What happens when a long pastoral calling ends, friendships fade, and the church faces cultural fracture? Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer (42 years in ministry at Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, CA) joins Mark Labberton for a searching conversation about retirement from pastoral ministry, loneliness, leadership, and the meaning of credible witness in the Black church today.

"Ministry can be a lonely business."

In this episode, Bishop Ulmer reflects on the stepping away after four decades of pastoral leadership, navigating aloneness, disrupted rhythms, and the spiritual costs of transition. Together they discuss pastoral loneliness, friendship and grief, retirement and identity, church leadership after elections, authenticity versus attraction, political division in congregations, and whether the church still centers Jesus.

Episode Highlights

• "Ministry can be a lonely business."
• "[Boy, pointing to a church] Is God in there? [Pastor] Sometimes I wonder."
• "There's a Moses in you that will see farther than you'll go."
• "The tension is authenticity versus attraction."
• "Jesus is the answer for the world today."

About Kenneth C. Ulmer

Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer is Bishop Emeritus of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, California, where he served as senior pastor for more than four decades. A nationally respected preacher, civic leader, and mentor, Ulmer played a significant role in the spiritual and economic life of Los Angeles, including the preservation of the Forum as a major community asset. He has been a prominent voice in conversations about the Black church, urban ministry, and faithful Christian leadership amid cultural and political change. Ulmer continues to teach, preach, and advise leaders while reflecting publicly on vocation, aging, and wisdom in ministry.

Learn more and follow at https://www.faithfulcentral.com

Helpful Links And Resources

• Faithful Central Bible Church: https://www.faithfulcentral.com
• Conversing with Mark Labberton: https://comment.org/conversing
• Credible Witness podcast: https://faith.yale.edu/credible-witness

Show Notes

• Long pastoral tenure ending after more than four decades of leadership
• Friendship formed through shared grief and the loss of trusted companions
• Prayer, friendship, and ministry forged "on our knees" at Hollywood Presbyterian
• Loss of regular companionship revealing unexpected loneliness and aloneness
• "Ministry can be a lonely business."
• Absence of trusted friends exposing a deep relational void
• Final sermon titled "I Did My Best," echoing 2 Timothy imagery and the words on Kenneth Ulmer's father's grave
• "I fought a good fight" as closing vocational reflection
• Disrupted spiritual rhythm after forty-one years of weekly preaching
• "My rhythm is off."
• Identity shaped by Sunday coming "every seven days"
• Question of where and how to worship after stepping away
• Public recognition colliding with uncertainty about purpose
• Therapy as a faithful response to grief and transition
• Energy and health without a clear channel for vocation
• Question of "what do you do now?" after leadership ends
• Seeing farther than you will go as a leadership reality
• Deuteronomy 34 and Moses viewing the Promised Land
• "There's a Moses in you that will see farther than you'll go."
• Passing vision to a Joshua who will go farther than he can see
• Grief of cheering from the sidelines while no longer on the field
• Wrestling with authenticity versus attraction in church leadership
• John 12:32 and the tension of lifting up Jesus to draw others
• "The tension is authenticity versus attraction."
• Fear of entertainment, production, and celebrity eclipsing Christ
• Question of whether churches are built on preaching or personality
• Political polarization dividing congregations and pulpits
• Question pastors must ask: "Who am I going to be after this ballot?"
• Kingdom identity beyond donkey or elephant, only the Lamb
• "Holding up the bloodstained banner" as faithful witness
• Doors of the church open—how wide are they, and for whom?
• Concern for credibility after the benediction and after the election
• Civic engagement without surrendering theological center
• Preserving community good beyond church walls and buildings
• Forum purchase as economic stewardship, not church expansion
• Question of whether God is still "in that house"
• How much of the God inside gets outside into the neighborhood?
• Jesus as the enduring answer amid cultural confusion
• Worship song, "We Offer Jesus"
• "Jesus in the morning, Jesus at noonday, Jesus in the midnight hour."
• Call to be the extended incarnation in ordinary life: "You are the temple."
• "Who are you turning away that he [Jesus] would not turn away?"

#KennethCUlmer

#PastoralLeadership

#ChurchAndCulture

#CredibleWitness

#FaithAfterRetirement

#AuthenticityVsAttraction

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Can joy be anything but denial in a rage-filled public life? Michael Wear joins Mark Labberton to reframe politics through the kingdom logic of hope, agency, and practices of silence and solitude. As 2025 closes amid political discord, we might all ask whether joy can be real in public life—without denial, escapism, or contempt.

"… Joy is a pervasive and constant sense of wellbeing."

In this conversation, Michael Wear and Mark Labberton reflect on joy, hope, responsibility, and agency amid a reaction-driven politics. Together they discuss the realism of Advent; the limits of our control; how kingdom imagination reframes anger; hope beyond outcomes, dignity under threat, and practices (including silence and solitude) that restore clarity.

Episode Highlights

"Joy is a pervasive and constant sense of wellbeing. … Joy is not a technique to then get people to do what you want them to do."

"God's Kingdom is the range of his effective will."

" Someone whose hope is rightly placed sees that a dignity denying culture does not have the final say."

"Our will is effective and those things in which our will is not effective."

"The pattern of domination and violence is an old one."

About Michael Wear

Michael Wear is the Founder, President, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan nonprofit that contends for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. He has served for more than a decade as a trusted advisor to civic and religious leaders on faith and public life, including as a presidential campaign and White House staffer. He is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life and Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America. Learn more and follow at https://www.michaelwear.com.

