For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Honesty may be the virtue we prize most in other people, and it is eroding fast. Philosopher Christian B. Miller, A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and author of The Honesty Crisis , argues that we are living through not one honesty crisis but several at once, each driven by new technologies that make dishonesty more tempting and harder to catch. In this episode with Evan Rosa, Miller unpacks what has actually changed: why AI cheating feels efficient, effective, and evasive to students who assume everyone else is doing it; how sermon plagiarism moved from borrowed manuscripts to the internet to AI; and how celebrity culture, at every scale from pop stars to local pastors, widens the gap between a curated public image and a private self. Together they discuss honesty as far more than truth-telling, a virtue that covers cheating, stealing, misleading, BS-ing, and self-deception, along with Miller’s definition of honest behavior as not intentionally misrepresenting or distorting the facts as you see them, which frees honesty from any claim to possess capital-T Truth. Together they also consider why we are neither born nor raised honest, why honest motivation has to be other-centered rather than reward-seeking, how hard reality, trusted friends, and the Holy Spirit can break through self-deception, how rampant dishonesty leaves a society transactional and afraid, and why, in a fallen world with a Nazi at the door, honesty can be outweighed by compassion and justice. Episode Highlights ”So when you put those two together, greater temptation and also easier to get away with it, that’s a bad combination. It’s a bad formula for trying to preserve what I think is our most important virtue of honesty.” ”We have something that’s efficient, effective, evasive, and everyone else is thought to be using it.” ”I think it’s now we’ve gone so far, there’s no going back … we cannot assume that graded work in education at the middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels is actually, predominantly the work of the student as opposed to the work of an AI.” ”According to some survey data I’ve seen, at least 25% of pastors are using AI for sermon writing and preparation without acknowledgement. And so they’re standing up there presenting this material as if it were their own.” ”What I want to say is honest behavior is a matter of not intentionally misrepresenting or distorting the facts as you see them.” ”3,000 years ago, when people were saying the Earth is flat, they were wrong, but they weren’t dishonest.” ”Most people want to cheat if they think they can get away with it, and it’s suitably beneficial.” ”This is not just the Taylor Swifts, this is not just the LeBron Jameses of the world, massive celebrities. We are all celebrities to some extent.” ”You are unable to form genuine friendships and loving, caring relationships with anyone, because those presuppose trust and honesty, and dishonesty breaks down trust, and fractures the relationship… And instead, what ends up happening is you live in fear.” ”In these tragic, terrible situations, we have to balance honesty, which is important, with other values like compassion, kindness, caring, justice… Honesty is really important, but it’s not the only thing that matters.” About Christian B. Miller Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, where he studies virtue and moral character. He directed The Honesty Project, a $4.4 million initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and earlier led The Character Project. He is the author of more than 130 articles and several books, including The Character Gap: How Good Are We? , Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue , and, most recently, The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World (2026). He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his wife and three children. Helpful Links and Resources The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World , Christian B. Miller: https://christianbmiller.com/the-honesty-crisis/ The Character Gap: How Good Are We? , Christian B. Miller: https://christianbmiller.com/the-character-gap/ About Christian B. Miller: https://christianbmiller.com/about-me/ The Honesty Project, Wake Forest University: https://honestyproject.philosophy.wfu.edu On Bullshit , Harry G. Frankfurt: https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691276793/on-bullshit-0 Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom, Thomas Jefferson: https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/honesty-first-chapter-book-wisdom/ “Lying and Speaking Your Interlocutor’s Language,” Alexander R. Pruss: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/637086/pdf Show Notes The honesty crisis Not one crisis but several, each pairing greater temptation with easier escape from detection Technology as the cause, though not inherently evil Crib notes, honor codes, and the internet AI cheating Four drivers of student AI use: speed, polish, near-undetectability, and assuming everyone else does it No going back on assuming graded work reflects a student’s own effort Technological advance as relational decline and eroded accountability Sermon plagiarism, from borrowed manuscripts to online sermons to AI Pastors using AI without acknowledgment, and the broken trust when it surfaces Lying, cheating, stealing, misleading, fraud, self-deception, and BS-ing Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit Deepfakes, AI companions, infidelity websites, and misinformation Honest behavior defined by the facts as you see them, not capital-T Truth Flat-earth believers, the Matrix, and trusting experts who let us down Most people cheat when it pays and detection seems unlikely Not born honest, not raised honest Winnicott’s false self and early incentives to hide Why honest motives must be other-centered, not self-protective Celebrity culture, curated public images, and feeling above the rules Everyone with a platform, down to the local pastor, as a minor celebrity Jefferson on honesty and wisdom Self-deception Downplaying unwelcome evidence about a partner, or about ourselves Hitting bottom, trusted friends, and the Holy Spirit as ways through Ephesians 4:25 (NIV): "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body." A dishonest society as transactional, friendless, and afraid The Nazi at the door, when compassion and justice outweigh honesty Alexander Pruss on lying Preserving valuable connections at the cost of corrupted ones #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #Honesty #HonestyCrisis #AIEthics #AcademicIntegrity #MoralPsychology #Virtue #Philosophy #ChristianEthics #Podcast Production Notes This podcast featured Christian B. Miller Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What happens when an ancient discipline built to remake the self in the context of a way of life and normative map gets sold back to us as lifehacking for stress relief and optimization? Experimental psychologist Miguel Farias, co-author of The Buddha Pill and founding director of the Brain, Belief, and Behaviour Lab at Coventry University, has spent two decades studying what meditation actually does to people, and what modern appropriation has forgotten about ancient tradition. “The possibilities of self-deception are endless. … The mind is clever, so you have to move beyond that level of cleverness.” In this episode with Evan Rosa, Farias returns to the oldest question in the contemplative traditions: What is this self, and how might it change? He moves from the Delphic command to “know thyself,” through the charioteer of Plato and the Katha Upanishad, to Teresa of Ávila’s interior castle and the delights of prayer that arrive as gift rather than achievement. Along the way he argues that modern meditation, including much Western Buddhist practice, rests on a naive confidence that we can do this alone, when nearly every tradition insists on the opposite: you need guides, community, and a map, because our capacity to fool ourselves runs deep. Together they discuss why insight alone rarely changes anyone, the difference between change and transformation, how cognitive psychology misread Pascal’s reasons of the heart, and the paradox of rigorous self-mastery practiced in order to let go. They also take up the question of Freud’s lasting relevance, mindfulness as a placating opiate rather than a rupture of conformity, why hours of daily meditation can coexist with selfishness, suffering as fuel for transformation rather than something merely to soothe, Francis of Assisi’s gratitude for Sister Death, and what a seeker without a tradition’s map can do when meditation stirs up more than expected. The conversation closes on Ezekiel’s promise of a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone, a week spent caring for the sick at Lourdes, and the claim that sudden awakenings come more often from encounters with other people than from sitting alone. Episode Highlights ”Here you do indeed have a major difference between all these spiritual traditions and modern meditation, including Western Buddhist meditation, which is very new in the sense that it has this exceedingly naive idea that you can do this by yourself.” ”No, no, no, no, do not trust yourself. That’s actually a major thing. You need other people… the possibilities of self-deception are endless.” ”You can meditate for 23 hours a day and have all these wonderful, blissful experiences. And then for the one hour that you’re not meditating, you can be the most selfish bastard on earth.” ”The mind is clever, so you have to move beyond that level of cleverness. And in many, many ways, what’s the best thing that meditation is doing for many people today is to help them learn how to unlearn many of the stupid things we have learned.” ”You exert this astonishing level of control so that you can entirely let go of it.” ”Now I tell my colleagues who do mindfulness, the way to hell is paved with good intentions. There’s a deep wisdom in this.” ”What these traditions… are talking about is really the transformational possibility of suffering. How suffering can be a tool, can be an energy, can be an oil, fuel for something deep.” ”If you start moving across too many wells, because you’re thirsty and you’re looking for water, if you move from well to well… and as you just sip from it, you may end up dying of thirst.” ”Most tales we have of sudden enlightenment are not the outcome of meditation, they’re the outcome of encounters with others.” ”What matters is that your heart is pure. It is a heart of flesh. It is a heart that allows light in. It is not a heart of stone.” About Miguel Farias Miguel Farias is an experimental psychologist, associate professor, and founding director of the Brain, Belief, and Behaviour Lab at Coventry University. He studied psychology and psychotherapy at the University of Lisbon before earning his doctorate in experimental psychology at Oxford, where he lectured. He co-wrote, with Catherine Wikholm, ”The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?” and is lead editor of ”The Oxford Handbook of Meditation.” His research spans belief, ritual, pilgrimage, and meditation, including the first randomized controlled trial of yoga and meditation in prisons. In 2026 he launched ”The Buddha Pill Podcast,” a documentary series on meditation. Special thanks to Steve Porter and the Martin Institute for Christianity & Culture at Westmont College. For more information visit https://www.westmont.edu/about/institutes-and-centers/martin-institute . Made possible in part by the Templeton World Charities Foundation Helpful Links and Resources Miguel Farias website: https://miguelfarias.co.uk/ Miguel Farias, Coventry University research profile: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/researchers/dr-miguel-farias/ The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?, by Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm: https://www.amazon.com/Buddha-Pill-Can-Meditation-Change/dp/1786782219 The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, edited by Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/40700 The Buddha Pill Podcast, Part 1, via Templeton World Charity Foundation: https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/blog/the-buddha-pill-with-miguel-farias-part1-what-is-meditation The Interior Castle, by Teresa of Ávila (Christian Classics Ethereal Library): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/castle2.html Pascal’s Pensées (Project Gutenberg): http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm Canticle of the Creatures, by Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Friars): https://friars.us/article/2025/01/11/franciscans-celebrate-800th-anniversary-of-canticle-of-the-creatures Show Notes Colossians, Freud, and the old self Know yourself: the Delphic inscription behind philosophy and religion Plato and the Katha Upanishad on the charioteer and the horses Not a perennialist: where the Buddha departed from his Hindu context Embodied ascetic practices for mastering the passions Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castle: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/castle2.html Delights of prayer, and what effort achieves versus what arrives as gift Pascal’s reasons of the heart, misread by cognitive psychology A Thai temple advertising willpower, with an inner sanctuary for asking grace Why the traditions distrust solo practice and insist on guides and community A Hindu priestess on long hours of meditation coexisting with selfishness Insight versus assimilation Change versus transformation Unlearning what a clever, overeducated mind has absorbed Conformity and obedience in the most individualistic culture The paradox of rigorous self-control practiced so control can be surrendered, the margin where real creativity and uniqueness begin Thérèse of Lisieux’s garden of saints against spiritual monoculture Freud taught in Oxford literature degrees, not psychology Therapeutic meditation as placebo or opiate rather than a rupture of conformity Why alleviating suffering and being transformed by it are different goals, with Christianity treating suffering as fuel for drawing closer to God Francis of Assisi’s Canticle and gratitude for Sister Death: https://friars.us/article/2025/01/11/franciscans-celebrate-800th-anniversary-of-canticle-of-the-creatures An unsettled atheist after a retreat, and an Iranian exile angry at religion Moving from well to well without drinking deeply Enlightenment through encounters with others, not solitary sitting Ezekiel’s heart of stone and heart of flesh A first week caring for the sick at Lourdes and a heart slowly exercised into new sensitivity #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #Meditation #Mindfulness #Contemplation #ChristianSpirituality #PsychologyOfReligion #TeresaOfAvila #SpiritualFormation #Podcast Production Notes This podcast featured Miguel Farias Special thanks to Steve Porter and the Martin Institute for Christianity & Culture at Westmont College Made possible in part by the Templeton World Charities Foundation Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

