Podcasts

view all
→
A grid of black-and-white images of a baby, with a colorful orb in the foreground.

Made for Relationships

We tend to take these claims for granted: “Human beings are essentially relational.” “No man is an island.” “We’re created for connection.” “We’re made for relationships.” And testing the limits of this can be pretty much diabolical. Evan Rosa traces two stories of parental deprivation: Harry Harlow's Monkey Love Experiments and the horror of 1990's discovery of Romanian asylums for orphans, documented in the 1990 report "The Shame of a Nation,” on 20/20. Then psychologist Mari Clements (Glenville State College, formerly Fuller School of Psychology) discusses the importance of healthy marriage dynamics for young children’s development and how it provides a secure emotional base; the relational imago Dei; the close emotional bonds that must take place early in life in order to provide the relational stability relational creatures need; we talk about important phases of human development, into adulthood; and the theological backdrop to these questions of the human drive and need for emotional connection.

Listen to podcast
→
Lines, dots, colorful thread

Tapestry of Knowledge

"Theology is truth-apt and truth-aimed." Too often the faith-science debate ends up a zero-sum game where either science or theology overstep their bounds. But analytic theologian Oliver Crisp (University of St. Andrews, Scotland) describes a tapestry of knowledge that requires the best of both worlds. In this episode he discusses the purpose and future prospects of theology in light of empirical and experimental science. How might science, philosophy, and theology can work together to help us understand human uniqueness? Can science help us better understand the imago Dei?

Listen to podcast
→
Translucent manuscript pages layered in black and white.

Testament

Micheal O'Siadhail reflects on his latest collection of poetry, Testament. A confession of faith through Psalms refracted through his experience, and the Gospel story retold through rhyme, O'Siadhail's vibrant faith manifests as complaint, longing, grief, mourning, and doubt. With mountains and oceans of poetry written over the past 45 years, he writes on love, loss, modernity, music—all an experiment of drawing the universal down into the particular and right back up again. From Psalm 1, his opening verses, he writes, "Uncloseted, / Things once unsaid my life declares: / My words are prayers my being plays; / Through you I gaze at all I love."

Listen to podcast
→
Lines, dots, house on fire, housefire

Angry at God

Have you ever been angry at God? Psychologist Julie Exline (Case Western Reserve University) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to discuss the psychology of spiritual struggles and anger at God. She reflects on the meaning of spiritual struggle, as well as the possible outcomes and factors that contribute to a personal sense of healing and growth. She speaks to the anxiety and fear that seem to hover around an expression of anger toward God, dealing with objections and concerns that it’s immoral or presumes God to be guilty of wrongdoing. And she offers practical considerations in light of the psychological research around what happens when people choose to express their anger at God or not—how different responses of disapproval or acceptance can lead to positive growth or a sense of successfully dealing with the anger.

Listen to podcast
→
lines, dots, staircase, stairs

Tolerating Doubt & Ambiguity

Is your faith a house of cards? If you were wrong about one belief would the whole structure just collapse? If even one injury came to you, one instance of broken trust, would the whole castle fall? If one element was seemingly inconsistent or incompatible—would you burn down the house? This depiction of the psychology of faith is quite fragile. It falls over to even the lightest breath. But what would a flexible faith be? Resilient to even the heaviest gusts of life’s hurricanes. It would adapt and grow as a living, responsive faith. Psychologist Elizabeth Hall joins Evan Rosa to discuss the domains of psychology and theology and what it means for each to “stay in their lane”; she introduces a distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge, and identifies the social- and self-imposed pressure to know everything with certainty; we reflect on the recent trends toward deconversion from faith in light of these pressures; and she offers psychologically grounded guidance for approaching doubt and ambiguity in a secure relational context, seeking to make the unspoken or implicit doubts explicit. Rather than remaining perched upon our individualized, certainty-driven house-of-card faith; she lays out a way to inhabit a flexible, resilient, and relationally grounded faith, tolerant of ambiguity and adaptive and secure amidst all our winds of doubt. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of Blueprint 1543. For more information, visit Blueprint1543.org.

Listen to podcast
→
Illustration by Evan Rosa

The Story of a Global Icon: The Virgin of the Passion

Art historian Matthew Milliner (Wheaton College) reflects on one of the most powerful and moving Christian icons: “The Virgin of the Passion,” AKA, “Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” which he develops in his book, Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon. First painted as a response to failed Christian Empire and the violence of the Crusades, then mass produced and proliferated as a norm of Christian aesthetic worship, the icon offers a unique filter for contemporary understanding of faith and power; the Christian temptation to nationalism, empire, and violence; the meaning and visual expression of suffering love; and the beauty of engaged, solidarity and prophetic witness. This episode was made possible by a grant from the Tyndale House Foundation.

Listen to podcast
→
Illustration by Evan Rosa

Looking Long, Finding Grace in Crisis, and Painting Truth to Power

Winslow Homer's biographer William Cross joins Evan Rosa for a conversation on art, attention, beauty, contradiction, race, and the struggle for America. Features in-depth discussion of some of Winslow Homer's most beloved and intriguing paintings. ‍

Listen to podcast
→
Boy climbing staircase with colorful graffiti

Holistic and Historical Racial Justice

Jemar Tisby, author of the NYT bestseller The Color of Compromise, explains the complicity and compromise of American Christians; the narrative war that confederate monuments wage (and how they were erected much later than you might think); the ugly theological justifications of racism and the shameful history of Christian white supremacy; the fraught project of selectively naming heroes and villains and then memorializing them; and the practical problem of how to go forward rightly from this moment of increased attention to racial injustice.

