identified clot as the trigger Spring 1983: an artery occludes, the cath lab opens it, pain gone in fifteen minutes Bypass surgery before that: elective, scheduled, never mid-attack Prevention running under the technology: blood pressure, smoking, the lipid theory Fixing one artery and never having to fix another Coronary artery disease versus disease of the muscle itself Plasticity, not regeneration Adrenaline as an emergency system built for days, not decades Moving from technological advances to molecular-based understanding of heart problems Understanding of the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and its prevention Beta blockers, ejection fraction, and hearts that came back The heart as a muscle with no rest The heart's own electrical center, and the backup pacemakers below it Your heart doesn't rely on you or your consciousness to beat Why the ancients may have located the self in the heart organ Jeremiah's pounding heart, Pharaoh's hardened one Pascal, the soul, and needing somewhere to put "the real you" Maintaining an appropriate degree of separation from the patient and their family in order to care properly and effectively The difficulty of delivering bad news to patients and their familes Digging for a shared history to call on in a crisis "Medicine is a noble profession." Heart care advice from a cardiologist: First, know yourself. Heart health checklist: cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, knowing your own history The pain that warrants a phone call #Conversing #MarkLabberton #Cardiology #Heart #MedicalScience #HeartHealth #Biology #ChristianHumanism Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#276
August 11 · 1 hr 14 min
The God of the Unfinished, with Walter Brueggemann
The Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann said, is an old text that simply refuses to stay old. "It reads like it was written yesterday." For him, God offers no artificial closure, but is active in the meantime, and at peace with the "unfinished." Walter Brueggemann died on June 5, 2025, at the age of ninety-two, and his own influence is unfinished. This episode is from the Conversing archives: a conversation Mark Labberton hosted with Brueggemann at Fuller Seminary for the 2015 Fuller Forum "Justice, Grace, and Law in the Mission of God." Brueggemann was an Old Testament scholar for the sake of the church, the author of over one hundred books including The Prophetic Imagination, and came to the Bible as a text-wrestler, "comfortable with collisions," taking the Hebrew text and his own life as an artist with equal and total seriousness. He describes his method of exegesis written longhand, "at the end of his pen," catching himself speaking the words as he writes them. Together they discuss the artistry of biblical language and why art is inherently subversive; Abraham Joshua Heschel on the suffering of God in Jeremiah; the pastor as scribe rather than prophet; the violence of God in the Old Testament and what it means to call it recovery; and justice as the "willingness to be inconvenienced." Brueggemann closes with Psalm 73: " Whom have I in heaven, and who do I desire on Earth but you?" Walter Brueggemann was the McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. Episode Highlights A Scholar for the Church: "It took me a while to figure out that I wanted to be a scholar for the church and not for the academy … you wanna maintain your credibility in the academy, but it's not where you live." On the Old Testament: "It's so Jewish, and Jewishness means that it's conflicted and multi-vocal and multilayered and complex, and that's the nature of the text, and I think that's the nature of the God who indwells the text." The Everlasting Text: "It is an old text, but I always said to my students, it reads like it was written yesterday … it is an old text that refuses to stay old." On Subversiveness: "Art is inherently subversive because it wants to show us reality in a way that we have never before seen it … what we always wanna do with art or with the Bible is that we wanna cram it into the categories of the familiar." On Unfinishedness: "This is a God who stays faithful in the unfinishedness … in some ways, God isn't finished becoming God yet. So there is more light to break forth yet in our midst." On Fixing Everything: "Our society is about to forget what it means to be human in a technological, capitalist environment … The dominant value system of our society believes that everything can be fixed." Justice as Inconvenience: "I don't mind dying for Christ, but I don't wanna be inconvenienced … so much of justice work is just being inconvenienced." About Walter Brueggemann Walter Brueggemann (1933–2025) was among the most widely read Old Testament scholars of the past century, author of more than one hundred books, including The Prophetic Imagination and Theology of the Old Testament. Born in Tilden, Nebraska, to a German Evangelical pastor, he studied at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, and Saint Louis University. He taught at Eden from 1961 to 1986 and at Columbia Theological Seminary from 1986 until his retirement in 2003, holding the William Marcellus McPheeters chair in Old Testament. His final book, God of All Promises, was published posthumously in 2026. Helpful Links and Resources Walter Brueggemann's official website: https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/ In memoriam and Celebration of Life service webpage: https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/2025/06/05/in-memory/ Brueggemann on X: https://twitter.com/waltbrueggemann The Prophetic Imagination, 40th Anniversary Edition, Fortress Press: https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506449302/The-Prophetic-Imagination Show Notes In memoriam: Walter Brueggemann, 1933–2025; died June 5, 2025 at 92 Recorded at the 2015 Fuller Forum: "Justice, Grace, and Law in the Mission of God" A rural pastor father, plain in the pulpit and unmistakable in his passion Doctoral study at Union under James Muilenburg, a close friend of Abraham Joshua Heschel Choosing the church over the academy, and what that vocational choice cost Historical criticism as necessary but never sufficient Multivocal Scripture The Old Testament's Jewishness as conflict, layering, complexity An ancient text that reads like it was written yesterday Biblical exegesis in longhand Micah 4: beating swords into plowshares Ecumenism that doesn't coerce Particularity over universal generalization; the scandal of incarnation Heschel on the pathos of God Jeremiah 8 and 9: "Oh, that I had bigger tear ducts because I must cry more than my eyes will permit me." Why aiming at a doctrinal or moral outcome turns interpretation coercive Wendell Berry, and the discovery that combinations of words do things Art as a refusal of the familiar Unfinishedness Congregations that want closure, and the anxiety of leaving things open Biblical literacy The violence of God read as recovery rather than projection Justice as planned inconvenience: meetings, showing up, critical mass Psalm 73, and coming to oneself in a world of commodity Why the pastoral task feels urgent in a society sure everything can be fixed #WalterBrueggemann #PropheticImagination #OldTestament #Conversing #MarkLabberton #Preaching #Theology Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#275
August 4 · 51 min
An Unnecessary War, with Daniel Zoughbie
Why are we still "kicking the hornet's nest"? The last time Mark Labberton interviewed Daniel Zoughbie (UC Berkeley/UCSF) for his expertise on international diplomacy in the Middle East, there was not yet an Iran war. Regardless of your geographical distance, this war is imminently important as it escalates and impacts not just Iran but the entire Middle East and the entire world economy. "War is really supposed to be a last resort." Taking seriously both the significance and validity of Israel as a nation and the need for appropriate and just treatment of all Jews, Christians, and Muslims during a time of rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, this conversation comes at a volatile moment, pregnant with violence and chaos in American foreign policy. Starting the timeline at the 2018 US exit from the "Iran nuclear deal" (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) Zoughbie discusses a variety of interconnected issues, including the role of Middle Eastern geography such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab ("Gate of Tears"), the proliferation cascade a Saudi Arabian nuclear program could set off, and the difference between tactical brilliance and strategic vision. Together, they also consider hopes for improvement, looking at Gerald Ford's unpopular but effective ultimatum that forced Egypt and Israel to talk; the Olmert-Abbas negotiations that almost reached a two-state solution; the role of Christianity in politics; the danger of national pride; wisdom from antiquity in Herodotus, Croesus, and Cyrus the Great; and a definition of greatness that has nothing to do with force. Episode Highlights Regarding the term "an unnecessary war": "I think the word 'unnecessary' is absolutely the appropriate term, and I might just add another term: unjust. War is really supposed to be a last resort." "Iran has discovered not only that they have this nuclear program, which is incredibly powerful, but they've discovered that they have this power to shut off world's economy [through The Strait of Hormuz]." "Exiting [the JCPOA—Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] was a really, really big blunder because we did not have anything else to fall back on. The Iranians pointed to this and said, 'Look, we can't trust your word.'" "I feel like the current atmosphere in Washington is really about 'me, mine, and more.' And for us to really have a change in our foreign policy ... we really need to think beyond ourselves as a country." "We'll always try to turn every problem