It took Odysseus ten years to sail home from Troy to Ithaca; we can fly the same distance in about an hour. But faster travel hasn't brought us any closer to home. We can know more, do more, and connect more than ever, and yet our ability to belong to our own reality seems to be shrinking. Philosopher Ian Marcus Corbin, who teaches at Harvard Medical School and directs Harvard's Public Culture Project, takes up that paradox in his new book, To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, and Corbin reads Eliot's lines as something like a mission statement for humanity: the point of the journey is not to escape reality or optimize our way around it, but to truly belong to it. In this episode with Evan Rosa, Corbin unpacks why so many of us feel, as Rilke put it, not really at home in our interpreted world, and why technology may leave us suffering too little to live out the old mythic lessons of departure and return. Together they discuss why coming home first requires a breaking, from the Lakota vision quest to Eliot's apophatic poetry, and what it means for a world to decay, leaving people with no past and no future, whether their culture has been devastated or they are being raised on ten-second clips. They also explore what Corbin calls “ownerism,” the high fences and heated pools we build when the world stops feeling like home, along with contempt for the world, collapsing birth rates, and the dream of escaping the planet, to Mars or into the metaverse. Along the way, Corbin draws on Simone Weil's wager that we could not be born at a better time than when we have lost everything, and on Father Zosima's call in Dostoevsky to love all of God's creation, every leaf and every ray of light, as a way back into belonging. Episode Highlights "For me, feeling like I belong in my world and I understand it and I fit it's never been a simple thing, and I've always had the sense that this is something I was questing towards." "That's either a world in decay or that's a world that hasn't had the chance to get fully formed in the first place. And I think that's an incredibly strange and dangerous place to be." "Maybe it takes you 10 years to get back to Ithaca or whatever. But… to be a young person striking out into the adult world with very little sense of what matters to you or who you are or where you come from, gosh… I wouldn't trade with them." "It looks to me honestly like a society hurtling. And I don't know what we're hurtling towards, but we're hurtling. And like with scant ability to look up and ask, 'Well, is that where we wanna go?'" "The world is not a home to us, right? It is this empty, cruel thing. So the best I can do is throw up some really high fences, get a nice heated pool, right? Get a nice security system." "We can't just produce and promulgate whatever the consumer will click on because I am a weak man, and I will click on things, right, that aren't in the long run good for me." "Take a good teacher who cares a lot and take one really good book and 12 kids and put them in a room with no distractions and no telephones… and my goodness, you'll have the most transformative and beautiful experience of learning and community you could hope for." "Every good thing around you will die, as will you. And you have to be strong enough to stand there and take that punch, right?" "Who's the crazy one here?… I sound woo-woo, but the system that I'm pushing back against is kinda suicidal." About Ian Marcus Corbin Ian Marcus Corbin is a philosopher on the neurology faculty at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, director of Harvard's Public Culture Project, and an instructor at the HMS Center for Bioethics. His first book, "To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World," was published by Yale University Press in 2026. He studied politics, religion, and philosophy at Gordon College, Oxford, Yale, and Boston College, and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Plough. Before all that, he founded and ran a contemporary art gallery in Boston's South End. Helpful Links and Resources To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World, by Ian Marcus Corbin: https://www.amazon.com/Arrive-Where-We-Started-Belonging/dp/0300263627 Ian Marcus Corbin's website: https://www.ianmarcuscorbin.com/about Ian Marcus Corbin on Substack: https://ianmarcuscorbin.substack.com/ The Public Culture Project at Harvard: https://artsandhumanities.fas.harvard.edu/public-culture-project Radical Hope Retrospective, an interview with Jonathan Lear: https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/virtues/magazine/radical-hope-retrospective-an-interview-with-jonathan-lear/ Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/four-quartets-t-s-eliot/237356 Show Notes Four Quartets and Duino Elegies Belonging as a lifelong, never-finished quest Apophatic breaking: old certainties collapsing so something new can be seen Lakota vision quest: fasting, sleeplessness, and a vision the elders help interpret into an adult role in the tribe Rites of passage and the communal structure that catches you afterward Smartphones, rural Uganda, and the lure of the city Crow people, cultural collapse, and Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope Radical Hope Retrospective, an interview with Jonathan Lear: https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/virtues/magazine/radical-hope-retrospective-an-interview-with-jonathan-lear/ Simone Weil on being born at the right time World decay Critiques of Rawlsian liberalism from Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre Survey data on young adults lacking meaning and purpose Ten-second clips, endless takedowns, and the struggle to form convictions worth dying for Wittgenstein's rough ground Meme culture: real ingenuity inside a nihilistic vacuum Home as the place one starts from, and a generation sent out without one Odysseus and the archetypal departure and return Progress as a stand-in for providence Falling birth rates and worldwide pessimism about the future Rilke and oikophilia Contemptus mundi and odium mundi Mars and the metaverse as twin escape routes from Earth Hans Jonas on a natural world emptied of care Ownerism: fences, heated pools, and a paranoid intuition of scarcity Black Elk in New York City Consumerism as a life lived in anticipation Iris Marion Young and the myth of the calculating, self-made individual Dostoevsky's Zosima and loving every leaf One good teacher, one good book, twelve students, no phones Learning to look at death and finitude without turning away Piety toward the places and moments we are given Graduates booing AI boosterism at commencement, and a generation that may refuse the deal on offer #Belonging #Alienation #Philosophy #MeaningCrisis #TechnologyAndSociety #TSEliot #FaithAndCulture #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #Podcast #Yale #Harvard Production Notes This podcast featured Ian Marcus Corbin Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Everything is “maxxed” right now, and the news cycle in particular seems to be historymaxxing, insisting that things have never been worse than they are now. And the threats are real, from AI and global warming to election integrity—foreign affairs gone wrong, and violence abroad, in our homes, and in our schools. But the news maxxes us on fear, and so do politicians and corporations, because they want us to do something. If theologian Lee C. Camp is right, history was already maxed at the incarnation, and it came through a subversive way of life: humble, compassionate, at times angry, but radical and scandalous all the same. Camp, author of Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians and founder and host of the nationally syndicated podcast and radio show No Small Endeavor, argues that the idolatry of the nation state, and even the effort to legislate Christian morality and values into a political movement, is a subversion of Christianity. “I think people will better understand Christianity. They stop thinking about it as a religion and think of it more as an interpretation of human history.” In this episode with Evan Rosa, Camp revisits the newly released edition of the book, with a new preface, and makes the case that stories and history, far more than rational argument, are what change how we see the world. Together they discuss what it means to be formed by history and by story, the early twentieth-century Protestant roots of Christian nationalism, Christian values as a parody of Christianity, and the difference between bearing witness and wielding power. They also take up the gravedigger dilemma, the irony of fearful people bringing about the very decline they dread, and what it means to be a neighbor across ideological difference, with stops along the way at a firebombed bus in Camp's native Alabama, a row of Confederate gravestones in his hometown cemetery, and Eboo Patel's account of rival fire departments in Mostar. Episode Highlights "as conservatives increasingly get swept up into the American political moment, there's this new kind of idolatry, I think, of the nation state." "I generally find the whole Christian values movement destructive to Christianity … when you talk about you're wanting to prioritize certain so-called values and then by hook or by crook, you do whatever you need to to try to get those propagated. You've subverted Christianity." "I think people will better understand Christianity. They stop thinking about it as a religion and think of it more as an interpretation of human history." "we believe that death has been overcome by life. That hostility has been overcome by love. That the way even of love of enemies has trounced upon all of the handmaidens of death." "those who are insisting, no, we wanna bring Christianity back to the public square. By and large may be doing much, much more damage than the secularists ever were able to do to Christianity." "When you show up with curiosity in a public space it's remarkable what kinds of beautiful moments can occur." "that one story, you know, opened up a huge vista to me of like, what have I been blind to? What's been going on that I've not paid any attention to?" "We can act as if we are not shaped by historical time, place, location, historical contingency, but that just makes us blind to it because we are, and that's just what it means to be human." "a lot of those are seen as scandalous because we've forgotten what Christianity is … we're screwing up right and left because we have refused to take seriously the basics of scripture and the basics of the Christian story." "you are my neighbor. Regardless of what you claim about the identity of Jesus or the identity of, of Muhammad, you are my neighbor. And I owe to you love and I owe to you respect and I owe to you hospitality." About Lee C. Camp Lee C. Camp is the creator and host of No Small Endeavor, a podcast and radio show exploring what it means to live a good life. For 27 years he taught theology and ethics at Lipscomb University in Nashville, concluding his tenure as a Distinguished Faculty Fellow. He is the author of "Mere Discipleship," "Who Is My Enemy?," and "Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians," now in paperback with a new preface. An Alabamian with a PhD in moral theology from Notre Dame, he shares life with his wife, Laura, three adult sons, and a havapoo named Otis. Helpful Links and Resources Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians, by Lee C. Camp: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802877352/scandalous-witness/ Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World, by Lee C. Camp: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/mere-discipleship-2nd-edition/229392 Lee C. Camp's site, featuring the Scandalous Witness online course: https://www.leeccamp.com/scandalous No Small Endeavor, Lee C. Camp's podcast and public radio show: https://www.nosmallendeavor.com/ No Small Endeavor on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nosmallendeavor/ Eyes on the Prize, the civil rights documentary series, PBS American Experience: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/eyesontheprize/ The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch (Yale University Press): https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-300-05060-8 Show Notes Everything maxxed: a news cycle history-maxing on fear History maxxed at the incarnation Scandalous Witness, begun after 2016, now in a new edition with a new preface A Christian voice beyond partisan left and right Early 20th-century Protestant liberalism and Christian nationalism Woodrow Wilson's post-presidency tour casting America as the world's savior 19th-century Restorationist leaders: pacifist, anti-militarist, critics of robber barons and Jim Crow Christianity Idolatry of the nation state Religions of morality vs. religions of power Christian values as a subversion of Christianity Christianity as an interpretation of human history The kingdom of God breaking into history Bearing witness vs. wielding power, from the Moral Majority to MAGA The gravedigger dilemma: defenders of public Christianity eroding respect for it Fear bringing about what it dreads Individual vs. system Broken friendships, churches, families; prudence over argument Hosting No Small Endeavor: hospitality and curiosity amid disagreement Hume, reason, and the passions Humans as creatures shaped by story A seminary screening of Eyes on the Prize, a firebombed bus near his Alabama childhood home, and a new, systemic view of faith Nietzsche and the philosopher's missing historical sense A teenage argument over baptism with a Southern Baptist history teacher Alexander Campbell, John Locke, and the myth of standing outside history: The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-300-05060-8 Two rows of Confederate gravestones in the hometown cemetery The fifteen propositions, read aloud Provocative, not novel: basic Christianity forgotten Letting familiar convictions feel strange again Classical political liberalism and its relative goods Mostar, Bosnia, and fire departments divided by faith Neighbor-love regardless of creed #LeeCamp #ScandalousWitness #ChristianNationalism #FaithAndPolitics #PoliticalTheology #ChristianWitness #NoSmallEndeavor #Pluralism #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured Lee