Listen to podcast
→
Colorful object over staircase

From Surviving to Thriving

At the bedrock of our being as persons is relationality: our ability to be known, to be loved, and to know and love in return. But what kind of claim is that? Theology or psychology? In this episode, Evan Rosa brings Pamela Ebstyne King (Fuller School of Psychology; Thrive Center for Human Development) on the show to discuss developmental psych as the observational study of human change and plasticity in the midst of a whole complex life; relational attachment for the sake of intimacy and exploration and ultimate purpose or meaning; the proper place of self-love; God’s enabling and loving presence as the ultimate secure attachment figure; the importance of learning, gaining skills, and the pursuit of expertise; the prospects of regaining emotional regulation through relationships; the game changing impact of deliberate psychological and spiritual practices to move us well beyond surviving to a life of thriving.

Listen to podcast
→
A person working on a metal aerial sign with a lightbulb cut out.

Taking Theology Seriously

Over the past two centuries, colleges have slowly replaced theology departments with religious studies departments. But what happens when theology becomes religious studies? It can produce a more neutral, observational approach that might not fully appreciate the normative claims of religious adherents and their values, commitments, and beliefs. A careful historical and objective study of religious history and the dimensions of religious practice are deeply valuable. But engaging religious texts and voices without a serious appreciation for the normative elements—that is, the things about a theological or religious idea that means your life would have to change—that would be a problem. It would evacuate the true substance and meaning of theological claims as they're experienced by religious adherents. But it would also fail to form students of religion and the humanities in a way that poses significant challenges to their own lived experience. For living a life worthy of their humanity. Today, we share a conversation between Tyler Roberts and Matt Croasmun from November 2016. Tragically, Roberts died at the age of 61 on June 3, 2021. He was Professor of Religious Studies at Grinnell College. In this conversation, Roberts reflects on the contribution of theology to the humanities, the role of religious studies in a critical examination of theology, and the importance of appreciating the kinds of theological and moral claims that can change your life. May his memory be a blessing.

Listen to podcast
→
People looking in a well against dark background

How to Respond to Other People's Pain

How should we respond to the pain of others? We are too often quick to justify God's permitting horrendous evils, answering why, and talking too much. In this episode, theologian David Kelsey reflects on human anguish and God's power, noticing the anomaly of evil and its wild and inexplicable grip on creatures, the constant temptation of such creatures to talk and explain evil in the face of others' pain, and finally the analogously wild and inexplicable nature of God's grace in his immediate, if silent, presence among human anguish. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Listen to podcast
→
Colorful abstract object in a cathedral

Bringing Psychology to Theology

Imagine building a cathedral with just a hammer and nails. How might theologians today continue to build the grand cathedral where human knowledge meets divine revelation by implementing the tools of psychological science? Experimental psychologist Justin Barrett joins theologian Miroslav Volf for a conversation on how psychology can contribute to theology. This episode is made possible by Blueprint1543.

Listen to podcast
→
A sail boat in a bowl on a table

Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right

"I am because they were." Lisa Sharon Harper joins Miroslav Volf to discuss the significance of narrative history for understanding ourselves and our current cultural moment; the sequence of repeated injustices that have haunted America's past and directly impacted Black Americans for hundreds of years; the Christian nationalist temptation to hoard power; the necessary conditions for true repair, the role of reparations in the pursuit of racial justice, and the goodness of belonging.

Listen to podcast
→
Grapes and wheat against a colorful gradient

God's Love Made Delicious

"Cooking is a declaration of love ... food is God’s love made delicious." Theologian Norman Wirzba reflects on the threats of our faulty logic of food and our disordered and disconnected relationship to eating and nourishment, and imagines a theology of food grounded in membership, gift, and hospitality. Interview with Matt Croasmun.

Listen to podcast
→
Textured wave gradient black to white

Rabbi Sacks on Etching Everyday Existence with the Charisma of Holiness

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a British Jewish Rabbi, philosopher, politician, and author of more than 30 books. In this conversation, Miroslav Volf interviews Rabbi Sacks about Jewish perspectives on human flourishing, joy, sabbath, and the deeply communal and particular nature of Jewish faith as a witness to the common good. Rabbi Sacks died on November 7, 2020. May his memory be a blessing.

Listen to podcast
→
Diver underwater swimming to colorful object

What Is Really Worth Wanting?

Matt Croasmun suggests that if we—a society in crisis—want to live lives worthy of our humanity, we need to ask the deepest question possible and let it inform our thinking: What is truly worth wanting?

Listen to podcast
→
Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets

Ukrainian Pastor Speaks Out

Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to the podcast to update Miroslav Volf on life during wartime, in a war zone—which includes not only the pain of war, but the loss of losing his wife prior to the war, and his adult son just months ago. His faith persists in the face of all the cold reminders of how little control any of us exert on world events such as this. He now turns to the minor prophets—Nahum and Habakkuk in particular—to hope for justice, to complain and express his anger toward God, even with God. And he continues to minister to soldiers and civilians, holding the questions with presence and patience, while preaching a message of hope in the good and resistance to evil.

Listen to podcast
→
Hands with ash and flames

Lent: Season of Rebellion

Esau McCaulley (Wheaton College / The New York Times) discusses the Christian practice of Lent—a collective wisdom, passed down through generations of Jesus followers, as well as a spiritual rebellion against mainstream American culture. He construes Lent as a season of repentance and grace; he points out the justice practices of Lent; he walks through a Christian understanding of death, and the beautiful practice of stripping the altars on Maundy Thursday; and he’s emphatic about how it’s a guided season of pursuing the grace to find (or perhaps return) to yourself as God has called you to be.

Listen to podcast
→

Beautiful, Humane, & Hospitable

"If the goal of God in creating the world is to make it the home of God and humans together, then it is the intention of God to make this place as beautiful and as humane—as hospitable—to human life as it can possibly be." Miroslav Volf reflects on why he wrote his latest book, The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything. He also celebrates and eulogizes his friend Phil Love, to whom the book is dedicated.

Listen to podcast
→

Experts at Means, Amateurs at Ends

Miroslav Volf and Kelly Corrigan discuss the role of education in seeking a flourishing life; the risks and rewards endemic to asking questions of meaning and existential import in the higher educational context; the meaning of success to college students, and how the specter of success drives our cultural narrative.

Listen to podcast
→
Luke Stringer - Character As Authority

Character As Authority

"Somewhere is better than anywhere." (Flannery O'Connor, as quoted by Wendell Berry in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community) Today, Christian ethicist Adam Eitel (Yale Divinity School) sits with Matt Croasmun for a conversation on ethics and theology. Eitel is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School. Together, he and Matt discuss the demands of teaching and learning theology on personal character—holiness even; the relationship between ethics and theology; the locatedness and situatedness and particularity of Christian ethics; and the rooted, framing question, that animates Adam Eitel's writing and teaching: "What sort of life does the Gospel enjoin?"

Listen to podcast
→
Luke Stringer - The Hunger for Home

Nourishing Mutual Encounter

Food and meals are hidden in plain sight throughout the Bible, providing a background context for Christian spirituality and flourishing. Matt Croasmun joins me on the podcast today to talk about his new book co-authored with Miroslav Volf, The Hunger for Home: Food and Meals in the Gospel of Luke. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

Listen to podcast
→
Luke Stringer - Theology's Human Context

Theology's Human Context

"You can be, at least according to Christian thought, the only sinless person in human history, and you can still be tortured and crucified in your early thirties." What kind of flourishing do we envision when we follow Christ toward that flourishing? Matt Croasmun and Katie Grimes (Villanova University) discuss the social context of theology, trying to make sense of the role of Christ in approaching theology from the perspective of flourishing.

Listen to podcast
→

A Voice from Kyiv: Fyodor Raychynets

Ukrainian theologian and pastor Fyodor Raychynets (Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary) is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine—posting daily to his Facebook page with updates and reflections on the toll the Russian war on Ukraine has taken on innocent, vulnerable people. Women, children, and the elderly are sheltering in place without electricity, without water, without medication, and without any clear idea when or how this will end. Fyodor is a former student of Miroslav Volf's from their time at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia in the early 1990s. In this conversation, recorded Sunday, March 13, 2022, Fyodor shares his experience, now after 20 days of war, 20 days of being under siege, and 20 days of prayer and feeding the hungry. "I have to remind myself on a daily basis that we are humans and we are not just to remain, but it is so crucial in the midst of hell not to lose our humanity, but to preserve it and to show it and to demonstrate it, because that's what the people need the most at this moment."

Listen to podcast
→
Eye, earth, globe, green to yellow gradient

The Christian Imagination

Willie James Jennings (Yale Divinity School) joins Matt Croasmun for a conversation about the future of theology, addressing the Christian inability to hold complexity, public communication, and deep formation together in a way that shows how theology is for our very lives.

Listen to podcast
→
Upside down globe

Global Crisis, Global Flourishing

What does it mean to be a Christian in a world where so many of our systems are dehumanizing? What duties are incumbent upon us as Christians, as humans? How can we learn and share a global flourishing that respects and honors all?

Listen to podcast
→
Jazz Musicians

How Black History Made Jazz

Jazz pianist Julian Reid on music, theology, and improvisation. The keys element of The JuJu Exchange uses the history of blues, gospel, and jazz to discuss how we communicate emotionally and spiritually through music, teaching an important lesson in how to live and long for home while we remain exiles.

Listen to podcast
→
MLK, Mountain

Dangerous Theology

The day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached these words in Memphis, Tennessee. In a powerful and urgent message for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee that's come to be known "I've Been to the Mountaintop," he considers the parable of the Good Samaritan, going on to speak prophetically and presciently of the dangers he himself faced, not knowing how very true his words were.

Listen to podcast
→
Mary Theotokos, roses

A Womb More Spacious Than Stars

What is the role of the Virgin Mary in Christian spiritual formation? Art historian Matthew Milliner (Wheaton College) joins Evan Rosa for a conversation about beauty of Mary in Christian spirituality—particularly for Protestants, for whom the abuses of the past have alienated them from a core component of creedal Christianity, Mary as "Theotokos," the Mother of God.

Listen to podcast
→
Sunset, ocean, archway, road

The Politics of Joy & Suffering

Can we find joy in our world? It's hard enough to find genuine, death-defying joy. the prospects for joy seem bleak. But for N.T. Wright, joy doesn't depend on the whims of circumstance or the proper function of the world.

