The Pocket Contemplative

Charles Park's parents saw a fifth of their fellow Koreans die in the Korean War. Adey Wassink grew up surrounded by Holocaust survivors. They've discovered that such massive trauma affects how a whole generation can process emotions or pain, which then passes on the trauma to their children and even their children's children in ways that can feel crazy-making. But this isn't just about Koreans and Jews. How do one generation's traumas change everything for the next?

Tom let Dave sit in on a rip-roaring conversation about Charlottesville among his interracial family, some of whom live in North Carolina, some of whom have gotten doctorates studying race related issues.

John ZuHone is a Harvard astrophysicist who grew up in a conservative Christian home that believed in a 6,000-year-old universe. Still a Christian, he has profound observations about what the latest discoveries say about the universe we're living in. 

American Christians are at a combative and polarized place. Dave wrote an article recently which, provocatively, talked about how any of us navigate finding a living God in a world where perhaps we think some other Christians "suck"--and we suspect they think the same of us. Dave and Tom talk about this and related topics like: what does it look like to be cheerful in this polarized world?

David P. Gushee is, if it's possible!, a big-cheese Christian ethicist. After his 2014 book Changing Our Minds--which chronicles a process of rethinking LGBTQ inclusion in evangelical churches--he entered a new, post-evangelical world. Many Blue Ocean churches are familiar with this process. Dave and Tom have a rich conversation with Dr. Gushee.

This last year has been quite a moment for Indian and Pakistani comedians to shine as they explore first-generation immigrant issues, connecting to parents from very different upbringings, and what it's like to feel "other" from mainstream culture. It turns out that these address things everyone experiences. Tom, Dave and guest Manisha Munshi explore this new cultural moment.

Six months into the Trump presidency, Dave and Tom check in with Francine Kiefer, congressional correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, about her reflections about what's happening on Capitol Hill. What are the effects of the health care comings and goings and the Russia investigation on how our democracy is functioning? And what is it like to be a congressional correspondent in these chaotic times?

The Reformation introduced many rallying cries that started with the Latin word "sola," meaning "alone." "Sola Fide"--"by faith alone"--largely created the Lutheran Church, for instance. But the dominant American expression of Christianity, starting with the Puritans and continuing with evangelicalism, was largely kicked off by another "sola"--"Sola Scriptura," "by Scripture alone." It introduced both widespread Bible reading and also our current version of the culture wars. Tom and Dave tap into a broad faith conversation happening now about whether Sola Scriptura has run its course and whether Christians might find more promise in what some are calling "Solus Jesus."

You've no doubt noticed that public conversation in our country has more and more retreated into two self-reinforcing silos that had formally been on the margins: religious people who feel threatened by secular, scientific-worldview people and vice versa. Geoff Mitelman, a rabbi, is convening groups of high-level science and faith people from across the country to combat this. Tom has just finished participating in one of Geoff's groups called Sinai and Synapses. He and Dave talk with Geoff about what he's been learning.