Podcasts

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houses, skeleton keys, skeleton, and people, with finger print

Homesick

Ian Marcus Corbin joins Evan Rosa on belonging, alienation, and technology, and why so many of us feel not at home in the modern world.

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heart, broken bust, chain and anchor, and astronauts

Heart of Flesh

Psychologist Miguel Farias joins Evan Rosa on meditation, self-deception, and transformation, and why meditation alone can’t give us a heart of flesh.

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hand to the bible

Scandalous Witness

Lee C. Camp joins Evan Rosa on history-maxxing fear, Christian nationalism, the idolatry of the nation state, and his book Scandalous Witness.

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Heads, nest, tendrils

How and Why We Grow

Liz Hall and Todd Hall join Evan Rosa on how people grow: attachment, suffering, virtue, and why intimacy with God is the goal of formation. Sponsored by the Practice Unto Virtue program at the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture at Westmont College and the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

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wires, monastery, statue

Technology, Wonder, and Attention

Aaron Cline Hanbury joins Evan Rosa on technology's non-neutrality, attention media, and reclaiming wonder in the age of AI and endless feeds.

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Rilke Torso

You Must Change Your Life

Bruce Herman joins Evan Rosa on making as sacred resistance to consumer culture—plus submission, beauty, suffering, and creating from love, not fear.

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Two heads with glimmering water masked over them

I Don't Know What Faith Means Anymore

Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman join Mark Oppenheimer to discuss faith, doubt, cancer, and what it means to love God, from their new book Glimmerings.

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Two kids with faces obliterated by vibrant color

Anonymous Spiritual Hitchhiking

The anonymous founder of This Life on his audio-only app, spiritual hitchhiking, AA's Bill Wilson, and why honesty with strangers may be the cure for online loneliness.

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Glowing rock on a bed

Owning Grief Redemptively

Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff and Miroslav Volf on grief, lament, and refusing easy consolation—exploring Lament for a Son, Living with Grief, theodicy's limits, redemptive suffering, and love that risks loss.

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Collage of William Blake's Illustrations and Paintings, by Evan Rosa

How to Read William Blake

Mark Vernon on how to read William Blake: how counter-Enlightenment imagination, the marriage of heaven and hell, and cleansing the doors of perception offer an antidote to modern fragmentation and a vision of human flourishing.

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Person with an arid desert inside them

Perseverance Through Weariness, Exhaustion, and Burnout

Tish Harrison Warren on weariness, burnout, and Christian resilience—drawing on the Desert Fathers and Mothers, acedia, silence, grace, and the slow work of God.

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anxious faces

To Be Human Is to Be Unfinished

Existential psychologist Dan Koch and Kristen Tideman explore healthy vs. unhealthy anxiety, mortality, MS diagnosis, faith change, denial, and what it means to be human and unfinished.

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black and white things that illuminate the darkness

Dwell in the Darkness

Theologian David Ford explores the Gospel of John's passion narrative for Holy Week — the foot washing, the trial before Pilate, the cross, divine glory, and what he calls an education of desire.

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People with umbrellas and a lot of wind

How to Read Ecclesiastes

Biblical scholar Jesse Peterson discusses Ecclesiastes through contemporary philosophy of value, exploring Qoheleth's denial of meaning, the harm of death, and his surprising affirmation of joy and the present moment.

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Church skyrocketing

Religious Vibe Shift

Luke Bretherton explores Christianity, democracy, public witness, civic trust, polarization, local organizing, and the crisis of agency shaping political life in Britain and America.

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Hand holding glittering bibles

The Accessorized Bible

David Dault explores biblical interpretation, moral responsibility, and catastrophic love, arguing that readers—not scripture itself—bear responsibility for how the Bible shapes ethics, community, and public life.

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Your Whole Self at Work

Sociologist Elaine Ecklund explores religion in the workplace, vocation, gender dynamics, and principled pluralism, drawing from research with Denise Daniels on faith and professional life.

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Chapel and Capitol Building Mashup

Faith and Character in a Polarized Society

John Kasich discusses faith, character, fear, and civic life, exploring how personal belief and community action shape leadership and a life worth living amid political polarization.

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Hand and its shadow, colorful

Forgiving Our Fathers

Stan Grant reflects on Murriyang, exploring fatherhood, masculinity, forgiveness, Aboriginal identity, prayer, time, and mortality in a searching conversation about living lives worthy of our humanity.

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Religion and Modern Slavery

A conversation with Kevin Bales and Michael Rota on modern slavery, religion, power, conscience, and the moral psychology that sustains or dismantles human exploitation worldwide.