Camp Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Human growth can seem to just happen—genes, care, and nurture set each of us on a trajectory across the lifespan. But how do people actually grow toward wholeness, and is virtue even the point? Psychologists Liz Hall and Todd Hall of Biola University’s Rosemead School of Psychology, coauthors of Relational Spirituality , bring psychological science and Christian theology together to answer. The conversation grows out of the Martin Institute’s Practice Unto Virtue project, which gathered theologians, psychologists, philosophers, and biblical scholars at Westmont College in spring 2026 to ask how Christian practices like prayer, fasting, and service form Christlike virtue. In this episode, Liz and Todd Hall explain a relational account of human transformation: We are formed in relationship, grow through relationship, and relationship is where growth is headed. Their answer to the workshop’s question is direct—virtue alone is not the telos of spiritual growth. The goal is intimacy with God, union with Christ, and practices and virtues matter because they grow out of that union, support it, and make more room for it. They discuss implicit, gut-level relational knowledge, attachment filters and relational contrast experiences, and why willpower, spiritual highs, intellectualizing, and spiritual bypass so often leave the deepest layer of the self untouched. They also take up whether suffering can lead to growth or whether we grow in spite of it, drawing on Crystal Park’s meaning-making model, Liz’s own cancer diagnosis, the practice of lament, Eleonore Stump on sin as inner fragmentation, and Gordon Smith’s picture of human agency nested within God’s love. With special thanks to Steve Porter and the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture at Westmont College, and to the Templeton World Charity Foundation, which helped fund the Practice Unto Virtue workshop. Episode Highlights ”What we’re aiming for is not a self-improvement project of little aspects of ourself that we’re building up like a tower of Legos or something.” (Liz Hall) ”I wanna be very careful here not to say that suffering is what changes people … because that’s making something that’s intrinsically bad into maybe something good. We don’t wanna go there. But suffering provides an opportunity.” (Liz Hall) ”Because of how intrinsically relational we are, the pathways to change are also relational. So the goal is relational. The pathways are relational.” (Liz Hall) ”It’s not suffering per se that causes growth. It’s the processing of suffering in a particular way in the context of relationship.” (Todd Hall) ”Our agency operates completely inside the circle of God’s love and action and is a response to it and a participation in the life and love of the Trinitarian God.” (Todd Hall) ”It’s not just to become a better person for the sake of being a better person, which often reduces down to oh, that’s gonna promote my own happiness … No, it’s for the goal of deeper intimacy with Christ and union with Christ.” (Todd Hall) ”They have limitations and sometimes I don’t like what comes out of their mouth … but all of that is grist for the mill, isn’t it?” (Liz Hall) About Liz Hall and Todd Hall Liz Hall and Todd Hall are professors of psychology at Biola University’s Rosemead School of Psychology and coauthors of Relational Spirituality: A Psychological-Theological Paradigm for Transformation . Liz, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, researches suffering, meaning-making, and lament; her newest book, with Kelly Kapic and Jason McMartin, is ”When the Journey Hurts.” Todd, a faculty affiliate of the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, is the author of The Connected Life and founder of the Relational Spirituality Academy, which trains Christian leaders in relational approaches to formation. They live in Southern California and have two adult sons. Helpful Links and Resources When the Journey Hurts , Kelly M. Kapic, Liz Hall, and Jason McMartin: https://ivpress.com/when-the-journey-hurts Relational Spirituality , Todd W. Hall with M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall: https://ivpress.com/relational-spirituality The Connected Life , Todd W. Hall: https://www.ivpress.com/the-connected-life Dr. Liz Hall, website and resources on lament and meaning-making: https://www.drlizhall.com Relational Spirituality Academy, Todd Hall’s training site: https://www.relationalspirituality.co/ Practice Unto Virtue, Martin Institute Christian Formation Workshop 2026 sessions (Conversatio Divina): https://conversatio.org/collections/christian-formation-workshop-2026-practice-unto-virtue-the-role-of-christian-practices-in-virtue-formation/ Crystal L. Park, ”Meaning Making Following Trauma” (Frontiers in Psychology): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8984472 Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering : https://academic.oup.com/book/12824 Gordon T. Smith, Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity : https://ivpress.com/called-to-be-saints Show Notes Integrating psychology and theology Psychological science and Scripture woven into one picture of the person” Theology setting the scope of the good life, psychology fleshing it out Symptom-level change versus deeper relational transformation Implicit relational knowledge Growth as expanded capacity for relationship with God and others, not a stack of isolated strengths Putting ourselves in the path of change through gratitude exercises and spiritual disciplines Controlling change as a way of coping with anxiety and emotional pain Misguided approaches: willpower, spiritual highs, intellectualizing, spiritual bypass The implicit self and gut-level memory Interpersonal neurobiology and affective neuroscience Attachment filters from early relationships, running automatically Relational contrast experiences as the engine of deep change Augustine’s restless heart and a shared human disconnection Suffering as accelerant, not a different pathway of change Post-traumatic and stress-related growth Suffering as opportunity for growth, never good in itself When suffering breaks the habitual defenses that kept pain at bay Global and situational meaning, discrepancy, and distress Crystal L. Park, ”Meaning Making Following Trauma”: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8984472 A cancer diagnosis and the harder question of trusting God with one’s own children Deep growth as identity-disrupting, so resisted even when desired Union with Christ as the goal of formation; human agency nested within divine action Gordon T. Smith, ”Called to Be Saints” Lament, gratitude, and identifying with Christ’s suffering Sin as inner fragmentation, and virtue as the healing that frees us for intimacy with God Sanctification and intimacy moving in both directions God as both context and goal of growth Imperfect church communities as raw material for patience and agape love #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #SpiritualFormation #RelationalSpirituality #AttachmentTheory #PsychologyAndTheology #Sanctification #Suffering #Lament #ChristianPsychology #Flourishing Production Notes This podcast featured Elizabeth Hall and Todd Hall Special thanks to Steve Porter, The Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture at Westmont College, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Technology, Aaron Cline Hanbury suggests, is never a purely neutral tool. But the history of ethical thinking about technology shows that as long as there's been technology, there's been anxiety about it. Or perhaps more accurately, anxiety about what we might do with it. And increasingly, what it might do to us. A journalist, founding editor of Common Good magazine, and author of Wired for Wonder , Hanbury came of age as the internet entered the home and has spent his career reporting from the places where technology, faith, and everyday life collide. Rather than offering another list of screen-time tips, he asks a deeper question: How do we relate to the things we make? In this conversation with Evan Rosa, Hanbury wrestles with what it means to be human when the machines we’ve made can do more and more. He criticizes the seduction that we should embrace technology simply because it is inevitable. He explores how connection, efficiency, and unrestrained technological freedom quietly became unquestioned goods, why our powers of attention are eroding in real time, and wonders what it might take—personally, communally, and structurally—to reclaim our humanity through presence, and the rough ground of embodied life. About Aaron Cline Hanbury Aaron Cline Hanbury is a writer and editor whose essays and profiles have appeared in The Atlantic and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of the award-winning magazine Common Good and a past editor of RELEVANT . He writes about the places where technology, faith, and ordinary life meet. His book, Wired for Wonder: Dispatches on Technology, Culture, God, and Self , breaks open the tired binary between tech optimists and Luddites in the context of memoir, ethics, journalism, and theology. Helpful Links and Resources Wired for Wonder: Dispatches on Technology, Culture, God, and Self , by Aaron Cline Hanbury: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798889833451/Wired-for-Wonder Aaron Cline Hanbury's website: https://aaronclinehanbury.com/ Aaron Cline Hanbury's Substack: https://aaronclinehanbury.substack.com Aaron Cline Hanbury on X: https://x.com/achanbury Common Good magazine: https://commongoodmag.com/author/aaron-cline-hanbury/ Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, Albert Borgmann: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo23186480.html The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt: https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry's novel: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/hannah-coulter/ Show Notes Anxiety and technology Patient zero for life online—coming of age as the internet entered the home Low-church tradition, quick to adopt and ask questions later Journalism as a front-row seat to three decades of change Early adopter or Luddite? Rejecting the spectrum's false ends The device paradigm—technology as pattern, not neutral tool A hammer's telos, and why misuse cuts against a tool's design Made things have a maker—intentions baked into what we build The inevitability argument—get on board or get run over Resistance is futile? The Borg, Cannes, and defeatism Progress as reversion—tobacco bans, ocean dumping, processed-food rollbacks Family Guy, satire, and pulling tech ethics out of the esoteric The class and income divide the internet promised to erase Online radicalization vs the promise of mass education Children as the guinea pigs of early adoption Chromebooks, daycares, and offloading discomfort onto kids Testing tech on the vulnerable—Jonathan Haidt on teen mental health Social media vs attention media—commodifying human focus The plug-in drug—parents, screens, and pacified kids Focused attention and the feeling of being fully alive Connection, efficiency, freedom—goods we stopped questioning Dunbar's number and the real limits of friendship Online ties without public accountability, and bad formation Embodiment, particularity, and getting back to the rough ground Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter and attention that lasts: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/hannah-coulter/ Skepticism of individual fixes—structure, policy, and church Elementary-school parenting and “the bevy of required apps” #WiredForWonder #AaronClineHanbury #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #TechnologyAndFaith #AttentionMedia #DigitalMinimalism #ChristianEthics #AIandHumanity #DeviceParadigm Production Notes This podcast featured Aaron Cline Hanbury Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Civic friendship is not a nicety. For self-governing people, it is a necessity. What happens to a democracy when citizens stop seeing each other as citizens at all? Robert P. George is Princeton’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions (and known for his enduring friendship with Cornel West) argues that “the collapse of civic friendship is a catastrophic threat to public life.” In this bonus segment from his November 2020 conversation with Evan Rosa, Robert George presents the difference between civility and mere ‘politesse; the habit of wrapping our emotions so tightly around our convictions that we assume a posture of infallibility; and the intellectual humility it takes to consider that a political enemy might have something to teach us as a civic friend. They also discuss the courage required to break ranks—George recounts how he and West, from opposite political poles, each found themselves treated as heretics in 2016 for declining to back their respective party’s nominee—and why he urges his students and his own children to cultivate humility, open-mindedness, and courage, knowing exactly what it can cost to stand by a conscientious belief. Episode Highlights ”Civic friendship is actually important for all sorts of policies, but for a self-governing people, for a democratic people, civic friendship is really critically important.” ”But if we do, as we are prone to do, wrap our emotions too tightly around our convictions, then we become dogmatists. Then we become unwilling to consider the possibility that we might be wrong and that a critic might be right.” ”This is hard, but it takes humility to recognize that I might be wrong, not merely about the less important superficial and more trivial things of life, but I might be wrong even about the most important things.” ”Civic friendship, civility is not just politesse … Civility is something deeper. It is genuinely listening to the guy who disagrees with you … listening with an openness to learning, considering whether in fact he might be right.” ”You can’t have an open mind unless you have intellectual humility.” ”You can become a heretic very fast by breaking ranks, even on a single issue, if the issue was even moderately important.” ”So I really encourage my young people … to try to develop the virtues of intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and courage, because sometimes courage is going to be needed.” About Robert P. George Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. A legal philosopher and public intellectual, he has chaired the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. His books include ”Making Men Moral,” ”In Defense of Natural Law,” and ”Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth,” and, with Cornel West, ”Truth Matters,” a dialogue on fruitful disagreement. A West Virginia native, he plays bluegrass banjo and guitar. Helpful Links and Resources Civic Friendship, Courageous Humility, and Seeking Truth Together, Episode 38 and the full interview for this clip: https://faith.yale.edu/media/civic-friendship-courageous-humility-and-seeking-truth-together Robert P. George’s website: https://robertpgeorge.com/ Robert P. George on X: https://twitter.com/McCormickProf Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment, George’s most recent book: https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/seeking-truth-speaking-truth/ Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division, by Robert P. George and Cornel West: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Truth-Matters/Robert-P-George/9798888451700 Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, George’s best-known scholarly book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-men-moral-9780198260240 Election of 1800, from the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia at Monticello: https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/election-1800 Show Notes Civic friendship: indispensable and necessary for a self-governing people Fellow citizens recast as enemies to be defeated and destroyed Are elections as existential contests?