Helpful Links and Resources

• Michael Wear, The Spirit of Our Politics https://www.zondervan.com/9780310367239/the-spirit-of-our-politics/
• Michael Wear, Reclaiming Hope https://www.thomasnelson.com/9780718082338/reclaiming-hope/
• Center for Christianity and Public Life https://www.ccpubliclife.org/
• A National Call to Silence and Solitude https://www.silenceandsolitude.org/
• Dallas Willard: "Personal Soul Care" https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/personal-soul-care
• Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited https://www.beacon.org/Jesus-and-the-Disinherited-P1781.aspx

Show Notes

• End of 2025, cusp of Christmas; fraught public moment; joy as the lynchpin for faithful presence in politics and public life
• Joy held with pain, suffering, complexity
• Refusing denial while trusting a God who relentlessly pursues the world in love and hope
• Joy intertwined with hope, responsibility, agency
• Where does responsibility end and faithful agency begin?
• "Willard would say joy is a pervasive and constant sense of wellbeing."
• " It is very difficult to have joy if you are taking responsibility for things that are not your responsibility."
• Public life as joyless space; lacking imagination for joy amid provocation, antagonism, and constant political showmanship
• "If there are places in our life where we can't conceive of joy, it's a problem with our view of God."
• Misplaced responsibility, misplaced hope; joy collapses when taking on burdens that aren't ours and treating agency as ultimate
• "God's kingdom is the range of his effective will."
• "We each have our own little kingdoms … where what we say to be done is done."
• Politics reveals limits; a clarity about what we can do, what we can't do, and what we must import into the rest of life
• "Our will is effective, and there are things in which our will is not effective."
• "Faithfulness is not the ability to determine a righteous outcome … to everything in which our lives touch."
• False responsibility, obscured agency
• Are we taking charge of what isn't ours while ignoring the real choices we do have?
• "That's a recipe for joylessness."
• Poked and prodded by provocations; entertainment, antagonisms, and helplessness normalize reaction and justify complicity
• Anger as political fuel
• Many assume that raising your voice is the only faithful posture inside the public arena.
• "I've had people respond to me: 'How am I going to get anything done in politics without anger?'"
• "Political imagination has been taken over by a political logic as opposed to a kingdom logic."
• Relearning responsibility and agency; hope not grounded in our effectiveness, but in what God is doing beyond our reach.
• "Ultimate hope lies outside of the range of our effective will."
• "It is in that realm in which we are perfectly safe."
• Hope is for a life that pervades all things.
• "So when your hope is in the right place, you can hope for a whole range of things."
• " Someone whose hope is rightly placed sees that a dignity denying culture does not have the final say."
• Hope and joy "when your back is against the wall"
• Allen Temple Baptist Church: Joy at the margins of culture
• Fannie Lou Hamer
• Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
• First Presbyterian Church in Evanston, IL
• Michael Wear, The Spirit of Our Politics
• Psalm 23 as distress-psalm: Enemies are still present, yet God leads beside still waters and cares most in greatest distress.
• "Take off the old self with its practices and put on the new self."
• "Put on Christ now in a way that will affect everything around us."
• Herod: The paranoid leader
• Advent into Christmastide—what it means to dwelling in Emmanuel
• "This is why the incarnation is such an extraordinarily important cornerstone: It's that God enters in through Jesus into our world, in a world in which, yes, there may be great praises in heaven and on earth from those who understand something at least of who he is and what he's there to do. But it also lands him in a world of immediate physical and familial vulnerability of political and social, if not military, violence."
• Are we protected from vulnerability, or living in precarity?
• The pattern of domination and violence
• Refusing forgetfulness as 2026 approaches with fresh pressures and fresh calling.
• National call to silence and solitude; disinvesting from reactionary instincts to engage the world with renewed vision and clarity. silenceandsolitude.org
• "Silence and solitude… can infuse your public activity with right vision and right clarity."

#MichaelWear #MarkLabberton #ChristianPublicLife #ChristianPolitics #SpiritualFormation #Joy #Advent #SilenceAndSolitude #Hope #PublicWitness

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

What if taking Mary seriously actually deepens, rather than distracts from, devotion to Jesus? Art historian and theologian Matthew Milliner joins Mark Labberton to explore that possibility through history, theology, and the Incarnation. In a searching conversation about Mary, the meaning of Marian devotion, and the mystery of the Incarnation, they draw from early Christianity, Protestant theology, and global Christianity, as Milliner reframes Mary as a figure who deepens devotion to Christ rather than distracting from it.

"I don't see how anyone cannot understand this to be the revolution of revolutions in regards to the way that women are understood."

In this episode, they reflect on Mary as presence, witness, and theological key to understanding God's entry into human life. They discuss Marian devotion before the Reformation, excess and restraint in Christian practice, the Incarnation's implications for embodiment and gender, Protestant fears and recoveries, global Marian traditions, grief and discipleship, and why Mary ultimately points beyond herself to Christ.

Episode Highlights

• "I love Jesus so much that I love his mom too. Isn't she great too?"
• " What relationship do you have in your life where if you knew the parents of the person you're in relationship with, that would damage the relationship? … It's a sign of deep intimacy."
• "There is no Christianity without Mary. That's how God came into the world."
• "She is my tutorial in grief."
• "If it's the real Mary you're dealing with, she will point you to Jesus."
• "The answer to the abuse is to point to the best use."
• "She became a presence in the church for me."
• "I don't see how anyone cannot understand this to be the revolution of revolutions."

About Matthew Milliner

Matthew J. Milliner is Associate Professor of Art History at Wheaton College, where he specializes in early Christian, Byzantine, and global Christian art. His scholarship explores theology through visual culture, with particular attention to Mary, the Incarnation, and Christian devotion across traditions. Milliner is widely published in academic journals and popular outlets, including Comment Magazine, where he has written extensively on Marian theology and Christian art. He is a frequent speaker and lecturer on Christianity and aesthetics, and his work bridges evangelical theology, Anglican practice, and historic Christian tradition. Milliner is also known for his teaching on icons, pilgrimage, and the relationship between art, doctrine, and discipleship.

Helpful Links and Resources

• Read Matthew Milliner's column, Material Mysticism, for Comment Magazine https://comment.org/columns/material-mysticism/
• Matthew Milliner, Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Lamb-Story-Global-Icon/dp/1506478751
• Matthew Milliner faculty page: https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/faculty/matthew-milliner/
• Stephen Shoemaker, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300217216/mary-in-early-christian-faith-and-devotion/
• Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/goddesses-and-the-divine-feminine/paper
• William Johnston, The Wounded Stag: https://www.harvard.com/book/9780823218394
• The Angelus Prayer (recited in this conversation): https://www.usccb.org/prayers/angelus
• Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham: https://www.walsinghamanglican.org.uk

