Faith Angle brings together top scholars and leading journalists for smart conversations around some of the most profound questions in the public square. Rather than a current-events debrief, our goal is a substantive conversation one notch beneath the surface, drawing out how religious convictions manifest themselves in American culture and public life.
Episodes
Friday Oct 14, 2022
Friday Oct 14, 2022
In this episode, Bonnie Kristian discusses her brand new book, Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community. Her haunting phrase, “the knowledge crisis,” was perhaps popularized last year by another compelling book from Jonathan Rauch, the senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Jon’s 2021 book is The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, and as he explains in more detail, the book describes the essential conditions and institutions necessary for maintaining the basic building blocks of shared human understanding in a free society. This is a rich conversation between the two of them on how to steer clear from getting lost in the vortex of news that sometimes swirls.
Guests
Additional Resources
Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community, by Bonnie Kristian
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, by Jonathan Rauch
Friday Sep 16, 2022
Friday Sep 16, 2022
In this episode, Paul D. Miller of Georgetown University and Samuel L. Perry of the University of Oklahoma sit down for an insightful, timely conversation about Christian nationalism. Highlighting themes from Paul's newly-released book, The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong with Christian Nationalism, both guests offer a historically-rooted definition of Christian nationalism, analyze journalists' coverage of this rapidly-spreading ideology, and explore key differences between Christian nationalism and generative patriotism that bears faithful witness in the public square.
Guests:
Additional Resources:
The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong with Christian Nationalism?, by Paul D. Miller
The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, by Samuel Perry and Philip Gorski
Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, by Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead
Thursday Aug 25, 2022
Thursday Aug 25, 2022
If you’re an evangelical insider, the name Mike Cosper and his “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast series, published by Christianity Today in 2021, is almost certainly familiar for its artful retelling of the story of a Seattle megachurch pastored by Mark Driscoll. In this episode, Cosper, who is the director of podcasting for Christianity Today, is joined by Jon Ward of Yahoo News. Together, they examine what it is about the structure of megachurches that leaves them prone to the quick rise and fall of a charismatic leader. How does that compare to American politics—especially when our parties have weakened? And how does Mike’s 15-year experience as a pastor temper what he and his colleagues chose to see, and hold up, in this magnificent podcast that took American listeners by storm last year?
Guests
Additional Resources
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast, by Mike Cosper
Testimony: Inside an Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation, by Jon Ward
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
On this episode, we are joined by Simran Jeet Singh, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Religion and Society Program, and Ari Goldman, Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, for a nuanced conversation about American religious pluralism and identity through the lens of Sikh theology and practice. Our guests explore themes from Simran’s recently-released book, The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life, and discuss how Sikh religion invites us to find joy in humility, sacrificial love, and service towards our neighbor, practices with profound implications for broader American society.
Guests
Additional Resources
The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life, by Simran Jeet Singh
The Search for God at Harvard, by Ari Goldman
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
The purpose of Faith Angle is to connect religious leaders with leading journalists, and today's conversation comes at it from both sides. The setting for this conversation was a group of 19 journalists who gathered three days after the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This conversation features one of the country’s most thoughtful, publicly-minded evangelical leaders, Dr. Russell Moore, who is now a year into directing the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today. He is joined by Molly Ball, TIME Magazine’s national political correspondent.
Guests
Additional Resources
Faith Angle West Session: Evangelicals and America's "Abortion Wars"
"Tim Alberta Worries Politics is Poisoning the Church," on The Russell Moore Show
"How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church," by Tim Alberta
"Will Overturning Roe v. Wade Change Everything?", with Molly Ball
Pelosi, by Molly Ball
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
Thursday Jun 23, 2022
In this episode, twice-elected U.S. Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) joins Rev. Dr. Sam Ferguson for a nuanced discussion of power and public service, contemporary media, spiritual disciplines, political stewardship, and the liturgical aspects of social media and public worship. Sen. Sasse names some fascinating things – including when and how he starts the workday; how many Elmers are in his Lutheran circle of grandparent farmers; his perspective on churchgoing; and how he looks back differently, now, on the stretch-years of early parenting. Ben is sometimes called “the intellectual of the Senate,” in the vein of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose desk on the Senate floor he now occupies. Conversing with him is Rev. Dr. Sam Ferguson, who in May 2019 became rector of The Falls Church Anglican – a congregation where in 1791, George Washington served on the vestry.
Guests:
Additional Resources:
"A Time for Choosing" by Ben Sasse
Them: Why We Hate Each Other - And How to Heal by Ben Sasse
Falls Church Anglican Sermons by Sam Ferguson
Thursday May 19, 2022
Thursday May 19, 2022
This episode explores how “masculinity” has shaped elements of white evangelicalism in America. As evangelicals frequently make headlines for their voting patterns and outsized political influence, this discussion will peel back the layers and go deeper—especially on issues of gender equality, racial justice, historic Christian orthodoxy, global expressions of evangelicalism, and the possibilities and limits for evangelical renewal. American evangelicalism is today navigating an important moment of reorientation and reexamination of its identity, and as our speakers highlight, it has much to learn from the history and witness of its global counterparts.
Guests
Additional Resources
Jesus and John Wayne: How Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Thursday Apr 28, 2022
Thursday Apr 28, 2022
On this episode, we are joined by Christine Emba, opinion columnist for The Washington Post, and Kimberly June Miller, a licensed marriage and family therapist. Christine has just written a fascinating new book called, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, which opens with this moral quote: “It is only by asserting one’s humanness every time, in all situations, that one becomes someone rather than something. That, after all, is the core of our struggle.”
In this provocative book, Christine raises profound questions about meaning and connection, sexuality and even spirituality, as she traces shifting generational views of sex and sexual practices in America.
Guests
Additional Reading
Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, by Christine Emba
Boundaries for Your Soul, by Kimberly June Miller and Alison Cook
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
How much of a role does religion play in the war Vladimir Putin launched in Ukraine? It's a complicated question, but the answer may very well be: more than most Western experts think. Our guests on this episode of the Faith Angle podcast bring decades of military, foreign policy, and peacemaking expertise to help us make sense of the horrible war now unfolding in Ukraine. Dr. Kori Schake is Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Chris Seiple is Founder of the The Sagestone Group, as well as principal advisor to the Templeton Religion Trust. The picture in Ukraine is complex, and today's guests help us see more clearly.
Guests
Additional Resources
"Putin Accidentally Revitalized the West's Liberal Order," by Kori Schake
The Routledge Handbook of Religious Literacy, Pluralism, and Global Engagement, by Chris Seiple
Twitter Links
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
In this episode, we are joined by a world-class Anglican theologian, Dr. Sarah Coakley, and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker, Eliza Griswold. Dr. Coakley's scholarship looks at the Trinity, "New Asceticism," Christology, power, sexuality, and the distinction of the self. Today, she is continuing her trilogy in systematics, aiming in a forthcoming volume at a robust theological examination of race. In this episode, Dr. Coakley and Eliza connect the wisdom of historic Christian thinkers with the urgent issues of a world that is today perhaps more in need of justice than ever.
Guests
Additional Resources
God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay "On the Trinity," by Sarah Coakley
Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender, by Sarah Coakley
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, by Eliza Griswold
"The Unmaking of Biblical Womanhood" by Eliza Griswold