What’s actually happening to the church in America and why does it matter beyond Sunday morning? In this episode I’m joined by Ryan Burge, a social scientist who studies religion in the U.S. and brings long-term data, charts, and lived pastoral experience into a conversation often driven by fear or nostalgia. We discuss his book The Vanishing Church, the quiet decline of the moderate church, the rise of polarization inside Christianity, and how broader cultural tribalism has reshaped faith communities. We also explore the growth of the religious “nones,” why church closures are happening steadily but largely unnoticed, and what’s lost when the church can no longer function as a space where people learn how to live together across difference.

Ryan Burge is professor of practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Before that he was an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, and was also the graduate coordinator. He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside four books about religion and politics in the United States. He has written for the New York Times, POLITICO, and the Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared in an NBC Documentary, on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, as well as 60 Minutes which called him, “one of the country’s leading data analysts on religion and politics.” He served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years, leading First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, IL for 17.5 years until its closure in July 2024. He has been married to his wife Jacqueline for over seventeen years. They have two boys.

Ryan's Book:

The Vanishing Church

Ryan's Recommendation:

Dominion

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What does it mean to take Jesus seriously when he announces good news to the poor, freedom for the captive, and release from debt? In this episode of Shifting Culture, I’m joined by theologian and practitioner Kelley Nikondeha to talk about her new book Jubilee Economics and the disruptive, concrete vision of Jubilee found in Scripture. We explore why Jubilee was never just a spiritual metaphor but a real economic practice involving debt forgiveness, land, labor, and community restoration. Kelley shares stories from her work in Burundi—where economic collapse forced hard, human decisions about care, reentry, and neighbor-love—and helps us reframe Jesus’s sermon in Luke 4 as dangerous, embodied good news. This conversation asks what Jubilee might look like today, and what it might cost us to love our neighbors well in a debt-saturated world.

Kelley Nikondeha is a liberation theologian, community development practitioner, and author of First Advent in Palestine and Defiant. She is Co-founder of Communities of Hope in Burundi.

Kelley's Book:

Jubilee Economics

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As 2025 comes to a close, I wanted to pause and look back, not at what was loud or polarizing, but at what people actually stayed with. This episode gathers the 10 most listened to conversations of the year, and together they reveal something honest about this moment: a deep longing for a faith shaped by humility instead of power, a discipleship rooted in real life, and a way of Jesus that resists fear, shame, and easy answers. This episode counts down from #10 to #1. I introduce each clip, then step back and let the voices speak for themselves. You’ll hear excerpts from conversations with John Eldredge, Sheila Gregoire, Trevor Hudson, Michael John Cusick, Kerry Burnight, Matthew Bates, Beth Allison Barr, Andrew Root, and John Fugelsang voices that helped shape Shifting Culture this year and, judging by the listens, shaped many of you as well.

Episodes featured:

Ep. 280 Andrew Root - Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of HappinessEp. 287 Sheila Gregoire - The Marriage You WantEp. 327 Dr. Kerry Burnight - JoyspanEp. 281 Beth Allison Barr - Becoming the Pastor's WifeEp. 259 Trevor Hudson - Discerning God's Will in Our LivesEp. 314 Daniel Hummel - The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism Ep. 257 Michael John Cusick - Sacred AttachmentEp. 279 Matthew Bates - What Does the Bible Really Say About Salvation?Ep. 278 John Eldredge - Experience Jesus. Really.Ep. 341 John Fugelsang - Separation of Church and Hate

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In this episode, I am joined by Lore Wilbert and Byron Borger for a roundtable countdown of our top ten books of 2025. Moving from number ten to number one, we reflect on the novels, memoirs, theology, and cultural criticism that most shaped our reading year. Along the way, the conversation opens into deeper questions about faith and doubt, grief and hope, community and isolation, and what it means to stay human in an anxious, mechanized world. Rather than chasing trends, this episode lingers with books that slowed us down, challenged empire, and pointed toward love, imagination, and faithful presence. This is a conversation about reading as formation and why the stories we choose matter more than ever.

Go to Hearts and Minds Books to order any of these books and let Byron know you heard about them from Shifting Culture.