into a nail, right? And we'll use our hammer to deal with that problem. And that's exactly why we're in this mess in the first place." "Greatness is not about testosterone shots. It's about being able to show mercy. It's about being able to see the humanity in others, even your enemy, and ultimately what I would call Herodotus's paradox, which is that the mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend." About Daniel Zoughbie Daniel E. Zoughbie is a complex-systems scientist, diplomatic historian, and expert on presidential decision-making. He is associate project scientist at the UCSF/UCB Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy, and Economics; principal investigator of Berkeley's Middle East and North Africa Diplomacy, Development, and Defense Initiative; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's MENA Futures Lab. He wrote Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump and Indecision Points. He founded Microclinic International, whose model has reached refugee and low-income communities across four continents, and studied at Oxford as a Marshall and Weidenfeld Scholar. Helpful Links and Resources Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Zoughbie's 2025 book on twelve presidents and the Middle East https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Kicking-the-Hornets-Nest/Daniel-E-Zoughbie/9781668085226 "Toxic Foreign Policy and Citizen Diplomacy," Zoughbie's first Conversing conversation: https://comment.org/podcasts/toxic-foreign-policy-and-citizen-diplomacy/ "The Lesson Trump Can Take From Herodotus' Paradox" https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-lesson-trump-can-take-from-herodotus-paradox/ UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/2231/background "World Oil Transit Chokepoints," the US Energy Information Administration on Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/special_topics/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/ Gerald R. Ford's 1977 Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary commencement address, quoted at length in this episode https://www.christianitytoday.com/2006/12/gerald-r-ford-lessons-from-presidency/ Herodotus, The Histories, Book 1, where Croesus consults the Oracle and Cyrus spares him https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book%3D1 American University of Beirut, Zoughbie's standing example of citizen diplomacy https://aub.edu.lb/ Show Notes The 2018 exit from the Iran Nuclear Deal (the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as the origin point of the current war P5+1: US, UK, Russia, China, France, plus Germany What the deal never covered: missiles, proxies, regional behavior Nuclear non-proliferation In the wake of the US bombing of Iran: enrichment stockpiles, IAEA detections, inspectors no longer on the ground An unnecessary and unjust war How to work backward from the real goals of American national security Proliferation cascade risk: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt Leverage the US still holds through China, Russia, India, and Pakistan The Saudi nuclear offer, walked back a day later over Israeli recognition Strait of Hormuz geography: 21 miles wide, shipping lanes two miles each The Red Sea, the Houthis, and the Bab el-Mandab ("The Gate of Tears") Israel's tactical brilliance and strategic blindness Mossad's mottos, drawn from Proverbs, and the danger of self-deception 1967 revisited: not a short war but a nuclear near-miss Gerald Ford as counterexample: the ultimatum that opened Egypt-Israel talks Gerald Ford's 1977 Gordon-Conwell address and his oath on the book of Proverbs Hubris: ancient and current Testosterone shots, lethality, and the inverse of humility Pastors and power in the Oval Office Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, and Christian nationalism Herodotus, Croesus, and Cyrus: mercy as the measure of greatness The path to Tehran runs through Jerusalem The Olmert-Abbas negotiations as a known formula Citizen diplomacy and the American University of Beirut What listeners can do, including welcoming Middle Eastern neighbors #Conversing #MarkLabberton #DanielZoughbie #IranWar #ForeignPolicy #StraitOfHormuz #NuclearProliferation #MiddleEast #Diplomacy #FaithAndPolitics Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#274
July 28 · 50 min
What Forms a Christian Disciple?, with Tod Bolsinger
What is it that actually forms our inner reality? Our values, our perspective, our judgment, our understanding of wisdom about the issues that really matter? What difference does that make in Christian character formation? The American church consistently produces fruit that many of its own leaders either don't recognize, don't want, or disapprove of. Under- and malformed Christian people reflect a grounding in the surrounding culture rather than the character and love and gospel of Jesus Christ. In this episode, author, professor, and consultant Tod Bolsinger argues that culture is the thing that forms you before you ever realize it, let alone consent to it. He suggests that the soil of community and belonging—rooted in attachment, vulnerability, trust, and joy—is what makes sense of exemplary models of Christian formation. "If you wanna grow good fruit—abundant harvests of good fruit—you don't focus on the fruit, you focus on the soil." With Mark Labberton, Tod reflects on the agricultural model of spiritual formation; regenerative farming and the impact of soil health on the quality of the fruit; the example of Andre Trocme and the French Huguenots of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, village whose radical hospitality saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust; trust, pain, and care The intentionally formative community: joyful belonging, shared values, vulnerable self-reflection, care that isn't comfort. Episode Highlights "There are no dysfunctional systems. They all produce." "These people just lived out their faith." "The precognitive and the unconscious realities of our life are stronger than our words." "Nothing is as formative as the organizational culture you're in." About Tod Bolsinger Tod Bolsinger is co-founder and principal of AE Sloan Leadership, a coaching and consulting firm working with churches, nonprofits, universities, and businesses in seasons of change. He is associate professor of leadership formation at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he earned an MDiv and PhD and served six years as a vice president. His books include "Canoeing the Mountains," "Tempered Resilience," "It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian," and the four-volume Practicing Change Series. He was a Presbyterian pastor for 27 years, most recently in San Clemente, California. Helpful Links and Resources Tod's current project, Good Soil, Holy Ground: Preparing Your People for Facing Change https://www.aesloanleadership.com/good-soil-holy-ground AE Sloan Leadership, Tod Bolsinger's coaching and consulting firm: https://www.aesloanleadership.com/ Canoeing the Mountains, Bolsinger's best-known book: https://www.ivpress.com/canoeing-the-mountains Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change: https://www.ivpress.com/tempered-resilience The Practicing Change Series, Bolsinger's four most recent books: https://www.ivpress.com/practicing-change-serie The Biggest Little Farm: https://www.apricotlanefarms.com/biggest-little-farm/ Weapons of the Spirit, Pierre Sauvage's documentary on Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (from the Chambon Foundation): https://www.chambon.org/weapons_en.htm The Patient Ferment of the Early Church by Alan Kreider: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-patient-ferment-of-the-early-church/339350 An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, on deliberately developmental organizations: https://store.hbr.org/product/an-everyone-culture-becoming-a-deliberately-developmental-organization/14259 Show Notes Dallas Willard's worry: that spiritual formation would become commoditized—"a cottage industry instead of rooted deeply in the life of the church" "We take on the terroir of the soil, like the way a grape does for wine." "The Biggest Little Farm" documentary: how regenerative agriculture transformed a soil-depleted farm north of Los Angeles "If you wanna grow good fruit—abundant harvests of good fruit—you don't focus on the fruit, you focus on the soil" Rereading the parable of the sower "Jesus literally says that more powerful than his preaching is the soil that the word falls into." Systems perfectly designed for the results they get: "There are no dysfunctional systems. they all produce." No church ever started a program in Christian nationalism, no associate pastor, no strategic plan. "It just came up out of the soil." "Weapons of the Spirit" documentary: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: How French pastor Andre Trocme led a small village of Huguenots to save thousands of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. The pastors daughter, at age 93, on being told her parents were heroes: "You're very romantic about this. These people just lived out their faith." Counter-cultural cultivation Examples of radical communal formation: Amish forgiveness, Mother Emanuel AME Cultural competency vs. cultural humility Hospitality as the village economy Mother Teresa and entering East Beirut to save children because of (not in spite of) the bombing Brain scientists reaching for a word: "It is to be in a room with people who are happy to see you." "God, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am" The intentionally formative community, which "begins in joy, it ends in death" "Trust, pain, and care": Kegan and Lahey's deliberately developmental organizations, and the three words in the word cloud Are university theology faculty equipped to provide pastoral care to hurting, traumatized students? #SpiritualFormation #Discipleship #ChristianLeadership #LeChambon #AdaptiveLeadership #ChurchLeadership #ChristianNationalism #Fuller Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#273