Listen to podcast
→
Flowers, light, darkness, trees

Where the Light Gets In

Miroslav Volf and Evan Rosa consider audience questions and feedback about hopes and fears going into 2022.

Listen to podcast
→
Arms, paper scraps, sharecroppers in fields

The Case for Reparations

"I am because they were." Lisa Sharon Harper joins Miroslav Volf to discuss the significance of narrative history for understanding ourselves, the sequence of repeated injustices that have haunted America's past and directly impacted Black Americans for hundreds of years, the role of reparations in the pursuit of racial justice, and the goodness of belonging.

Listen to podcast
→
Rest note, worn page

Musical Spiritual Hotel

Julian Reid explores the way music and scripture can come together to create a sacred space, extending metaphors of music as architecture and dwelling and spiritual experience as a river. He combines African-American spirituals with classical hymns to foster hospitality, gratitude, and proclamation of the Gospel into the full spectrum of human experience, in all its pain, frustration, frenzy, stillness, and joy.

Listen to podcast
→
Green leaf, patten background

Attention, Wonder, & Permeability

Poet and linguist Alysia Harris joins Matt Croasmun for a discussion of that space between active and passive in human life—bringing the concepts of wonder, awareness/attention, patient receptivity to the natural world and to God, bearing witness to the autonomy and action of the other, and how she cultivates and meditates on these things in her own life.

Listen to podcast
→
Monastery of Raban Hormizd, overlooking Alqosh

The Vanishing

War correspondent and journalist Janine Di Giovanni joins Evan Rosa to discuss her latest book, The Vanishing: Faith, Loss, & the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets, including her views on human rights reporting, the alarming decimation of the Christian population in the Middle East, the difference between survival and flourishing, and what it means to adapt to being an outsider.

Listen to podcast
→

Finding a Shared Moral Understanding

Charles Taylor joins Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz to explain his most recent thinking about the growth of common ethical understanding in a world that often fails to live up to those shared moral principles of respect, dignity, and care.

Listen to podcast
→

What's Wrong with Our Democracies?

Philosopher Charles Taylor joins Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz to discuss Christian nationalism, authoritarian government, the future viability of Christianity, the post-truth epistemic crisis, the role of social media in that crisis, and Taylor's most recent thinking about the growth of common ethical understanding in a world that often fails to live up to those shared moral principles of respect, dignity, and care.

Listen to podcast
→
Lights, city, clouds

A Grave in the Air

As the first plane was crashing into the World Trade Center, Miroslav Volf was giving an address at the UN headquarters along the East River in Manhattan, just blocks away from Ground Zero. Miroslav shares his experience on 9/11 with Evan Rosa, including short clips from his UN remarks 20 years ago. They consider the lasting impact of 9/11 on both American and global life, and how the event and its continuing aftermath have shaped the world.

Listen to podcast
→
Hourglass, sand

Courage, Control, Kairos Time, and Roasting S'mores as an Exercise in Patience

Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Evan Rosa review and reflect on the six episodes that made up our series on patience: why it’s so hard, what’s good about it, and how we might cultivate it.

Listen to podcast
→
Grapes and wine

Taste and See

Ethicist Adam Eitel on the tasting and seeing of Psalm 34, Thomas Aquinas's interpretation of that psalm, and the foundation of experience for theological reflection.

Listen to podcast
→
galaxy, black and white

Control, Creatureliness, and the Practice of Patience

Reverend Tish Harrison Warren explores patience as spiritual formation, reflecting on the human demand for control in both ordinary and extraordinary life events; the recognition of human vulnerability; the temptation to break out of time; and the difficult balance between the urgent need for justice and the acceptance of our human and societal limits.

Listen to podcast
→
River and mountain

The Psychology of Patience

Psychologist Sarah Schnitker explains her research on patience, how psychological methodology integrates with theology and philosophy to define and measure the virtue, and offers an evidence-based intervention for becoming more patient.

Listen to podcast
→
Labyrinth, sand

Constraining Sorrow, Contemplating Joy

Ethicist Adam Eitel reflects on the human side of the virtue of patience and its place in the moral life—examining how it moderates our passions and responses to sorrow, finding surprising connections between patience, joy, and contemplation, and opening up toward an experiential theology that must comment on patience only from inside the struggle to receive it.

Listen to podcast
→
Glass orb

God's Patience, Human Action, and Complex Faith

Theologian Paul Dafydd Jones comments on the bearing of God's patience on human experience and action.

Listen to podcast
→
Clocks

Money, Markets, and the Economy of Grace

Theologian Kathryn Tanner reflects on the ways finance-dominated capitalism controls our experience of time, and offers insights for a Christian approach to living in the present, informed by an economy of abundant grace.

Listen to podcast
→
Trees, stars, black and white

Time, Acceleration, and Waiting

Modern life presents a crisis of time, bringing the value of patience into question. Andrew Root joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to provide some context for our modern patience predicament.

Listen to podcast
→
Eye

Are You Not Entertained?

What is the role of entertainment in human flourishing? Vox film critic Alissa Wilkinson reflects on the role of entertainment in a flourishing life and how creating art and watching film well cultivates the virtues of attention and hospitality.

Listen to podcast
→
Kintsugi, color

Gilded Wounds, Co-Mingled Tears

Makoto Fujimura joins Miroslav Volf to discuss Art & Faith: A Theology of Making. Fujimura is a painter who practices the Japanese art of nihonga, or slow art.