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Nail in tree with color

The Nail in the Tree

Poet and essayist Carol Ann Davis reflects on her proximity to the Sandy Hook school shooting, trauma, poetry, parenting, violence, childhood, attention, and resisting narrative closure, hosted by Evan Rosa.

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Blaise Pascal images, Night of Fire Meditation, Pascal's Calculator, Pascal's triangle

How to Read Blaise Pascal

Graham Tomlin explores Blaise Pascal’s influence on modernity in light of his innovation, philosophy, and spirituality.

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woman walking in desert, capital I with people in it

Creaturely Loneliness

An exploration loneliness as a universal creaturely experience, the spiritual work of solitude, the vulnerability of relationships, and how community, church, and everyday encounters help us hold our relational longings.

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old woman, alone, surrounded by crowds

Dying Alone

Physician Lydia Dugdale explores loneliness, solitude, and death in modern medicine.

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People, woman, cat

Women Alone with God

Medievalist Hetta Howes joins Macie Bridge to explore the solitary vocations of medieval women mystics, including Julian of Norwich and Marjorie Kempe. Together they uncover how devotion, enclosure, and longing reveal the enduring human desire for both solitude and connection across centuries.

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crowd of people, letter I with figure inside

Lonely Tech

Felicia Wu Song explores loneliness, solitude, and AI’s effect on humanity—revealing how digital life reshapes community, embodiment, and grace in an age of constant connection.

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Crowd surrounding the letter I, with woman looking at sunset

Notice the Absence

Writer Laura Marris on ecological loneliness, grief, and wonder in the age of loss.

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crowd surrounding a solitary figure in an uppercase I

Flourishing Alone

Miroslav Volf reflects on solitude, loneliness, and how being alone can reveal our humanity, selfhood, and relationship with God.

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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Christian Faith and Public Service

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joins Drew Collins to explore faith, gratitude, bipartisanship, and love of enemy—rejoicing always through prayer, wisdom, and service in divided American politics.

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Marc Chagall, ”Moses with the Burning Bush”, 1966

Irrevocable Covenant

Theologian R. Kendall Soulen joins Drew Collins to explore supersessionism, Romans 9–11, and God’s irrevocable covenant, reframing Christian-Jewish relations through post-Holocaust theology and reverence for the divine name.

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Atlas, a feather, and a person

Burnout and Sabbath

Clinical psychologist Alexis Abernethy explores burnout, Sabbath, and resilience. Topics include defining burnout, scripture and Sabbath, the role of pastors in modeling rest, resilience in church communities, and practical ways to embrace Sabbath as a sacred practice.

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El Greco, “Saint John the Evangelist”, ca. 1605, oil on canvas

How to Read the Gospel of John

David Ford explores John’s Gospel as a work of theological history, superabundance, and friendship, guiding readers into endless depths of meaning.

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Earth sprouting trees and rays of light

The Earth Embraced

In his fourth Gifford Lecture, Miroslav Volf contrasts self-centered, fleeting love with enduring, unconditional, agapic love. Drawing from Dostoevsky, Genesis, and Hannah Arendt, he reflects on God’s delight in creation, grief over its corruption, and unwavering love for humanity. What kind of love can sustain a broken world and shared human life?

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Figure holding lantern, entering into earthly portal with a home in it.

Humility and Glory of Love

In his final Gifford Lecture, theologian Miroslav Volf dismantles the ideology of superiority. Drawing on Paul, Scheler, and Nietzsche, he explores how agapic love, embodied in Christ’s descent, reveals a path beyond competition, pride, and striving—toward a world not conquered, but cherished as home through the love of the crucified God.

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Earth is a Black Hole with a color burst

Loving Our Fate?

In this third Gifford Lecture, Miroslav Volf explores Nietzsche’s will to power, agonistic love, and affirmation of suffering. Volf critiques Nietzsche’s devaluation of humanity and proposes Jesus’s unconditional love as a more enduring and encompassing response to the world’s brokenness, offering a love that transcends individual power, worthiness from striving, and personal need.

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view of earth from moon, with null symbol

Hating the World, Unquenchable Thirst

In the second installment of his 2025 Gifford Lectures, Miroslav Volf examines the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s radical rejection of the world. Volf shows how our modern consumerist cravings mirror Schopenhauer’s vision of unquenchable thirst and fleeting satisfaction. In response, Volf argues that agape love must be central in our relationship to the world.