July 21 · 55 min
Technocracy and Encounter, with Brian Patrick Green
Can technology be leveraged for the human good? Or will AI technology and its explosive expansion bring about the opposite—a culture that reduces our magnificent humanity to means for technocratic ends? "We can either create the Tower of Babel or we can rebuild the walls of the New Jerusalem." Brian Patrick Green has spent his career asking these difficult questions and seeking to apply ethical theory to real world technological developments. He is director of technology ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and he is co-author of "Encountering Artificial Intelligence" as well as the newly released "Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence." In this episode, Green explains the technocratic paradigm—the worldview that reduces people and the created world to raw material, data, and units of production, and sets against it what Pope Francis called a culture of encounter. He and Mark Labberton discuss the argument and impact of Pope Leo XIV's May 2026 encyclical on artificial intelligence, "Magnifica Humanitas", an uplifting moral appeal to troubled people in troubled times. They discuss the Eucharist and the ongoing incarnation as the anchor of Catholic social teaching; how technocratic thinking distorts immigration and war from the Marshall Islands to autonomous drones in Ukraine; just war theory in an age of ever more powerful weapons; the encyclical's principles from human dignity to solidarity; and where AI genuinely serves the vulnerable in medicine, in surfacing hidden bias, and in caring for the Earth. Episode Highlights "It's one thing to have new technology. It's an even bigger question of how we actually use it and how it actually affects people." "If we look at every other human being and we say, "This is an image of God in front of me. This is a person who is loved by God just as much as I am," that really transforms our way of viewing each other. "We can either create the Tower of Babel or we can rebuild the walls of the New Jerusalem. "If one grain of sand says to the other grain of sand, 'I'm better than you are,' that's a weird thing for sand to be saying to each other." "It's an encyclical about AI ostensibly, but really it's an encyclical about humanity … and what our role is here in the universe." About Brian Patrick Green Brian Patrick Green directs technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where he teaches engineers to weigh the human stakes of their work. A former genetics major, he turned toward technology's social impact after a year with the Jesuit Volunteers International in the Marshall Islands, a landscape marked by nuclear testing. He earned his doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union and has focused on AI since 2016. He co-authored "Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations" and the new "Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," and advises Catholic and multi-faith AI efforts, including at the Vatican. Helpful Links and Resources "Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations," a 2023 volume Green contributed to, free online at the Journal of Moral Theology: https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/91230-encountering-artificial-intelligence-ethical-and-anthropological-investigations "Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," 2025 co-edited by Green, free online: https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/154545-reclaiming-human-agency-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence "Magnifica Humanitas," Pope Leo XIV's 2026 encyclical on artificial intelligence, on the Vatican site: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html AI and Faith, led by executive director Greg Cootsona: https://aiandfaith.org/ Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good: https://ethics.nd.edu/ "The technocratic paradigm thus involves a double distortion: first, of the human person as reducible to an agent of interventions by which to manipulate life's material conditions; and, second, of the world—including the persons within it—as reducible to a field of raw material to be mastered and manipulated by means of technology. Against such reductions, the Pope urges that we cultivate a "culture of encounter"—a culture that seeks the contact of mind with mind and heart with heart, in a relational sharing of life that embraces the most vulnerable." (from "Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations", 2023) Show Notes Defining applied ethics and technological ethics Comparing how we use technology versus the technology itself Marshall Islands, Jesuit Volunteers, and a genetics major's turn toward social impact From biotechnology to teaching ethics to engineers, and into AI around 2016 Catholic teaching on Eucharist, communion, and an incarnation that is ongoing and physical Pope Francis and the "culture of encounter" Why the material world and every person carry a sacredness ethics must honor Explaining the technocratic paradigm as a cultural phenomenon and social program Seeing a forest as quantifiable value of lumber; or construing people as cogs, data, units of exploitation Wendell Berry: "There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places." Reducing the sacredness of human life to mere numbers Colonialism, nuclear testing, and islands treated as raw material Immigration read through a technocratic lens on both political sides The opposite of encounter: people as functions to move in or out Just war theory How drones and autonomous weapons turn killing into a problem of mere efficiency Squeezing just war criteria until war becomes nearly impossible Why this moral vision feels preposterous to a de-Christianized culture Culture of encounter, and seeing each other as images of God Romans 12 and the renewing of the mind—in order to transform how we see others Tower of Babel versus rebuilding the New Jerusalem Nehemiah, "synodality," and figuring things out together Dignity, common good, universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, social justice Culture of power versus a civilization of love, and Augustine's "City of God" The reach and impact of "Magnifica Humanitas", from tech workers and CEOs to UN ambassadors Embracing the most vulnerable as the measure of encounter AI that serves: medical data, de-biasing loan decisions, watching the Earth from orbit AI that threatens: autonomous warfare, mass surveillance, people reduced to data Human agency, freedom, and the choice ahead #AIEthics #FaithAndTechnology #CatholicSocialTeaching #ArtificialIntelligence #TechnocraticParadigm #PopeLeoXIV #HumanDignity #MagnificaHumanitas #ConversingPodcast Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#272
July 14 · 59 min
Morality and the Supreme Court, with Yuval Levin
American history is riddled with collisions between legally defensible rulings and morally costly outcomes. Still, "the purpose of law in any society is to embody a moral framework in practice," says Yuval Levin, who joins Mark Labberton to explore the moral architecture in the foundation of the American legal system, as they review the most recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court has just closed one of the most consequential terms in recent memory, articulating the tension between faithfulness to the Constitution and enacting justice and morality. Together they reflect on why and how a system founded on equality must be both majoritarian and counter-majoritarian at once; why a judge's job is to articulate their legal (rather than their moral) opinion; the rise of Constitutional originalism; why pre-Trump conservative arguments win at this Court while "Trumpy" ones lose; the contemporary relevance of the Federalist Papers; what recourse citizens have when they believe the Court has done wrong; and why the American legal system's worst failures still cluster around race. They explore several of the 2025-26 rulings of the Supreme Court, including imposition of tariffs, immigration enforcement, and birthright citizenship, and the Voting Rights Act. Episode Highlights "The purpose of law in any society is to embody a moral framework in practice." "This is a very good time to get to know The Federalist Papers." "The role of the judge in the American system is to apply the law, not to find the moral answer per se. We hope the law does that, though it doesn't always and we know it." "The American system of government, very much for moral reasons, is expected to be both majoritarian and counter-majoritarian." [Regarding Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh] "They grew up in the same place. They literally went to the same high school and had the same history teacher. Their mothers knew each other … They agreed with each other 52% of the time in this last term of the Supreme Court." [Courts to Trump] "You are in charge of the executive branch, but the executive branch is not in charge of the American government." "If you come to this court with a pre-Trump conservative legal argument, you're going to win. If you come to this court with a Trumpy legal argument, you're going to lose." "We experienced the high water mark of executive power about a year ago, and it is now receding." "The areas where it has failed most are concentrated around questions of race. That has been true from the beginning. It is thankfully less true than it used to be, but it is still true, and I think we have to be uniquely sensitive to those questions for that reason." About Yuval Levin Yuval Levin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy and directs Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies. He founded and edits National Affairs, and he is a senior editor at The New Atlantis and a contributing editor