This is our unabridged interview with James Kimmel, Jr.

There's a grievance that keeps coming back to you: in the shower, in traffic, at two in the morning. You replay it, win the argument again and settle the score again. It feels like justice, but it never quite satisfies. 

James Kimmel Jr. spent decades trying to understand that pull. At seventeen, he came within seconds of committing a mass shooting, then drove away and devoted his life to the question of why he had wanted it so badly. 

Now on the faculty of Yale's medical school, he makes a startling, evidence-backed claim: revenge is a literal addiction. A grievance activates the pain network in your brain, and your brain reaches for the dopamine hit of payback. It's why mass shooters are "grievance collectors," and why social media, in his words, has become a grievance transmission machine. But there's a second half to the story. Forgiveness, he argues, is a wonder drug we're already hardwired to take, one that stops the pain rather than masking it and asks nothing of the person who wronged you. Lee is invited to try it on the spot during the interview, and you can hear what happens. Listen as they discuss James’ new book, ⁠The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction - and How to Overcome It⁠.

Name the Grievance Revenge often begins with real pain, and recognizing that pain is the first step toward freedom.

Understand Your Brain Kimmel explains how grievance activates the brain’s pain network and makes retaliation feel rewarding.

Resist Revenge Culture From social media to entertainment, our culture often trains us to nurse grievances and seek payback.

Forgive Without Excusing Forgiveness does not require pardon, reconciliation, or staying in unsafe relationships; it can be an internal act of healing.

Practice Letting Go Imagining forgiveness, even briefly, can interrupt pain and open space for better choices.

Heal the Common Good Kimmel suggests that forgiveness is not only personal medicine but a social good that can help communities flourish.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with James Kimmel, Jr.⁠

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit ⁠⁠hiyahealth.com/NSE⁠⁠!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠

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Can creativity transform the darkness of your past?

Lee sits down with Grammy-nominated songwriter Thomm Jutz to discuss his grandfather's suicide, apparently after he was unable to come to terms with the fact that he'd been a Nazi, a friend lost to alcoholism, and Carl Jung's aid in his life, all while sharing songs he's written that helped heal his own inherited darkness.

This episode is a preview of a longer conversation.

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What does it mean when a “clean” and “family friendly” comedian supports the UFC Freedom 250 fight, rubbing shoulders with unethical and greedy billionaires? 

This isn’t really about Nate Bargatze. It's about all of us and the selective moral lines we draw. This week on The Subtext, Lee and Savannah wrestle with questions of public witness, private relationships, power, and consistency, looking to Jesus' encounters with both the oppressed and the powerful. In a world where every public act seems to communicate something, how do we live with integrity while practicing a morality that refuses to leave anyone behind?

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Scandalous Witness by Lee C. Camp

Who Is My Enemy? by Lee C. Camp

Mere Discipleship by Lee C. Camp

Missing Me by Ayana Lage

Biological War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen (episode out on No Small Endeavor July 27th!)

Savannah's Substack article: "The toothless, selective moralism of a Nate Bargatze Christianity" 

Musa al-Gharbi on No Small Endeavor

Brother to a Dragonfly by Will Campbell

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone

Loretta Ross on No Small Endeavor

40% OFF SCANDALOUS WITNESS: Use code WITNESS40. Code is good for 40% off the paperback of Scandalous Witness. Only valid when ordering on Eerdmans.com, only valid for USA shipping addresses. Code is good until end of 2026.

Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok

Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter

Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack

Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a grievance that keeps coming back to you: in the shower, in traffic, at two in the morning. You replay it, win the argument again and settle the score again. It feels like justice, but it never quite satisfies. 

James Kimmel Jr. spent decades trying to understand that pull. At seventeen, he came within seconds of committing a mass shooting, then drove away and devoted his life to the question of why he had wanted it so badly. 

Now on the faculty of Yale's medical school, he makes a startling, evidence-backed claim: revenge is a literal addiction. A grievance activates the pain network in your brain, and your brain reaches for the dopamine hit of payback. It's why mass shooters are "grievance collectors," and why social media, in his words, has become a grievance transmission machine. But there's a second half to the story. Forgiveness, he argues, is a wonder drug we're already hardwired to take, one that stops the pain rather than masking it and asks nothing of the person who wronged you. Lee is invited to try it on the spot during the interview, and you can hear what happens. Listen as they discuss James’ new book, The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction - and How to Overcome It.

Name the Grievance Revenge often begins with real pain, and recognizing that pain is the first step toward freedom.

Understand Your Brain Kimmel explains how grievance activates the brain’s pain network and makes retaliation feel rewarding.

Resist Revenge Culture From social media to entertainment, our culture often trains us to nurse grievances and seek payback.

Forgive Without Excusing Forgiveness does not require pardon, reconciliation, or staying in unsafe relationships; it can be an internal act of healing.

Practice Letting Go Imagining forgiveness, even briefly, can interrupt pain and open space for better choices.

Heal the Common Good Kimmel suggests that forgiveness is not only personal medicine but a social good that can help communities flourish.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with James Kimmel, Jr.

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit ⁠hiyahealth.com/NSE⁠!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp 

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This is our unabridged interview with Lee C. Camp.

In a rare role reversal, No Small Endeavor host Lee C. Camp takes the guest seat as theologian and journalist Russell Moore interviews him about his book, releasing in paperback July 2nd, Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. 