Listen to podcast
→
Road, Mountains, Colors

The Road to Character

New York Times columnist David Brooks joins theologian Miroslav Volf for a conversation about his 2015 book The Road to Character.

Listen to podcast
→
Road, Mountains, color

What Is Human Flourishing?

New York Times columnist David Brooks interviews theologian Miroslav Volf about his book Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World.

Listen to podcast
→
Buried hatchet

The Freedom of Forgiveness

A conversation on the ancient wisdom of Christian forgiveness, between Yale psychologist Laurie Santos (host, The Happiness Lab) and Miroslav Volf.

Listen to podcast
→

Beyond Invisible / American 한 (Han)-podcast

Author, artist, and theologian Sarah Shin reads her poem "Beyond Invisible"—a response to the March 2021 Atlanta shootings that left six Asian women dead—a crescendo of increasing anti-Asian violence.

Listen to podcast
→
Hands, border wall

Theology of Immigration

What can the faith of the migrant teach us about a living theology? Francisco Lozada (Brite Divinity School) joins Evan Rosa to reflect on immigration and justice within a theological framework.

Listen to podcast
→
Blue ball, red background

Gratitude Is Not a Debt

Sameer Yadav (Westmont College) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to reflect on a better way to understand gratitude than owing it, being in debt to another person, seeing gratitude only through the dry indifference of a receiver's economic indebtedness to a giver.

Listen to podcast
→
Jagged island in distance

Finding Home Through Exiles' Eyes

Poet Christian Wiman joins Evan Rosa to read some of the poetry from Home: 100 Poems, talk about the connection between poetry and faith, and examine the meaning of home through exiles' eyes.

Listen to podcast
→
Robot, boy, girl holding flower

Robot Soft Exorcism

David Dark joins Evan Rosa to talk about his idea of "Robot Soft Exorcism"—a metaphor-slash-parable-slash-theory-slash-way-of-life—that he uses to explain and expound non-violent resistance and prophetic witness.

Listen to podcast
→
Kid, Christmas Tree, Holy Bible

W.H. Auden's For the Time Being

In the midst of war, the loss of his mother, and the heartbreak of unrequited love, poet W.H. Auden was rediscovering his faith. And the fitting response to the darkness and despair and apathy around him, he thought, was the Christmas event. So he set to work on a Christmas Oratorio called For the Time Being.

Listen to podcast
→
Nativity, Mary, Infant Jesus, Beams of Light

Mary Theotokos

Who is Mary? Why is she called "Theotokos"? Frederica Mathewes-Green, an Eastern Orthodox writer and educator, joins Evan Rosa for a discussion about Mary, the Mother of God.

Listen to podcast
→
Woman, window, flame

Active Mystic

What unites the contemplative life with active life in your life? Theologian Sameer Yadav reflects on mysticism, activism, and wonder—drawing together the Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nyssa and the spiritual father of American Civil Rights Howard Thurman. Interview by Evan Rosa.

Listen to podcast
→
Buildings and architecture

Collapse and Rebuild

"It's not just internal peace. It's internal healing. Healing of your memory." (Kevin Lau) After suffering a brutal knife attack that nearly killed him, journalist Kevin Lau, then editor-in-chief of Ming Pao, chose to forgive his two attackers. Since then, he has continued to support social participation through deep Christian spirituality. In this episode, he is joined by theologian Andrew Kwok of Hong Kong Baptist University. Together they reflect on the spirituality of social participation in a society that is experiencing censorship, political disagreement and disenfranchisement that leads to violence, increasing polarization, and tribalized media consumption curated only to confirm the views you already hold.

Listen to podcast
→
Woman profile with feast overlay

Have You Eaten Yet?

David de Leon joins Matt Croasmun for a discussion of hospitality and solidarity and justice, applying the parable of the Great Banquet to cultures of inhospitality, and especially to the context of the increased targeting, discrimination, marginalization, and violence against the Asian American community over the past year.

Listen to podcast
→
Arms over red squares, cross

Passionate God, Crucified God, Joyful God

German theologian Jürgen Moltmann reflects on the meaning of joy, and its connection to anxiety, fear, wrath, hope, and love. Moltmann discovered (or was discovered by) God as a 16-year-old drafted into World War II by the German Army. After enduring the bombardment of his hometown of Hamburg, he was held in a Scottish prison camp, where he read Jesus’s cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Listen to podcast
→
lethal injection, crucifixion

Dead Quiet

Ryan McAnnally-Linz is joined by Elizabeth Bruenig (New York Times) to discuss the theological, moral, and political implications of the death penalty, best summed in her bracing piece released days after the execution of Alfred Bourgeois, which she witnessed in person.

Listen to podcast
→
Cross and knife on a wall

When Hospitals Become Battlefields

Thinking of the Christian church as a field hospital is a wonderful thought, but what happens when the very place you go to for healing becomes the locus of trauma? What happens to faith and flourishing when the hospital becomes a battlefield? For all the media attention given to cases of spiritual abuse, there is very little by way of psychological research. Dan Koch, host of the podcast You Have Permission and a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Northwest University, explores the tragic and damaging phenomenon of spiritual abuse; its impact on the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life; and identifies some of the most important factors in understanding its underlying causes and developing approaches to healing for victims. Interview with Evan Rosa.