at National Review. His books include "The Great Debate," "The Fractured Republic," "A Time to Build," and most recently, "American Covenant." He served on the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush and earned his PhD at the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Helpful Links and Resources Yuval Levin at the American Enterprise Institute: https://www.aei.org/profile/yuval-levin/ National Affairs, the publication Levin founded and edits: https://nationalaffairs.com/authors/detail/yuval-levin American Covenant, by Yuval Levin: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/american-covenant/9780465040742/?lens=basic-books A Time to Build, by Yuval Levin: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/a-time-to-build/9781541699281/?lens=basic-books The Federalist Papers, full text at the Library of Congress: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers Trump v. Slaughter, the decision overturning Humphrey's Executor (June 29, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the IEEPA tariffs decision (February 20, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf Louisiana v. Callais, the Voting Rights Act decision (April 29, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf Coverage of the birthright citizenship ruling in Trump v. Barbara, SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-trumps-order-ending-birthright-citizenship/ Show Notes Yuval Levin's legal/constitutional frame: The law exists to put a society's moral convictions into workable practice. On "All men are created equal": If no one has natural authority over anyone else, we decide by majority vote—but equality also means the minority keeps its rights no matter who wins The Constitution assigns those two jobs to different institutions and lets them fight: Congress and the president answer to majorities, the courts deliberately do not Life tenure and fixed salaries exist so justices can protect minority rights without fear of majority reprisal A judge's job is to say what the law is, not to reach the most just result; therefore good judges regularly land where they might wish they didn't. What citizens can do when the Court rules wrongly: If it misread a statute, Congress can rewrite it. Constitutional rulings are harder to undo, but examples include the 16th Amendment (re: income tax) and the 14th Amendment (re: black citizenship, answering the Court directly) The pro-life movement's 50-year strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade Levin on the difficulty of simply being in the political minority, and why the system tries to make everyone a winner sometimes Originalism began as a limit on judicial power and judges' preferences Legal originalism looks for original public meaning, not the drafters' intent Parallel to biblical interpretation, where faithful readers reach wildly different conclusions The challenge of interpreting and applying the Constitution to matters of freedom and democracy today With Congress mostly absent, the Court is now deciding questions of executive power the Federalist Papers were written about Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch: Same age, same hometown, same high school history teacher, agreed only 52% of the time this term Trump v. Slaughter ends the independent agency: the Court overturned Humphrey's Executor, and the president can now fire FTC-style commissioners at will 2026 Court rulings also told the president no: on tariffs, on the National Guard in Illinois without the governor's consent, and on birthright citizenship Levin's rule of thumb: Pre-Trump conservative arguments win at this Court, Trumpy arguments lose Yuval Levin: Executive power peaked about a year ago and is now receding. Louisiana v. Callais guts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by requiring proof of racial intent A legal bind: Black voters vote Democratic by 90% in the South, so a racist map and a purely partisan map look identical Levin defends the ruling as law and grieves it as outcome—several Black-held Southern seats will likely be redistricted away Why he opposes reauthorizing the VRA with race-based set-aside districts, and where he thinks change should come from instead Software now lets parties gerrymander voter by voter—in New England, Trump won 35% and Republicans hold zero House seats The deceptions of the human heart Does constitutional structure just launder self-interest? The system's deepest failures have always clustered around race Gratitude for the Constitution in America's 250th year #SupremeCourt #Constitution #VotingRights #Originalism #ExecutivePower #FaithAndPolitics #YuvalLevin #Conversing Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#271
July 7 · 1 hr 17 min
What It Is Like to Be Dying, with Jeff Schloss
Against persistent fear of death, mortality avoidance, and the vices that emerge from terror management, this episode offers a personal testimony of a Christian experience of dying. With scientific precision, disarming honesty, and immense gratitude for life, biologist Jeff Schloss offers an intimate, firsthand account of his recent diagnosis of an extremely rare terminal neurological disease: multiple system atrophy (MSA). His doctors put the prognosis plainly: "It is terminal, it is incurable, and it's rapidly progressive." A longtime and beloved Westmont College biology professor and senior scholar at BioLogos, Schloss offers speaks directly to the experience of dying—as he encounters each new week of this rapidly progressive disease. He reconsiders the meaning of a "good death": increased gratitude and awareness of gift, the reality of pain, the loss of surfing and guitar-playing, the sacredness of family, and the surprising nearness of Christ as everything else falls away. A profound witness to Christian attitudes about life and death, Schloss seeks not a hero's death, but a daily, humble life-giving commerce with Christ. Schloss revisits a life that began in a nonreligious Jewish refugee family and pivoted through a dramatic conversion as a college-dropout surf bum in Hawaii. He traces what has changed, and what hasn't, now that death is no longer an abstraction but a daily fact in his body. With pastoral care and hope, Mark Labberton explores with Schloss what it means to experience dying rather than simply anticipate it, the grief of losing fifty years of surfing and guitar-playing to pain and paralysis, the gift of Simone Weil's writing on suffering, the Heidelberg Catechism's opening words on "our only comfort in life and in death," and the difference between the thrill of surfing and the sacredness of family and commerce with Christ. Episode Highlights I knew from the second grade that I wanted to be a scientist. I was out collecting butterflies and dragonflies and looking through microscopes at all sorts of things that I couldn't believe were there. As we were talking, it just occurred to me ... he either had what I wanted, or he was clinically crazy. It is terminal, it is incurable, and it's rapidly progressive ... the process of dying I find it fascinating ... It's not fun, but it is fascinating. She wasn't sad just for herself, I'm gonna lose you. And she wasn't sad empathetically just for me, so sorry for you. It was a joint sadness that the life we had hoped to share together, we are not gonna have. The things that are most life giving are out of reach ... I've come to see it's actually not true. The things that have been delightful are out of reach ... the thing that is most life giving, and that is commerce with Christ. I think it was the single most thrilling day of my entire life ... I said, no, those weren't thrilling, those were sacred. I don't want to market this season. I'm not looking for a hero's death, or any kind of publicly attended death. I would have never guessed that in this home stretch, my son and wife could carry me up the slopes of Yosemite Valley. About Jeff Schloss Jeff Schloss has spent four decades at the intersection of evolutionary biology and Christian theology. Now retired as Distinguished Professor of Biology at Westmont College, he continues as senior scholar at BioLogos, working alongside Francis Collins for more than fifteen years. He co-edited "The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion" and "Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective," a Templeton Science-Religion Book of Distinction winner. He has lectured at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard. Helpful Links and Resources Jeff Schloss's page at BioLogos, where he serves as senior scholar: https://biologos.org/people/jeffrey-schloss Finding Faith: An Evolutionary Biologist Shares His Story, Schloss's own video testimony for BioLogos: https://biologos.org/resources/finding-faith-an-evolutionary-biologist-shares-his-story Tackling the Divide Between Science and Faith, Westmont Magazine's profile of Schloss's career: https://www.westmont.edu/magazine/spring-2025/tackling-divide-between-science-and-faith The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion, Schloss's co-edited volume: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-believing-primate-9780199597086 Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective, Schloss's Templeton Award-winning co-edited volume: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802826954/evolution-and-ethics/ Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, source of the Augustinian science concept Schloss references: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/where-the-conflict-really-lies-9780199812097 Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 1, the confession Labberton reads to close the episode: https://www.heidelberg-catechism.com/en/lords-days/1.html Multiple System Atrophy overview, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/multiple-system-atrophy Show Notes Childhood in a nonreligious German Jewish refugee family Grandfather taken by the Gestapo, relatives