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.

Adverse childhood experiences are notoriously hard to overcome, and they can affect a person well into adulthood. But the grace of close, stable, nurturing relationships can offer hope.

Terence Lester—author of From Dropout to Doctorate and founder of Love Beyond Walls—joins Mark Labberton for a conversation about resilience, faith, and the redemptive power of seeing and being seen. Lester recounts his life's journey from poverty, homelessness, and gang membership in southwest Atlanta to earning his PhD in public policy and social change. Together, they explore the impact of childhood trauma on personal development; education as a form of love, justice, and community service; and the healing potential of local community and proximity. Lester's story is a testament to divine grace, human courage, and the transformative impact of compassionate words and faithful presence.

Episode Highlights

1. "The higher your ACE score, the more your body has to overcome… Every 'yes' cultivates a stronger relationship with pain. Your counterparts with lower scores may never develop those same muscles of resilience."
2. "Education is a tool that increases your capacity to serve others."
3. "People don't become what you want them to become—they become what you encourage them to become."
4. "I am a product of people who invested in me and of the things I've had to resist."
5. "You can't love your neighbour if you're not concerned about the neighbourhood that produces your neighbour."
6. "Each sentence spoken can become a seed of hope—or a curse that crushes it."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Terence Lester's website – https://terencelester.com/
• From Dropout to Doctorate – https://www.ivpress.com/from-dropout-to-doctorate
• I See You: How Love Opens Our Eyes to Invisible People – https://www.ivpress.com/i-see-you
• Love Beyond Walls (Terence Lester's non-profit) – https://www.lovebeyondwalls.org
• ACEs Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) – https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html
• The Color of Compromise by Jamar Tisby – https://jemartisby.com/the-color-of-compromise/

About Terence Lester

Terence Lester is a speaker, activist, author, and founder of Love Beyond Walls, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about poverty and homelessness while mobilizing communities to serve those in need. A graduate of Union Institute & University with a PhD in public policy and social change, he is the author of I See You: How Love Opens Our Eyes to Invisible People, When We Stand: The Power of Seeking Justice Together, **and All God's Children: How Confronting Buried History Can Build Racial Solidarity. His latest book is From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice. Through storytelling, advocacy, and faith-rooted organizing, Lester seeks to dismantle systemic barriers and call communities toward justice, empathy, and proximity.

Show Notes

• Education and social change
• Terence Lester describes sitting beside his father's hospital bed reflecting on vulnerability, legacy, and resilience.
• His father's words—"I'm proud of you"—affirmed the journey from poverty to doctorate.
• Growing up amid trauma, gangs, and homelessness in southwest Atlanta.
• The generational impact of systemic injustice and public policy shaping social outcomes
• Education as a tool for empowerment and community transformation, not self-advancement
• "Education is a tool that increases your capacity to serve others."
• How the post–Civil Rights era shaped identity and pride in blackness while still marked by inequality
• Frames poverty itself as a form of trauma, calling for empathy and systemic response
• Trauma, resilience, and the ACEs framework
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) test as a tool for understanding trauma
• Lester shares his 10/10 ACE score—complete exposure to childhood trauma
• "Every 'yes' cultivates a stronger relationship with pain… You must climb out of a pit to reach emotionally stable ground."
• How adversity produced resilience, not fragility
• Connecting personal trauma to compassion in ministry among the unhoused
• How proximity to suffering forms the capacity for empathy and love
• Faith, identity, and calling
• Connecting resilience and faith: "I believe my being was intricately woven together by God."
• Psalm 139 and seeing himself as "fearfully and wonderfully made"
• Jesus's life as a model of proximity and compassionate visibility—"Jesus saw."
• The church as a community of affirmation and blessing
• How words spoken over others—curses or encouragement—shape identity
• "People don't become what you want them to become—they become what you encourage them to become."
• Community, visibility, and flourishing
• "You can't love your neighbor if you're not concerned about the neighborhood that produces your neighbor."
• Warns of a "compassion deficit" and urges the rebuilding of community communication
• Seeds and environments: people cannot flourish where conditions are hostile
• The need for better care for impoverished environments that stunt potential
• Community as the soil of hope—"People find hope and possibility in community."
• Lester's mother's resilience and faith—earning her own doctorate while raising two children
• "I am a product of her never giving up."
• The generational power of education and faith as liberation
• Hope, words, and the power of blessing
• Transformative and timely sentences: encouraging words of seeds or yeast—small yet life-altering
• How to speak life, not curses, over others
• "Each sentence spoken can become a seed of hope—or a curse that crushes it."
• Mentorship, community affirmation, and divine proximity as instruments of healing
• Interrogating falsehoods: "God is not the source of cursing."
• A call to faith-rooted compassion, proximity, and collective responsibility.

