Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

What do you actually mean when you say the Pledge of Allegiance? And are you still willing to mean it?

For years, Corey stood in silence during the Pledge of Allegiance, troubled by what looked too much like idol worship. Then something shifted. Reading the words instead of performing them, he realized the pledge was never about the flag or the man holding the office. It was about the republic for which it stands. In a moment when ...

What does it look like to spend 25 years covering a story you wish you could stop covering — and still refuse to despair?

Gustavo Arellano is an LA Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the son of two Mexican immigrants. In this conversation he covers the Trump deportation machine, Rancho Libertarianism, why Americans hate Mexicans but love Mexican food, and what it actually looks like to stay in relationship across politic...

What does it cost a person to go unseen? And what does it ask of us to truly see one another?

In this solo reflection, Corey Nathan explores the moral weight of being seen and the deliberate cruelty of being made invisible. From Marilynne Robinson's Lila to Muhammad Ali's ...

How do we rebuild the social fabric of our neighborhoods and congregations in an age of disconnection and division?

In this episode, Pastor Amy Schenkel joins Corey to talk about what it means to be a "weaver" in your own community. From a front-yard picnic table that beca...

A Note for TP&R Listeners

From time to time, it helps to talk about something other than politics in order to understand politics.

Sports is one of the last shared civic spaces where identity, loyalty, disagreement, trash talk, and even tribalism can play out without destroying relationships. In other words, many of the same human instincts we explore on Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other show up in a ba...

How do we balance free speech, platform accountability, and democratic integrity when technology moves faster than policy?

In this episode, Katie Harbath, the "election whisperer to the tech industry," joins Corey Nathan to discuss the impossible trade-offs facing social media platforms, the evolving landscape of AI and misinformation, and what it means to "panic responsibly" in an era of rapid technological change.

Katie spent a ...

In Davos last month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney lamented what he called “the end of a pleasant fiction.” That notion has is hard to fathom yet impossible to ignore.

For decades, the United States did not merely wield power. It framed power in moral terms. Legitimacy. Integrity. Rules. Whether we always lived up to those words is one question. Whether we still speak them with credibility is another.

In this solo reflection,...

How do we learn to see one another as human again in a moment shaped by fear, fragmentation, and outrage?

In this episode, photographer, author, and storyteller John Noltner joins Corey Nathan as part of TP&R’s ongoing Weavers series in partnership with Weave: The Social Fabric Project. John’s work spans five continents and centers on a simple but demanding conviction: storytelling and art can help restore trust, dignity, and c...

Most people imagine themselves as the ones who would have resisted. The ones who would have spoken up. The ones who would have refused to go along. History tends to tell a different story.

In this episode, Corey Nathan explores how anonymity subtly yet significantly reshapes moral responsibility. Not all at once, and not dramatically, but steadily. What begins as distance or abstraction often ends as permission. Permission to flatt...

How do societies decide which stories to tell about themselves and which truths to soften or ignore?

In this episode, historian, communications strategist, and Freedom Over Fascism host Dr. Stephanie Wilson joins Corey Nathan to discuss collective memory, historical narrative, and the language shaping American civic life right now.

Drawing on her academic work on Jerusalem, her experience in political communications, and her curren...

Where do we actually place ourselves in the stories we tell about courage, faith, and power?

In this solo episode, Corey reflects on how individuals and communities locate themselves within history, scripture, and national memory. The temptation, especially among those shaped by religious or moral traditions, is to imagine oneself as prophetic rather than complicit, as a resister rather than an enabler. History, however, is rarely ...

What does it mean to live in an age where disorder is no longer a temporary crisis but a permanent condition?

Corey is joined by Jason Pack, a geopolitical analyst and founder of Libya Analysis, to discuss global instability, institutional decay, and what Jason calls the Enduring Disorder. Drawing on experiences spanning post-9/11 Middle East policy, Libya’s fragile political landscape, and years of work with NATO affiliated instit...

Why a ballgame can become a ritual and how shared attention carries meaning across generations.

In this solo episode, Corey reflects on a conversation with his oldest child that began with skepticism about sports and opened into something deeper.

Calls to Action:

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What happens when political labels lose their meaning and institutions begin to forfeit public trust?

Corey is joined by Matt Lewis to reflect on how American politics arrived at its current moment and why many of the warnings raised a decade ago now feel unavoidable. The conversation coincides with the ten year anniversary of Matt’s book Too Dumb to Fail, which examined the rise of populism, intellectual decay, and the erosion of ...

Today’s episode is a little different.

From time to time on Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other, it feels right to widen the lens and explore the cultural spaces where identity, community, leadership, and rivalry show up in everyday life. Sports is one of those spaces.

In this crossover episode, Corey shares a conversation from his new weekly show, East Meets West Sports, co-hosted with longtime broadcast jou...

What happens when a nation debates whether it has a moral obligation to intervene in the suffering of others — and who gets to decide?

Corey is joined by Pulitzer Prize–finalist historian and bestselling author H.W. Brands, Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, to explore the moral, political, and human tensions behind one of the most consequential debates in American history.

The conversation c...

What happens when global power politics collide with lived human suffering — and who gets centered in the story?

This conversation was recorded in the immediate aftermath of dramatic U.S. military action in Venezuela and amid rising concerns about immigration enforcement and political violence in the United States.

If you’re joining us via Pocket Casts, welcome — this show brings journalists, scholars, and public thinkers together ...

This conversation was recorded in December, in the aftermath of a deadly antisemitic attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia and before subsequent escalations by the Trump administration, including actions involving Venezuela. 

If you’re joining us via Pocket Casts, welcome—this show brings journalists, scholars, and public figures together for conversations across disagreement without turning each other into caricatures and ...

Bishop Mary Glasspool models what it looks like to live one’s convictions with courage, humility, and grace — this “Best Of” episode reminds us that pluralism is not an abstraction, but a practice.

Best Of TP&R

As we close out the year, we’re resurfacing a small handful of conversations from the Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other archive that best reflect what this show exists to do: create space for tho...