Show Notes

• Opening prayer invoking Mary's witness, comfort, and example as a way of drawing listeners toward Christ rather than away from him
• Evangelical identity reclaimed as gospel proclamation rather than political alignment or cultural branding
• Early Marian devotion emerging "early and often" in Christian history, grounded in Jerusalem rather than later medieval invention
• "I love Jesus so much that I love his mom too. Isn't she great too?"
• Honoring Mary without worship, framed through Revelation imagery of the bride and the people of God
• Archaeological and manuscript discoveries reshaping assumptions about early Christian practice
• Marian devotion expanding intimacy rather than competing with Christological focus
• Newman on devotion requiring excess, extravagance, and emotional overflow to be genuinely human
• "Let the Christian Church let it boil over every once in a while."
• Reformation dynamics producing extremes: feverish excess on one side and stone-cold rejection on the other
• Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine
• Pagan goddess traditions contrasted with Marian imagery and their treatment of women's bodies
• Aphrodite imagery as endorsement of male desire versus Marian imagery as reverence for God's entry into flesh
• "Find me an image of Mary that does anything close to that."
• Incarnation reshaping how Christians see the female body, sexuality, and dignity
• "This is the body God entered the world through."
• The angel Gabriel's Annunciation and Mary's consent
• Annunciation framed as consent rather than coercion, with Luke emphasizing Mary's agency
• "Nothing happens to her until she consents."
• Mary as theological answer to pornographic and exploitative religious imaginations
• "I don't see how anyone cannot understand this to be the revolution of revolutions."
• Guadalupe as evangelistic bridge for indigenous peoples pointing toward Christ without blood sacrifice
• Mary's global accessibility across Muslim, Hindu, and non-Christian contexts
• "She is a real evangelist, Mary."
• Walsingham pilgrimage as Anglican recovery of Marian devotion
• Marian attraction functioning as penumbra drawing outsiders toward Christianity
• "If it's the real Mary you're dealing with, she will point you to Jesus."
• Abuse of Marian devotion acknowledged alongside historical self-correction within Catholicism
• "The answer to the abuse is to point to the best use."
• Matthew Milliner's personal spiritual journey from childhood Catholicism through evangelical conversion
• Anti-Mary phase followed by rediscovery through art history and theology
• "She became a presence in the church for me."
• Mary understood as presence rather than abstract idea, without becoming divine
• William Johnson's, The Wounded Stag: God is beyond gender
• Devotional practice as tributary flowing into Trinitarian worship rather than replacing it
• "There is no Christianity without Mary. That's how God came into the world."
• Angelus prayer as scriptural meditation culminating in Trinitarian praise
• "Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord."
• Psychological and spiritual healing through Marian presence without theological confusion
• Mary as guide for grief through images of sorrow and seven swords
• "She is my tutorial in grief."
• Black Madonna traditions interpreted through devotion, time, soot, and divine darkness
• Darkness as sign of overwhelming divine light rather than absence of God

#ConversingPodcast #MatthewMilliner #MaryTheology #Incarnation #ChristianTradition #AdventReflections #FaithAndArt

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

How should Christian faith shape work in an era of pluralism, fear, and systemic inequality? Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund (Rice University) is presenting new insights for faith at work through data, theology, and lived experience.

"People love to talk about individual ethics … but what was really hard for them to think about was, what would it mean to make our workplace better as a whole?"

In this episode, Ecklund joins Mark Labberton to reflect on moving from individual morality toward systemic responsibility, dignity, and other-centred Christian witness at work. Together they discuss faith and work, the gender and race gaps created by systemic injustice, fear and power, religious diversity, rest and human limits, gender and racial marginalization, and the cost of a credible Christian witness.

Episode Highlights

• "People love to talk about individual ethics."
• "What would it mean to make our workplace better as a whole?"
• "People are much more apt to take us seriously if we first take them seriously."
• "Suppression of faith in particular is not the answer."
• "God is God and I am not."

About Elaine Howard Ecklund

Elaine Howard Ecklund is professor of sociology at Rice University and director of the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance. She is a leading sociologist of religion, science, and work whose research examines how faith operates in professional and institutional life. Ecklund has led large-scale empirical studies on religion in workplaces and scientific communities, supported by the National Science Foundation, Templeton Foundation, and Lilly Endowment. She is the author or co-author of several influential books, including Working for Better, Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, and Science vs. Religion. Her work informs academic, ecclesial, and public conversations about pluralism, justice, and moral formation in modern society.

Learn more and follow at https://www.elaineecklund.com and https://twitter.com/elaineecklund

Helpful Links And Resources

• Working for Better (IVP): https://www.ivpress.com/working-for-better
• Why Science and Faith Need Each Other (IVP): https://www.ivpress.com/why-science-and-faith-need-each-other
• Elaine Howard Ecklund website: https://www.elaineecklund.com
• Rice University Boniuk Institute: https://boniuk.rice.edu
• Conversing with Mark Labberton: https://comment.org/conversing

Show Notes

• Sociological study of religion, work, and group behavior
• Christian faith taken seriously at personal and academic levels
• Ecklund's former research focus on science as a workplace environment
• Expanding faith-at-work research beyond scientific communities
• Compartmentalized Christian faith and the fear of offending colleagues
• Friendship and collaboration emerging from leadership retreats
• Large-scale data-driven study on religion in changing workplaces
• Religious pluralism at work and changing workplace demographics
• Writing for Christian audiences shaped by empirical research
• From individual ethics toward systemic responsibility at work
• "People love to talk about individual ethics."
• Systemic injustice blind spots
• Moral shorthand focused on time sheets and office supplies
• Organizational leadership and culture change
• Difficulty imagining organizational or structural workplace change
• Fear of retaliation when confronting unjust systems
• Responsibility for workplace realities
• Power underestimated by those holding leadership positions
• Costly examples of speaking up against workplace injustice
• Christian fear of marginalization in pluralistic environments
• Suppression of religious expression as common workplace response
• Suppression versus accommodation: "Suppression of faith in particular is not the answer."
• Religious diversity as unavoidable reality of modern work
• Other-centered faith rooted in dignity of every person
• Imago Dei shaping engagement across religious difference
• "People are much more apt to take us seriously if we first take them seriously."
• Racialized religious minorities: the double marginalization of racial minorities of faith
• Gender inequity and underexamined workplace power dynamics
• Faith-based employee groups
• Fear masquerading as anger in cultural and religious conflict
• Workplaces as rare spaces for meaningful civic encounter
• Justice beyond activism
• Rest as theological foundation for justice and leadership
• Limits, Sabbath, and resisting productivity as ultimate value
• "God is God and I am not."
• Human limits in leadership

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

#FaithAndWork

#ElaineHowardEcklund

#ChristianEthics

#WorkplaceJustice

#ReligiousPluralism

#RestAndFaith

As global powers double down on militarism and defense, Daniel Zoughbie argues that the most transformative force in the Middle East has always come from citizen diplomacy.