Production Credits

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

How can we address the problem of violence against the poor? International Justice Mission exists to answer this question by protecting and rescuing victims, bringing criminals to justice, restoring survivors to safety and strength, and helping local law enforcement build a safe future that lasts.

In this episode, International Justice Mission's founder and CEO, Gary Haugen, joins Mark Labberton to reflect on almost three decades of IJM's fight against violence and slavery worldwide—and the spiritual formation that sustains it. Haugen shares the origins of IJM in response to systemic violence against the poor, the evolution from individual rescues to transforming justice systems, and the remarkable rise of survivor leaders transforming their own nations. Together they reflect on courage, joy, and faith amid immense risk—bearing witness to God's power to bring justice and healing through ordinary people.

Episode Highlights

1. "Protecting the poor from violence is God's weight, but it's our work, and we're gonna seek to do it Jesus's way."
2. "In this era, I just think what the world is aching to see is the followers of Jesus who have a incandescent freedom from fear and a life-giving joy."
3. "Most of this violence will go away if government does just even a decent job of enforcing the law."
4. "Our first commitment is to help each other become more like Jesus—and from that strength, to do justice."
5. "The greatest miracle of IJM is not only the results—it's the freedom from fear and the joy with which they've done it."
6. "God saw them in their darkness, and they now testify to the goodness of an almighty God who loved them."

Helpful Links and Resources

International Justice Mission – https://www.ijm.org

Gary Haugen, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence –

https://www.amazon.com/Locust-Effect-Poverty-Requires-Violence/dp/0199937877

Gary Haugen, Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian – https://www.amazon.com/Just-Courage-Expedition-Restless-Christian-ebook/dp/B001PSEQR4

Riverside Church Sermon by Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam" — https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam

William Lloyd Garrison biography – https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Lloyd-Garrison

Rwanda Genocide Investigation (UN Historical Overview) – https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda

About Gary Haugen

Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM), the world's largest international anti-slavery organization. Before founding IJM in 1997, he served as the director of the United Nations' investigation into the Rwandan genocide and previously worked at the US Department of Justice, focusing on police misconduct. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School, Haugen has dedicated his life to ending violence against the poor and mobilizing the global church for justice.

Show Notes

• The founding of IJM in 1997 as a Christian response to violence against the poor
• Gary Haugen's formative experience directing the UN's genocide investigation in Rwanda
• Realization that hunger and disease were being addressed—but violence was not
• Early cases in the Philippines, South Asia, and Peru exposing police-run brothels and child slavery
• IJM 1.0: rescuing individuals from slavery and abuse, case by case
• IJM 2.0: strengthening local justice systems to prevent violence before it happens
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Jericho Road" as a model for systemic transformation
• Formation of small multidisciplinary teams—lawyers, investigators, social workers
• IJM's evolution from rescue operations to building sustainable justice infrastructure
• Twenty-year celebration: Liberate conference and the global IJM staff retreat
• IJM's culture of spiritual formation: daily solitude, prayer, and community rhythms
• A Christian order of justice rooted in prayer, silence, and shared joy
• Spiritual formation as the foundation for sustainable justice work
• Experiments in Cambodia, the Philippines, and South Asia reducing violence by up to 85 percent
• Replication of IJM's model across 46 regions to protect 500 million vulnerable people
• Goal by 2030: one million freed from slavery, 300 million living under protection
• Empowering survivor leaders: from victims to advocates and elected officials
• Stories of transformation like Pama in South Asia leading the Release Bonded Laborers Association
• The Kenyan case of Willie Kimani—murdered IJM lawyer whose legacy reformed police accountability
• IJM's resilience: pursuing justice for six years until conviction of perpetrators
• Theological grounding: justice as God's work, pursued in Jesus's way
• Haugen on resilience: "It's a marathon, not a sprint"
• Joy and freedom from fear as hallmarks of IJM's culture
• How IJM balances global crisis fatigue with focused mission clarity
• Future challenges: technology-driven oppression—live-stream child abuse and forced scamming
• Global body of Christ as the essential network for courage and joy
• Sustainability and local leadership as the future of global justice movements
• Spiritual communities as the seedbed for future justice leaders