Listen to podcast
→
Girl reflection in bubble

The Gravity of Joy

Theologian Angela Gorrell discusses her book The Gravity of Joy, a theological memoir that lays bare the experience of finding the bright sorrow of joy alongside devastating grief, suffering, and pain. The book recounts her experience of joining the Yale Center for Faith & Culture in 2016 as an Associate Research Scholar for our Theology of Joy and the Good Life Project and to teach our Yale undergraduate course, Life Worth Living. That winter, the reality, the extent, and the dangerous potential of joy would become devastatingly clear. The highly abstract question of what it means to live a life worth living would become painfully acute. Interview with Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Listen to podcast
→
Holding hands, night sky, stars, and milky way overlaid against one hand

Befriending Reality

Krista Tippett joins Miroslav Volf for a conversation on the importance of engaging otherness on the grounds of our common humanity; her personal faith journey from small town Baptists in Oklahoma, to a secular humanism in a divided Cold-War Berlin, and then back to her spiritual homeland and mother tongue of Christianity in an expansive and engaging new way; the art of conversation, deep listening, cultivating hospitality; the spiritual task of befriending reality; and the challenge of being alone and being together as we seek to live a life worthy of our humanity. “For me, the spiritual task is to befriend reality in all its mess and complexity—to do that with grace."

Listen to podcast
→
Willie Jennings

Willie Jennings's After Whiteness

Matt Croasmun honors theologian Willie Jennings and his work in After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. Willie Jennings is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School.

Listen to podcast
→
Beams of light emerging from a street lamp

Joy and the Act of Resistance Against Despair

Willie Jennings joins Miroslav Volf to discuss the definition of joy as an act of resistance against despair, the counterintuitive nature of cultivating joy in the midst of suffering, the commercialization of joy in Western culture, joy segregated by racism and slavery, how Jesus expands and corrects our understanding of joy.

Listen to podcast
→
Pope Francis, color gradient, pink

The Dignity of Work

In the resurgence of worldwide populism, Pope Francis has said that employment is the biggest issue. And because of the global pandemic, work has become a fraught and challenging part of life. In this episode, Father Martin Schlag explores the concept of work in Fratelli Tutti, explaining the Catholic social ethic of the dignity of work and inclusion of all people into the human economy; the Pope’s perspective on private property and the suggestion that “the world exists for us all”; and the relevance of Catholic social thought and Fratelli Tutti for businesspeople, with a vision of work grounded in friendship, responsibility, dignity, justice, and love. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Listen to podcast
→
Snowflakes, snow, tropical island with trees and ocean

You Do You

One of the most prominent visions of the good life present in Disney films could be called "expressive individualism," perhaps best captured by the phrase "you do you." In this episode Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Matt Croasmun interpret and unpack the ethics of the authentic self, belonging, and the implicit visions of flourishing life in two contemporary classics from Disney: Frozen and Moana. Bonus: Sign up this week for a 7-week online Life Worth Living Course (limited space!)

Listen to podcast
→
Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman's Mystical Activism

Sameer Yadav honors Howard Thurman, minister, theologian, philosopher, civil rights activist. Thurman was the author of the influential book, Jesus & the Disinherited, which Martin Luther King, Jr. was known to carry around with him. #Black

Listen to podcast
→
David Walker's Appeal opening page and image

David Walker's Dangerous Appeal

David Walker was an early 19th-century black abolitionist and activist, who wrote An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. Ryan McAnnally-Linz celebrates his ideas in this influential pamphlet that gave dignity, hope, and courage to slaves and freed black people alike, while the United States struggled toward the end of slavery.

Listen to podcast
→
Pope Francis, color gradient, green

This Economy Kills

Sister Helen Alford reflects on the economic implications of Pope Francis's Fratelli Tutti, including concerns about unrestrained free markets, the importance of allowing human life and dignity to frame our economic policy, what behavioral economics tells us about human relationality, and how we can understand the big picture of politics, economics, faith, and flourishing operating in Catholic social thought. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Listen to podcast
→
Pope Francis, color gradient, yellow

Dreaming of a Different World

Last year, in the midst of a global nightmare, Pope Francis invited the world to dream together of something different. He released Fratelli Tutti in October 2020—a message of friendship, dignity, and solidarity not just to Catholics, but "to all people of good will"—for the whole human community. In this episode, social ethicist Nichole Flores (University of Virginia) explains papal encyclicals and works through the moral vision of Fratelli Tutti, highlighting especially Pope Francis’s views on faith as seeing with the eyes of Christ, the implications of human dignity for discourse, justice and solidarity, and finally the language of dreaming together of a different world.

Listen to podcast
→
M.C. Escher, Relativity

Radical Humility

Philosopher Kent Dunnington exposes the radical roots of Christian humility, exploring the centrality of humility to Christian ethics, the goal of humility in eliminating one’s own self-concern, why humility remains so appealing and so appalling, and how to respond to the abuse and weaponizing of humility to oppress.

Listen to podcast
→
Grapes and Wheat with pastel gradient

God’s Love Made Delicious

"Cooking is a declaration of love ... food is God’s love made delicious." Theologian Norman Wirzba reflects on the threats of our faulty logic of food and our disordered and disconnected relationship to eating and nourishment, and imagines a theology of food grounded in membership, gift, and hospitality.