A complex-systems scientist and diplomatic historian, Zoughbie joins Mark Labberton to explore how twelve US presidents have "kicked the hornet's nest" of the modern Middle East. Drawing on his work in global health and his new book Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump, Zoughbie contrasts the view from refugee camps and micro-clinic networks with the view from the Oval Office, arguing that American security rests on a three-legged stool of defence, diplomacy, and development.

He explains why Gerald Ford stands out as the lone president who truly leveraged diplomacy, how the Marshall Plan model of enlightened self-interest can guide policy now, and why nationalism, not mere economics, lies at the heart of Gaza's future. Throughout, he presses listeners toward "citizen diplomacy" that resists pride, militarism, and fatalism.

Episode Highlights

• "We've constantly ignored diplomacy."
• " You don't have to be enemies with people to get them to do what is in their own self-interest."
• "You can build skyscrapers in Gaza. You can build the Four Seasons in Gaza and it's not going to work. You're just going to have another war until you address that core issue of nationalism."
• "These three D's, defense, diplomacy, development, are the three-legged stool of American security and we know how important diplomacy and development are."
• "From Truman to Trump, only one president, and that is Gerald Ford, surprisingly the only unelected president, gets this right."
• "Pride—national pride, the pride of any one individual—is toxic. It's toxic to the individual. It's toxic to the nation. It's toxic to the world."
• "Foreign policymaking is not just something for secretaries of state and those in power. All of us in a democracy have a role to play."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Kicking-the-Hornets-Nest/Daniel-E-Zoughbie/9781668085226
• American University of Beirut (founded as Syrian Protestant College), a key example of long-term educational diplomacy https://www.aub.edu.lb
• Al-Ahli Arab (Gaza Baptist) Hospital in Gaza City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital
• Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation" https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/weber_max_1864_1920_politics_as_a_vocation/weber_max_1864_1920_politics_as_a_vocation.pdf
• Quaker Friends School, Ramallah: https://www.rfs.edu.ps/en
• Amman Baptist School: https://baptist.edu.jo/
• American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem founding in the Husseini Estate by the author of "It is Well" https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/amcolony-family.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colony_Hotel
• Foreman Christian College, Pakistan (Presbyterian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forman_Christian_College
• American University of Cairo (Presbyterian) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_in_Cairo

About Daniel Zoughbie

Daniel E. Zoughbie is a complex-systems scientist, historian, and expert on presidential decision-making. He is associate project scientist at UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies, a faculty affiliate of the UCSF/UCB Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy, and Economics, and principal investigator of the Middle East and North Africa Diplomacy, Development, and Defense Initiative. He is the author of Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump and of Indecision Points: George W. Bush and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. His award-winning research has appeared in journals such as PLOS Medicine, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and Social Science and Medicine. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley, he studied at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship and completed his doctorate there as a Weidenfeld Scholar.

Show Notes

Middle East Background and Micro-clinic Origins

• Daniel Zoughbie recalls visiting the Middle East as a child—"frankly horrified" by what he saw
• UC Berkeley protests over the Iraq War and post-9/11 US policy in the region
• Metabolic disease and type 2 diabetes as an overlooked "greatest killer in the region."
• Neighbours in the West Bank sharing food, medicine, and blood-pressure cuffs—leads to the "micro-clinic" concept
• Good health behaviours, like bad ones and even violence, can be contagious through social networks

Social Networks, Anthropology, and Security

• Social anthropology, political science, and international relations
• Medical problems as simultaneously biological and sociological problems
• Understanding Middle East security demands attention to decisions "at the very bottom" as well as "the view from above"
• October 7 and 9/11 illustrate how small groups of people can "change the world with their decisions."

Complex Systems and Foreign Policy

• Complexity is always increasing, and diplomacy and development exist to slow it down.
• Definition of "complex system": as one where many inputs produce outcomes that cannot be reduced to single causes.
• "We almost have a new law here, which is that complexity is always increasing in the universe. And the role of diplomacy and development, as I see it in international relations, is to slow things down. It's to stop complexity from advancing so that people have time to cool their tempers and to solve major security crises."
• Type 2 diabetes as a model for thinking about how city planning, economics, relationships, and habits interact
• He applies that lens to international relations: nations, leaders, institutions, and history form a "cascade of complexity."

From Refugee Camps to Presidential Palaces

• George Shultz and Tony Blair: decision-makers as "real human beings," not abstractions
• Theological and ideological forces—such as certain apocalyptic readings of Scripture—that shape US foreign policy
• Gnosticism and eschatology within American right-wing Christianity
• Painstaking global health work on the ground and sweeping decisions made in Washington, Brussels, or New York

Twelve Presidents and One Exception

• Kicking the Hornet's Nest: analysis of twelve presidents from Truman to Trump through the lens of Middle East decision-making
• Core claim: Only Gerald Ford truly rebalanced the three D's of defence, diplomacy, and development.
• US policy in the Levant: heavy reliance on militarism, coups, and covert actions while underinvesting in diplomacy and development
• Claim: "Far better alternatives were on the table" for every administration, yet consistently passed over.

Gerald Ford, Kissinger, and the Path to Peace

• Daniel contends that the 1967 and 1973 wars were both preventable and nearly became global nuclear catastrophes.
• Ford inherits the presidency amid Watergate and national division, but keeps Henry Kissinger at State.
• Ford presses Israel and Egypt toward serious negotiations, empowering Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy and personal ties.
• A sharply worded letter threatening to "reconsider" the US-Israel relationship
• Ford's diplomacy and the development of Camp David and the enduring Egypt-Israel peace based on "land for peace."