Production Credits

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

What is the theological meaning of American history? In this episode, American church historian Grant Wacker joins Mark Labberton to explore the theological dimensions of American history, the legacy of Billy Graham, and the evolving face of evangelicalism. Wacker reflects on his Pentecostal upbringing, his formation as a historian, and his conviction that faith and scholarship must speak honestly to one another. Together they trace how religion has both shaped and distorted American life—from the enduring wound of slavery to the reformist spirit woven through its history. Wacker, now in his eighties, offers his perspective on evangelicalism's past, present, and global future.

Episode Highlights

1. "Religion has always been at the forefront of rationalizing and making enslavement seem perfectly normal—perfectly natural. It's just the order of things."
2. "Many of the very finest religious historians are not believers—and they do superb work in understanding where religion lies."
3. "I don't think there is Christian nationalism out there. What there is is that there is nationalism that draws on Christian categories to legitimate itself."
4. "I don't think what we're looking at is a religious movement. We're looking at a political movement that uses religious categories."
5. "We should write about others the way we wish they would write about us."
6. "You Americans are always asking the Holy Spirit to bring revival. What you ought to be doing is asking the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to the revival that is already flourishing."

Helpful Links and Resources

• America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation by Grant Wacker — https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Pastor-Graham-Shaping-Nation/dp/0674052188
• Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture by Grant Wacker — https://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Below-Pentecostals-American-Culture/dp/0674011287
• One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham by Grant Wacker — https://www.amazon.com/One-Soul-Time-Religious-Biography/dp/0802885500/
• Mark Noll's The Civil War as a Theological Crisis — https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Crisis-Steven-Janice-Lectures/dp/1469621819
• Religion in American Life: A Short History — ****https://www.amazon.com/Religion-American-Life-Short-History/dp/0199832692/

About Grant Wacker

Grant Wacker is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Christian History at Duke Divinity School. A leading scholar of American religious history, he is the author of numerous books including Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture and America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. His research has helped shape modern understanding of American evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, and the intersection of faith and culture.

Show Notes

• Wacker's path to the study of history through mentorship at Harvard Divinity School and a fascination with theology's relationship to historical reality
• He distinguishes between observing "religion operating in history" and perceiving "the divine hand," emphasizing the tension between secular and theological approaches to the past.
• Four major contexts that define the American story: geography, capitalism, immigration, and race
• Eleven domains where the power of religion—and possibly divine influence—can be seen, from colonization and enslavement to revivalism and reform.
• "We are a people of plenty—prosperous partly because of the accident of geography."
• Reformed and Wesleyan theology as twin engines shaping the nation's moral and social imagination.
• Humility as "at the heart of Reformed theology: we don't run our lives; something else is running the show."
• Wesleyan theology, by contrast, stresses human enablement and responsibility: "If we are able to do it, we are responsible for doing it."
• Catholic contributions to the American story, especially the richness of liturgy and the continuity of two thousand years of history
• Reflections on racial sin as a "permanent wound," calling religion both complicit in and necessary for confronting slavery's legacy
• Mark Noll's The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, highlighting how both sides invoked Scripture without self-awareness or self-critique
• "Religion has always been implicated in making enslavement seem natural—as natural as breathing."
• Describes evangelicalism's deep roots in pietism and revivalism, its mainstream dominance by the late nineteenth century, and its later fragmentation.
• "Evangelicalism became the main line—it was the standard way Protestantism operated."
• Outlines the modern trifurcation: fundamentalists, liberals, and a centrist evangelical river that remains influential.
• "Christian nationalism" is largely a political, not religious, phenomenon: nationalism using Christian categories to legitimize itself.
• "Religion is rarely an independent variable in determining how people vote."
• Richard Bushman (paraphrase): Have we written about [the subjects of academic history] as fairly and honestly as we can, or have we distorted their story in order to make ourselves look good?
• A call for fairness in historical judgment: "Write about them the way you wish they would write about you."
• Prediction: Evangelicalism's future lies "south of the equator"—in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• Quotes a Jesuit: "Americans keep asking for revival; they should ask to see the revival that's already happening."
• On Christian nationalism: "The question is not whether religion and politics collude—they always have—but whether we can be self-conscious and humble about it."
• Identifies power, prosperity, and digital speed as the toxic combination shaping contemporary polarization.
• "Speed is a narcotic for humans—we want to be connected now."
• Reflects on Billy Graham's unifying role and his progressive evolution on race and nuclear disarmament: "He became increasingly moderate, increasingly inclusive."
• Notes Graham's three conversions—to Christ, to racial justice, and to peace.
• "The United States and the Soviet Union are like two little boys in a bathtub filled with gasoline, playing with matches."
• On teaching and legacy: "My students are earnest—they want to do well for the world they live in."
• "Whatever good has come—it's a gift, not earned."
• Humility, humor, and grace as rare marks of faith and scholarship integrated

Production Credits

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

"Migration is grace," says UCLA professor Robert Chao Romero, author of Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity. In this episode, he joins Mark Labberton to discuss the immigration crisis through stories from Southern California, theology of migration, and the challenge of Christian nationalism for the American response to the immigration crisis we face.

Romero narrates heartbreaking accounts of ICE raids, racial profiling, and dehumanization, while also offering hope rooted in scripture and the early church. He points out the "Xenodochias" of the ancient and medieval church that cared for migrants. And he shows how biblical narratives—from Abraham to Jesus—reveal God's mercy in migration. Romero calls Christians to see the image of God in migrants, resist the "Latino threat narrative," and reclaim the church's historic role in welcoming the stranger.

Episode Highlights

1. "Migration is grace. … You wouldn't have a Bible without migration."
2. "Jesus lived and died as an outsider in solidarity with all outsiders, and he rose to new life among outsiders."
3. "The gospel is an outward pushing invitation… it is the pushing out actually into the far and remote places of suffering in need."
4. "This level of targeting of the Latino community has not happened since 1954 and Operation Wetback."
5. "We think that crossing the US border is like crossing the Jordan into the promised land, and we're baptized into the Yankee Doodle song."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Brown Church by Robert Chao Romero
• UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies
• Fuller Seminary's Centro Latino
• CLUE: Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice
• World Relief

About Robert Chao Romero

Robert Chao Romero is an associate professor in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and in the Asian American Studies Department. With a background in law and history, his research and teaching explore the intersections of race, immigration, faith, and justice. He is the author of Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (IVP Academic), which chronicles the long history of Latino Christian social justice movements. Romero is also an ordained pastor, active in local church ministry and theological reflection on immigration, Christian nationalism, and the global church.

Show Notes

Immigration Crisis and ICE Raids

• Student testimonies of fear and trauma at UCLA during immigration crackdowns
• Stories of ICE targeting bus stops, car washes, and Home Depots in Southern California
• Latino citizens, veterans, and even high school students detained despite legal status
• A man fleeing ICE was killed in traffic, sparking vigils and protests

Historical Parallels and Christian Nationalism

• Comparison to Operation Wetback of 1954, when over one million were deported
• Escalating racial profiling, reinforced by Supreme Court decisions
• "Latino Threat Narrative" portrays Latinos as criminals and unwilling to assimilate
• Christian nationalism merges citizenship and faith, echoing "manifest destiny"

Theology of Migration and Outsiders

• Migration as grace: God intervenes with compassion in nearly every biblical migration story
• "We live alongside the world. We don't belong to the world."
• " Jesus lived and died as an outsider in solidarity with all outsiders, and he rose to new life among outsiders." (Jorge Lara-Braud)
• Jesus as an asylum seeker in Egypt; Ruth and Joseph as biblical migrants
• Early church created "xenodochias"—ancient and medieval social service centers for immigrants and the poor
• Outsider theology: Christians as strangers and aliens, called to care for outsiders
• "Jesus lived and died as an outsider in solidarity with all outsiders."

Policy Challenges and Misconceptions

• Millions of mixed-status households trapped by the "10-year bar" in immigration law
• Asylum seekers legally present cases at the border under U.S. law
• Refugees undergo extensive vetting, often over decades
• Common myths about immigrants as "illegal" are contradicted by law and history

Faith, Empathy, and the Church

• Empathy as central to Christian response, counter to narratives of fear and scarcity
• Latino pastors passing on both the gospel and nationalism from missionary influence
• The church historically provided refugee care before the UN Refugee Agency existed
• Worship with immigrant congregations as a source of hope and resilience
• Orthodox theology: worship joins heaven and earth, every tribe and nation before the Lamb

Production Credits

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

Millions of people today face dire medical and mental health challenges. What role should the church play in foreign humanitarian aid to address starvation and deadly illness? In this episode, Eric Ha, CEO of Medical Teams International, joins Mark Labberton for a sobering, hopeful conversation on global humanitarian crises and the role of the church in responding to both the physical and spiritual needs of those who are suffering. Drawing from his years at International Justice Mission and now at Medical Teams International, Ha shares vivid accounts from refugee camps in East Africa and migrant communities in Colombia. He reflects on the collapse of US foreign aid, the limits of humanitarian response, and the urgent need for churches to reclaim their historic role in caring for the vulnerable. Ha wrestles candidly with the calling of Christian communities to embody God's expansive love even amid staggering need.

Episode Highlights

1. "These humans that bear the image of the divine and the eternal, and the holy and the sacred."
2. "Last year, Medical Teams staff helped deliver fifty thousand babies—that's a delivery every ten minutes, somewhere around the world in these extraordinarily harsh settings."
3. "Finding the thread and kernel of hope is actually a lot more challenging."
4. "For thousands of years prior to the UN, the infrastructure and ecosystem for the care of refugees was the church. It was God's people."
5. "The gospel is an outward pushing invitation.… It is the pushing out actually into the far and remote places of suffering in need, and to see the presence of God."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Medical Teams International
• International Justice Mission
• UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency
• PEPFAR—The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
• Clinton Global Initiative

About Eric Ha

Eric Ha is the chief executive officer of Medical Teams International, a Christian humanitarian relief organization providing life-saving medical care for people in crisis worldwide. Before joining Medical Teams, he served more than a decade in senior leadership roles at International Justice Mission, advancing global efforts to combat human trafficking and slavery. A lawyer by training, Ha brings a deep commitment to justice, compassion, and the mobilization of the church in service of the vulnerable.

Show Notes

Global Humanitarian Crises and Refugee Care

• Eric Ha shares his journey from law and IJM to leading Medical Teams International
• Medical Teams founded in response to Cambodia's killing fields, continuing nearly 50 years of healthcare missions
• Primary healthcare for refugees: maternal care, vaccinations, mosquito nets, antimalarials, antidiarrheals, and mental health
• Serving 9 million people in East Africa, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Sudan
• Refugee camps lack electricity, clean water, and adequate shelter—average displacement nearly 20 years
• Medical Teams delivers maternal care that dramatically reduces mortality, helping deliver 50,000 babies last year

Healthcare and Human Dignity

• The crisis is not statistics—it's humans bearing God's image, glimpses of laughter, joy, and resilience
• Colombia: working with Venezuelan migrants amid drastic cuts in U.S. aid (down to 10% of prior levels)
• Withdrawal of foreign aid leaves communities devastated and forces NGOs to scale back
• Transition from justice work at IJM to medical humanitarian work brings both immediacy of impact and insufficiency of resources

Hope and Despair in Humanitarian Work

• Theories of change at IJM allowed for hope in systemic reform; displacement crises feel harder to solve
• Challenge of holding onto hope in the face of preventable death and suffering
• Churches historically provided refugee care before the UN; today, withdrawal of aid exposes the need for church re-engagement
• Need to reimagine church-government partnerships in humanitarian response

Empathy, Collaboration, and Mental Health

• Empathy as essential orientation in humanitarian work, easily lost without intentionality
• Competitiveness and survivalism among NGOs risks eclipsing empathy
• Mental health needs are massive: trauma among children in refugee camps threatens future stability
• Clinton Global Initiative highlights Medical Teams' commitment to expand mental health care for children in Sudan
• Training local health workers and communities to recognize trauma and create safe spaces for children

Invitation to the Church and Listeners

• The gospel calls us outward, not inward—expanding our experience of God's vastness through engagement with suffering
• Churches must discern how to integrate humanitarian concerns without distraction, embracing their historic role in refugee care
• Prayer requests: for hope, for patience to wait on the Lord, and for wisdom in making hard decisions
• "We are invited into a different orientation—the empathy piece is so critical because it is the thing that allows us to engage."

Production Credits

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

The church is so much more than a building—but when it comes to managing the physical property of church real estate, we often overlook the great good that can emerge from the land and structures. In this episode, social entrepreneur, strategic executive, and author Mark Elsdon joins Mark Labberton on Conversing to explore how churches and faith communities can reimagine their assets—land, buildings, and money—as instruments for mission, community transformation, and spiritual flourishing. From his decades of work at Pres House in Madison, Wisconsin, to his role as consultant, author, and co-leader of RootedGood, Elsdon shares stories of innovation, courage, and the hard but hopeful work of repurposing property and resources for God's mission in the world.

Episode Highlights

1. "It isn't about property, nor is it about money. It's about people's lives and it's about God's work in people's lives."
2. "We often have the faith of our forebears in the church. But the question is, do we have the courage of them?"
3. "I don't think God's going away. I don't think God's declining. But the way people are engaging their faith is really changed and is changing."
4. "Sometimes I talk about this as like the Blockbuster Video moment… People still want experiences of the divine. They just don't want to access it primarily on a Sunday morning."
5. "Constraints can produce creativity and, in the life of faith, can also produce a willingness to trust."

Helpful Links and Resources

• Mark Elsdon's Website
• *We Aren't Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry,* by Mark Elsdon
• *Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition,* by Mark Elsdon
• RootedGood - resources for congregations, judicatories, and other church leaders related to social enterprise and church property
• Good Futures Accelerator course
• How-To Guides
• Threshold Sacred Development - A mission-aligned property development company focused on supporting churches doing community-oriented development

About Mark Elsdon

Mark Elsdon lives and works at the intersection of money and meaning as an entrepreneur, non-profit executive, author, and speaker. He is the author of We Aren't Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry (2021) and editor of Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition (2024). In addition to his role as a director with RootedGood, Mark is also executive director at Pres House, where he led the transformation of a dormant non-profit into a growing, vibrant, multi-million-dollar organization.

Mark has a BA in psychology from the University of California–Berkeley, a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin School of Business. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Mark is an avid cyclist and considers it a good year when he rides more miles on his bike than he drives in his car.

Show Notes

• Mark Elsdon reflects on thirty years of ministry, beginning with campus work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
• Launch of a $17 million student housing project that became a transformative ministry for thousands of students.
• Elsdon's discovery: "It isn't about property, nor is it about money. It's about people's lives and it's about God's work in people's lives."
• Creation of a sober housing program at Pres House that has saved the state of Wisconsin more than a million dollars in addiction-related costs.
• Innovative blend of mission, ministry, and real estate development to foster student flourishing.
• The unique impact of housing students in recovery alongside the wider student population.
• Elsdon's MBA studies at UW–Madison and his calling at the intersection of money and mission.
• The "Blockbuster Video moment" for American Christianity: people still seek meaning, community, and transcendence, but not in traditional formats.
• Challenges churches face with aging buildings, declining attendance, and financial strain.
• How repurposing property reveals new opportunities for mission and ministry.
• RootedGood's "Good Futures" Accelerator course: helping churches rethink land, buildings, and resources for social enterprise and revenue generation.
• Example of two congregations in Madison merging to create an environmentally sustainable multifamily housing project and community center.
• Redefining church property as community space: "flipping the script" so the building belongs to the neighborhood, with the church as anchor tenant.
• Courage, risk-taking, and letting go of past models are essential for churches to reimagine their future.
• The critical role of pastoral and lay leadership in sparking change and vision.
• Storytelling as central to church renewal: "We often have the faith of our forebears in the church. But the question is, do we have the courage of them?"
• Learning from the pandemic: every church has the capacity for innovation and adaptation.
• Honouring grief and loss while embracing resurrection hope in church property transitions.
• Example from San Antonio: members resisted redevelopment until their need for funerals in the sanctuary was acknowledged—turning "either/or" into "both/and."
• Affordable housing crisis intersects directly with church land opportunities.
• Turner Center study: California churches and colleges hold land equal to five Oaklands suitable for affordable housing development.
• Elsdon warns against cookie-cutter "models" and emphasizes local context, story, and creativity.
• Forecast: up to 100,000 church properties in the US may be sold or repurposed in the next decade.
• Elsdon's hope: more repurposing than selling, with land and buildings becoming assets for life-giving mission.
• The value of constraints: "Constraints can produce creativity and, in the life of faith, can also produce a willingness to trust."

Production Credits

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

Unity is acting together even when we don't think alike. And one of the primary aims of the American Constitution is to support a democracy of those unified in diversity. Yuval Levin joins Mark Labberton to explore the precarious state of American constitutional life and the imbalance of power between the branches of the U.S. government. Drawing from his book America's Covenant, Levin argues that the Founders designed the Constitution above all to preserve unity in a divided society. Yet today, he warns, the imbalance of power—particularly the weakness of Congress and the rise of presidential authority—threatens democratic legitimacy. In this conversation, Levin reflects on originalism, the courts, Donald Trump's expanding influence, and the dangers of both passivity and autocracy. With clarity and urgency, he calls for renewed civic engagement and for Congress to reclaim its central role.

Episode Highlights

1. "Unity doesn't mean thinking alike. Unity means acting together. And the question for a modern political society is how do we act together when we don't think alike?"
2. "The biggest problem we have is that Congress is under-active, radically under-active and has turned itself into a spectator."
3. "The president is in charge of the executive branch, but the executive branch is not in charge of the American government."
4. "I am very concerned about this kind of Caesar-ism. I think it is very dangerous."
5. "What we're seeing is constitutional creep, where the president is pushing and nobody's pushing back, and only Congress can do it."
6. "I worry a lot about Donald Trump. But the reason I worry is because Congress isn't doing its job."
7. "The politics of an autocratic state is a politics of spectators, and we just cannot become spectators."
8. "All of us will find ourselves in the minority sooner or later."

Helpful Links and Resources

• America's Covenant: The Constitution and the Path to National Unity, by Yuval Levin
• American Enterprise Institute (Find Yuval Levin's current research and publications)
• *New York Times Opinion* – Yuval Levin's columns at the New York Times

About Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. He is the founder and editor of National Affairs, senior editor of The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024), which examines the U.S. Constitution through the lens of national unity in a divided society.

Show Notes

• Constitutional unity and division
• Yuval Levin summarizes America's Covenant as a reintroduction to the Constitution framed around the challenge of unity in diversity.
• "Unity doesn't mean thinking alike. Unity means acting together."
• The Constitution prioritizes bargaining, negotiation, and legitimacy over efficiency.
• Congress was designed as the "first branch" of government to embody pluralism and force compromise.
• The decline of Congress and rise of the presidency
• Levin argues Congress is radically under-active, ceding ground to presidents and courts.
• "The biggest problem we have is that Congress is under-active, radically under-active and has turned itself into a spectator."
• Excessive focus on the presidency erodes democratic legitimacy.
• Current frustrations stem from misunderstanding the system's design: it resists narrow majorities and forces broad coalitions.
• Courts, originalism, and the unitary executive
• Levin affirms he is an originalist: "a philosophy of judicial interpretation … a mode of self-restraint for judges."
• Supreme Court decisions in recent years repeatedly signal: "Congress, do your job."
• He outlines the unitary executive theory: the president controls the executive branch, but not the government as a whole.
• "The president is in charge of the executive branch, but the executive branch is not in charge of the American government."
• Trump's expanding power
• Levin warns of the growing push to centralize authority in the presidency.
• "I am very concerned about this kind of Caesar-ism. I think it is very dangerous."
• Trump's second term differs because restraints have vanished; his circle now encourages unrestrained executive action.
• Disruption of long-held norms has weakened trust in American institutions globally and domestically.
• Constitutional crisis vs. constitutional creep
• Levin distinguishes between "creep," "conflict," and "crisis."
• He argues the U.S. is experiencing constitutional creep: unchecked executive power without Congress pushing back.
• True crisis would involve direct defiance of the courts—something still possible but not yet realized.
• The role of citizens and civic responsibility
• Levin stresses the danger of passivity: "The politics of an autocratic state is a politics of spectators, and we just cannot become spectators."
• Citizens should keep writing to Congress, vote with clear expectations, and engage in local governance.
• State legislatures, though less visible, often function better than Congress today.
• Clear thinking itself, Levin suggests, is a moral act for a healthy republic.

Production Credits

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