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sun moving away from its reflection

How to Love a Radically Ambivalent World

Miroslav Volf begins his 2025 Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen with a provocative theological inquiry: What difference does belief in God make for our relationship to the world? This first lecture challenges us to consider the character of our relationship to the world, between atheism and theism, critique and love.

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colorful image, people hiking up and down

How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse

Miroslav Volf unpacks the core themes of his 2025 book, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. In this book, Volf offers a penetrating critique of comparison culture, diagnosing the hidden moral and spiritual wounds caused by competition and superiority.

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Dancers Dancing

The Body as Sacred Offering

Silas Farley, former New York City Ballet dancer and current Armstrong Artist in Residence in Ballet in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University (SMU), explores the profound connections between classical ballet, Christian worship, and embodied spirituality.

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Pope Francis

Remembering Pope Francis

Pope Francis died on Monday April 21, 2025. And to remember and celebrate his life, we’re bringing out an episode from our archives featuring social ethicist and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, Nichole M. Flores. Ryan McAnnally-Linz interviewed her in early 2021 about Fratelli Tutti, an encyclical teaching he published 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Bruce Herman, "QU4RTETS No. 1 (Spring)", oil and gold/silver leaf on wood, 2012

Art and Sacred Resistance

In this conversation with painter, writer, and educator Bruce Herman, we discuss the human propensity to create, to make, to generate, to originate. What it means to be art—fearfully and wonderfully made—and what it means to do art in response.

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Walking on Water, by Ivan Aivazovsky, Russia, 1888

The Fear to Hope: Ukrainian Pastor on Democracy, Fear, and Abundant Life in the Midst of War

Evoking courage, resilience, and faith in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to For the Life of the World three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In conversation with Evan Rosa, Fyodor shares his reflections on fear, freedom, and the emotional and spiritual challenges of living fully in a time of war. He discusses his response to recent global political developments, the struggle of holding onto hope, and the importance of confronting fear rather than suppressing it. Drawing from the Gospel of Mark’s iteration of Jesus walking on water, his own personal grief and therapy, and the lived experience of war, Fyodor sees fear not as something to be avoided or gotten rid of, but as something to understand and face with courage.

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"Feed My Sheep" by Ralph—the man who inspired Two-Step Devil

What the Devil

Novelist Jamie Quatro joins Macie Bridge to share about her relationship to the theological exploration within her latest novel, Two-Step Devil; her experience of being a Christian and a writer, but not a “Christian Writer”; and how the trinity of main characters in the novel speak to and open up her own deepest concerns about the state of our country and the world we inhabit.

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Bird with clouds inside

The Scandal of Giving and Forgiving

In Miroslav Volf’s understanding, forgiveness “decouples the deed from the doer.”Today’s episode features some highlights from Miroslav’s personal reflections about each chapter of his book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, including his thoughts about one of the most painful moments in his family’s history, the death of his 5-year-old brother Daniel when Miroslav was just a small boy.

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Kendrick Lamar, Uncle Sam, and a Playstation T-shirt

Kendrick Lamar's Political Theology

An introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar featuring host Evan Rosa and Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Femi joined Dissect Podcast host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar.

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St. Mark's Episcopal Church, after the Jan 2025 Eaton Fires / Photos Courtesy of Pam King

The Psychology of Disaster

Jamie Aten and Pam King join Evan Rosa to discuss the psychology of disaster, the importance of spiritual health, resilience, and fortitude—connecting them to natural disasters like the Eaton Fire and personal disasters such as cancer.

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Postcard: Greetings from our One and Only Earth, with ladies sitting by a burning forest

Our One and Only Earth

In this episode, Ryan McAnnally-Linz welcomes Ryan Darr (Assistant Professor, Yale Divinity School) to reflect on some of the most pressing issues in environmental ethics and consider them through philosophical, ecological, and theological frameworks.

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Jesus hidden

Divine Hiddenness

God is hidden. God is silent. Is saying that sacrilegious? Or could it be the very ground of Christian faith? How do we make sense of what seems like a plain and obvious fact, with the biblical record or the testimony of those who claim to see or hear God? In this episode, philosopher Deborah Casewell joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of divine hiddenness.

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flag-wielding cowgirl and horse gallop through a cross over the flag-overlaid map of the united states

We the (Chosen) People: Christian Nationalism Now

Yale professors Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski join Evan Rosa for a conversation about religion, politics, and the shape of Christian nationalism now.

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Simone Weil with eyes closed

How to Read Simone Weil, Part 3: The Existentialist

Evan Rosa invites Deborah Casewell to explore how to read Simone Weil the Existentialist.