Lore’s List:

10. The Serviceberry

9. The Signature of All Things

8. Heating and Cooling

7. Great Circle

6. Nervous Systems

5. Wild Dark Shore

4. Monsters

3. The Names

2. Circle of Hope

1. The Correspondent

Byron’s List:

10. Becoming God’s Family

9. The Core of the Christian Faith

8. You Can Trust a God with Scars

7. Liturgies for Resisting Empire

6. The Violent Take it by Force

5. Bear Witness

4. Rags of Light

3. Good Soil

2. The Last Supper

1. World of Wonders

Joshua’s List:

10. Making Time

9. We Tell Ourselves Stories

8. Wild Dark Shore

7. Spellbound

6. The Anti-Greed Gospel

5. The Teacher of Nomad Land

4. Twelve Churches

3. The Correspondent

2. Christ in the Rubble

1. A Beautiful Year

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In this episode, I sit down with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere for a thoughtful conversation about empathy - what it really is, why it’s so often misunderstood, and why it matters for the way of Jesus. We talk about God’s great empathy for us and how the incarnation reveals a God who enters our experience, not just intellectually but emotionally and bodily. Together, we explore the role of emotions in the spiritual life, the weight of shame and grief, the reality of compassion fatigue, and how empathy, truth, and responsibility belong together. This conversation is an invitation to receive God’s love more deeply and to learn how that love reshapes the way we live, love, and care for others.

Bill is a psychologist (PhD) and ordained pastor and Kristi is a licensed professional counselor (PsyD). Together they lead Soul Shepherding, which is a nonprofit ministry to help pastors, leaders, churches, and others to go deeper with Jesus in emotional health and loving leadership. They lead immersive retreats that integrate Jesus-centered psychology and spiritual formation. Participants have the option to earn a Certificate in Spiritual Direction to improve their relationship skills and earn side income as a spiritual director or coach. They are authors of a number of soul care books, including Journey of the Soul, which was #1 on Amazon in Christian Counseling, and Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith. Their newest book is Deeply Loved: Receiving and Reflecting God’s Great Empathy for You.

Bill & Kristi's Book:

Deeply Loved

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In this episode, I’m joined by theologian and storyteller Leonard Sweet for a deep conversation on the imagination of Jesus and why imagination is central to faith, discipleship, and what it means to be human. We talk about how Jesus doesn’t simply explain reality but reshapes it through story and metaphor, and why Jubilee sits at the heart of his vision for the world. We also explore what it means to move beyond fear-based, information-driven faith toward a life where Christ is formed in us. This conversation is an invitation to move from knowing about God to truly knowing God, and to live with an imagination shaped by goodness, beauty, and truth.

Leonard Sweet is one of the most prolific Christian authors in the world today, with over 70 books to his name—and a dozen more on the way–and 2000 published sermons. A theologian of imagination, a semiotician of Bible and culture, and a prophetic voice to the church, Sweet defies easy categorization. His works span genres and generations, challenging readers to see the world—and the gospel—with fresh eyes. While others chase bestseller lists, Sweet charts a different path: one defined not by sales, but by depth, creativity, and theological daring.

Len's Book:

Jesus: Maker, Mender, Minder, Master

Len's Recommendation:

They Flew: A History of the Impossible

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In this episode, pastor and author Kate Murphy shares the surprising story behind Lost, Hidden, Small, a season when ministry fell apart, illusions shattered, and the only way forward was surrender. Kate reflects on discovering that God often does His deepest work in places that look like failure, weakness, and smallness, and how her congregation learned to see again, love their neighbors without transaction, and trust God for resurrection they could not manufacture. This conversation offers a hopeful reminder that faithfulness, not success, is the true metric of the kingdom, and that the quiet and hidden work of God in ordinary communities still creates life beyond anything we can imagine.

Kate Murphy serves as the pastor of The Grove Presbyterian Church, a multi-ethnic congregation in Charlotte NC. Originally from Louisville, KY, she studied biology and music at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. She received her Masters of Divinity and Masters of Sacred Theology from Boston University and accepted her first call to be an Associate Pastor at Fourth Presbyterian, a multicultural, inner-city church in South Boston. She's just published her first book, Lost Hidden Small. In her free time, Kate enjoys running, reading, writing, drinking coffee, and watching pointless reality television. She and her husband Colin have three daughters.