Listen to podcast
→
Snail crossing the ocean horizon

Patience with Yourself

Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz reflect on Karl Rahner's admonition to be patient with oneself. The discussion begins by recognizing the gap between who you are now and who you aspire to be, and proceeds with the need to keep the tension alive, working and bearing with your limitations, and exploring the freedom of a serene patience with oneself. Serenity is not acquiescence to vice or bad habits. But it represents a courageous long-term peace with your imperfections—an effort to recognize oneself as rooted in divine love and grace and acceptance, even as you pursue a vision of a better self.

Listen to podcast
→
Capitol building with caution tape

Violence, Shame, Fear, Anger, and Lost Civic Friendship

What is the state of Christianity and Democracy in America? This episode features some of the most timely and relevant reflections on faith and politics in America this week from the past six months of this podcast. Our recent guests Willie Jennings, David French, Marilynne Robinson, Robert George, and Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, and Arlie Hochschild each offer perspectives we need to understand the political moment through the eyes of faith and culture.

Listen to podcast
→
Trump, Capitol Riot

Sedition in the Capitol (Audio)

Miroslav Volf and the staff of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture respond to the lies, provocation, sedition, riots, and violence at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

Listen to podcast
→
Crashing wave, fire, capitol riot, protests

Christian Witness in Turbulent Places

Mike Cosper, host of Cultivated, a podcast about faith and work, interviews Miroslav Volf about his vocation as theologian. They discuss Miroslav's youth in Croatia and his family's influence on his spirituality and theology, as well as the urgent need for faithful witness in our turbulent times.

Listen to podcast
→
Magi Star Desert

The Reason We Follow the Star

How can the Magi of Matthew 2—the Three Wise Men "bearing gifts" and "traversing afar"—help us understand faith and reason, giving and receiving, the nature of God, and how to be human? Drew Collins offers some new perspective on a familiar Christmas story.

Listen to podcast
→
Santa Coca-Cola Ad, 1966

Santa, God, and the Obligation to Rejoice

Santa doesn't just want you to be happy. Santa needs you to be happy. Matt Croasmun explains how the contemporary Christmas myth—the Gospel of Christmas according to St. Nick—sets emotional norms that are vastly different from the Gospel of Christmas according to St. Paul.

Listen to podcast
→
Zimbabwe flag behind prison bars

Ignore These Walls

Evan Mawarire is a Pentecostal minister and democratic activist in Zimbabwe. He is founder of #ThisFlag Citizen's Movement and has been instrumental in standing up to corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. Miroslav Volf interviews Pastor Evan about his story of faith that leads to activism; the transformation he experience while being unjustly arrested, detained, and tortured in maximum security prison; and what it means to live a life worthy of our humanity.

Listen to podcast
→
African American women smiling and celebrating

Black Joy and Oppressive Humility

Social ethicist Stacey Floyd-Thomas offers a womanist perspective on how humility can go terribly wrong, when it's hung over the heads of the humiliated, marginalized, and oppressed. This criticism of the traditional Christian virtue helps clarify the role of joy as the ultimate virtue of Black life, the centrality of black folk wisdom, and the beauty of black sisterhood. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Listen to podcast
→
People and Shadows, factory

Strangers in Our Own Land

Arlie Hochschild discusses her book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, reflecting on how 2020 has made our mutual political alienation worse, and how we can implement deep listening, emotion management, hospitality, and create shelters from shame. Interview by Evan Rosa.

Listen to podcast
→
Horace Pippin. Giving Thanks, 1942.

Joyful Recognition, All Is Gift

Defining gratitude as joyful recognition, the courage to be grateful, comparing gratitude for self-help vs gratitude in prayer, resilience, seeing all as gift and everything as grace. Featuring: Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Sarah Schnitker, Jessica Hooten Wilson, and Miroslav Volf.‍

Listen to podcast
→
Hands reaching toward eachother

Civic Friendship, Courageous Humility, and Seeking Truth Together

Legal scholar Robert P. George comments on the meaning of friendship across disagreement, the need for public virtues of courage and humility, and how to address political polarization and hateful divisions through seeking the truth, thinking critically and openly, and respecting the dignity and freedom of the other. Interview by Evan Rosa.‍

Listen to podcast
→

Etching Everyday Existence with the Charisma of Holiness

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a British Jewish Rabbi, philosopher, politician, and author of more than 30 books. In this conversation, Miroslav Volf interviews Rabbi Sacks about Jewish perspectives on human flourishing, joy, sabbath, and the deeply communal and particular nature of Jewish faith as a witness to the common good. Rabbi Sacks died on November 7, 2020. May his memory be a blessing.‍

Listen to podcast
→
Niagara Falls

Mixed Feelings

Poet Christian Wiman and theologian Miroslav Volf, both colleagues and friends, discuss poetry's ability to give voice to the mixed feelings of life today, talking about the mash-up of home and exile, joy and sorrow, saint and sinner; and Wiman reads some of his favorite poetry from his upcoming anthology, Home: 100 Poems.

Listen to podcast
→
Eyechart that says Faith 2020

Faith 2020

Obama's 2012 director of faith-outreach, Michael Wear, joins theologian Miroslav Volf for a conversation on faith and politics in 2020 and beyond. They discuss the connection between the personal and the political in their own lives; why Christians should care about politics; the public responsibility that comes with democratic citizenship; compromise and personal integrity; the challenge of religious and political identity that converges around the common good; ambivalence and political homelessness; and the important challenge and prospect of finding joy in what is, while hoping for what seems impossible.

Listen to podcast
→
I Am a Man sign, Black Lives Matter protest

Understanding Black Politics

Political scientist Andra Gillespie (Emory University) discusses the significance of black politics in 2020, including the need to fix disproportional representation, ideological sorting in party politics, the experience and salience of racial identity as a grounding factor for black political engagement, pursuing justice through the political process, and bringing political science to bear on lives of faith.

Listen to podcast
→
Marilynne Robinson, Flag, Church

Marilynne Robinson on Living Faithfully in This Political Moment

Miroslav Volf interviews Marilynne Robinson, author of the beloved Gilead series and numerous essays on politics, culture, and human life, about how to live faithfully in this political moment.

Listen to podcast
→
Millenials looking at phone, melting faces, phone

Always, Always On

How do visions of flourishing life converge in the new media landscape? Theologian Angela Gorrell (Baylor University) reflects on the challenges and opportunities of technology and digital life, especially those that reveal to us who we are, who we are becoming, and to whom we belong.

Listen to podcast
→
Church, shards, fractured image of church, American flag

How Political Division Impacts Christian Unity

Miroslav Volf and Evan Rosa take listener questions about how to live faithfully in this political moment, focusing especially on questions of how political division impacts Christian and civil unity.

Listen to podcast
→
Burning debate podium, presidential debate podium, flames

How to Destroy a Debate

Matt Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, and Miroslav Volf discuss the Trump-Biden presidential debate from September 29, 2020, and its implications for public discourse and the very possibility of democratic deliberation.

Listen to podcast
→
scuba diver, freediving, ocean, reef, flower

What's Really Worth Wanting

Matt Croasmun suggests that if we—a society in crisis—want to live lives worthy of our humanity, we need to ask the deepest question possible and let it inform our thinking: What is truly worth wanting?

Listen to podcast
→
annuit coeptis, novus ordo seclorum, United States Currency graphics

Capitalism, Christianity, and Morality

Miroslav Volf and David French discuss economy, morality, and human flourishing—looking in particular at the questions of whether capitalism and conservative moral values can coexist, and how the demands of Jesus’s ethics implicate free market economy.

Listen to podcast
→
Piano keys, blue, rainbow abstract image

How Jazz Teaches Faith & Justice

Jazz pianist Julian Reid on music, theology, and improvisation. The keys element of The JuJu Exchange uses the history of blues, gospel, and jazz to discuss how we communicate emotionally and spiritually through music, teaching an important lesson in how to live and long for home while we remain exiles. Features score from The JuJu Exchange's latest release, The Eternal Boombox. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Evan Rosa.

Listen to podcast
→
U.S. Army Chaplain Francis L. Sampson of Sioux Falls, N.D., June 17, 1944

Supporting Sacrificial Love: Learning How to Fight a Pandemic from the Army's Chief of Chaplains

Are we at war with a virus? What transferrable wisdom can we learn from the ministers who support the armed forces? Matt Croasmun interviews the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains: Major General Thomas Solhjem.

Listen to podcast
→
The Bedroom, Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Arles, October 1888 oil on canvas, 72.4 cm x 91.3 cm Credits: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

The Home and Homelessness of God

Miroslav Volf and Drew Collins discuss home as a source of joy and humanity; the way we organize and order our homes for hospitality; and the homelessness of God and what that means for humanity.

Listen to podcast
→

Articles

view all
→
Child reading book with sunflowers emerging

Summer Reading List 2023

As summer rolls in, our team has curated a list of recommended books, essays, and prose for your enjoyment. Whether your toes are in the sand or you’re in the backseat on the road trip, we hope these theological and thought-provoking reads will find you wherever you are this summer.

Read
→
Female scientist, holding glass test tube, galaxy

The World Does Not Revolve Around You

The Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, Anglican priest, author, and writer for the New York Times, grapples with the nature of patience, and the related questions of humility and control. Why is patience so hard to practice?

Read
→
Lorraine Motel

Rebuilding Beloved Community

Lisa Sharon Harper discusses the work of rebuilding beloved community through discovering ancestry and rejecting the title of whiteness.

Read
→
Women after the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot

Healing Racial Injustice Through Memory

Highlights from Dr. Keri Day's 2020 interview with Miroslav Volf on racial inequity, systemic transformation, and Christian community.

Read
→
view all
→

Books

view all
→
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

view all
→

Videos

view all
→
Deep sea diver, ocean, blue, black and white

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

view all
→
Join our email list for theological and cultural commentary, educational resources, and more.

Stay connected with YCFC

subscribe to podcast

Christ & Flourishing Resources

Made for Relationships

Mari Clements

Tolerating Doubt & Ambiguity

Elizabeth Hall

Angry at God

Julie Exline

From Surviving to Thriving

Pamela Ebstyne King

LWL icon

Life Worth Living Resources

Summer Reading List 2023

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Looking Long, Finding Grace in Crisis, and Painting Truth to Power

William R. Cross

Unimaginable

Ryan McAnnally-Linz

How Black History Made Jazz

Julian Reid

Support YCFC

Your generosity makes our work possible.

Everything we do is made possible by the charitable gifts of our friends and supporters. Learn more about how you can join us in helping people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity.

give to ycfc
Christ & Flourishing

For those interested in theology and Christian flourishing.

learn more
Life Worth Living

For those interested in the humanities and general flourishing.

learn more