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Simone Weil, Illustration: Evan Rosa

How to Read Simone Weil, Part 2: The Activist

Cynthia Wallace joins Evan Rosa to discuss How to Read Simone Weil, Part 2: The Activist.

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How to Read Simone Weil, Part 1: The Mystic

This episode is the first of a short series exploring How to Read Simone Weil. In this conversation, Eric O. Springsted and Evan Rosa discuss Simone Weil as Mystic.

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“John of Patmos watches the descent of New Jerusalem from God in a 14th-century tapestry”—modified and collaged by Evan Rosa

Open the Gates

Yii-Jan Lin (Associate Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School) joins Matt Croasmun to discuss her new book, Immigration and Apocalypse.

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Saints and gradients

Letters to a Future Saint

Drew Collins welcomes Brad East for a discussion of his recent book, Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry.

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Henry David Thoreau and Walden Pond

How to Read Henry David Thoreau

Lawrence Buell (Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus, Harvard University) joins Evan Rosa for a conversation about how to read Henry David Thoreau.

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Cosmic Connections

Theologian Miroslav Volf interviews philosopher Charles Taylor about his book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment.

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St. Teresa of Avila pierced through the heart

How to Read Teresa of Ávila

Carlos Eire (T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University) and Evan Rosa discuss of how to read St. Teresa of Avila, exploring the historical, cultural, philosophical, and theological aspects of her life and writing, and offering insights and close readings of several selections from her classic The Life of St. Teresa of Avila.

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Photo Credits: Fannie Lou Hamer, Phyllis Wheatley, Charles Morgan Jr., Anna Murray Douglass, David Walker, Sister Thea Bowman, Myrlie & Darrell Evers.

History Speaks the Spirit of Justice

In this episode, Jemar Tisby joins Macie Bridge on the podcast to discuss his new book, The Spirit of Justice, opening the centuries long history of resistance to racism in the United States through the mode of story, and with the lens of the Spirit moving for justice. They discuss the manifestations of the Spirit of Justice in figures such as H. Ford Douglas, Sister Thea Bowman, David Walker, Myrlie Evers-Williams, and many more; the problem of historical appropriation with figures such as Martin Luther King Jr.; the women whose stories too often fall into the shadow of their husbands’ legacies, like Anna Murray Douglas or Coretta Scott King; and the ever-present question of why we might look to history as we determine our own ways forward.

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Water droplets meeting eachother

Unity in Diversity, Empathic Wisdom

In this episode, Christy Vines (Founder/ CEO, Ideos Institute) reflects on the problem of division today; how we increasingly invest our identity in politics instead of faith or spirituality; humility and privilege; the definition of unity and the assumption of diversity in it; the centrality of empathy; and how to cultivate an empathic wisdom grounded in the life and witness of Christ.

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Image Credit: “The American National Game of Base Ball: Grand Match for the Championship at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, N. J.” Published by Currier & Ives, 1866

Baseball as a Road to God

In this episode, Yankee fan John Sexton (President Emeritus of New York University and Benjamin F. Butler Professor of Law) joins Red Sox fan Evan Rosa to discuss the philosophical and spiritual aspects of baseball. John is the author of the 2013 bestselling book Baseball as a Road to God, which is based on a course he has taught at NYU for over twenty years.

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Image Credit: “Vienna Genesis”, 6th century, Manuscript (Codex Vindobonensis theol. graec. 31), 333 x 270 mm, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna

Love & Judaism

Joining Miroslav Volf in this episode is one of the most important Jewish thinkers alive today: Rabbi Shai Held—theologian, educator, author—is President, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at the Hadar Institute in New York City. He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence and The Heart of Torah, a collection of essays on the Torah in two volumes. His latest book is Judaism is about Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life.

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People dancing, but they're filled with nature

Love's Braided Dance

In this episode, Evan Rosa welcomes Norman Wirzba (Duke Divinity School) to discuss his recent book Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis.

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Music & Joy

Can music teach us how to live? In this interview Evan Rosa invites Daniel Chua—a musicologist, composer at heart, and Professor of Music at the University of Hong Kong—to discuss his latest book, Music & Joy: Lessons on the Good Life.

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Hands from Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam over starry background

How to Read Genesis

Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson joins Miroslav Volf to discuss her latest book, Reading Genesis.

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black and white images of poverty

Poverty

Rev. William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove discuss the political, moral, and spiritual dimensions of poverty.