—with the losing side expecting retaliation, the winning side claiming the norms Breakdown near the founding of the Republic The election of 1800, incumbent John Adams against Thomas Jefferson: https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/election-1800 Federalists seeing Jeffersonians as carriers of the French Revolution; Jeffersonians seeing Federalists as would-be British monarchists Antebellum America: North and South unable to imagine sharing one republic Is our identity constructed around belief? Emotional investment in conviction as a good thing in itself Wrapping emotions too tightly, and the slide into dogmatism A practical posture of infallibility Disagreement recoded as moral defect, and friendship ruled out Intellectual humility as the missing virtue Being wrong about the most important things, not just the trivial ones Civility as more than politesse Listening with an openness to learning, not waiting for a turn to speak Honoring the other as a rational creature with something to teach Open-mindedness without paralysis A conservative and a democratic socialist as frequent interlocutors: https://www.cornelwest.com/about/ Courage as a civic virtue Tribalism in formal institutions and informal friend circles alike Becoming a heretic by breaking ranks on a single issue Excommunication, suspicion, and the social cost of independent thought Two friends at opposite poles, both out of step in 2016 Counsel to students and to his own children: humility, open-mindedness, courage #CivicFriendship #IntellectualHumility #Civility #Polarization #RobertPGeorge #CornelWest #FaithAndCulture #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured Robert George Hosted and Produced by Evan Rosa Production assistance and editing by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Why don’t more doctors talk about death? Dr. Lydia Dugdale has been asking this question since she was a medical student. She is the Silberberg Professor of Medicine and directs the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and two books on how we die, including "The Lost Art of Dying." "Most medical professionals today are very unpracticed at talking to patients about their mortality," she says. Not only unpracticed, but even themselves afraid. In this bonus clip from Episode 232 with Macie Bridge, Dugdale traces the path from that early perplexity on the wards to the ars moriendi , the medieval art of dying, grounded in the idea that dying is part of living, so if you want to die well you have to live well. Lydia comments on the emergence of palliative care and the way it let physicians hand conversations about death to specialists; the doctor who inherited the priest's old place at the threshold between life and death; the death anxiety clinicians carry without examining; virtue as preparation for dying, and community as the other half of living well; the unrepresented patients of New York City who die alone; and a grumpy old man, hospitalized for 20 years, who wept when she read aloud what she had written about him. Episode Highlights “Most medical professionals today are very unpracticed at talking to patients about their mortality.” “we are really the intermediaries between life and death, I'm not saying we're priests, but that used to be the role of the priest. And so it is now the role of the physician. “If you want to die well, you have to live well.” We have to be all in or we end up like all of these patients here in New York City who have no one that I can reach out to as they're dying. “He started weeping and he said, someone finally saw me. Someone finally saw me. I've been in this hospital for 20 years and I didn't think anyone ever saw me.” About Lydia Dugdale Lydia Dugdale is a physician and medical ethicist who has spent fifteen years asking why medicine finds death so hard to talk about. She is the Silberberg Professor of Medicine at Columbia, directs the Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and co-directs clinical ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Milstein Hospital, where she still sees patients. She edited "Dying in the Twenty-First Century" and wrote "The Lost Art of Dying," a modern ars moriendi. She trained at the University of Chicago and Yale-New Haven Hospital, holds a master's in ethics from Yale Divinity School, and in 2025 founded the nonprofit Heal the Nation. Helpful Links and Resources “Dying Alone,” the full Episode 232 with Lydia Dugdale and Macie Bridge: https://faith.yale.edu/media/dying-alone Lydia Dugdale's website: https://lydiadugdale.com/ The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom, Lydia Dugdale's book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-lost-art-of-dying-ls-dugdale Dying in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Lydia Dugdale: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262534598/dying-in-the-twenty-first-century/ Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, which Dugdale directs: https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/departments-centers/columbia-center-clinical-medical-ethics Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics on X: https://x.com/columbia_ccme Ars moriendi, the medieval art of dying, at the Morgan Library and Museum: https://www.themorgan.org/blog/new-acquisition-ars-moriendi-blockbook Ars moriendi block book, 1475, at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666798/ Lydia Dugdale at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/lydia-dugdale-md Show Notes Death anxiety in medicine Why doctors avoid frank conversations about mortality Palliative care's arrival as a discipline, and what it made possible Real gains in symptom relief for the sick and the dying The unintended cost: death conversations outsourced to specialists Clinicians as intermediaries between life and death The priest's old place at the threshold, now the physician's Nurses at the bedside, doctors calling the shots on treatment Existential questions physicians have never worked through A colleague who would never tell a patient they were dying, out of her own fear of death Digging into how other times and places handled mortality Ars moriendi: the medieval genre on the preparation for death Illustrated editions made for people who could not read Fifteen years and two books spent reviving the art of dying Living well as the precondition of dying well Virtue as preparation: hope, patience, joy against bitterness and despair The role of community in dying well New York's unrepresented patients, dying alone A reader estranged from his adult children who committed to years of repair after the book Relationship as ongoing work: rupture, forgiveness, iron sharpening iron A long-hospitalized patient nobody wanted assigned to their team Modeling care for young doctors, and being verbally destroyed in front of them Loneliness of the neighbor, the colleague, the checkout person Practice as the only way to get better at it #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #LydiaDugdale #TheLostArtOfDying #ArsMoriendi #MedicalEthics #DyingWell #Loneliness #EndOfLifeCare Production Notes This podcast featured Lydia Dugdale Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

We were made by a Maker to be makers. Bruce Herman joins Evan Rosa to diagnose the quiet illness of a passive consumer culture that trains us to sit in front of screens and scroll and take, rather than make. “When we’re not making something, we’re not whole. We’re not healthy.“ His cure is stubbornly ordinary: go make a loaf of bread, grab a stick and start carving, make a good meal or a good cocktail for the person visiting you—anything is resistance to this hypnotic, passive culture. From episode 216 of the podcast, in this segment, Herman traces what it means to receive art not as a consumer but through submission—not master and slave, but subject to subject, that vulnerable openness that lets a poem or a painting change your life. He reflects on making as human wholeness, the difference between art and info-tainment, why suffering can rip us open to beauty (from Walker Percy’s writing to Christian Wiman’s poetry), Rilke’s charge that “you must change your life,“ hospitality as the ultimate act of art, and Herman’s closing counsel to make out of love, not fear. Episode Highlights We are in relationship, and we were made by a Maker to be makers. If we let that go somehow and we become mere consumers, I think we begin to enter into some kind of illness of one sort or another. When we’re not making something, we’re not whole. We’re not healthy. And I don’t want to make an idol out of health either, but I do think our culture is unhealthy right now. We think of it as, we’re discerning buyers. But the fact is we’re being turned into very passive creatures. One of the best things you can do is go make a loaf of bread. Go out and grab a stick and start carving it. Anything is resistance to this sort of hypnotic passive culture. If you want to really receive what a poem is communicating, you have to submit to it. You have to let yourself go and enter into what might feel like a bad risk of being changed. Not submit in a sense that I’m a master and you’re my slave. It’s more like you’re a subject and I’m a subject. Mutual submission. We’re so guarded so much of the time that it takes something catastrophic to open us up again. Do away with the nonsense that you’re not an artist. You can’t help it. You were made by a Maker to be a maker. End of story. The ultimate act of art is hospitality, where you’re welcoming someone in, to make something beautiful for them. Challenge the bad news with a recognition that daily kindnesses are being poured out everywhere, on every street. Don’t give in to fear, because it’s not a basis for anything good. About Bruce Herman Bruce Herman is a painter, writer, and educator whose work has been shown in more than 150 exhibitions across the United States and internationally, and held in collections including the Vatican Museums in Rome, the Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts, and the Grunewald Print Collection of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He taught at Gordon College for nearly four decades, where he founded the art department and held the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts. His books include “Through Your Eyes“ and “Ordinary Saints,“ and he was a collaborator on the touring “QU4RTETS“ project with Makoto Fujimura, Christopher Theofanidis, and Jeremy Begbie. His most recent book, “Makers by Nature: Letters from a Master Painter on Faith, Hope, and Art,“ was published by IVP Academic in 2025. Helpful Links and Resources Makers by Nature, Bruce Herman’s 2025 book from IVP Academic: https://www.ivpress.com/makers-by-nature Bruce Herman’s website and painting archive: https://www.bruceherman.com Bruce Herman, artist bio and background: https://www.bruceherman.com/about Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke (“You must change your life“), trans. Stephen Mitchell: https://poets.org/poem/archaic-torso-apollo Real Presences by George Steiner, on courtesy and hospitality in art: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3684420.html Christian Wiman: https://poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-wiman QU4RTETS, the collaborative project on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets: https://www.bruceherman.com/series Show Notes Made to make We are in relationship; identity begins there, not in isolation Makers by nature—letting the maker-impulse go tips us toward illness, moral, mental, and emotional Wholeness and health—the claim that not-making leaves us unwell, without idolizing health Consumer culture—the commercial aim to sell, and to keep us passive in front of screens Discerning buyers, or passive creatures? The illusion of control while being trained to take Screens and scrolling Political theater and infotainment—very little real journalism left, mostly consumer entertainment Neil Postman and amusing ourselves to death as the frame for the diagnosis Making as resistance—bake bread, carve a stick, do anything against the hypnotic pull Reception as submission—a word out of fashion, reclaimed away from enslavement Mutual submission—the erotic analogy, and desire’s corruption in the sexual sins To receive a poem you must risk being changed Rilke’s Grecian torso and the charge, you must change your life Subject to subject, not master and slave Walker Percy’s museum story—a painting that blazed into life, then went quiet Bringing a friend to re-enter the original encounter vicariously The workman through the skylight—catastrophe reopens what habit had closed Guardedness—why it can take suffering to break us open Christian Wiman—cancer, poetry, and being ripped open toward receptivity You might be changed, and it might not be what you wanted; the risk of real encounter Make from love, not fear Do away with the nonsense that you’re not an artist Everyday making—a loaf, a meal, a good cocktail, hospitality Hospitality as the ultimate art; George Steiner’s Real Presences and courtesia Beauty can be complex, not merely pretty Fear-mongers left and right—and why not to listen Daily kindnesses—the neighbor, the shoveled driveway, the half-decent casserole Welcome to the festival; let the festival begin #BruceHerman #MakersByNature #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #FaithAndArt #TheologyOfMaking #ArtAndFaith #Creativity #Hospitality #MakeNotConsume #YaleFaithAndCulture

