Shifting Culture

Joash P. Thomas joins me to talk about the justice of Jesus and what it means for the gospel to truly be good news for the poor and the oppressed. We trace Joash’s journey from growing up in Mumbai to working in U.S. politics, and then to encountering Jesus on the margins. Along the way, we explore how colonialism has shaped both the Global South and the Western church, why decolonizing our own assumptions is vital, and how Jesus’ ...

In this episode, I want to take a moment to step aside from the interviews and speak directly to you. Shifting Culture has always been about telling better stories - stories that help us live more faithfully and compassionately in a world that’s so often divided by fear. But to keep these conversations going, I need your help.

My wife and I spend our lives training and coaching disciple makers and storytellers around the world, and ...

In this episode, I sit down with actor, author, and speaker Edwina Findley Dickerson to talk about her new book, The World Is Waiting for You. Edwina shares her journey of listening for God’s voice, navigating seasons of waiting, and discovering a deeper purpose beyond achievement. Together, we explore the tension between intentional planning and radical surrender, how to overcome fear and step into our God-given dreams, and why tr...

In this episode I sit down with Andrew and Kara Root to talk about their new book, A Pilgrimage Into Letting Go. Written out of their journey walking St. Cuthbert’s Way with their children, the book reflects on parenting, pastoring, and the hard but necessary work of releasing control. Together we explore why modern life pushes us to manage every detail, how uncontrollability can actually be a gift, and what it looks like to see pa...

In this episode, I sit down with acclaimed writer and poet Kathleen Norris to talk about her deeply personal new book, Rebecca Sue. The book tells the story of her sister Becky - born with brain damage at birth - whose life was marked by both difficulty and transformation, humor and resilience. Kathleen shares what it was like to grow up alongside Becky, how storytelling became a way of honoring her full humanity, and why persisten...

On Shifting Culture, we often ask: what does it mean to follow Jesus in the complexity of our world? In this episode, John Fugelsang helps us press into that question with clarity and urgency. John is a comedian, actor, and political commentator shaped by the unlikely pairing of parents who were once a nun and a Franciscan brother. His new book, Separation of Church and Hate, takes an unflinching look at how fundamentalism and nati...

What happens when the church trades the way of Jesus for the way of empire? In this episode of Shifting Culture, I talk with theologian and activist Drew Hart about his latest book, Making It Plain. We trace the long history of Christendom, the Doctrine of Discovery, and the legacies of white supremacy that continue to shape American Christianity today. But this isn’t just a conversation about what went wrong. Drew offers a hopeful...

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Trymaine Lee joins Shifting Culture to talk about his new book A Thousand Ways to Die and the true cost of violence in America. Known as a griot of Black survival and death, Trymaine has spent decades reporting on the lives and communities most affected by gun violence. But when he suffered a sudden heart attack at just 38, he was forced to reckon with the weight of the trauma he had carried in his...

Prayer can be more than quiet reflection — it can be protest, solidarity, and a catalyst for justice. In this episode of Shifting Culture, I talk with Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar about their new book We Pray Freedom, a collection of prayers, songs, and liturgies born out of the Freedom Church of the Poor.

We explore how faith traditions can sustain movements, how ritual can become resistance, and how communities on the margins a...

When the world feels uncertain and fear threatens to overwhelm, how do we stay rooted in faith? In this conversation, theologian Hanna Reichel joins me to talk about the new devotional For Such a Time as This. We explore what history - especially the lessons of Germany a century ago - can teach us about resilience, discernment, and Christian witness today. Hanna helps us see that faithfulness doesn’t always look the same: sometimes...

The story of Christianity is full of paradox—spaces of violence and division becoming arenas of hope and redemption. In this episode, I sit down with priest and author Fergus Butler-Gallie to talk about his book Twelve Churches, which traces the history of Christianity through twelve remarkable church buildings across the globe. From Bethlehem to Birmingham, Rome to Japan, these spaces reveal the comedy and tragedy, unity and divis...

Natalie Runion returns to Shifting Culture with her new book I Don’t Even Like Women: And Other Lies That Get in the Way of Sacred Sisterhood. Behind the provocative title is a deeper story: how the church has too often handed women scripts of competition, gossip, and scarcity and how those scripts can be rewritten into something truer and freer. In this conversation, we talk about identity, trust, and the work of forgiveness. We e...

What story are you living in? In this episode, Trevin Wax joins me to explore how the church can root itself more deeply in the story of Scripture. We talk about The Gospel Way Catechism, the ancient practice of catechesis, and why discipleship is more than just memorizing truths - it’s learning to walk in the way of Jesus. Along the way, Trevin shares why true freedom is found in submission to God, how cultural narratives like the...

What if healing doesn’t happen in isolation, but only in community? In this episode Toni Collier talks about her new book Don’t Try This Alone and the hard-won lessons she’s learned about vulnerability, resilience, and the necessity of others in our journey toward healing. Toni shares her story of brokenness and betrayal, the seasons of hopelessness she’s endured, and how confessional community became the place where God met her th...

What does it look like to seek justice when the problems seem too big to solve? In this episode, sociologist and justice advocate Kurt Ver Beek shares his journey from the Midwest to the front lines of Honduras - moving into one of the country’s most violent neighborhoods, confronting systemic corruption, and helping lead a nationwide police reform that saved thousands of lives. We talk about the power of proximity, the importance ...

Zach Lambert joins me for a conversation about how we read Scripture and how our reading shapes everything. We explore the lenses we bring to the Bible, the harm that can come from flat or literalist interpretations, and what it looks like to center our reading on the life and teachings of Jesus. Zach’s new book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, invites us to move beyond fear-based or power-driven readings and toward a faith that bea...

When Clarissa Moll’s husband died suddenly, she was thrust into a new reality one shaped by deep grief, single parenting, and the quiet work of guiding her four children through unimaginable loss. In this episode, Clarissa shares hard-won wisdom about how children grieve, how adults can walk alongside them with care and presence, and how grief doesn’t need to be fixed it needs to be witnessed. We talk about building a grief-literat...

Karen Swallow Prior returns to the podcast to help us rethink what calling really is. It's not a passion we chase or a dream we conjure up, but something that comes from outside of us. Something we respond to. We talk about the slow work of vocation, how it shifts over time, and why pursuing what’s true, good, and beautiful in ordinary life might be the most faithful thing we can do. This conversation is for anyone in the midd...

Stories aren’t just entertainment - they’re how we make sense of who we are, what we value, and where we’re headed. In this episode, writer and professor Sean Gaffney invites us to see story as a sacred thread woven through culture, theology, and discipleship. We talk about the shape of the meta story that undergirds all great narratives, how stories can form us spiritually, and why even blockbuster films can point us toward God. F...