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Depiction of a saint in front of the cell of an anchoress in The Lives of the Saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada in German, 1451–60. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 602, p. 303.

How to Read Julian of Norwich

Ryan McAnnally-Linz joins Evan Rosa to discuss the theological interpretation of Christian mystic Julian of Norwich.

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How to Read Dallas Willard

Steve Porter joins Evan Rosa to explore the key concepts and ideas in Dallas Willard’s philosophical and spiritual writings.

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girl in a window in a tree in the woods

Fully Alive

Elizabeth Oldfield discusses what it means to be fully alive and at peace with ourselves and our neighbors in the anxiety and fear of contemporary life.

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three figures holding torches

Political Rage & America's Threat from Within

Former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Elizabeth Neumann discusses her book, Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace.

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two children, patriotic, shaking hands with bears fighting behind them

Learning to Disagree

Legal scholar John Inazu discusses his book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.

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Penrose triangle with mountain/desert in background

Disillusioned with Faith

How should we think about the experience of disillusionment, particularly the threat of becoming disillusioned with faith?

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"Hush Harbor", Artist Unknown, ca. early 20th-century

Black Motherhood: Love & Resistance

Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas (Episcopal Divinity School) discusses the gift and grace of Black motherhood to the world and what we can learn from Black mothers about love and resistance.

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Jürgen Moltmann (1926 - 2024)

Theologian of Hope: Remembering Jürgen Moltmann (1926 – 2024)

Miroslav Volf remembers his mentor and friend, German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Followed by Moltmann's reflections on joy, hope, and how he came to faith during World War II as a conscripted German soldier.

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Images of protestors gathered at the Washington monument overlay each other.

Peaceable Assembly

Protests dominate the news. But what is the freedom of assembly? What the First Amendment calls “the right of the people peaceably to assemble”? Legal scholar John Inazu (Washington University, St. Louis) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of the freedom of assembly—its history, meaning, interpretation, and application—as well as how it impacts the ability for citizens to gather to demonstrate and protest.

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An open palm holds a small globe.

Desire

Poet Micheal O'Siadhail discusses his latest collection of poetry, Desire—reading several poems and commenting on how he dealt with the pandemic and sought to understand it through verse. With Evan Rosa, he discusses his poetry as a living and synthetic record of human history, the nature of human greed and avarice and how it has marred the earth, and the calling to reshape our desires toward what's truly worth desiring: a desire for the sacred, for the transcendent, and ultimately, a desire of God for God's own sake.

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The iridescent shape of a woman floats over a dark forest

How to Read Flannery O'Connor

Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine University) joins Evan Rosa to open up about Flannery O’Connor’s life, her unique perspective as a writer, the theological and moral principles operative in her work, all as an immense invitation to read O’Connor and find the beauty of God’s grace that emerges amidst the most horrendous evils.

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A colorful map pin emerges from within a ocean landscape painting, revealing a bright sky and mountain range.

A World Out of Joint

What are the possibilities of homemaking in a world out of joint? What does it mean for Christians to be on a pilgrimage? To be sojourners in the world? Ryan McAnnally-Linz joins Evan Rosa to discuss what it means for Christian life to be a journey not from here to there, but from here to … here.

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You Are A Tree

Theologian Joy Marie Clarkson (King's College London) discusses her most recent book, You Are a Tree: And Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer. Together we discuss: How we see ourselves as human: Are we trees? Are we machines? The beauty of language and the glory of poetry to reveal intangible or invisible wisdom and experience. Joy explains the hidden negation in metaphors and the dance between subjective convention and objective realities. And we explore the many metaphors that seem to undergird Christian theological reflection on flourishing life.

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Political dissident Lin Zhao / Chinese character for ‘ren’ (benevolence)

Chinese Political Theology

Theologian Peng Yin (Boston University School of Theology) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to discuss the role of theology and religion in Chinese public life—looking at contemporary foreign policy pitting Atheistic Communist China against Democratic Christian America; the moving story of Christian communist political dissident Lin Zhao; and the broader religious, philosophical, and theological influences on Chinese politics.

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Woman reading a book with flames coming out of it

The Transforming Fire of Theological Education

What are the goals of education? Are we shaping young minds or corrupting the youth? Theologian Mark Jordan joins Matt Croasmun for a conversation about the meaning of theological education today.

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A glowing red heart burns inside an x-ray image of a chest.

The Heart of Theology

“For theology to be worth anything, it must traffic in real life, and that real life begins in the heart.” Theologian Simeon Zahl (University of Cambridge) joins Evan Rosa to discuss his book, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience.

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Antonio de Montesinos

A Voice Crying Out

Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero (Associate Professor of Latina/o Studies at UCLA) joins Evan Rosa to discuss the history of Christian racial justice efforts in the Americas, as well as a constructive and faithful exploration of Christianity & Critical Race Theory.

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A worn down door in black and white opens to reveal to bright wheat field.

Christianity as a Way of Life

What would it mean for us to take Christianity seriously as a way of life, a set of practices and ways of being in the world—and not merely a list of beliefs? Theologian Kevin Hector (University of Chicago Divinity School) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz for a discussion of his latest book, Christianity as a Way of Life.

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Bird carrying American flag

Renovating the Heart of Our Politics

Former White House staffer Michael Wear reflects on what it means to seek the good of the public; the problem of privatization; what it means to be politically homeless and how to avoid angst about that; the meanings of political parties and how we end up fractured and confused when we look for an identity in them; he reflects on Dallas Willard’s epistemological and moral realism and its prospects for political life; and the virtue of gentleness and giving away the last word.

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A multi-colored shape that is both spherical and pointed stands out against a gray- and white-striped background

Asian Americans, Racism, and Capitalism

Jonathan Tran (Baylor University) joins Matt Croasmun to discuss his book, Asian Americans & the Spirit of Racial Capitalism.

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The cut out of a person with arms spread radiates in technicolor against a dusty landscape.

Becoming Whole in a Fragmented Age

Imagine a future that brings personal and communal wholeness, a commitment to truth even when it hurts, and the beauty of pursuing integration in the wake of fragmentation. Anne Snyder joins Evan Rosa to talk about her vision and hopes for a whole-person revolution that honors our moral complexity, holds us accountable to virtue, and seeks a robust form of love in public life. In this conversation they discuss: the meaning of wholeness and what it could mean to become a whole person; the importance of character, virtue, and moral formation; our need to come to terms with violence—listening to the language of threat and safety and preservation and protection; tribalism, fear, and moral realities; the ideas at the root of democracy; the connection between cynicism, distrust, and a feeling of threat and need to survive; and Anne describes a hard-won wholeness rooted in a sober and persevering hope that doesn’t die.

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Black and white portrait photograph with ears in replace of eyes, and an ear trumpet held in position.

Listeners Dare

How can we develop the courage and charity and generosity to listen? The virtuous posture of a listener carries so much weight in the rare achievement of mutual understanding and the miracle of communication. When you factor in the concept of listening to the Word of God, the stakes go up! Will Willimon (Duke Divinity School) joins Evan Rosa to discuss the act of listening and the rare achievement it seems to be; the definition and purpose of a sermon, and what that might mean for its listeners; how to cultivate the charity and courage to listen; and the inherent risk involved in genuinely and generously listening to the gospel.

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Oil painting, a man raises a sword over a soldier on the ground with a lantern.

Power & American Evangelicalism

American Christianity enjoys a great deal of power and influence at home and abroad. Is the church better for it? Is the world better for it? Or is Christian Nationalism just another idolatry—a temptation to take up the sword instead of taking up the cross? Journalist Tim Alberta (The Atlantic, POLITICO) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of his new book, *The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism*. Tim explains his reporting on American Evangelicalism from 2019 through 2023 as well as his own Christian faith and spiritual background. He also reflects on a variety of challenging issues that influence life far upstream from political theatre, including: how faith matures or erodes; the impact of Constantinian Christianity and the Christian embrace of power, influence, and glory in American public life; the difference between Christ and Christendom, and our allegiance to one or the other; and the meaning and unique threat of idolatry—which takes on a unique form in contemporary American life.

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Bright orange flames are blurred in the foreground of a black and white volleyball net.

Advent Love

Part 4 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. Bo Karen Lee discusses how Ignatian spirituality, contemplative prayer, and meditating on the loving gaze and deep compassion of Christ—a love that suffers with—can be a transformative experience to heal trauma, pain, and deal with powerful emotions.

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crack, woman looking at light

How the Light Gets In

How does the light get in? Leonard Cohen suggests, "There's a crack in everything / That's how..." Whether from our restlessness, our fear, or our trauma, to see the world rightly might start with the need to acknowledge the crack in everything. Only then can we see a new world of understanding and belonging and well-being. Graham Ward (University of Oxford) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to reflect on the purpose of theology, Christology as the place where the divine and the human come together, trauma, restlessness, fear, the human capacity for creativity and destruction (and which will we choose?), and how the Gospels offer a new sense of belonging.