lost in the Holocaust Early love of butterflies, dragonflies, and microscopes A sixth-grade encounter with Confucius sparks a love of philosophy College philosophy major searching for purpose and for God Dropping out, becoming a surf bum in Hawaii A stranger's dinner invitation becomes a turning point A late-night prayer of surrender met by an unmistakable presence Grad school pairing biology, philosophy, and the study of altruism Alvin Plantinga's Augustinian science and reading creation with a map Decades as senior scholar at BioLogos alongside Francis Collins Why church and science drifted apart over vaccines and politics Science as a reliable path to facts, not truth itself A new diagnosis: rare, terminal, rapidly progressive neurological disease—multiple systems atrophy (MSA) Doctors estimate an average of three years, with wide variation The difference between studying death as a biologist versus the real-time experience of dying A spouse's grief for a shared future that will not happen Losing surfing and guitar-playing as an unplanned kind of fasting Pain described as systemic, exhausting, disorienting Cognitive decline and dark humor about it Distinguishing what is thrilling from what is truly sacred The ache of no longer being able to research and create A flicker of despair met by a choice not to despair Wanting a real death, not a hero's death A wish to thank former students and colleagues before the end Not wanting to become a burden to family Giving God all of one's heart, without earning salvation by it Bonhoeffer's costly grace versus cheap grace Gratitude over entitlement as the ground of faith Simone Weil on suffering as a place grace can work A closing blessing and the Heidelberg Catechism's opening words Carried up the slopes of Yosemite by a son and a wife #ConversingPodcast #MarkLabberton #JeffSchloss #FaithAndScience #BioLogos #MultipleSystemAtrophy #Mortality #ChristianFaith #Westmont #Gratitude Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#270
June 30 · 36 min
What's Happening in America?, with David Brooks
As we come to the 250th celebration of America's founding, what is happening in our country? Pundits, writers, historians, political scientists, and average citizens are all trying to take stock of where we are as a nation. In this episode, we seek perspective by returning to the conversation between Mark Labberton and David Brooks immediately following the 2024 election, before the beginning of Trump's second term and all the events that have unfolded since. Whether you come to the 250th celebrating our national life, or questioning our national life; whether you're in support of what's happening currently in America, or whether you're overwhelmed by so much that you wish was different, may we give thanks. Thanks be to God for the place that we get to live, even as it's a place that is struggling to reach its ideals, and may we continue to pray and seek its welfare, its justice, its purpose, its fairness, and its equity. In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes David Brooks (The Atlantic, formerly of The New York Times) for reflections about the 2024 General Election, the state of American politics, and how we got here. Together they discuss the multi-generational class divide; sources of alienation and distrust; how loss of faith and meaning influences political life; intellectual virtues of courage, firmness, humility, and flexibility; what it means to be a Republican in exile; the capacity for self-awareness and self-critique; and much more. Episode Highlights "In my opinion, Donald Trump is the wrong answer to the right question." "The flow of status and respect in this country has gone to people with elite credentials." "If you tell 51% of the country 'Your voices don't matter,' people are going to get upset." "Jesus was more a badass revolutionary than an Oxford don." "The world just loves a human being that's trying to act like Jesus." Helpful Links and Resources "Confessions of a Republican Exile" (The Atlantic): https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/trumpism-republican-party-exile-david-brooks/680243/ How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, by David Brooks: https://www.amazon.com/How-Know-Person-Seeing-Others/dp/059323006X My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer, by Christian Wiman: https://www.amazon.com/My-Bright-Abyss-Meditation-Believer/dp/0374534373 David Brooks's current writing at The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-brooks/ Brooks and Capehart, PBS NewsHour: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/brooks-and-capehart About David Brooks David Brooks is staff writer for The Atlantic and is Presidential Senior Fellow at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Prior to that he wrote for The New York Times for 22 years*.* He is author of How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen; The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, and is founder of Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Show Notes A spiritual or emotional crisis we're working out in American politics Should we blame inflation and economic factors? (Biden's Covid-19 overstimulation) Class divide is a generational thing High-school-educated voters are increasingly alienated from the Democratic Party Alienation and distrust is a multi-decade process Loss of Faith, Loss of Meaning, and the "Death of God" An exiled Republican "Confessions of a Republican Exile" (via The Atlantic): "A longtime conservative, alienated by Trumpism, tries to come to terms with life on the moderate edge of the Democratic Party." "I'm a Whig." ("Abraham Lincoln was a Whig.") Edmund Burke and epistemological modesty—"don't revolutionize something you don't understand." You should operate on society in the way you operate on your father, with care. Alexander Hamilton Whig tradition is unrepresented in contemporary American politics How David Brooks waffles between Democrat and Republican Isaiah Berlin: "At the rightward edge of the leftward tendency." "The capacity for self-critique" Matt Yglesias Humble, introspective, and "how did we get so out of touch?" Racism and sexism are not what's driving Trump voters "In my opinion, Donald Trump is the wrong answer to the right question." Mark Noll and America's use of the Bible: un-self-aware and un-self-critical Why is there more capacity for self-critique on the Democratic side? Jonathan Rauch and "Epistemic Regime": includes media, universities, scientific research, review process, etc. "There's still a core of people who believe 'if the evidence says x, you should say y.'" "The greatest victory in the history of the world." Intellectual Virtues: Courage, Firmness, Flexibility "Reality is constantly going to surprise you." 1980s Republicanism was more intellectually sophisticated Conservative book publishing *Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change* by Jonah Goldberg How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks "The Stacking Stereotype" "A redistribution of respect" (away from large swaths of America and to elites) "The flow of status and respect in this country has gone to people with elite credentials." "… almost no Trump supporters." "If you tell 51% of the country 'Your voices don't matter,' people are going to get upset." America changing beneath us High level of spiritual and moral authority and low level of intellectual confidence The moral teaching of the New Testament "People are unitary wholes." "I became a Christian around 2013." "Jesus was more a badass revolutionary than an Oxford don." C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's Christianity "What it's like to be in the claustrophobic mind of a narcissist." Aggression: a joyless way to see the faith What is needed? "I was a 50-year-old atheist." Christian Wiman (My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer): materialistic categories couldn't explain the world "If they made me pope of the evangelicals, which is a job that makes me shudder…" "Be not afraid." "The world just loves a human being that's trying to act like Jesus." David Brooks's teaching at Yale The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist by Dorothy Day #Conversing #DavidBrooks #MarkLabberton #FaithAndPolitics #AmericanPolitics #HowToKnowAPerson #ChristianHumanism #Election2024 Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#269
June 23 · 53 min
Dignity, Difference, and Self-Giving Love, with Tim Shriver