Pride, Personality, and Presidential Failure

• Did Ford's temperament keep him from making himself the center of the story?
• In contrast, many presidents and other leaders write themselves "thickly" into the narrative of the conflict.
• Pride—personal and national—as a toxic force that repeatedly undermines US policy
• The Iraq War and democracy-promotion agenda and the self-defeating nature of moralistic, militarized crusades

Marshall Plan and Enlightened Self-Interest

• George Marshall and harsh punishment after World War I helped produce Nazi Germany
• The Marshall Plan models an "enlightened way of viewing the American self-interest": rebuilding Europe and Japan to secure U.S. security.
• He contrasts that with the neglect of the Levant, where aid and institution-building never matched military activism.
• Marshall's genius lies in locating the intersection between others' deepest needs and American capabilities.

Militarism, Iran, and Nuclear Risk

• Recent US-Israel-Iran confrontation as an "extremely dangerous moment"—with 60 percent enriched uranium unaccounted for
• JCPOA as an imperfect but effective diplomatic achievement, but dismantled in favor of militarism
• Claim: Bombing Iran scattered nuclear material and increased complexity rather than reducing the threat.
• He warns that one nuclear device could be delivered by low-tech means—a boat or helicopter—endangering civilians and US forces in the Gulf.
• The only realistic path forward: renewed multilateral diplomacy between US, Israel, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, India, and regional actors

Ethical Realism and Max Weber

• "Ethical realism"—Max Weber's distinction between the ethic of the gospel and the ethic of responsibility
• Statespeople bear responsibility for using force, yet the greatest can still say "here I stand and I can do no other."
• Claim: True leadership seeks a higher ethic where national interest aligns with genuine concern for others.

Gaza, Nationalism, and Two States

• Welcoming the end of active war between Israel and Hamas and critiquing reconstruction plans that ignore politics
• Conflict is fundamentally nationalist: a struggle for self-determination by both Jewish and Palestinian peoples
• Claim: Economic development without a credible political horizon will not prevent "another October 7th and another terrible war."
• In his view, only partition of mandatory Palestine into two states can meet legitimate self-determination claims.
• For example, "You can build skyscrapers in Gaza… and it's not going to work" without addressing nationalism.

Citizen Diplomacy and a Better Way

• Foreign policy is not only the work of secretaries of state; democratic citizens have responsibilities.
• American University of Beirut and the Gaza Baptist Hospital as fruits of citizen diplomacy
• Claim: Educational and medical institutions can change lives more profoundly and durably than military campaigns.
• Redirecting resources from bombs to universities and hospitals to reduce the need for future military interventions
• An invitation to citizen diplomacy: informed voting, sustained attention, and creative engagement for a more just peace

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Rabbi Michael G. Holzman joins Mark Labberton to explore the formation of his Jewish faith, the pastoral realities of congregational life, and the multi-faith initiative he helped launch for the nation's 250th anniversary, Faith 250. He reflects on his early experiences of wonder in the natural world, the mentors who opened Torah to him, and the intellectual humility that shapes Jewish approaches to truth. Their conversation moves through the unexpected depth of congregational ministry, the spiritual and emotional weight of the pandemic, the complexities of speaking about God in contemporary Jewish life, and the role of cross-faith friendships. The episode concludes with Rabbi Holzman's reflections on how the suffering in Israel and Palestine reverberates among Jews and Muslims in America.

Episode Highlights

• "I think we are desperately in need of ways to get Americans to agree that they're in the same community… simply by naming the Declaration of Independence as a piece of shared American scripture… we are inviting people and really challenging ourselves to think about the words in those documents seriously, and prayerfully."
• "My formation as a child was relatively non-theological… my mother just would sit there and say, 'Do you feel that wind?' And for me, knowing that it was in a national park mattered… being in such a grand and awesome space, under the enormity of the heavens."
• "The pursuit of truth with epistemic humility really became the cornerstone…if Moses wasn't allowed to see God's face, I'm never gonna see God's face—and yet we are all still pursuing what the meaning of this incredible text is."
• "I was a little bit unprepared… until you experience it as a pastor, you don't really understand the power of those things. That rootedness in this particular congregation gave me a sense of existential meaning that I didn't anticipate."
• "The thing that got me through that darkness was Saturday morning Torah study… just being there with the text and with these faces and these people… that to me was my path through the darkness."
• "When people are sitting over the text, the most palpable experience of God is this moment of understanding another human being… it's so vulnerable and it's so fleeting and it's so beautiful."
• "There is an experience happening on the ground of absolute suffering and horror on both sides… and there's a parallel experience happening for Jews and Muslims in America. It's powerful, spiritually powerful, emotionally powerful, and to people's core."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Faith 250 https://www.faith250.org/
• "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus
• "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
• "America the Beautiful" by Katherine Lee Bates https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/america-beautiful-1893
• I and Thou, Martin Buber https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780684717258/i-and-thou

About Rabbi Michael G. Holzman

Rabbi Michael G. Holzman is the Senior Rabbi of Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation (NVHC), where he has served since 2010. His work focuses on spiritual formation, civic engagement, multi-faith partnership, and the cultivation of communities grounded in dignity, learning, and ethical responsibility. He founded the Rebuilding Democracy Project, which developed into Faith 250, a national multi-faith initiative preparing communities for the 250th anniversary of the United States through shared reflection on foundational American texts. He teaches and writes on Jewish ethics, civic life, and spiritual resilience.

Show Notes

Faith 250 American Scripture

• Faith 250 as a response to political despair and a way for clergy to exercise agency
• Four core American texts explored as shared scripture across faiths
• Intent to counter politicization of the 250th anniversary through spiritual depth
• Multi-faith relationships grounding the initiative in shared civic and moral concern
• Emphasis on clergy as conveners of spiritually safe, local containers for reading
• The Declaration, New Colossus, Frederick Douglass, and America the Beautiful as "scriptural" portals to civic meaning
• "American scripture" as a means of naming shared identity and shared community

Jewish Formation and Torah

• Childhood shaped by nature, wonder, and ethical awareness rather than synagogue life
• Early encounters with the Everglades as formative experiences of spirit and awe
• Discovery of Torah study as a young adult across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform settings
• Epistemic humility as a defining mark of Jewish study practice
• Pursuit of truth understood through the "through a glass darkly" frame of Moses
• Torah received "through the hand of Moses" as mediating truth and mystery
• Chevruta (paired study) as the engine of discovery, disagreement, and meaning

Pastoral Life and Congregational Meaning

• Surprised by the depth of pastoral work: weddings, funerals, life-cycle passages
• Intimacy of congregational leadership as a source of meaning rather than tedium
• Congregational relationships forming an existential and vocational anchor
• The role of community support during family medical crises
• How decades-long pastoral presence shapes shared covenantal life
• Teaching 12- and 13-year-olds to encounter the text as spiritual practice
• The power of intergenerational relationships in spiritual resilience

Pandemic and Spiritual Survival

• Early months of 2020 as a time of fear, isolation, and emotional strain
• Counseling families whose loved ones were dying without visitors
• Previous experience with depression creating early warning signals
• Telehealth therapy as a critical intervention
• Saturday morning Torah study on Zoom becoming the path through darkness
• Growth of the study community throughout the pandemic
• Predictable humor and shared reading as markers of communal stability

Textuality, God-Language, and Jewish Hesitations

• Jewish discomfort speaking explicitly about God for theological and cultural reasons
• Layers of humility, anti-mysticism, differentiation from Christianity, and historical experience
• Sacredness and mystery of the scroll growing in the digital age
• Physicality of the Torah scroll attracting deeper attention and reverence
• Hebrew as a source of multivalent meaning, sonic power, and spiritual resonance
• Reading together as the most common encounter with God: understanding another's soul
• Pastoral awareness of individuals' life stories shaping group study dynamics

Cross-Faith Devotion and Shared Honor

• Friendships with Muslim, Christian, and Hasidic leaders deepening spiritual insight
• Devotion in others sparking awe rather than defensiveness
• Disagreement becoming a site of connection rather than separation
• Devotion in other traditions prompting self-reflection on one's own commitments
• Stories of praying with and learning from ultra-Orthodox leaders
• Shared pursuit of truth across tradition lines as a form of civic and spiritual honor
• American religious diversity offering unprecedented exposure to sincere piety

Israel, Gaza, and American Jewish Experience

• Suffering, fear, and horror experienced by Israelis and Palestinians
• Parallel emotional and spiritual pressures faced by Jews and Muslims in America
• Concern about political manipulation of community trauma
• Generational trauma and its transmission, including Holocaust-era family stories
• Emotional resonance of global conflict in local congregational life
• Distinction and connection between geopolitical realities and American spiritual experience
• Call to honor emotional realities across neighborhoods and communities

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

In this Thanksgiving reflection, Mark Labberton opens up about a period of darkness and despair, when as a younger man he considered ending his life. But when he was invited to share Thanksgiving dinner with a local couple, his eyes were opened to concrete acts of hope, friendship, and joy—all embodied in the simple feast of a community "Friendsgiving" potluck.

Every year since, Mark calls these friends on Thanksgiving Day, in gratitude for and celebration of the hospitality, generosity, beauty, friendship, and hope he encountered that day.

Here Mark reflects on the emotional and psychological difficulties he was going through, the meaning and beauty of friendship, how every dish of a Thanksgiving dinner is an act of hope and community, and how hospitality and generosity can uplift every member of a community.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or considering suicide, there is help available now. Simply call or text 988 to speak with someone right away, share what you're going through, and get the support you need.

About Mark Labberton

Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller's fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He's the host of Conversing.

Show Notes

• A story about Thanksgiving Day many years ago, during Mark Labberton's master of divinity degree at Fuller Seminary
• "… not just overwhelmed, but really undone"
• " … the possibility of ending my life …"
• Every Thanksgiving dish as an act of hope and community
• Beauty of friendship
• A magnificent extravaganza
• Sharing not just food but hope
• "Things had radically changed. And that in fact they had, they had not only changed my mindset, but they had saved my life."
• "For me, Thanksgiving Day holds this deep and pensive awareness that Thanksgiving doesn't always come easy, that often it's a difficult act, that it involves things that are sometimes impossible for certain people to carry. And at the same time, it's possible for other people to carry them in our place, which is what these friends did for me that day."
• If you're feeling despair, seek professional help. Call or text 988 for an immediate response with a counsellor.
• Seek community.
• "Whether you're in darkness or in light, whether your heart feels full of gratitude or whether it may not, I just hope that you'll be aware that God is with you, that you are not alone, that there are people that want to support you and help you, and that there are people that know you who would welcome you into a circle of celebration and gratitude today."

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

To exist as a black male in America is to be perceived as a threat, where criminality is attributed by default and violence is justified from racial bias. And as a young man, Pastor Mike McBride learned through personal experience that following Jesus does not protect you from the violence of the state. How could it, when Jesus himself was crucified by religious- and state-sponsored violence?

In this episode, Pastor Mike (The Way Christian Center, Berkeley, CA) joins Mark Labberton to discuss the confluence of Black Pentecostal holiness, police brutality, gun violence prevention, Christian nationalism, political polarization, racial justice, and the urgent spiritual crisis facing the American church.

From his childhood in the San Francisco neighborhood of Bayview–Hunter's Point, to the trauma of a police assault in 1999, to national leadership in Ferguson, to confronting the rise of authoritarian Christianity, Pastor Mike traces the formation of his vocation and the cost of staying faithful to Jesus in a nation shaped by anti-blackness and state-sponsored violence. His story of survival, theological awakening, moral urgency, and hopeful action is rooted in the gospel's call to respond with peaceful action against the violence of the world.

Episode Highlights

1. "What is it about this gospel that their family members, their parents trust you with the salvation of their souls, but not the safety of their bodies."
2. "It forced me to really have a strong come to Jesus meeting about how am I being prepared to do what I was already feeling a lifeline calling of ministry while I was starting the work of justice as a first victim and crime survivor."
3. "It is some kind of delusion for us to follow Jesus who got crucified and killed by the state and then be surprised when we get crucified by the state."
4. "I think there was just this sensibility that was a part of our upbringing that this is what it means to be black in America."
5. "People are being discipled into racism. People are being discipled into anti-blackness."
6. "I hope that feeding the hungry clothing the naked healing the sick is not something that in 2025 Christians identify as some leftist socialist liberal Christianity or we've lost it."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Live Free USA https://www.livefreeusa.org
• Roots, Alex Haley https://www.amazon.com/Roots-American-Family-Alex-Haley/dp/030682485X
• Boston TenPoint Coalition / Eugene Rivers https://btpc.org/
• Oscar Grant Case (NPR Overview) https://www.npr.org/2010/07/09/128401136/transit-officers-verdict-sparks-violent-protests

About Michael McBride

Pastor Michael McBride (often known as "Pastor Mike") is the National Director of Live Free USA, a nationwide movement of faith leaders and congregations dedicated to ending gun violence, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of Black and Brown communities. A respected activist, pastor, and organizer, he has been a prominent voice in national efforts to address police violence, promote community-based safety strategies, and mobilize churches for racial justice. Pastor Mike is also the founding pastor of The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, California. His leadership, advocacy, and public witness have been featured across major media outlets, integrating faith, justice, and community transformation.

Show Notes

• Holiness, formation, and black pentecostal roots
• Growing up as the second oldest of six in Hunters Point with deep Southern family roots
• "We grew up just very much enmeshed in a black church, holiness culture."
• Strict holiness prohibitions: no movies, no drinking, no secular music, no dancing.
• Holiness as both constraint and survival strategy during the crack era
• The world of Southern Baptist school culture colliding with black identity
• Racial Identity, Civil Rights Memory, and Family Formation
• Annual watching of Eyes on the Prize as civic and spiritual ritual.
• Leaving school to attend MLK Day celebrations: "I dare you to say something about it."
• Roots, Alex Haley, and early consciousness of black struggle and survival
• State violence, trauma, and theological turning point
• March 1999 police assault: physical and sexual violence during a "weapons search."
• "You can be following Jesus faithfully and still be subjected to violence at the hands of the state."
• The dissonance of worshiping a crucified Messiah while denying contemporary crucifixions
• Youth in his ministry revealing they didn't tell him because "we didn't think the church would do anything."
• Call to ministry, theological awakening, and training
• Exposure to church history, patristics, Thomas Merton, and MLK Jr.
• Grant Wacker inviting him to Duke; scholarship leading to seminary training
• Influence of black theologians and faculty shaping his justice imagination
• Meeting Eugene Rivers and the birth of a vocation in violence reduction and organizing
• Ferguson, activism, and the crisis of Christian witness
• Returning from Cape Town when Mike Brown was killed; sudden call to St. Louis
• Tear gas, militarized police, and "the ugly underside of the American law enforcement apparatus."
• "Our marriages didn't survive that era."
• Ferguson as exposure of the divide within the American church: respectability politics, sexuality panic, racial division
• "People are being discipled into racism … into militarism … into economic exploitation."
• Political polarization and Christian Nationalism
• 2016–present: Trumpism as a carrier of a broader reactionary Christian political project.
• Concern for Christian authoritarianism masquerading as religious fidelity.
• "You should definitely live out your convictions… but that don't mean you should kill everybody else on your hill."
• Deep grief over the church's inability to discern the danger
• George Floyd, red lines, and the urgency of now
• Summer 2020 as national smelling salt: "the banality and the violence of this state."
• The ceiling on empathy in American evangelicalism
• Targeted universalism and the need for differentiated strategies for shared goals
• Wealth inequality, homelessness, hunger, and the moral failure of Christianized politics
• "I hope that feeding the hungry clothing the naked healing the sick is not something… Christians identify as leftist."
• Participatory democracy as spiritual stewardship
• The Trinity as a model of unity-with-difference
• Holiness as public witness: protecting bodies and souls
• A charge to oppose Christian nationalism and join justice-infused faithfulness

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

How would the black church's public witness guide Christians through today's polarization, culture-war dynamics, and ideological captivity? Drawing from Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around, Justin Giboney joins Mark Labberton to reflect on Christian credibility (and lack thereof), the black church's public witness, and the deep forces shaping American polarization.

Reflecting on the legacy of the twentieth-century civil rights generation, Giboney describes how the black church's fusion of orthodoxy and social action offers a model for healing division, resisting ideological captivity, and embodying what he calls "moral imagination."

Citing the formative influences of his grandmother Willie Faye, the example of Mahalia Jackson, and the ongoing challenge of navigating truth, justice, family, unity, and political engagement in a fractured moment, Giboney explores discipleship in an ideological age, the cost of a credible public witness, and the hope of a church capable of transcending partisan allegiance to seek the good of neighbor and the glory of God.

Episode Highlights

"One thing that I saw in the civil rights generation is they were able to have a bigger perspective, even in songs like 'Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.'"

"Love is self-sacrifice. It's being willing to at my own expense in some instances give up what I have to others."

"This was a deliberate decision that they made to say, we're not gonna choose one of these two sides that these groups are creating for us."

"Within the public square, credibility is currency."

"I want all Christians to take that as their own and build on that."

Helpful Links and Resources

Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around by Justin Giboney https://www.ivpress.com/don-t-let-nobody-turn-you-around

The AND Campaign https://andcampaign.org/

Mahalia Jackson biography (PBS) https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mahalia-jackson-about-the-singer/602/

Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley https://ivpress.com/reading-while-black

About Justin Giboney

Justin Giboney is an attorney and political strategist in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the co-founder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on asserting the compassion and conviction of the gospel in the public square. He has served as an attorney, political organizer, and civic leader, and he regularly speaks and writes on the intersection of Christianity and politics.

Show Notes

• Justin Giboney describes being an attorney, political strategist, and ordained minister, and cofounder of the AND Campaign
• He explains the AND Campaign's mission to raise civic literacy among Christians and resist purely partisan frameworks in favor of a biblical one
• "Social justice and moral order, love and truth, compassion and conviction" as a united Christian vision rather than opposing camps
• Lit City literacy initiative in Atlanta bringing churches across racial and partisan divides together for shared mission
• Ten-week programs for Christians preparing to run for office or engage politics constructively
• Naming and confronting polarization as a dialectical division that splits what should be held together
• Intro and summary to Giboney's book, Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around, framed as applying civil rights wisdom to the current culture-war moment
• Giboney's grandmother Willie Faye and Mahalia Jackson as representative figures of the civil rights generation's theological and moral framework
• Moral imagination defined as the capacity to see what ought to be, not merely what is: "the ability to see what will be based on God's promises"
• Songs like "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" as examples of moral imagination sustaining courage and humility
• The necessity of Scripture's authority and why the black church's orthodoxy and orthopraxy shape public witness
• Giboney's critique of individualism and his insistence that love is fundamentally "self-sacrifice" rather than self-expression
• Historical correction: The black church neither mirrors conservative ideology nor progressive ideology; it deliberately resisted both.
• "If we go to the right, we lose our bodies… if we go to the left, we could lose our soul." The strategic theological posture of black church leaders
• Christian credible witness requires coherence, humility, and honesty—rather than partisan performance
• Credibility in public "is currency," requiring self-examination, confession, and honesty about ideological idols
• Civil Rights Movement disciplines: self-purification, preparation through prayer and fellowship, resisting bitterness before engaging action
• Parenting, resilience, and teaching his sons not to give disproportionate emotional energy to racist comments, while still confronting wrongdoing
• The role of community formation, honor, and integrated humanity within black church worship life
• Hopes for the church: rejecting secular assumptions about who can reconcile, cultivating humility across divisions
• AND Campaign's twenty-year vision: Christians uniting across party lines around shared commitments like racial justice, family, sanctity of life, and poverty
• Final exhortation: The black church's public witness is a gift and challenge to the entire American church, not just one community.

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

What is the book of Revelation really about? For ages, it has been the source of sensationalism, idolatry, confusion, and end-times predictions. But at its root, it is about the power and worship of the Lamb who was slain.

Biblical scholar Michael J. Gorman joins Mark Labberton to explore how Christians can read the book of Revelation with wisdom, faith, and hope rather than fear or sensationalism. Drawing from his book Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness—Following the Lamb into the New Creation, Gorman offers a reorientation to Revelation's central vision: worshipping the Lamb, resisting idolatrous power, and embodying faithful discipleship in the world. Together they discuss Revelation's misuses in popular culture, its critique of empire and nationalism, and its invitation to follow the crucified and risen Christ into the new creation.

Episode Highlights

1. "The book of Revelation is about lamb power—not hyper-religious or political power. It's about absorbing rather than inflicting evil."
2. "This book is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and or preoccupied with the book of Revelation."
3. "We shouldn't look for predictions but for parallels and analogies."
4. "Worship, discipleship, and new creation—that's where Revelation hangs its hat."
5. "At its root, Christian nationalism is a form of idolatry."
6. "The only way to come out of Babylon is to go back into Babylon with new values and new practices."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Reading Revelation Responsibly – https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Revelation-Responsibly-Following-Creation/dp/1606085603/
• Reverse Thunder by Eugene Peterson – https://www.amazon.com/Reversed-Thunder-Revelation-Praying-Imagination/dp/0060665033
• St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore – https://www.stmarys.edu

About Michael J. Gorman

Michael J. Gorman is the Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland. A leading New Testament scholar, he is the author of numerous books on Pauline theology and Revelation, including Reading Revelation Responsibly, Cruciformity, and Participating in Christ. Gorman's teaching and writing emphasize Scripture as a call to cruciform discipleship, faithful worship, and the hope of new creation.

Show Notes

• Introducing Reading Revelation Responsibly
• "This book is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and or preoccupied with the Book of Revelation."
• "Apocalypse" means revelation, not destruction.
• Emerging from twenty-five years of study and teaching, aimed at rescuing Revelation from misinterpretation or neglect
• Growing up amid 1970s end-times obsession—Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth and fearful youth-group predictions of the world's end
• Fear of the book of Revelation until he studied it with Bruce Metzger at Princeton Seminary
• Why he wrote the book: for people who have been scared or confused by Revelation's misuse
• Interpretation and misreading the book of Revelation
• Early questions: Does Revelation predict particular events or people?
• No predictions, but symbolic speaking into every age
• "Our task is not to find predictions but to discern parallels and analogies."
• Warning against mapping Revelation onto modern crises or personalities
• "When those predictions fail, the book gets sidelined or scoffed at."
• Keep one foot in the first-century context and one in the present
• Worship and discipleship
• The heart of Revelation is worship.
• "This is a book about worship—and about the object of our worship."
• Explaining the subtitle: Uncivil Worship and Witness—Following the Lamb into the New Creation
• "Uncivil worship" contrasts with "civil religion"—worship that refuses to idolize political power
• Influence from Eugene Peterson's Reverse Thunder and his own teaching at St. Mary's, where Peterson once taught Revelation
• Worship leads to discipleship: "Those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes."
• True discipleship mirrors the Lamb's humility and non-violence.
• The lamb and the meaning of power
• Interpreting Revelation's vision of the slain and standing Lamb as the key to understanding divine power
• "The crucified Messiah is the risen Lord—but he remains the crucified one."
• The Lamb appears twenty-eight times, a symbol of universality and completeness.
• "Revelation is about lamb power—absorbing rather than inflicting evil."
• Discipleship is cruciform: following the Lamb's way of self-giving love.
• The unholy trinity and the danger of idolatry
• Chapters 12–13 depict the dragon and two beasts—the "unholy trinity" of satanic, imperial, and religious power.
• "Power gone amok": political, military, and spiritual domination that mimic divinity
• How true worship resists empire and exposes idolatry
• Warning against reading these beasts as predictions of the UN or the pope; rather, they reveal recurring alliances of religion and politics
• "At its root, Christian nationalism is idolatry."
• When political identity eclipses discipleship, "political power always wins, and faith loses."
• Faith, politics, and worship today
• Christian nationalism as a modern form of "civil religion," conflating patriotism with divine will
• "It's only Christian in name—it lacks Christian substance."
• Idolatry is not limited to one side: "It permeates the left, the right, and probably the centre."
• Labberton agrees: false worship is endemic wherever self-interest and fear shape our loves.
• Both stress that Revelation calls the church to worship the Lamb, not the state.
• "Revelation critiques all human systems of false worship."
• Revelation's goal: Not destruction, but new creation
• "Destruction is penultimate—cleansing the way for renewal."
• Believers already live as citizens of that new creation.
• "The only way to come out of Babylon is to go back into Babylon with new values and new practices."
• Communal, not merely individual, discipleship: "Revelation is written to churches, not just believers."
• Reinterpreting Revelation 3:20: Jesus knocking isn't an altar call to unbelievers but Christ seeking re-entry into his own church.
• "Jesus always wants to come back in."
• Living revelation today
• Spirituality of hope, not fear or withdrawal
• "Reading Revelation responsibly means engaging the world through worship and witness."
• How true worship is dangerous because it transforms our allegiance.
• "Following the Lamb into the new creation is the church's act of resistance."
• Conclusion: "Worthy is the Lamb."

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.