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Advent Joy

Part 3 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. Stacey Floyd-Thomas presents a vision of Black joy—which the world can't give and the world can't take away. Looking into several depictions of female agency in the Gospels, she outlines a picture of joy that celebrates beauty, redemptive self-love, virtuous pride, and critical engagement with the world. Then Willie James Jennings offers a definition of joy as an act of resistance against despair and its forces that lead to death. He presents a creative, communal joy characterized by fullness, connected to but transcending grief and sorrow.

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Speaking to the Unspeakable

How do you speak to the unspeakable? How does a people connected to place retain their sense of meaning and time when they are displaced and ignored? Indigenous Australian journalist and public intellectual Stan Grant (Monash University) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of his experience as an Aboriginal Australian, the son of Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay people in the Outback of New South Wales, Australia. He tells the story of his family’s Christian faith and Aboriginal identity—how the two work together. He shares the sense of aboriginal homelessness and displacement and his efforts to seek justice for Aboriginal people in modern Australia, a place with no memory. He teaches us the meaning of Yindyamarra Winhanganha—which is Wiradjuri concept meaning a life of respect, gentleness, speaking quietly and walking softly, in a world worth living in. He comments on declining democracy, how to live with dignity after catastrophe, what it means to be both nothing and everything—and we learn from Stan about the power of silence to speak to the unspeakable.

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Behind a bright orange flame is a black and white image of a young boy playing with a robot.

Advent Peace

Part 2 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. David Dark introduces a new way of thinking about non-violent resistance, which he dubs "Robot Soft Exorcism," whereby, in an appeal to our common humanity, we call each other out of the potentially violent power structures and systems we all (knowingly or unknowingly) inhabit. Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; visit faith.yale.edu/give or click the link in the show notes to donate today.

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A sketch of Hildegard von Bingen with a book overlayed with fractal rainbow light.

How to Read as a Spiritual Practice

To read is human. Even as literacy rates or the quality of that literacy make us nervous for the future, the act of reading looks like it’s somewhere near the essence of what it means to be human. Because reading doesn’t end, or even start, with books. Reading is this search for meaning. A turning and tuning of our senses outward. Looking for symbols, looking for signs of life. It’s the longing for a message in a bottle, in hopes of discovering, making, and living in a shared meaning together. Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine University) and Matthew J Smith (Hildegard College) join Evan Rosa to discuss the joys and perils of reading, how to make young readers, how to teach and cultivate mature readers in the university context, and the significance of reading as a Christian spiritual practice. Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; visit faith.yale.edu/give or click the link in the show notes to donate today.

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Advent Hope

Part 1 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. Theologian Miroslav Volf reflects on "Hope is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickenson, comments on the dark hope of Martin Luther & the Apostle Paul, and how hope and endurance are intrinsically connected in Christian spirituality.

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Violence in God's Name

"Christians are called to collaborate without compromise and to critique without dualism." (N.T. Wright, from today's episode) What better way to secure the greatness of your political state (or maybe political party) than to invoke the name of God as being uniquely supportive of your team? It brings a sickening and divisive new meaning to Romans 8:31—"If God is for us, who can be against us?” In this episode, revered New Testament scholar N.T. Wright joins Miroslav Volf to discuss Monotheism, Nationalism, & Violence. Together they reflect on the history and current realities of what happens when these three elements converge. The conversation was inspired by N.T. Wright's response to a short digital booklet that Miroslav Volf entitled Monotheism, Nationalism, & Violence: 25 Theses, which is available for download at faith.yale.edu.

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Interchange of Love

“Gratitude enlivens the world.” (Miroslav Volf) Gratitude is the emotional expression of the interchange of love between giver and receiver. So of course we’re looking for more of that in public—it’s the very evidence of giving to one another, grace with each other, beneficence for one another. In this conversation, Miroslav Volf and Evan Rosa discuss this remarkable interchange of love between giver and receiver that leads to gratitude. They discuss the meaning of gratitude in emotional, moral, and theological terms; and he introduces a variety of views on gratitude, from the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, to Thomas Aquinas, to Anthony Kronman’s “born-again pagan” critique of Christian gratitude, and finally Martin Luther’s take on gratitude which draws on the Magnificat of Mary, which Miroslav expounds. Special thanks to the Gratitude to God Project for helping to make this episode possible.