Tim Shriver has spent a lifetime learning to see the people the rest of us are socialized to look past. The chairman of Special Olympics, co-creator of the Dignity Index, and son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, he argues that what's tearing America apart isn't how much we differ, but how we treat one another when we do. "We're not being torn apart by difference. We're being torn apart by the way we treat each other when we differ." In this episode with Mark Labberton, Shriver reflects on the teachers who shaped him—students and athletes who taught him a different way of seeing. They discuss the Dignity Index, contempt, toxic empathy that gives way to excusing harm, the role of "self-purification" in Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent campaigns, his Catholic faith, and embracing the Eucharist as self-giving love. Episode Highlights "We're not being torn apart by difference. We're being torn apart by the way we treat each other when we differ." "Empathy is knowing and understanding. Dignity is valuing and seeing." "You will have a superpower if you fight for your principles with all the passion you've got and add one principle: treat the other human being with dignity at the same time." "They're not crying because they're sad for the athlete. They're crying because something is coming out of them." "Concretely, you may hold, you may touch, you may drink of the face of God." About Tim Shriver Timothy Shriver has chaired Special Olympics International since 1996, growing the movement to over four million athletes worldwide. The third child of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, he taught for years in New Haven public schools and helped launch the field of social and emotional learning, co-founding and chairing CASEL. In 2018 he founded UNITE to bridge America's political divides and co-created the Dignity Index, an eight-point scale from contempt to respect. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most, and holds degrees from Yale and Catholic University and a doctorate from the University of Connecticut. Helpful links and Resources Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most, by Tim Shriver https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374535827/fullyalive/ The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening, edited by Tim Shriver https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671260/the-call-to-unite-by-edited-by-tim-shriver-and-tom-rosshirt/ The Dignity Index: https://www.dignity.us Special Olympics: https://www.specialolympics.org "Letter from Birmingham Jail": https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/letter-birmingham-jail Show Notes Living and teaching in New Haven, Connecticut; learning to see dignity Born 1959; family moves to D.C. after JFK's 1960 election Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps, and a faith that demanded more Living "eye to eye" in the village Aunt Rosemary and the camp that became Special Olympics "An unapologetic conviction that if we worked together, we could change the world." Choosing teaching over law; a hunger to go deep, not fast The high school visit that changed everything The student who dreamed of waking without braces "They cussed me out... but somehow they also love me" "There is some moment in our lives where being broken leads to freedom." Learning how to see; the blind man and "what do you want?" "They're crying because something is coming out of them." A culture that applauds cutting people off The Dignity Index: contempt to "I love you no matter what"; https://www.dignity.us Gov. Spencer Cox and leading without demonizing Toxic empathy Empathy is not excusing The superpower of human dignity Fighting for your principles and add one: dignity Thomas Merton's "pure glory of God in us" Martin Luther King Jr.'s "self-purification" as a component of non-violent resistance (see "Letter from a Birmingham Jail") The Eucharist: "You may hold, you may touch, you may drink of the face of God" #TimShriver #ConversingPodcast #MarkLabberton #DignityIndex #SpecialOlympics #HumanDignity #Empathy #FaithAndPublicLife
#268
June 16 · 48 min
Poetry, Paradox, and the Absence of God, with Christian Wiman
A poet who has lived two decades with incurable cancer on what faith sounds like when God feels more absent than present. Christian Wiman joins Mark Labberton to talk poetry, suffering, and friendship. "The presence of God, less so. I experience the absence more than the presence." In this episode with Mark Labberton, Wiman reflects on writing "Every Riven Thing" after a single church service, surviving a last-resort clinical trial, and the friendship behind his new book with Miroslav Volf. Together they discuss the paradox at the heart of poetry, grief that explodes into joy, and why joy asks something of us. They also weigh Heschel and Lewis's clarity, the friendless American male, and chance turned into destiny by constant choice. Special thanks to Unconditional Media for making this video podcast recording possible during our 2026 Understory festival. Episode Highlights "The presence of God, less so. I experience the absence more than the presence." "I would not let go of my despair, even though the poems were showing me something else." "Joy asks something of us on the other side." "The relief came from the communion between people." "I think that that was quite a shock to me to realize that we were each envying what the other had." About Christian Wiman Christian Wiman is a poet, essayist, editor, and translator, and the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School, where he teaches religion and literature with the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. From 2003 to 2013 he edited Poetry, the oldest magazine of verse in the English-speaking world, tripling its circulation and earning two National Magazine Awards. He is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books, including Every Riven Thing, the memoirs My Bright Abyss and He Held Radical Light, and the genre-blending Zero at the Bone. A former Guggenheim Fellow with two honorary doctorates, he has written candidly about faith and a long struggle with incurable cancer. Helpful Links and Resources Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian https://bookshop.org/p/books/glimmerings-letters-on-faith-between-a-poet-and-a-theologian-christian-wiman/1a13ad79a59080d1 My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer https://bookshop.org/p/books/my-bright-abyss-meditation-of-a-modern-believer-christian-wiman/dcebbe4f049250d8 Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair https://penguinbookshop.com/book/9780374603458 Show Notes Author, editor, translator of a dozen-plus books Twenty years living with an incurable cancer diagnosis Editing Poetry magazine amid Ruth Lilly's $200 million gift From editor to Yale Divinity School on one bold letter A last-resort clinical trial: "I definitely thought it was over" "Every Riven Thing" written in under an hour after a first church service Inventing a new poetic form on the spot Compression and paradox: "a great poem is irreducible" "Bittersweet": "all my sour sweet days I will lament and love" Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping Absence and presence: "I experience the absence more than the presence" My Bright Abyss and the chapter "God's Truth is Life" "From a Window": grief that suddenly explodes into birds and joy "I would not let go of my despair, even though the poems were showing me something else" Zadie Smith and C.S. Lewis on joy too destabilizing to want "joy asks something of us on the other side" The rare clarity of Heschel and Lewis, marrying reason and imagination Glimmerings: eighteen months of letters with Miroslav Volf "After angels" and a transforming walk near the Div School "the relief came from the communion between people" Friendship and the friendless American male "we were each envying what the other had" West Texas: an expanse "wide open and annihilating, crushing" Ricoeur: chance turned into a destiny by virtue of a constant choice #ChristianWiman #MarkLabberton #Conversing #PoetryAndFaith #Glimmerings #MyBrightAbyss #FaithAndDoubt #MiroslavVolf Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#267
June 9 · 1 hr 11 min
Rehumanizing Our Common Life, with Shadi Hamid, Elizabeth Oldfield, Ray Pennings, and Anne Snyder
What does it take to rehumanize our common life in a moment of cultural fragility, institutional collapse, and crisis of trust? Recorded at the Washington National Cathedral for Comment magazine's inaugural Understory Festival, this roundtable asks how culture, beauty, and faith might rehumanize a fractured public life. Mark Labberton is joined by Comment editor-in-chief Anne Snyder, The Sacred host Elizabeth Oldfield, Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, and Cardus co-founder Ray Pennings. "It is actually possible to have deep roots and wide open arms." In this episode, the panel reflects on building a gathering rooted in hope and Christian humanism rather than argument alone. They discuss why and how politics is downstream from culture, the role of religion in the public square, the limits of purely cerebral ways of knowing, toxic positivity versus honest hope, pluralism with deep roots, the beauty of "groaning," and learning to die well. Special thanks to Unconditional Media for making this video podcast recording possible during our 2026 Understory festival. Episode Highlights "It is actually possible to have deep roots and wide open arms."—Anne Snyder "Naturally as a Muslim, I don't agree with Christianity's truth claims, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the beauty of Christianity."—Shadi Hamid "The word that's been coming to me this whole festival is and."—Elizabeth Oldfield "Politics is downstream from culture."—Ray Pennings "We're all made to worship, it's just a question of what we worship."—Shadi Hamid About the Guests Anne Snyder is editor-in-chief of Comment, a magazine published by Cardus, and convener of the Understory Festival. She hosts The Whole Person Revolution podcast and wrote The Fabric of Character. Elizabeth Oldfield hosts The Sacred podcast, is a former director of UK think tank Theos, and author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. Shadi Hamid is a Washington Post columnist, senior fellow at Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, co-host of Zealots at the Gate, and author of The Case for American Power. Ray Pennings co-founded Cardus in 2000 and serves as its executive vice president and Comment's publisher. Helpful Links and Resources The Understory Festival: https://comment.org/understory/ Comment magazine: https://comment.org Cardus: https://www.cardus.ca The Understory, by Lore Ferguson Wilbert (the book behind the name): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1587435705 Elizabeth Oldfield, Fully Alive: https://www.elizabetholdfield.com The Sacred podcast: https://linktr.ee/sacredpodcast Zealots at the Gate: https://comment.org/podcasts/zealots-at-the-gate/ Shadi Hamid, The Case for American Power: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/shadi-hamid/ Show Notes Understory Festival, National Cathedral Local hope, national despair Naming the festival: the Lore Ferguson Wilbert book Festival, not conference—body, mind, heart, soul Cardus, a faith-based think tank "Politics is downstream from culture."—Ray Pennings Ways of knowing as the "secret sauce" A Muslim observer among his favorite Christians "I don't agree with Christianity's truth claims, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the beauty of Christianity."—Shadi Hamid Culture as the path out of despair Weeping beside someone rolling their eyes Groaning beauty and Romans 8 Dying well—euthanasia, deathbeds, Ben Sasse The secular paradigm at a dead end "We're all made to worship, it's just a question of what we worship."—Shadi Hamid Madeleine Albright's "theophany" on faith in diplomacy Moral ambition and the power of "and" "The word that's been coming to me this whole festival is and."—Elizabeth Oldfield Christian humanism—rights endowed by a Creator Luke Bretherton—start with the neighbor's need Hospitality—a guest, not an enemy "It is actually possible to have deep roots and wide open arms."—Anne Snyder Surface versus depth—showing what's underneath #UnderstoryFestival #Comment #ChristianHumanism #PublicTheology #ShadiHamid #ElizabethOldfield #AnneSnyder #Cardus #Pluralism #Hope Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#266