For twenty years, Christian Wiman has lived with a rare, incurable cancer. In the fall of 2022, during a stretch when the illness was especially bad, he wrote to his friend and Yale colleague Miroslav Volf: “I don’t know what faith means anymore. I’m a 56-year-old with a pile of books behind me and an experimental bone marrow transplant ahead of me, and I don’t know what faith means.” That letter became the seed of an extended correspondence between the poet and the theologian, now published as Glimmerings: Letters on Faith between a Poet and a Theologian . In this special collaboration with Arc Magazine, editor Mark Oppenheimer sits down with Volf and Wiman to unpack the letters that grew out of their long friendship and years of walking together through New Haven. They discuss what it means to love God, why doubt and absence might be constitutive elements of faith and presence rather than its opposite, and how a terminal diagnosis changed what each of them was willing to say and how freely they said it. They also trace the thinkers who shaped their thinking along the way, from Simone Weil’s account of attention to Etty Hillesum’s wartime writing, to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s theology of the prophets, and they wrestle openly with where their understandings of Jesus Christ converge and diverge. Along the way, Wiman reflects on writing from a hospital room at Massachusetts General, on discovering that his fear was never death itself but the fear of dying without God, and on why grief, not fear, is what remains even after that fear falls away. Episode Highlights I don’t know what faith means anymore. I’m a 56-year-old with a pile of books behind me and an experimental bone marrow transplant ahead of me, and I don’t know what faith means. I sometimes find it hard to think what it means to love God. I don’t know how to love God. Faith is what matters. Belief seems to me a matter of the institution and ascending to creeds and things like that. I think most of my theological thinking is existentially motivated. It’s motivated by the kind of inner logic of the trust in which I’m involved. Most of the books that I wrote, I’ve written for myself. I’m one of those writers who doesn’t have an audience. There is grace in my life if I can just keep my eyes open enough to see it. His mistake in some ways lets him see that the world is right, that there’s a rightness to the world. What becomes clear is one’s longing for God. Everything is stripped away and very little else seems to matter. What I want most in my life is the presence of God. And I fear dying without that. Just being alone at the moment of death. I was worried that he won’t have God in that situation of need because attention might be lacking. About Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He is the author of Exclusion and Embrace, the NYT bestseller Life Worth Living (with Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Matt Croasmun), The Cost of Ambition, and more than twenty other books. Christian Wiman is the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School. He has written and edited numerous volumes of poetry. He has lived with a rare blood cancer, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, for more than twenty years, an experience he wrote about in his memoirs My Bright Abyss and Zero at the Bone. Helpful Links and Resources Glimmerings: Letters on Faith between a Poet and a Theologian, the book discussed in this episode: https://bookshop.org/p/books/glimmerings-letters-on-faith-between-a-poet-and-a-theologian-christian-wiman/1a13ad79a59080d1 Miroslav Volf, faculty bio at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/miroslav-volf Christian Wiman, faculty bio at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/christian-wiman Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera, the magazine that co-produced this episode: https://arcmag.org/ John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis: https://rap.wustl.edu/ My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman’s earlier memoir on faith and his cancer diagnosis: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374534370/mybrightabyss/ Miroslav Volf: Disagreeing With You Feels Like Disagreeing With Myself, a Christianity Today profile of the two friends (by Andrew Hendrixson): https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/01/miroslav-volf-disagreeing-with-you-like-disagreeing-with-myself-christian-wiman/ Show Notes Summer break announcement, past-episode recap Special crossover episode with Arc Magazine Mark Oppenheimer, Arc’s editor, hosts this conversation Origin story: a brief email exchange in fall 2022 Wiman’s diagnosis, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, and a bone marrow transplant Twenty years of friendship, marked by weekly walks in New Haven The letter that started it: not knowing what faith means anymore What does it mean to love God? Faith versus belief: creeds compared to a personal relationship Doubt as a constitutive element of trust, not its opposite Absence and presence, sorrow and joy, held together Theology as existentially motivated rather than academic exercise Writing for an audience of one, and how that shapes honesty Whether a book contract changes how freely you write Simone Weil’s idea that attention is what makes God present Disagreement over how central Jesus Christ is to each man’s sense of God Volf’s Pentecostal upbringing, Wiman’s Southern Baptist roots Volf’s sense of God as behind and underneath, not face to face Wiman’s youthful epiphany and a memory of his grandmother’s death A misread wildflower, a Richard Wilbur poem, grace found in error Shai Held’s blurb and why Jewish thinkers rarely appear in Christian theology Etty Hillesum, her wartime diaries, her postcard thrown from the train Abraham Joshua Heschel’s influence through Sabbath and The Prophets Heschel’s idea that faith is fidelity to the moments you once had it A letter written from a hospital room at Massachusetts General Miroslav’s fear that his letters carried condescension toward a friend in crisis Whether a cancer diagnosis changes the fear of death itself Grief, not fear, as what remains once the fear of dying is gone How the two friends met: through Volf’s wife’s poetry class Letter-writing as a lifelong practice for both men beyond this book #Glimmerings #MiroslavVolf #ChristianWiman #Faith #Doubt #Theology #YaleDivinitySchool #ArcMagazine Production Notes This podcast featured Christian Wiman and Miroslav Volf with Mark Oppenheimer Special thanks to David Sugarman and Arc Magazine Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

More than forty years after his twenty-five-year-old son Eric died in a climbing accident, philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff joins Miroslav Volf to revisit the grief behind his classic Lament for a Son and his recent Living with Grief. “If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead.” In this episode they reflect together on mourning loss, refusing both the consolations of theodicy and the pressure to move on. Together they discuss owning grief rather than disowning it, lament as a cry that transcends analysis, and the limits of explaining suffering through theodicy. They explore Augustine and Calvin on grief, Karl Barth's “nothingness,” universality hidden in particular sorrow, and the prison classroom where incarcerated men claimed their own grief redemptively. Episode Highlights "I could not, and would not, allow it simply to heal." "If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead." "In my story I always say: I am one who lost a son. That's part of who I am." "Children should not die at twenty-five years of age. Nobody should die at twenty-five years of age." "It was good that I loved Eric. It was worth it. So my grief is worthwhile. And, in this world, love and suffering come together." About Nicholas Wolterstorff Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Born in 1932, he earned his PhD at Harvard and taught philosophy for thirty years at Calvin College before joining Yale in 1989. A leading Christian philosopher, he helped develop Reformed epistemology and co-founded the Society of Christian Philosophers. His books span aesthetics, epistemology, justice, and liturgy, including Lament for a Son (1987) and the memoir In This World of Wonders (2019). His son Eric died in a climbing accident in 1983. Helpful Links and Resources Lament for a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff https://www.eerdmans.com/9781467419239/lament-for-a-son/ Living with Grief, by Nicholas Wolterstorff https://wipfandstock.com/9798385201006/living-with-grief/ Calvin Prison Initiative https://calvin.edu/prison-initiative Show Notes Grief as an open wound Two books, forty years apart: Lament for a Son and Living with Grief Eric Wolterstorff's death at twenty-five in a climbing accident, Austria, 1983 Lament as a cry, not an analysis "I could not, and would not, allow it simply to heal." Grief-process books that failed: "inviting me to look away from Eric" "If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead." Owning grief versus disowning it; narrative identity "I am one who lost a son"; grief as part of who you are Augustine's moral disowning; shame over loving too much Owning grief redemptively; good that couldn't have come otherwise Calvin Prison Initiative, Handlon Correctional Facility, Ionia, MI Prison classroom: "we were in grief but didn't know how to express it. You have given us the words." Universality in particularity The pallet of finished books: "What have I done?" Grief brought on oneself: "not an assault, but we brought it onto ourselves" Karl Barth's "nothingness"; evil God will defeat "Children should not die at twenty-five years of age." Love that knowingly risks grief: "love and suffering come together" #NicholasWolterstorff #LamentForASon #LivingWithGrief #Grief #Lament #Theodicy #FaithAndGrief #MiroslavVolf #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #YaleFaithAndCulture Production Notes This podcast featured Nicholas Wolterstorff with Miroslav Volf Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

We’re used to hostile online encounters with total strangers. It fuels the digital economy. But what if there were a way to experiment with radical emotional honesty with an anonymous other—much the same as you’d experience at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting? The anonymous founder of This Life, an audio-only app built on anonymity, joins For the Life of the World to argue that emotional and spiritual progress is still possible at scale. "What's really kind is to care about somebody else. And then even more kind than that is to allow somebody else to care about you." In this episode with Evan Rosa, Justin Smith (a pseudonym) reflects on what he learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, the genius of Bill Wilson, and why our voices carry so much emotional weight, and how sharing them—even (and perhaps especially) anonymously—can be a transformative experience of growth. Together they discuss anonymity as a path to honesty, the "spiritual hitchhiker," negative emotion as a force that wants to win, design as destiny, and becoming a neighbor. They also weigh technology's limits and whether spiritual and emotional progress can scale. Episode Highlights "What's really kind is to care about somebody else. And then even more kind than that is to allow somebody else to care about you." "I believe we live in a society that has given up on the idea of emotional or spiritual progress at scale." "Honesty with yourself is a skill." "If you begin to look at unhelpful negative emotion as a force that wants to win, what you'll notice is that we're in a fight that we're not well equipped for." "Meaningful spiritual development is impossible without honesty with other people." About Justin Smith "Justin Smith" is a pseudonym. The guest is the founder of This Life, an audio-only iOS app he describes as an experiment in emotional and spiritual progress, built around anonymity, self-reflection, and what he calls the "spiritual hitchhiker." A Christian shaped by his time in Alcoholics Anonymous and the writing of AA co-founder Bill Wilson, he draws on figures from Martin Luther King Jr. to E.O. Wilson and Fred Rogers to argue that honesty with others is the foundation of spiritual growth. By his request, and in keeping with the episode's premise, his real name, biography, and social accounts are withheld. Learn more about the This Life app on the iOS App Store. Helpful Links and Resources This Life: An Experiment (App Store) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/this-life-an-experiment/id6746807306 Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book"), by Bill Wilson: https://www.aa.org/the-big-book The Twelve Traditions of AA (Tradition Twelve, on anonymity): https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-traditions "On Being a Good Neighbor," Martin Luther King Jr.: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-iii-being-good-neighbor Show Notes Anonymous guest, identity withheld "Justin Smith"—not his real name The neighbor can be anonymous Startup founders and self-help gurus—equally annoying How the app works: an audio-only experiment Spoken note—talk to yourself, your God, or both "Spiritual hitchhiker"—paired daily with a stranger One rule: no politics "A much more intimate and powerful sort of access to a human consciousness." The voice as the best vehicle for the spiritual Looks always color how we treat each other Design is destiny "We live in a Star Wars civilization with stone age emotions" (E.O. Wilson) Bill Wilson refused Yale's honorary doctorate "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-traditions Negative emotion as a force that wants to win "Honesty with yourself is a skill." Mandela, Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers—all struggled "Meaningful spiritual development is impossible without honesty with other people." No longer "people in my way at the Starbucks line"—strangers with inner lives Personal responsibility and the courage to become a neighbor #Anonymity #SpiritualGrowth #AlcoholicsAnonymous #BillWilson #Loneliness #DigitalWellbeing #Neighbor #EmotionalHealth #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #Honesty Production Notes This podcast featured Justin Smith (Pseudonym) Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What does it take to put a fractured world back together? Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon joins Evan Rosa to explore William Blake as the great counter-Enlightenment guide for our anxious, divided age. "The world comes to be seen as it truly is, which is infinite, and that can embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing." In this episode with Evan Rosa, Vernon explains how to read William Blake, and reflects on Blake as the most important post-Reformation Christian mystic—a poet, painter, and philosopher offering not just a diagnosis of modern division but the beginnings of an antidote. Together they discuss Newton's long shadow and the withdrawal of inner life; the fragmentation of humanity from itself, nature, and the divine; the marriage of heaven and hell; cleansing the doors of perception; imagination as abundance rather than scarcity; desire rightly ordered; and Blake's Christ, who acts from impulse rather than rule. ——— Episode Highlights "I think he's the most important post-Reformation Christian mystic." "We need these oppositions in order to create the dynamism of life and hence the Marriage of Heaven and Hell." "The task is to align, align with the goods in the melee, and see how that which is seemingly different for you, might have something to offer you." "The world comes to be seen as it truly is, which is infinite, and that can embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing." "The fullness of the love, the fullness of the goods, paradoxically, it can seem, is only revealed when it reaches out to that, which seems to be the opposite of it." ——— About Mark Vernon Mark Vernon is a writer, broadcaster, and psychotherapist with a private practice in London, and a former Anglican priest. His studies began with a physics degree at Durham University, followed by two degrees in theology and a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy from the University of Warwick; he has also worked at the Maudsley Hospital. He contributes to the BBC, the Guardian, and Church Times, and podcasts frequently. His books range across friendship, wellbeing, ancient philosophy, Dante's Divine Comedy, and the Inkling Owen Barfield. His most recent book, Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination (Hurst, 2024), has drawn praise from Rowan Williams and others as among the finest recent studies of Blake. Learn more and follow at markvernon.com , his Substack A Golden String ( markvernon942268.substack.com ), and @platospodcasts on X. ——— Helpful Links and Resources Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/awake-william-blake-and-the-power-of-the-imagination A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/a-secret-history-of-christianity-book Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake (The William Blake Archive): https://www.blakearchive.org/work/mhh Mark Vernon's website: https://www.markvernon.com A Golden String (Substack): https://markvernon942268.substack.com ——— Show Notes Underappreciated, often typecast visionary 1827—approaching the 200th anniversary of Blake's death approaching Tumultuous age: Seven Years' War, American and French Revolutions, Napoleonic Wars London quadruples in size; Hindu, Islamic, and global ideas arrive "I think he's the most important post reformation Christian, mystic" Polymath—poet, painter, philosopher, didact Counter-Enlightenment response to rationalism Isaac Newton's influence "can't be overstated" One law binds falling apple and orbiting moon Locke, Bentham, utilitarianism, calculation as the moral measure "withdrawing the inner life of human beings"—the objective as gold standard Fragmentation: dividing humanity from itself, nature, the gods Reading Blake now offers "the beginnings of an antidote too" Feeling and imagination complement reason; imagination as the shape of energy Marvel superheroes analogy—one superpower detached goes wrong Bacon's dream: tools to restore Eden, and its tragedy Magnet's two poles—the marriage of heaven and hell Angels grow complacent, devils too dastardly; tension creates beauty and exuberance Cleansing the doors of perception; a world in a grain of sand "align, align with the goods in the melee" Division never purifies society—"it just leads to a mess" "embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing" Heaven and hell as states of mind; participative epistemology Education that teaches students to divide themselves from learning Imagination as abundance, not scarcity Desire rightly ordered—"less than all cannot satisfy man" Blake's Christ acts from impulse, not rule Fountains of living water; the closing lines of Jerusalem ——— #WilliamBlake #MarkVernon #ForTheLifeoftheWorld #Imagination #MarriageOfHeavenAndHell #CounterEnlightenment #ChristianMysticism #Theology #Poetry #DoorsOfPerception

What sustains faith when prayer feels flat and God seems distant—and there's no clear tragedy to explain it? Anglican priest and former New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren joins Macie Bridge to talk about weariness, burnout, and the quiet middle stretches of a long spiritual life. Drawing on her new book What Grows in Weary Lands, she turns to the Desert Fathers and Mothers for a resilience that resists both flaming out and numbing out. "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." In this episode with Macie Bridge, Warren reflects on her own season of spiritual aridity and the ancient counsel to stay in your cell rather than escape. Together they discuss the difference between burnout and weariness, acedia and the noonday demon, perseverance, silence as countercultural practice, and the world as a womb. They explore why escape rarely heals and what it means to trust the slow work of God. Episode Highlights "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." "I do not think vitamin D will solve what I'm talking about." "We're not having to hold our life together in the midst of weariness with will power and duct tape." "We kind of bring Times Square with us wherever we go now." "God doesn't need me to be impressive or achieving." About Tish Harrison Warren Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, named Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night, which won both Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year. She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for The New York Times on faith in public and private life and was a columnist for Christianity Today; her essays have appeared in Comment, The Point, and Religion News Service. She currently serves as the C. S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence at Baylor's Truett Seminary, is a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum, and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. (Source: tishharrisonwarren.com ) Learn more and follow at tishharrisonwarren.com , Instagram @tishharrisonwarren, and X @Tish_H_Warren. Helpful Links and Resources What Grows in Weary Lands (newest book): https://tishharrisonwarren.com/whatgrowsinwearylands Liturgy of the Ordinary (most popular book): https://tishharrisonwarren.com/liturgy-of-the-ordinary Curt Thompson, referenced on the brain and community: https://curtthompsonmd.com/books/ Show Notes Writing from the middle of the process Weariness vs. burnout—bigger than the occupational "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." Two years at The New York Times—top of a career, bone-tired Spiritually tinged exhaustion, distinct from depression Comprehensive difficulty—work, marriage, church, politics, drama Post-COVID burnout talk; why the church rarely names this Craving emotional highs in contemporary Christian faith We lack stories of long, steady faith "I do not think vitamin D will solve what I'm talking about." Discovering the Desert Fathers and Mothers Acedia, the noonday demon—sloth, boredom, irritation, doubt Flame out, numb out, or go deep The cell as guiding metaphor—a rhythm of prayer and work "Stay in your cell"—counsel of St. Moses and Arsenius Resisting the lie that escape elsewhere brings contentment "The cell is actually this transformative place." Curt Thompson: the brain isn't made to do hard things alone A desert mother's maternal metaphor—the world as a womb "What is happening right now matters"—hope without escapism Grace: "we're not having to hold our life together... with will power and duct tape." "Part of our weariness is it is too noisy. The world is too noisy." "God doesn't need me to be impressive or achieving." Trusting the slow work of God #TishHarrisonWarren #WhatGrowsInWearyLands #ChristianResilience #Burnout #DesertFathers #SpiritualFormation #Weariness #Acedia #Hope #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured Tish Harrison Warren Interview by Macie Bridge Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What if the anxiety you most want to get rid of is the one you most need to listen to? Existential psychologist Dan Koch and marketing strategist Kristen Tideman join Evan Rosa for a conversation about what anxiety is actually for—and what happens when it turns against you. "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice is to accept them or pretend they're not there." In this episode, they reflect together on the existential roots of anxiety and what it looks like to confront real limits—from an MS diagnosis to faith upheaval to collective crisis. Together they discuss healthy versus unhealthy anxiety and how to tell them apart, the post-WWII origins of existential therapy, boundary situations and “thrownness,” what denial costs us spiritually and psychologically, and how accepting our limits can paradoxically expand our world. The conversation moves between lived experience of multiple sclerosis and philosophical framework about mortality, between Kierkegaard's "dizziness of freedom" and a three-month-old baby in an emergency room—asking not how to eliminate anxiety, but how to let the right kind of anxiety make your world bigger. Episode Highlights "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice, among other things, is to accept them or pretend they're not there."—Dan Koch "I was literally in the ER. I'm holding my three-month-old baby who just got here. I'm like, my life just started—and I don't even know what this means. I don't even wanna Google what it means."—Kristen Tideman "Our brains are big enough and our minds are strong enough that unlike deer, plants, and coconuts, we can think about the future. We can imagine our own death."—Dan Koch "There's ways I wanna deny the MS. I wanna deny that that's part of my existence now. I wanna deny even components of my own faith change."—Kristen Tideman "Is my world getting smaller, or is my world getting bigger?"—Dan Koch About Dan Koch Dan Koch is an existential psychologist, therapist, and host of Religion on the Mind, a podcast and media project exploring the intersection of psychology, spirituality, and everyday life. His clinical work focuses on religious change—deconversion, deconstruction, reconstruction—and the downstream effects on identity, family, and meaning-making. He draws on the existential tradition from Kierkegaard and Jaspers through Viktor Frankl and Irvin Yalom. Koch has spoken openly about his own fifteen-year experience with panic disorder. Learn more and follow at religiononthemind.com [VERIFY] About Kristen Tideman Kristen Tideman is the founder of Tidy Studios, a marketing strategist and creative consultant. She holds a master's degree in philosophy and has brought that background into her work exploring questions of meaning, anxiety, and faith in public conversation. She lives with multiple sclerosis and is a new mother. Learn more and follow at [VERIFY—need Tidy Studios URL and social handles] Helpful Links and Resources Religion on the Mind https://www.religiononthemind.com/ Religion on the Mind https://religiononthemind.substack.com/ Religion on the Mind https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/religion-on-the-mind/id1448000113 Tidy Studios https://www.tidystudios.com/ Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl https://www.beacon.org/Mans-Search-for-Meaning-P602.aspx Dan Koch on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/dankoch Show Notes Why tackle anxiety now—geopolitical overwhelm, media firehose, personal crisis converging Kristen's competing anxieties: new motherhood, MS diagnosis, ongoing faith change Dan's path into existential psychology through clients navigating religious change Existential psychology's post-WWII roots—Viktor Frankl, concentration camps, the search for meaning The atomic bomb as psychological turning point—from imagining one's own death to imagining collective annihilation "Our brains are big enough that unlike deer, plants, and coconuts, we can think about the future. We can imagine our own death." Healthy vs. unhealthy anxiety—the central distinction in existential thought Healthy anxiety broadens your world; unhealthy anxiety becomes self-referential spiral The inner critic mistaken for motivation—when unhealthy anxiety masquerades as drive "I was literally in the ER. I'm holding my three-month-old baby. I'm like, my life just started—and I don't even know what this means." Philosophy becoming flesh—studying mortality vs. receiving a diagnosis "There's ways I wanna deny the MS. I wanna deny that that's part of my existence now. I wanna deny even components of my own faith change." Ontological anxiety vs. pathological anxiety—Kierkegaard's "dizziness of freedom" Avoidance vs. acceptance as the fundamental hinge in existential psychology The body carries what the mind tries to bypass—emotions as literal electricity in the nervous system Thrownness—Heidegger's concept of being tossed into unchosen circumstances Jaspers' shipwreck, Sartre's blind man on a raft, Kierkegaard's captain in a storm Boundary situations—MS, new parenthood, AI, sociopolitical chaos, loss of shared reality Kristen on maturity: "Anything that comes at us, we can use as an excuse to weaken our resolve or to strengthen it." "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice is to accept them or pretend they're not there." "Is my world getting smaller, or is my world getting bigger?" Neurotic anxiety spins us inward; accepting limits pushes us toward collaboration and community Emmy van Deurzen and Irvin Yalom—real problems require more than one person Loving your neighbor as a practical consequence of accepting your own limits #ExistentialPsychology #Anxiety #MentalHealth #FaithDeconstruction #HumanFlourishing #Kierkegaard #ViktorFrankl #ChronicIllness #MSAwareness #ForTheLifeOfTheWorl Production Notes This podcast featured Kristen Tideman and Dan Koch Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