Rather than offering a defense of Christian power in America, Lee reckons honestly with the ways Christians have often been bad neighbors, especially when faith has been reduced to “values” extracted from the story of Jesus and used to control others. Together, Lee and Russell explore how Christian witness might still serve the common good through humility, prudence, and the imaginative power of art. In a divided and weary public life, this episode asks what it would mean for Christians, and all people seeking the good life, to trade domination for service, despair for action, and ideology for the patient work of human flourishing.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Lee C. Camp

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit ⁠hiyahealth.com/NSE⁠!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The paperback edition of Lee's book just dropped, and Savannah's got questions!

Savannah and Lee are celebrating the paperback release of Scandalous Witness by working through the book’s big ideas: why Christianity is not a religion but a politic, liberalism, Romans 13, the dream of a Christian America, and, perhaps most important, why Lee can’t stand the word "countercultural.” Use code WITNESS40 for 40% off the paperback, and don't forget to enter the giveaway on Instagram.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

40% OFF SCANDALOUS WITNESS: Use code WITNESS40. Code is good for 40% off the paperback of Scandalous Witness. Only valid when ordering on Eerdmans.com, only valid for USA shipping addresses. Code is good until end of 2026.

ENTER TO WIN A FREE COPY: Follow @thesubtextshow and tag a friend to enter! Giveaway closes on Tuesday, July 7th, 2026 at 11:59pm CT. 

ORDER SCANDALOUS WITNESS: Amazon | Barnes & Nobel | Bookshop.org | Eerdmans

Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok

Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter

Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack

Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a rare role reversal, No Small Endeavor host Lee C. Camp takes the guest seat as theologian and journalist Russell Moore interviews him about his book, releasing in paperback July 2nd, Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. 

Rather than offering a defense of Christian power in America, Lee reckons honestly with the ways Christians have often been bad neighbors, especially when faith has been reduced to “values” extracted from the story of Jesus and used to control others. Together, Lee and Russell explore how Christian witness might still serve the common good through humility, prudence, and the imaginative power of art. In a divided and weary public life, this episode asks what it would mean for Christians, and all people seeking the good life, to trade domination for service, despair for action, and ideology for the patient work of human flourishing.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Lee C. Camp⁠

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit ⁠⁠hiyahealth.com/NSE⁠⁠!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is our unabridged interview with Allison Russell.

How does someone turn a childhood marked by danger and loss into a life full of music, courage, and joy?

Allison Russell’s life has been marked by trauma, survival, and a persistent return to beauty. After leaving an abusive home as a teenager and finding refuge in the streets and music of Montreal, she slowly discovered that art could become more than escape.  It could become a way to tell the truth and stay alive. In this conversation, Russell reflects on the making of her breakthrough album Outside Child, the ancestral stories shaping her upcoming memoir, and the hard-won practices of forgiveness, motherhood, and community that help her keep choosing joy. 

Key ideas in this episode:

Choose Joy Anyway Russell describes joy not as denial, but as a daily practice that can coexist with grief, trauma, and uncertainty.

Transform Pain Through Art Music becomes a refuge, a release, and a way of metabolizing suffering into something that can help others heal.

Recover Your Lineage Russell’s search for her biological father and Black family history reveals how ancestry can deepen identity, resilience, and belonging.

Break Cycles of Harm Forgiveness, for Russell, is not excusing abuse but refusing to let vengeance determine the shape of her life.

Practice Radical Belonging Her work in harm reduction and housing equality taught her that every person deserves safety, dignity, and loving kindness.

Return to the Body Walking, running, yoga, nature, and music help Russell stay grounded while doing the difficult inner work of memoir and memory.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Allison Russell

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit ⁠hiyahealth.com/NSE⁠!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re doing a temperature check of different cultural artifacts, including the UFC Freedom 250 fight, open theism, the gift of anger, and skinny culture.

This week on The Subtext, Savannah and Lee do a full cultural temperature check. They react to the UFC Freedom 250 chaos (yes, including that post-fight interview), dig into a listener’s question about Open Theism and whether God actually knows how the story ends, explore why anger gets genderized, and wade into the online debate around ultra-thin bodies and who gets to say something. It's theology, body politics, and combat sports…all in one episode! Just another day for us.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul

Please Use AI by Shawn Smucker

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Suzanne Stabile on No Small Endeavor

Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok

Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter

Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack

Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does someone turn a childhood marked by danger and loss into a life full of music, courage, and joy?

Allison Russell’s life has been marked by trauma, survival, and a persistent return to beauty. After leaving an abusive home as a teenager and finding refuge in the streets and music of Montreal, she slowly discovered that art could become more than escape.  It could become a way to tell the truth and stay alive. In this conversation, Russell reflects on the making of her breakthrough album Outside Child, the ancestral stories shaping her upcoming memoir, and the hard-won practices of forgiveness, motherhood, and community that help her keep choosing joy. 

Key ideas in this episode:

Choose Joy Anyway Russell describes joy not as denial, but as a daily practice that can coexist with grief, trauma, and uncertainty.

Transform Pain Through Art Music becomes a refuge, a release, and a way of metabolizing suffering into something that can help others heal.

Recover Your Lineage Russell’s search for her biological father and Black family history reveals how ancestry can deepen identity, resilience, and belonging.

Break Cycles of Harm Forgiveness, for Russell, is not excusing abuse but refusing to let vengeance determine the shape of her life.

Practice Radical Belonging Her work in harm reduction and housing equality taught her that every person deserves safety, dignity, and loving kindness.

Return to the Body Walking, running, yoga, nature, and music help Russell stay grounded while doing the difficult inner work of memoir and memory.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Allison Russell⁠

Thank you to our sponsors:

Hiya: Receive 50% off your first order on any of their products. Visit hiyahealth.com/NSE!

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.

No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices