Humanize Me

Gayle Jordan is the Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Recovering from Religion, which connects people with support on their journeys out of religious faith. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Gayle talks about her own deconversion story, the work of her organization, the helpline it operates, the common issues people face after losing or leaving faith, and encouraging people to get involved.

In this episode, Bart Campolo talks about the most meaningful or humanizing episodes of other podcasts. It's 20 minutes of thoughtful recommendations! Here are the individual episodes we recommend most highly. To hear why they're recommended, listen to the episode! Enjoy.

Not every family allows you to listen in on their personal conversations. But in this episode, Bart Campolo sits down with his son Roman where they talk about fathers and sons, Bart's relationship with his dad Tony, competitiveness, choosing diplomacy over conflict, Bart's self-identity as a guy who doesn't put his best effort into succeeding, and the question of whether changing situations is easier than changing your resilience to them. Part 2 of this conversation can be found on Patreon.com/HumanizeMe.

This classic conversation with The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, is one of the most shared episodes we've ever done. Hemant talks with Bart Campolo about squeezing more life out of our awareness of death, and making the most of the precious opportunity we have in our moments of consciousness.

Want to change someone's mind? David Fleischer, of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, has discovered more reliably than perhaps anybody else how to do it. As he puts it: 'We’re the first to reduce any form of prejudice in a measurable, long-lasting way with a relatively simple intervention: a 10 minute one-on-one conversation that we call deep canvassing.' In this episode of Humanize Me, David joins Bart Campolo for a conversation about his background story, how he started experimenting with different ways to talk to the people who voted against them on California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in 2008, his view that progressive people especially have an irrational confidence in rationality', how human rapport, common ground and stories are the basis of changing minds, and how listening is at the heart of it all.

On Episode 420, we answered a question from a listener about gaining confidence in social situations. Bart Campolo's advice centered around showing curiosity in others, and making the interactions about the other people. But what if you don't find other people interesting? What if you're not curious at all about the people in these social settings? How should one cultivate such curiosity? In this episode, Bart has lots of thoughts in a row.

Amber Scorah was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She tells the story of her 'deconversion' in her book, 'Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life'. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Amber talks about what it was like to believe fully, what it's like to disbelieve now, how her relationships were affected, the death of her young son Karl on his first day in childcare, her views on life now, and much more.

This question is one about confidence: 'I love the stuff you guys are doing about friendship, but I think it assumes a level of confidence in social situations that I don’t feel. How do I generate the kind of confidence that will enable me to initiate conversations or hold my own in social settings?' Bart has no fast-track to universal confidence to offer, but in this episode he shares a multi-point strategy that will give you a solid footing in social situations and lead to higher confidence.

When a tragedy happens, people tend to run from the pain. Dr. Kate Wiebe runs toward it. Kate is the founder and director of the Institute for Trauma and Growth, which started with a focus on faith communities and has since expanded. When a mass shooting, disaster or other tragedy strikes, Kate and her team deploy to teach leaders restorative strategies for personal and group growth. In this episode, Bart Campolo talks with Kate about what she's learned about trauma and crises, why people don’t go to counseling, collective trauma, the bond of survivors, healing, the role of faith and (even secular) spirituality, being heard, resiliency and more.