As Christians enter the most solemn stretch of the liturgical year, theologian David Ford — who spent over twenty years writing his commentary on the Gospel of John — makes the case that no other Gospel prepares you for the cross the way John does. "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross. All through the gospel, every chapter, John is saying — who Jesus is is the most important thing." In this episode with Macie Bridge, Ford reflects on why John's Gospel resists rushing past darkness to get to Easter. Together they discuss what the foot washing reveals about power and humble service; how John's prologue frames the entire passion through the mystery of incarnation; Jesus before Pilate and the priority of truth over empire; the horrific interpretive legacy of antisemitism in Luther, Augustine, and centuries of Christian reading; how the Gospel universalizes identity by rooting it in God rather than lineage; the scene at the cross as the seed of the church; and what Ford calls the sheer superabundance of grace — loving "utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually." Episode Highlights "The one thing one mustn't do with these days is see the resurrection as just coming down off the cross a few days later. That trivializes the cross." "Jesus is portrayed as being utterly one with God and utterly one with us. He's mortal. He's flesh. He can weep. He suffers." "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross." "We are invited into this extraordinary intensity of the divine glory — but it's a glory that is utterly, utterly realistic about darkness, sin, death, suffering, and evil." "The whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire." About David Ford David F. Ford, OBE, is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, where he held the chair from 1991 to 2014, and a Fellow of Selwyn College. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the practice of Scriptural Reasoning. He has served as theological adviser to three Archbishops of Canterbury. His books include The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist), Theology: A Very Short Introduction, The Shape of Living, and most recently Meeting God in John. His commentary on John's Gospel took over twenty years to write and has been translated into Korean. He was awarded an OBE for services to theological scholarship and inter-faith relations in 2013. (Sources: University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity page; Center of Theological Inquiry profile, Feb. 2026.) Ford does not appear to maintain a personal website or public social media. Helpful Links and Resources Meeting God in John: Inspiration and Encouragement from the Fourth Gospel, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-God-John-Inspiration-Encouragement/dp/1587437066 The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-John-Theological-Commentary/dp/1540964086 For the Life of the World Episode 224: How to Read the Gospel of John / David Ford https://faith.yale.edu/media/how-to-read-the-gospel-of-john Scriptural Reasoning http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/ Denise Levertov, "On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX" — discussed at Image Journal https://imagejournal.org/article/denise-levertov-a-memoir-and-appreciation/ Show Notes Why John's Gospel is the "matured gospel" — distilled from years of meditation, eyewitness reports, and rewriting "From his fullness we've all received grace upon grace" — the theme of superabundance running through John John wrote for both beginners and the experienced — simple Greek, inexhaustible depth Ford's biggest hope after 20 years writing his commentary: that readers would become "habitual rereaders" of John The prologue as the most influential short text in the history of Christianity "In the beginning was the Word" — the only framework for understanding Jesus is God and the whole of reality "The Word was made flesh" — utterly one with God, utterly one with us The farewell discourses of chapters 13–17 as probably the most profound teaching in the New Testament Chapter 17 as the most profound chapter in the Bible — Jesus' final prayer before the passion The foot washing: "All things having been given into his hands — and then what the hands do is wash the feet of his disciples" "Loving utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually" — the heading Ford gave to Maundy Thursday; used as the title of the Korean translation of his commentary "If you want to be great, wash feet" The "as" in John's Gospel — love as Jesus loved, sent as the Father sent — requiring us to go deep and then endlessly improvise Jesus washing Judas's feet — the radicality of love extended even to the one who betrays John omits the Eucharist from the Last Supper — placing eucharistic theology in chapter 6 to keep the focus on who Jesus is "I think nobody is in favor of the real absence of Jesus" — Ford on disputes over the real presence The beloved disciple as the model disciple, Peter as "all the rest of us" — the one who tries, fails, and is restored "The anonymity allows us all to write our names there" — reading ourselves into the beloved disciple and the mother of Jesus The threefold "Who are you looking for?" and the threefold "I am" at the arrest — echoing Exodus 3:14, the very name of God Before Pilate, facing the most powerful empire in history, Jesus headlines one thing: truth The scene at the cross as the seed of the church — Jesus sending his mother and the beloved disciple to each other "Here is your mother, here is your son" — the Greek verb for "received her" is the same as "whoever receives the one I send, receives me" "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross" Nelson Mandela as a distant analogy: "Apartheid happened to Mandela, but Mandela happened to apartheid" — likewise, sin happened to Jesus, but Jesus happened to sin Denise Levertov's poem on Julian of Norwich: "the oneing with the Godhead opened him utterly to the pain" "He handed over the spirit" — not "gave up his spirit"; a possible first breathing of the Holy Spirit from the cross Scriptural Reasoning: its origins with Jewish textual reasoning scholars working out what it means to be Jewish after the Shoah Peter Ochs and the founding of Scriptural Reasoning at Princeton Ford on reading John chapter 8 with Peter Ochs: facing the "appalling inheritance" of antisemitic interpretation Adele Reinhartz's reading: John isn't anti-Semitic — John is Semitic; the Gospel relativizes ethnic identity Dietrich Bonhoeffer on doing justice to incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection — all three, not just one Receptive Ecumenism — looking at yourself first, asking how we can be better Christians rather than telling others to be like us "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not overcome it. But it doesn't say the darkness disappeared." "The whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire" #GospelOfJohn #HolyWeek #GoodFriday #DavidFord #Lent #PassionNarrative #TheologyOfTheCross #FootWashing #ScripturalReasoning #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured David Ford Interview by Macie Bridge Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

The book of Ecclesiastes has puzzled readers for millennia with its unflinching observations about absurdity, meaninglessness, vanity, and futility. Biblical scholar Jesse Peterson joins Evan Rosa to discuss his book, Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value , bringing contemporary philosophy into dialogue with this ancient text and reflecting on what happens when a sage confronts the gap between expectation and reality. "Can you view your work, your toil, not just as a means to a further end? Can you rather turn to simply enjoy the work itself?" Together they discuss the distinction between meaning and value, why Qoheleth denies lasting significance while affirming joy, the harm of death and the death of memory, Ecclesiastes and Camus's absurdism, and the book's surprising message about enjoyment as an intrinsic good. Episode Highlights "I think what's at the heart of the Book of Ecclesiastes is just to say, maybe not, maybe there isn't a direct line between what you do and what the result will be." "It's not just that you'll physically die, but meaning that you've accrued in your life, if there was such a thing, that dies with you." "In this moment of working on what I'm working on, whatever it is, I am fully alive." "You have a little piece of the pie, and just own it. Absorb yourself into whatever that may be." "Can you view your work, your toil, not just as a means to a further end? Can you rather turn to simply enjoy the work itself?" About Jesse Peterson Jesse Peterson is an Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies in the School of Theology and Honors Program at George Fox University. He previously taught at Purdue University, Fordham University, and St. John's University. He earned a PhD in Hebrew Bible from Durham University (UK), an MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a BA in music and Jewish studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His work on Ecclesiastes has appeared in Harvard Theological Review, Vetus Testamentum, and the Journal of Theological Studies. He is the author of Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value (Cambridge University Press). Helpful Links and Resources Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value, by Jesse Peterson https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/qoheleth-and-the-philosophy-of-value/877B040C17EE8B9DD60174DEC7C306F7 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 Featured music by the Jesse Peterson Quartet https://jessepetersonquartet.bandcamp.com/album/man-of-the-earth Show Notes The most philosophical book in the Bible Bringing Ecclesiastes into dialogue with contemporary philosophy of value Jaco Gericke's Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion as catalyst Authorship: why scholars date Ecclesiastes to the 3rd century BCE The Solomonic persona and the epilogue problem Amal (toil) and yitron (gain): does life add up? Qoheleth as businessman: commercial language for philosophy Three theories of meaning: subjectivism, consequentialism, intersubjectivism "Maybe there isn't a direct line between what you do and what the result will be" Brueggemann's orientation, disorientation, new orientation The absurd: expectation vs. reality, linking Qoheleth to Camus "Meaning that you've accrued in your life, if there was such a thing, that dies with you" The same fate for all: wise and foolish, human and animal Epicurus and the harm of death Hebrew anthropology: dust plus life-breath, no afterlife The carpe diem passages: "Go eat your bread with joy" Joy as robust, not narcotic—enjoying toil as an end in itself "In this moment of working on what I'm working on, I am fully alive" Csikszentmihalyi's Flow and the autotelic experience "Just own it. Absorb yourself into whatever that may be." #Ecclesiastes #Qoheleth #PhilosophyOfValue #MeaningInLife #BiblicalStudies #HebrewBible #WisdomLiterature #CarpeDiem #Absurdity #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured Jesse Peterson Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Increasingly, it seems that a very public and nationalized Christianity is bouncing back as a live, contested question around the world, and there’s a temptation to exist on the extremes of either loyalty to the point of idolatry, or total opposition to the point of suspicion of the human beings we need to get along with every day. That creates a dilemma for Christian witness, one that can perhaps only be solved by the courage and fortitude to live in the tension this creates, honoring everyone’s dignity, and not falling into a gross idolatry of the state. Oxford's Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology Luke Bretherton joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to name what's happening as Christianity sees a resurgence in democratic public life, and what faithful witness demands. In this episode, Bretherton reflects on Christianity's re-emergence and the theology it requires. Together they discuss the real-time collapse of secular progressivism, democratic agency, Augustine on glory and shame, how media monetizes suspicion, why community organizing outlasts protest, and how the church might tell a truer—and more costly—story about common life. Episode Highlights "The plausibility structure of Christianity is kind of back in play in the post-progressive vibe shift." "We want to have enemies—it's really hard to organize the world around love of enemies, and it's hard to make money off love of enemies." "How do you express loyalty to your particular political community—loyalty without idolatry?" "The giving over of responsibility is itself an act of self-dehumanizing." "The uncle who drives you crazy at Thanksgiving is also the one who turns up with a bake when your child is ill—that's how idolatry works." About Luke Bretherton Luke Bretherton is Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life, and a canon of Christ Church. Previously at Duke University and King's College London, his work spans political theology, democracy, and grassroots politics. He hosts the Listen, Organize, Act! podcast. Books include A Primer in Christian Ethics (Cambridge, 2023), Christ and the Common Life, and Christianity and Contemporary Politics. Learn more at https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/rev-canon-professor-luke-bretherton and @WestLondonMan https://x.com/WestLondonMan Helpful Links and Resources A Primer in Christian Ethics: Christ and the Struggle to Live Well (Cambridge, 2023) https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Christian-Ethics-Christ-Struggle/dp/1009329022 Listen, Organize, Act! podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/listen-organize-act-organizing-democratic-politics/id1553824477 Luke Bretherton at Oxford https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/rev-canon-professor-luke-bretherton Show Notes “Post-progressive vibe shift”; Christianity newly plausible across UK and Europe Bible Society "quiet revival" research; young people back in Oxford churches "The plausibility structure of Christianity is kind of back in play in the post-progressive vibe shift." Meaning, purpose, character; religion in government policy commissions Tom Holland; civilizational Christianity; the post-new-atheist turn Political theology replacing secular ideology: Ukraine, Gaza, India-Pakistan Two dominant scripts: total shame vs. lost glory Augustine's third way: grace, ambiguity, open wounds "How do you express loyalty to your particular political community—loyalty without idolatry?" Local social trust still holds; national trust collapsed Social media systems that profit from suspicion: monetized idolatry "We want to have enemies—it's really hard to organize the world around love of enemies, and it's hard to make money off love of enemies." Think with the body, from place; neighbors before scripts "The uncle who drives you crazy at Thanksgiving