Kate's Book:

Lost, Hidden, Small

Kate's Recommendations:

Looking Inward, Living Outward

Field Notes for the Wilderness

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Journalist and author William J. Kole joins me to unpack the deep and often hidden ties between white evangelicalism, politics, fear, and America’s gun culture. Drawing from his new book In Guns We Trust, Bill shares how his own ministry collided with concealed weapons, why fear has shaped so much of the church’s response to gun violence, and how Christian nationalism and the idolizing of the Second Amendment have influenced our national crisis. We talk about the shift from historic Christian nonviolence to the embrace of firearms, the political power that keeps common-sense reforms stalled, and what other countries have done to reduce mass shootings. We also explore why “thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough and what a truly pro-life ethic demands of us today. If you long to break cycles of violence and return to the nonviolent way of Jesus, this is an essential and challenging conversation.

William J. Kole is a veteran journalist and a former foreign correspondent who has reported from North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. As Vienna bureau chief for The Associated Press, he wrote extensively on the nexus of crime, the weapons trade, arms trafficking and terrorism across Eastern Europe.

His evangelical credentials are as extensive as his journalistic ones: He’s a former lay missionary for the Assemblies of God, a worship leader at evangelical churches in Europe and around his native New England, and served as board president of Dorcas USA, an international Christian relief and development agency.

Kole was AP’s New England bureau chief when a gunman armed with a military-style assault rifle massacred 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Earlier in his career, he was a lead writer on the car crash that killed Britain’s Princess Diana, and he also covered the arrest of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the death of Pope John Paul II, and Kosovo’s independence. His many awards include one from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers for an investigation into the exploitation of undocumented immigrants by the Walmart retail chain.

Kole, who speaks French, Dutch and German, studied journalism at Boston University and was a journalism fellow at Columbia University in New York and the National Press Foundation in Washington, D.C. Now an editor for Axios, he lives in Providence, R.I., and Paris.

Bill's Book:

In Guns We Trust

Bill's Recommendation:

Jesus and John Wayne

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In this conversation, I sit down with Dorothy Greco to explore misogyny not just as individual prejudice, but as a system that shapes our culture, our institutions, our churches, and even our closest relationships. Dorothy walks me through how misogyny shows up in medicine, economics, purity culture, pornography, and the daily lives of women, and why it remains so difficult to see and name. We talk about the ways entitlement and distorted power sustain this harm, and how the way of Jesus offers a radically different vision, one rooted in dignity, equality, and mutual flourishing. This episode invites all of us to look beneath the surface, recognize what’s been hidden in plain sight, and imagine what healing and justice might require from us moving forward.

Dorothy Littel Greco has worked as a photojournalist for more than forty years. She is the author of three books, including the recently released, For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. When Dorothy is not writing or making photos, she loves to bike, kayak, and share food with friends.

Dorothy's Book:

For the Love of Women

Dorothy's Recommendation:

This is Happiness

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In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Valentyn Syniy, president of a theological seminary in Kherson, to explore what it means to lead, shepherd, and hold on to hope in the midst of war. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Valentyn lost almost everything - his home, his church community, and the entire seminary campus he helped build. Yet in the chaos of evacuation, the trauma of displacement, and the destruction of his city, he discovered a deeper sense of calling and a renewed understanding of God’s presence in suffering. We talk about spiritual leadership under siege, the impossible decisions families face when war arrives at their doorstep, the wound and weight of leaving or staying, the formation of pastors for a traumatized nation, and the surprising ways God rebuilds what has been shattered. Valentyn’s story, captured in his book Serving God Under Siege, is both heartbreaking and hopeful - a gripping reminder that faith can survive the fire and that the voices of Ukrainians must be heard. This episode invites you into a story of resilience, courage, and a theology forged under pressure.

Valentyn Syniy holds master’s degrees in theology and history and a doctorate in theology. Since 2006, he has served as president of Tavriski Christian Institute, an evangelical seminary in Ukraine.

Valentyn's Book:

Serving God Under Siege

Connect with Joshua: [email protected]

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