June 2 · 59 min
The Cost of Loving Your Neighbour, with Jim Wallis
When a faith built to bless the nation gets quietly diverted into power, the most dangerous act left to the church may be refusing to whitewash the story and choosing instead to become a communion of genuinely unlike people. On the eve of a national prayer rally rededicating America to God, Mark Labberton joined The Jim Wallis Podcast to ask whether Christians who invoke the nation's name are following Jesus or drifting from him. Together with Jim Wallis, Mark reflects on what it means to choose Christ alone, love the neighbour, and refuse a faith fused to national power. They discuss the evangel versus "evangelicalism," the church as a communion of unlike people, worship in a black church, American exceptionalism as theological crisis, and racial gerrymandering after recent court rulings. Episode Highlights "I want to be evangel-centric and not be caught up in the icalisms of a history, a pattern, a habit, a sociology that has often been diverted from the evangel into power—political, social, economic, racial power." "Paul's giving us a vision of the church that's a communion of unlike people. We know a lot about a communion of like people. But a communion of unlike people is meant to be one of the hallmarks of the church." "I can't be a Christian alone, but I also can't be a Christian that matures if I'm a Christian only with people who are like me." "Worship of our country, or the exceptionalism of leaders of our country—these are completely foreign to the body of Christ and to the theology of the kingdom." "It's really like subverting reality by renaming it in a way that's euphemistic, that's literally whitewashing." Helpful Links and Resources The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor, by Mark Labberton https://www.ivpress.com/the-dangerous-act-of-loving-your-neighbor Called, by Mark Labberton https://www.ivpress.com/called The False White Gospel, by Jim Wallis https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250291899/thefalsewhitegospel/ Jim Wallis, Center on Faith and Justice https://faithandjustice.georgetown.edu/about-jim-wallis/ God's Politics with Jim Wallis (Substack): https://jimwallis.substack.com/ Show Notes Recorded on the eve of the Rededicate 250 prayer rally Loving your neighbour as a dangerous, costly act Gratitude for America alongside a "far more complicated story" of suffering "Christ alone"—Jesus, not any nation, party, or president, is Lord "The evangel is the good news of Jesus Christ"; nothing can rival it "A communion of unlike people is meant to be one of the hallmarks of the church." White allies, Black solidarity, and Supreme Court rulings on Louisiana and Alabama A friend's anniversary in African garb—living fully "on good days, maybe two-thirds" Detroit, Black churches, and faith as joyous rediscovery Worshiping at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland every Sunday Saying yes to the evangel, no to the "icalism" of evangelicalism John Stott as mentor; the Lausanne Covenant and Global South Stott's wartime pacifism; a father who stopped speaking for four years American exceptionalism as a theological crisis, not just left-versus-right "America's original sin," erasing history, and "literally whitewashing" First citizenship in the kingdom; the moral arc bends toward justice #MarkLabberton #JimWallis #Conversing #ChristianNationalism #ChristAlone #LoveYourNeighbor #PublicTheology #FaithAndPolitics Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary. Acknowledgements Special thanks to Jim Wallis and Paul Woodhull.
#265
May 26 · 51 min
Kinship and Gang Life, with Gregory Boyle
Father Greg Boyle has spent nearly four decades alongside gang members in Los Angeles, founding Homeboy Industries from the poorest parish in the city. "An employed gang member may or may not go back to prison, but a healed one won't ever go back to prison." In this episode with Mark Labberton, Boyle reflects on what heals a life inside the world's largest gang-intervention program. Together they discuss tenderness as the highest form of spiritual maturity, kinship as the true goal (with peace and justice as byproducts), why "the poor evangelize you," why demonizing collapses on both political sides, and the mental-health roots of homelessness and gang life. Episode Highlights "The whole incarnation was necessary, not because of sin or salvation even. It's just, for me, it's God's love needed to become tender." "I think that's the singular agenda item for our God is just to look at you and say, 'Ah, you're here.'" "No kinship, no peace. No kinship, no justice. No kinship, no equality. It's how it works." "An employed gang member may or may not go back to prison, but a healed one won't ever go back to prison." "There aren't good guys and bad guys, you know? And God doesn't see it that way, as hard as that is for us to conceive." About Greg Boyle Father Gregory Boyle, SJ, is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. A native Angeleno, he served as pastor of Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights from 1986 to 1992. In 2024 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with the California Peace Prize and Notre Dame's 2017 Laetare Medal. He is the bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, The Whole Language, and Cherished Belonging. Learn more and follow at homeboyindustries.org and @homeboyindustries on Instagram. Helpful Links and Resources Cherished Belonging (2024): https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Cherished-Belonging/Gregory-Boyle/9781668061855 Tattoos on the Heart: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tattoos-on-the-Heart/Gregory-Boyle/9781439153154 Homeboy Industries: https://homeboyindustries.org Father Greg's bio: https://homeboyindustries.org/our-story/father-greg/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeboyindustries L'Arche International: https://www.larche.org Show Notes Native Angeleno; Catholic, family-of-eight upbringing in Mid-Wilshire Why the Jesuits: hilarity, prophetic witness, anti-Vietnam protest "There is no difference actually between what God wants for you and what you most deeply want" Bolivia, 1984: liberation theology and the indigenous Jesuits "The poor evangelize you" Assigned to Dolores Mission—poorest parish in LA, highest concentration of gang activity "A vocation within a vocation within a vocation" The decade of death, 1988–98, and burying kids Birth of Homeboy: school, "felony-friendly" jobs, nine businesses "Nobody thinks anything up. You evolve." Tattoos on the Heart and the discipline of paying attention "I had been drowning in the shallow end of my own thoughts… Homeboy taught me to stand up" Tenderness as the highest form of spiritual maturity—L'Arche "God's love needed to become tender"—a different theology of incarnation "Ah, you're here"—the singular agenda item of God Kinship as God's dream; peace, justice, equality as byproducts "No kinship, no peace. No kinship, no justice. No kinship, no equality." "There aren't good guys and bad guys… God doesn't see it that way" Homelessness rooted in despair, trauma, mental illness "An employed gang member may or may not go back to prison, but a healed one won't ever go back" LA County Jail as the largest mental institution in the world Friendship as the secret diagnosis—and the primacy of relationship #HomeboyIndustries #GregBoyle #ConversingPodcast #RadicalKinship #Tenderness #Compassion #FaithAndJustice #GangIntervention #Jesuit Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#264
May 19 · 51 min
Resilience for the Spiritually Weary, with Tish Harrison Warren