is also the one who turns up with a bake when your child is ill." Mass mailing dissolved federated civil society: unions, denominations, guilds Moses's challenge: atomized crowd to covenantal people Strongmen and unmediated belonging; technology and concentrated power Polanyi's two responses: strong man or democratic organizing "The giving over of responsibility is itself an act of self-dehumanizing." Mobilizing vs. organizing; the Arab Spring The Westfield story: a teenager discovers her democratic agency Thick vs. thin trust: the only metric that matters #PublicTheology #PoliticalTheology #ChristianWitness #Democracy #CommunityOrganizing #FaithAndPolitics #ChristianEthics #PostProgressivism #ChurchAndState #Secularism Production Notes This podcast featured Luke Bretherton Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Theologian Bo Karen Lee joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to explore how the multiple layers of trauma—pandemic grief, racialized violence, intergenerational wounding, vicarious suffering—can be met by the resources of Ignatian spirituality and contemplative prayer. Writing and teaching at the intersection of Christian formation and social justice, Lee brings both scholarly precision and uncommon personal candor to one of the most urgent conversations in theology today. "Trauma tends to isolate and alienate us from our siblings, our human siblings. But ironically, this witnessing of one another's pain is the source of healing. So it has the very opposite effect of what is needed for it to be healed." In this conversation, Lee reflects on the spiritual journey from what one author calls "alarmed aloneness" toward becoming beloved—seen, held, and gazed upon with love. Together they discuss the overlapping layers of collective, personal, racialized, and intergenerational trauma shaping contemporary life; attachment theory and its parallels with spiritual formation; the Ignatian tradition of imaginative, contemplative prayer; the still face experiment and the theology of the loving gaze; and why the church has something singular to offer the trauma crisis of our time. Episode Highlights "We are quite sure we're alone in the world and no one really sees us, no one truly cares and no one can be trusted. You're alone, overwhelmed, and helpless." "Trauma tends to isolate and alienate us from our siblings, our human siblings. But ironically, this witnessing of one another's pain is the source of healing. So it has the very opposite effect of what is needed for it to be healed." "I need to be held, but it's this illusory figure that holds me, because I have shut myself off to the very things that could help me, because no one is to be trusted." "I've seen too much hope, and too much beauty, and too much healing walking through the spiritual exercises that I can no longer despair that trauma has the final word." "Gazing upon the God who gazes upon me with love. That is contemplative prayer." About Bo Karen Lee Bo Karen Lee is Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she teaches contemplative theology, Ignatian spirituality, and the relationship between prayer and social justice. A leading voice in the integration of trauma studies and Christian formation, she brings the Ignatian tradition into conversation with psychology, attachment theory, and the lived experience of racialized communities. Her work draws on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola to offer resources for healing that are both theologically grounded and pastorally immediate. She directs retreatants in the nineteenth annotation of the Spiritual Exercises and works regularly with spiritual directors trained in the Ignatian tradition. Helpful Links and Resources Bessel van der Kolk, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society https://www.amazon.com/Traumatic-Stress-Overwhelming-Experience-Society/dp/1572300485 Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands https://www.resmaa.com/resources Kathy Weingarten, Common Shock: Witnessing Violence Every Day https://www.kathyweingarten.com David Fleming SJ, Draw Me Into Your Friendship https://www.amazon.com/Draw-Me-Into-Your-Friendship/dp/0912422904 Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/ Edward Tronick, Still Face Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0 Find a Spiritual Director https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/making-good-decisions/find-a-spiritual-director/ Show Notes Trauma defined: "terror triggered by an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms existing coping mechanisms" — Bessel van der Kolk Layers of trauma: collective pandemic grief, personal wounding, racialized violence, intergenerational encoding, vicarious/secondary trauma Global pandemic as collective trauma — threat of death, forced isolation, planetary-scale overwhelm Racialized trauma and AAPI hate incidents — one in five AAPI individuals reported a hate incident in the U.S. in a 15-month window (as of late 2021) My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem — racialized trauma encoded in bodies and communities https://www.resmaa.com/resources Cumulative microaggressions — daily small injuries can produce PTSD-level effects over time; growing body of clinical literature Secondary/vicarious trauma — hearing others' suffering reactivates unresolved wounds in caregivers and companions "Double jeopardy" — Kathy Weingarten's term for caregivers whose own past traumas are reactivated while supporting others Five professions at highest risk: clergy, health workers, teachers, police, journalists — context for the Great Resignation "Alarmed aloneness" — the net effect of trauma: certainty that no one sees you, no one cares, no one can be trusted "Trauma tends to isolate and alienate us from our siblings, our human siblings. But ironically, this witnessing of one another's pain is the source of healing." The orphan image: a girl in a Middle Eastern orphanage draws a chalk mother around her fetal body — illusory comfort as portrait of traumatic isolation Intergenerational trauma — encoded in DNA; personal testimony about learning her own mother was nearly killed as an infant, its echo across generations Kintsugi as healing metaphor — the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold; grief before repair, not a race to be fixed Robert Stolorow's concept: finding a "relational home" for traumatic suffering — the necessity of being witnessed Ignatius of Loyola — 16th-century Spanish soldier wounded by cannonball; encountered the living Christ through Ludolph of Saxony's Vita Christi during convalescence The Spiritual Exercises: a four-week manual for imaginative prayer — beloved and broken, walking with Christ through ministry, suffering, resurrection https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/ Ignatian contemplative prayer defined: "gazing upon the God who gazes upon me with love" — kataphatic, embodied, not requiring stillness or silence Still Face Experiment (Edward Tronick) — infant distress when a loving mother goes blank; evidence that the gaze of love is neurologically and psychologically foundational https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0 Attachment theory and spiritual formation — earned secure attachment: what unhealthy early bonding cannot provide, sustained relationship with God can "I've seen too much hope, and too much beauty, and too much healing walking through the spiritual exercises that I can no longer despair that trauma has the final word." Personal testimony: AAPI hate crimes, night terrors, contemplative prayer with a spiritual director; a vision of Mary, the wailing women, and the crucified Christ "Bo, they killed me too" — Christ's words in a contemplative vision; solidarity as the beginning of bearable grief Sartre's "hell is other people" reframed — parasitic dependence on others' approval vs. the freedom of knowing how God gazes upon you Resources for beginning: David Fleming's Draw Me Into Your Friendship; finding a spiritual director trained in Ignatian spirituality; Jesuit retreat centers #TraumaHealing #IgnatianSpirituality #ContemplativePrayer #ChristianFormation #SpiritualTheology #MentalHealthAndFaith #RacializedTrauma #AttachmentTheory #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #YaleDivinity Production Notes This podcast featured Bo Karen Lee Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Annie Trowbridge and Luke Stringer A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What happens when we stop treating the Bible as a sacred object and start paying attention to how we actually use it? In this conversation, theologian David Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and the ethics of reading scripture in a fractured world. In this episode with Evan Rosa, Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and how readers shape the meaning and moral impact of the Bible. Together they discuss the materiality of scripture, translation and betrayal, moral seriousness, scriptural reasoning across traditions, catastrophic love, and the ethical responsibility readers bear for how sacred texts are used. Episode Highlights “To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter of hubris.” “The Bible doesn’t tell you to do anything. You as a reader decide what to do.” “Violence is always an act of interpretation.” “We never get to a place where everything is clean and everyone benefits.” “We have to take responsibility for the violence we involve ourselves in.” About David Dault David Dault is a theologian, journalist, and media producer whose work explores religion, culture, ethics, and interpretation. He is Executive Producer and host of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, a nationally distributed public radio program. He teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Dault’s scholarship focuses on hermeneutics, religion and media, and the ethical implications of how sacred texts are interpreted and used in public life. His book The Accessorized Bible examines the material forms, cultural framing, and interpretive communities that shape how people encounter scripture. He holds degrees in theology and religious studies and frequently writes and lectures on religion, politics, and culture. Helpful Links And Resources The Accessorized Bible, by David Dault https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300153125/the-accessorized-bible/ Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith https://thingsnotseenradio.com David Dault’s personal website https://www.daviddault.com/ Show Notes The Accessorized Bible—material culture of scripture, design, marketing niches, and the ways the physical form of the Bible shapes how readers interpret and use it Bible as object, medium, and cultural artifact; Marshall McLuhan and media theory—the form of a book shaping how ideas move between minds Books as technologies of imagination and identity formation; reading as a kind of “magical” transfer of ideas from one mind into another “To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter of hubris.” Interpretation requires caution, humility, and the recognition that texts exceed our control Making the familiar strange again; recovering the power of scripture by refusing to domesticate it or assume we fully understand it Franz Rosenzweig on preserving the alienness of sacred texts; debate with Martin Buber on translation and clarity Translation as interpretation—translators inevitably carry values, ideologies, and cultural assumptions into the text Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence; interpreters “misread” texts in order to wrestle with their influence and generate new meaning Reading scripture in community; trust, vulnerability, and shared responsibility among interpreters Scriptural reasoning—Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading shared stories (Noah, Abraham, Moses) together without claiming mastery over the text Tikkun olam—Jewish ethical tradition of “repairing the world”; the world is wounded and humans participate in its healing Repentance and Repair—Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg on moral accountability, restitution, and the work of restoring relationships Violence embedded in interpretation; moral action always involves choices about attention, resources, and responsibility The “flashlight” metaphor—moral attention illuminating one suffering person while another need temporarily falls into shadow Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage—competing moral urgencies in the Gospels “We never get to a place where everything is clean and everyone benefits.” Moral action always involves tragic limitation and competing responsibilities Levinas and infinite responsibility; the ethical demand arising from the face of the person before us Moral seriousness versus performative irony; resisting discourse driven by trolling, spectacle, and dopamine-driven outrage A Bible Is A Book—dismantling the assumption that sacred texts themselves command moral action Steve Martin’s The Jerk and the phone book illustration; a sniper randomly selecting a name and deciding someone should die “The Bible doesn’t tell you what to do.” Readers decide what moral actions follow from a text Reader responsibility; refusing the excuse “the Bible told me to,” recognizing moral agency belongs to interpreters Scripture as “accessory to a crime”—sacred texts used as cover for violence, exclusion, or cruelty The Bible as platform—modular text shaped by study notes, editorial commentary, illustrations, and devotional framing Study Bibles, children’s Bibles, niche-market editions; publishing strategies shaping the interpretive experience Platform logic—similar to Facebook or Twitter; users curate meaning from a shared medium Proof-texting and selective quotation; constructing entire moral worlds from isolated passages Hannah Arendt on responsibility; loving the world enough to accept responsibility for it James Baldwin leaving Paris after the Little Rock crisis; refusing comfort while others bear injustice “Someone should have been there with her.” Baldwin’s recognition that solidarity requires leaving safety and standing beside the vulnerable Catastrophic love—risking institutions, traditions, and comfort for the sake of vulnerable bodies Matthew 25 ethics; encountering Christ among the hungry, imprisoned, and marginalized Moral seriousness as daily practice; imperfect responsibility, persistent solidarity, doing what one can today and beginning again tomorrow #Bible #ChristianBible #BiblicalInterpretation #TheologyPodcast #ChristianEthics #Hermeneutics #Scripture #FaithAndCulture #DavidDault Production Notes This podcast featured David Dault Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give