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Thanks A Lot

Recent psychological studies find that gratitude can help us create, cultivate, and maintain the kinds of relationships that make life worth living. Other studies are finding that gratitude is far more complicated, and plays a nuanced role in our complex emotional lives. Research psychologist Jo-Ann Tsang (Baylor University) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to talk about the complicated emotional world that gratitude inhabits, the scientific study of giving thanks and the contexts where it's prosocial or adaptive for us, the dark side of gratitude, and the role it plays in a life of flourishing. This episode was made possible in part by the support of the Gratitude to God Project.

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Fearing Rightly

Why do we like horror films? What draws us to the shadows? All the more poignant for the Christian who shouldn’t watch the bad movies. But let’s take the point seriously: How might we watch horror films Christianly? Which is to say: How do we watch them well? Theologian and film critic Kutter Callaway (Fuller Theological Seminary) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of some truly frightening horror films. His new podcast “Be Afraid” is produced by Christianity Today, and explores horror films and the theology and psychology of fearing rightly. In addition to discussing some of our favorite scary movies Kutter Callaway and Evan Rosa discuss: The psychology of fear and why people might willingly rehearse their fears; the radical vulnerability of human life that makes us susceptible to horrors; the Bible as horror genre; the human inclination toward the numinous, unknown, mysterious, and uncanny; managing our terror about death; and ultimately, how to fear rightly. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

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How to Lead with Peace, Humility, Compassion, and Faith

Activist, Pastor, and Global Leader Evan Mawarire reflects on the role of Christian faith in democratic leadership, specifically looking at three significant Gospel passages that reveal not just Jesus’s approach to leadership, but how he teaches his disciples to lead with peace, humility, compassion, and faith. In Mark 4, we find Jesus leading from peace, rest, control, and trust, peacefully sleeping in the midst of a storm, while the disciples prematurely conclude: “Don’t you care that we are going to die?” In Mark 10, when two of the disciples play political games for their own glory, Jesus responds with a teaching of humility and a subversive glory—that the greatest will in fact be the servant of all. And in John 13, Jesus displays this humility and compassion by washing the gross and grungy feet of his friends, and teaching Peter that a leader is first a student, and the student isn’t greater than their teacher. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

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Articles

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Books We Loved in 2025

At the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, we all have contracted a contagious and incurable condition: we love books. These are the books we loved in 2025.

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CT 2026 Book Awards

The Cost of Ambition Wins Christianity Today Best Book Award

Miroslav Volf’s The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse has been named the Theology (Popular) category winner in Christianity Today’s 2025–2026 Book Awards. The recognition highlights the work’s clarity, moral urgency, and pastoral relevance in a cultural moment marked by pressure, comparison, and chronic striving.

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Yale Center for Faith & Culture 2025 Partner Scholars

Introducing our first cohort of YCFC Partner Scholars: colleagues in scholarship and thought from a variety of institutions and backgrounds, whose exceptional work we want to uplift in collaboration.

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Domenico Fetti, "The Parable of the Mote and the Beam", oil on wood, ca. 1619

You That Listen

Drew Collins comments on the significance of understanding in hearing Jesus, listening to Jesus, and following Jesus.

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Books

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The Joy of Humility Book Cover

The Joy of Humility

The true meaning of humility persistently drives debate, largely because we cannot agree on the word’s definition. The "correctness" of normative terms matters, and humility carries a distinctive normative weight. How we understand humility is not a matter of mere semantics. It is a pursuit of inquiry with the potential to inform—perhaps even to transform—our lives. The Joy of Humility takes up this task with a view toward the perennial question of what entails a truly flourishing life. Here, philosophers, theologians, ethicists, and psychologists work to frame the debate in such a way that the conversation can move forward.

Drew Collins

The End of Youth Ministry book cover

The End of Youth Ministry?

What is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century.

Andrew Root

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Videos

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Pursuit of a Life Worth Living

“What we’re trying to do is offer students an opportunity to think critically about the most important question of their lives across important and enduring lines of difference. That can only be good for them as individuals and as global citizens.”

Matthew Croasmun

Gathering Joy

Willie Jennings

The Future of Theology

George Marsden

Life Worth Living and the University

Jonathan Holloway

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Christ & Flourishing Resources

Heart of Flesh

Miguel Farias

Homesick

Ian Marcus Corbin

Scandalous Witness

Lee C. Camp

How and Why We Grow

Elizabeth Hall

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Life Worth Living Resources

Life Worth Living Curriculum Design Competition Announcement

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Life Worth Living Secondary School Curriculum Design Competition

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Speaking to the Unspeakable

Stan Grant

Violence in God's Name

N.T. Wright

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