Faith Angle

Best selling author and columnist David Brooks sits down with noted psychiatrist Curt Thompson to discuss Brooks' latest book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

Brooks' aim is to help foster deeper connections at home, work, and throughout our lives, and he and Thompson cover a lot of ground. From thoughts on friendship, depression, what it means to really listen, and how we reflect God, there's a lot here. It's a generous conversation, and one that we hope offers a kind of relational balm in our troubled time.

Guests:
David Brooks.
Curt Thompson

Additional Resources:

• How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks
• The Second Mountain, by David Brooks
• The Social Animal, by David Brooks
• The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, by Curt Thompson

Christine Emba's recent piece for The Washington Post, "Men Are Lost. Here's a Map out of the Wilderness.," says something haunting about the state of gender dynamics in the country and something both our guests remind us matters equally to men and women alike. On this episode, Christine joins noteworthy scholar Richard Reeves, who recently launched the American Institute for Boys and Men. Not only do they explore their timely scholarship and writing on this topic, but they also engage the nuanced role that faith and religious institutions play in it. 

 

Guests

Christine Emba 

Richard Reeves

 

Additional Resources 

"Men Are Lost. Here Is a Map out of the Wilderness.," by Christine Emba 

Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, by Christine Emba 

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It, by Richard Reeves 

"How to Solve the Education Crisis for Boys and Men," TED Talk by Richard Reeves 

Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It, by Richard Reeves 

In 2009, Newsweek magazine called David Saperstein the most influential rabbi in America. For over 40 years, he was the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He also served as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, becoming America's chief diplomat on religious liberty issues. He was the first chairman in 1998 of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Joining Rabbi Saperstein is a brilliant journalist for The Atlantic, McKay Coppins, who writes regularly on politics, faith, presidential campaigns, and other stories of compelling human interest. 

 

Guests

Rabbi David Saperstein

McKay Coppins

 

Additional Resources 

"What Mitt Romney Saw in the Senate," by McKay Coppins

Romney: A Reckoning, by McKay Coppins 

Interview with Rabbi David Saperstein

 

In this episode, we have the privilege of hosting two brilliant thinkers on the state of race in America, and how a faith angle fits into that. Ekemini Uwan is a writer, public theologian, and activist who hosts the excellent podcast Truth’s Table. She co-wrote a book by that title, featuring Black women’s musings on life, love, and liberation. Joining Ekemini is Eugene Scott, who has been a prior guest journalist on Faith Angle’s podcast, and is currently the senior politics reporter at Axios.

 

Sixty years after the March on Washington and MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, how are we doing? At the outset of an election year, this conversation dives straight into that question—with signs of some real progress and signs of much, much work yet ahead.

 

Guests

Ekemini Uwan

Eugene Scott 

 

Additional Resources 

Truth's Table Podcast Series, co-hosted by Ekemini Uwan and Christina Edmondson 

Truth's Table: Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation, by Ekemini Uwan and Christina Edmondson 

"How Toni Morrison's words pierced me, as a black Christian female writer," by Ekemini Uwan

"Black Florida lawmakers blast DeSantis over AP African American studies," by Eugene Scott 

"Black lawmakers push Congress to do more on police reform," by Eugene Scott 

This episode explores how the arts can help us transcend some of the worries in contemporary society, from polarization and entrenched tribalism, to our massive decline in public trust, to informational rabbit holes, to other discouraging and sometimes heartbreaking news. How do stories help us renew?  

 

This conversation was originally featured at Faith Angle West 2023 in Seattle, WA. and the full-length talk is linked below. Alissa Wilkinson has covered film and culture since 2016 for Vox, and she been a prolific film critic since a decade prior. Brad Winters – who speaks immediately following Alissa – is a writer, producer, and showrunner who helped direct and oversee TV dramas including “Oz” (where he started his career as a writer), “Boss,” “The Americans,” “The Sinner,” and “Berlin Station.” So we’ll hear Alissa’s reflections about how faith and Hollywood relate to one another, followed by Brad’s take as an on-set practitioner—about how he’s tried to stay true.  

 

Guests

Alissa Wilkinson 

Bradford Winters 

 

Additional Resources

"Storytelling and Hollywood," full Faith Angle West 2023 session 

"Jesus Is Calling...on Netflix's 'Beef'" in Christianity Today 

"Lessons from a Barbenheimer Summer," by Alissa Wilkinson 

Time and again in American life, technology has made room for new, better things that ease human burdens and free up RAM—think just of dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, and airplanes. Of course today, Silicon Valley represents this new frontier perhaps better than anyplace else in the world. It’s there that Carolyn Chen –  a sociologist and Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where she’s co-directs the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion – has discovered something compelling in her new book Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley (Princeton 2022). 