We tell conversion stories. We tell deconversion stories. But where are the stories of the long, complicated, and faithful middle? Author and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren joins Mark Labberton on her new book What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience—a vision for faith that endures the long, often dry middle of life. Drawing on the Desert Mothers and Fathers, she names a quiet crisis many believers know but rarely speak: spiritual weariness, prayer that goes silent, and the cultural pull to blow up your life rather than stay in it. "Grit is an essential ingredient of grace, and resilience is indispensable if we are to become who we are made to be." In this episode with Mark Labberton, Warren reflects on her own burnout as a writer, mother, and priest, and what the ancient monks taught her about how to keep going. Together they discuss revivalism's distortions, stability of the heart, the church in exile, patience as resistance to consumerism, communal hope, and what it means to stay in your cell. Episode Highlights "What our culture and what the church tends to lack are stories of a long, steady continuation in faith." "Grit is an essential ingredient of grace, and resilience is indispensable if we are to become who we are made to be." "We meet God in the midst of that, not on the other side of that." "If the moral majority was kind of dressing Jesus up and putting him in a red tie, it didn't seem like a solution to just, for then, to me, put Jesus in a blue tie." "Our primary exile isn't a political state, it's that we're in sin." About Tish Harrison Warren Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and Anglican priest in Austin, Texas, and the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year), Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year), and her newest, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience. She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for the New York Times and was a columnist for Christianity Today. She serves as the C.S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence for the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum, and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. Helpful Links and Resources What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience by Tish Harrison Warren https://tishharrisonwarren.com/whatgrowsinwearylands Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren https://tishharrisonwarren.com/liturgy-of-the-ordinary Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren https://www.ivpress.com/prayer-in-the-night The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope by Curt Thompson https://curtthompsonmd.com/books/ Immanuel Anglican Church, Austin https://www.immanuelatx.org Tish Harrison Warren online https://tishharrisonwarren.com https://www.instagram.com/tishharrisonwarren/ Show Notes Award-winning Anglican priest, author, and former New York Times newsletter writer Origins of What Grows in Weary Lands—a season of mid-career weariness Sandwich generation: young kids and a mother with Alzheimer's "It felt like I told my husband, like the line went dead." Reading from chapter one—revivalism, deconversion, and the missing middle "What our culture and what the church tends to lack are stories of a long, steady continuation in faith." Perseverance—the "eat your vegetables" of the spiritual life "Grit is an essential ingredient of grace, and resilience is indispensable if we are to become who we are made to be." Reconversion, not deconstruction Stabilitas cordis—stability of the heart The eat-pray-love trap and mid-life self-reinvention Striving, and treating God like an app or an Uber driver Desert Mothers and Fathers, third through fifth century "Stay in your cell"—a holistic call far beyond quiet-time advice Benedict's vow of stability, drawn from desert wisdom The American church as a church in exile, not a promised land "If the moral majority was dressing Jesus up in a red tie, it didn't seem like a solution to put Jesus in a blue tie." "Our primary exile isn't a political state, it's that we're in sin." Charlie—incandescent joy after a long, hard middle Hilda—fifty-eight years of daily prayer for her father's conversion "Impatience is what keeps you buying things. Patience doesn't make anybody any money." Resilience is communal—Curt Thompson on brains that cannot hope alone The long view: small repair, slow institutional change, hope carried together #ChristianResilience #TishHarrisonWarren #WhatGrowsInWearyLands #DesertFathers #StabilityOfTheHeart #SpiritualFormation #AnglicanFaith #FaithAndCulture #ConversingPodcast #MarkLabberton Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
#263
May 12 · 40 min
Voting Rights, with Jemar Tisby
Historian and New York Times bestselling author Jemar Tisby joins Mark Labberton to confront the Supreme Court's 6–3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which has eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and reopened the door to racial gerrymandering across the South. Recorded in the immediate aftermath, the conversation traces the long arc from the Three-Fifths Clause and Dred Scott through Selma to this hour. "This has landed in the black community harder and heavier than a lot of what we've seen during the Trump administration." In this episode with Mark Labberton, Tisby reflects on the history of black disenfranchisement, the cynicism of colorblind jurisprudence, and what remains of multiracial democracy in America. Together they discuss how the legal architecture of Jim Crow reemerges under neutral language, John Roberts's decades-long campaign against the Voting Rights Act, Justice Kagan's umbrella analogy, the suspension of Louisiana's primary, the black church's response, and why this midterm may be the country's last political chance. Episode Highlights "This has landed in the black community harder and heavier than a lot of what we've seen during the Trump administration, and that's saying a lot." "It boggles the mind that folks sitting on the highest court in the land who have been to all these Ivy League schools, have literally decades of experience, can get it so wrong and stand so arrogantly on such faulty reasoning." "Colorblindness only works if you're starting from a level playing field." "These are not good-faith actors, not people wanting a representative democracy, but people wanting to consolidate power, which we call minority rule." "If you can't win on the merits of what you believe, then you have to rig the system so that no one can get you out of office." About Jemar Tisby Jemar Tisby is a New York Times bestselling author, historian, speaker, and professor of history at Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black college in Louisville. He holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame, an MDiv from Reformed Theological Seminary, and a PhD in history from the University of Mississippi, where he studied race, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century. He is the founder of The Witness, Inc., a black Christian collective, and the author of The Color of Compromise, How to Fight Racism, and The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance. His commentary appears on CNN and in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and he writes Footnotes, a top-ranked history publication on Substack. Helpful Links and Resources Jemar Tisby's website: https://jemartisby.com Footnotes by Jemar Tisby (Substack): https://jemartisby.substack.com The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance (most recent book): https://jemartisby.com/the-spirit-of-justice/ The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism (bestseller): https://www.zondervan.com/9780310113607/the-color-of-compromise/ How to Fight Racism: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-to-fight-racism-jemar-tisby The Justice Briefing podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/footnotes-with-dr-jemar-tisby/id1460240056 Louisiana v. Callais, opinion of the Court (April 29, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf Elie Mystal, "The Supreme Court Has Completed Its Quest to Kill the Voting Rights Act," The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/supreme-court-demolishes-voting-rights-act/ "Sing Out, March On"—Joshuah Campbell's tribute to John Lewis, Harvard 2018 Commencement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=mKNRXQemxWQ NAACP Legal Defense Fund—Louisiana v. Callais case page: https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/louisiana-v-callais/ Brennan Center for Justice—Louisiana v. Callais: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/louisiana-v-callais Show Notes Why this conversation now: the SCOTUS ruling on the Voting Rights Act last week News breaking through a group text of lawyers, organizers, clergy, nonprofit leaders "This has landed in the black community harder and heavier than a lot of what we've seen during the Trump administration." John Lewis, SNCC, and the march from Selma to Montgomery A baton hard enough to crack the skull, the hardest bone in the body "It boggles the mind that folks sitting on the highest court in the land…can get it so wrong and stand so arrogantly on such faulty reasoning." Allen Temple Baptist in Oakland—watermelons, bubbles, and jelly beans on a Sunday morning The Three-Fifths Clause and the architecture of representation Dred Scott v. Sandford—"property can't sue" Reconstruction Amendments: 13th, 14th, 15th—birthright citizenship newly under threat Jim Crow's neutral codes: poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses Voting Rights Act of 1965 as the culmination of the civil rights movement Edmund Pettus Bridge—Bloody Sunday going viral in its day LBJ signs the bill with Rosa Parks and MLK in the room Elie Mystal in The Nation: gerrymandering with plausible deniability—https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/supreme-court-demolishes-voting-rights-act/ Shelby County v. Holder, 2013—preclearance gutted Roberts's tautology—stop discriminating to stop discrimination "Colorblindness only works if you're starting from a level playing field." Cast and umbrella analogies for premature dismantling of civil rights remedies Plaintiff Bert Callais's January 6 ties; Louisiana's roughly one-third black population Governor Jeff Landry's emergency order suspends Louisiana's May primary mid-election "These are not good faith actors…people wanting to consolidate power, which we call minority rule." "If you can't win on the merits of what you believe, then you have to rig the system so that no one can get you out of office." The activism horizon—courts, churches, voter registration, midterm turnout, NAACP, LDF, Brennan Center The last political chance before competitive authoritarianism #VotingRightsAct #JemarTisby #LouisianaVCallais #SCOTUS #CivilRights #BlackChurch #FaithAndJustice #SelmaToMontgomery #Democracy #MarkLabberton Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

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