 

Time after time, a Silicon Valley job provided what religion used to provide a Georgia Tech college student or Ohio megachurch volunteer. From company yoga studios to meditation apps, from cafeterias to enriching professional development opportunities, young, mobile, hi-tech workers allured by the perks often work 60 or 70 hour-weeks. If the company is changing the world, why go to church?

 

For Millennials and Gen Z in particular, the trend toward “no religion at all” or remaining agnostic on the religion survey is increasingly popular. But Trae Stephens, a venture capitalist and Partner at Founders Fund where he invests across multiple sectors and stages, argues the story is more complex. 

 

Enjoy these two short talks, given live to a group of 18 journalists working at outlets primarily west of the Mississippi—first on how work in Silicon Valley has come to take the place of religion once held, and then Trae on why that is, and what we can do about it.

 

Guests

Carolyn Chen

Trae Stephens

 

Additional Resources 

Work, Pray, Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley, by Carolyn Chen 

"Choose Good Quests," by Trae Stephens 

Professor Joshua Ralston is a scholar and theologian who teaches Christian-Muslim Relations at the University of Edinburgh. His three books look at Sharia law from a Christian perspective, at the impact of global migration on the church, and at Europe’s rich religious diversity. He is engaged in the work of bridging divides between Christians and Muslims—each vast, diverse communities who often fundamentally misunderstand one another. 

Joining him is Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French legal scholar and commentator who’s nearly completed a PhD in comparative law at the University Toulouse-Capitole, in France. Her scholarship focuses largely on religious freedom, human rights in France, the balance of civil liberties and religion, and constitutional law. Listen in for a rich dialogue between a Muslim legal scholar in France and a Christian theologian in Scotland. 

 

Guests

Joshua Ralston

Rim-Sarah Alouane

 

Additional Resources 

Law and the Rule of God: A Christian Engagement with Shari'a, by Joshua Ralston

The Spirit of Populism: Political Theologies in Polarized Times, co-edited by Joshua Ralston

"Publicly French, Privately Muslim: The Aim of Modern Laïcité," by Rim-Sarah Alouane 

"The Weaponization of Laïcité," by Rim-Sarah Alouane

Yuval Levin is the kind of thinker, policy analyst, public servant, and scholar you really want in DC. The talk you’re about to hear is one he gave to a group of 15 Michael Cromartie Forum journalists, a highly promising group of early-career journalists. The topic is declining trust in our politics, in religion, and in American journalism—and it’s a deeply insightful and challenging talk that we hope you’ll feel just as stirred by as our group did.

 

Guest

Yuval Levin

 

Additional Resources 

A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream, by Yuval Levin 

The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism, by Yuval Levin

"The Crisis in America's Institutions: Religion, Journalism, and Politics," full video of Yuval Levin's session at the 2023 Michael Cromartie Forum 

 

At the moment, 193 countries in the world hold membership in the United Nations, and, of that group, 50 are currently Muslim-majority countries. This is a data-point referenced by each of this episode's guest scholars, in their thinking about how Islam and liberalism intersect and in their reflections on the future of Islam in the modern era and on Muslim life in America.

First up is Mustafa Akyol, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, where he focuses on the intersection of public policy, Islam, and modernity. He is followed by Dalia Mogahed, who is Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. Dalia previously served on President Obama’s Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and, prior to that, was for six years Director of Gallup’s Center for Muslim Studies.  

 

Guests

Mustafa Akyol 

Dalia Mogahed 

 

Additional Resources 

Full video of Faith Angle Miami session on "Islam and American Pluralism" 

Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance, by Mustafa Akyol

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, by Dalia Mogahed and John Esposito 

Miroslav Volf teaches theology at Yale University, where he also directs the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is the author of 17 books, and his 1996 book Exclusion and Embrace was named by Christianity Today as one of the 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century. This new book, rooted in a popular Yale undergraduate course, is Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, co-authored by Matthew Croasmun and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, both fellow teachers. Joining Miroslav for this conversation is Tim Alberta, a brilliant, ascending journalist and bestselling author in his own right, who is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of American Carnage. At the moment, Tim is working on a new book, provocatively titled The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. 

 

Guests

Miroslav Volf

Tim Alberta

 

Additional Resources

Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republic Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, by Tim Alberta

"War and Religion in Ukraine," Faith Angle Europe session with Miroslav Volf