The UpWords Podcast

This week on The UpWords Podcast, we're bringing you something a little different — and we think you're going to love it.

We're sharing the first episode of a brand-new podcast series from the Lumen Center and SLBF STUDIO: American Evangelicals, A History Podcast. Hosted by historians John Fea, Dan Hummel, and Maggie Capra, this series takes a thoughtful, deep dive into one of the most talked-about religious movements in American history.

In this opening episode, they start with a deceptively simple question: What is an American evangelical? Beginning with the extraordinary story of Nathan Cole, an ordinary Connecticut farmer who rode twelve miles on horseback in 1740 to hear George Whitefield preach, the historians trace the origins of what would become a world-shaping religious movement.

LEARN more about the series - https://slbf.org/americanevangelicalspodcast

Along the way, they discuss:

• The Bebbington Quadrilateral — the four markers historians use to define evangelicalism: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism
• Why the "new birth" or born-again experience is so central to evangelical identity
• George Whitefield's remarkable celebrity and his transatlantic influence
• How evangelicalism was, in its early form, a disruptive and progressive movement challenging established religious authority
• The complex relationship between the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution

If you've ever felt like the word "evangelical" is confusing, contested, or a little loaded, this conversation brings real historical clarity. This is episode one of a three-part introduction to evangelicalism — with much more to come in the series.

SUBSCRIBE to the podcast in your favorite podcast app - https://americanevangelicalsahistorypodcast.buzzsprout.com

And if this episode resonates, share it with someone who wants a deeper, more nuanced understanding of American evangelical history.

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Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

STUDIO at the SL Brown Foundation is launching a brand new podcast, and we wanted to share it with our faithful listeners of The UpWords Podcast. 

If you like what you hear, click the links below to subscribe or follow the show:

Listen on the web = https://americanevangelicalsahistorypodcast.buzzsprout.com

Apple Podcasts = https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/american-evangelicals-a-history-podcast/id1893672281

Spotify = https://open.spotify.com/show/1xxlIG0bcGbK8arTbYTCxF?si=7a70e3973cec47e5

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What if picking up a book could become a form of prayer? In this conversation, host John Terrill sits down with Jeff Crosby — publisher, author, and lifelong champion of the written word — to talk about his book World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading (Paraclete Press, 2025).

Jeff brings more than four decades in bookselling and publishing to a deeply personal question: why should we read? His own reading life began with Sunday comics in the Indianapolis Star and baseball biographies, until one book — The Admiral’s Daughter, heard about on Good Morning America — “flipped a switch” and opened, in his words, “this idea of a world of wonder.” From there, a career took shape: 13 years as a bookseller, 24 years at InterVarsity Press (ultimately as its publisher), and now as president of ECPA, the trade association of Christian publishing.

In this episode, John and Jeff discuss:

How a liturgy before reading — drawn from Douglas McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy — can transform how we approach any book

Why reading diverse voices (across gender, ethnicity, and genre) is a pathway toward becoming more human and more Christlike

The practice of rereading: how books like Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld and Kent Haruf’s novels serve as lifelong companions

Three practical strategies for becoming a wiser reader — including the one question Jeff asks almost everyone he meets

Why Jeff’s bookstore friend was counseled to fast from books — and what that revealed about his relationship to scripture

How reading together (from team check-ins at ECPA to hosting 75–100 person “Books in Nature” dinners) transforms community

Jeff’s next book: The Spirit in the Sky — on music, spirituality, and 17 artists from Paul Simon to Marvin Gaye (Bloomsbury, October 2025)

Jeff recorded this conversation the day before his mother’s memorial service, turning to the Psalms and a poetry collection called Joy (edited by Christian Wiman, Yale University Press) as companions in grief. His witness here is as much lived as written.

Guest Bio

Jeff Crosby is the president and CEO of ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) and has worked in bookselling and publishing for more than 40 years — from running a Lagos bookstore near Indiana University to 24 years at InterVarsity Press to leading the trade association of Christian publishing. He is the author of World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading (Paraclete Press, 2025) and The Language of the Soul. His writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Books & Culture, CRUX Journal, and other publications. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife, author Cindy Crosby.

 Resources Mentioned

• Jeff’s website: jeffreycrosby.net
• World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading — Jeff Crosby (Paraclete Press, 2025)
• The Spirit in the Sky: The Power of Music and Our Search for Graceland — Jeff Crosby (Bloomsbury, October 2025)
• Every Moment Holy — Douglas McKelvey
• Markings — Dag Hammarskjöld
• Reading for the Love of God — Jessica Hooten Wilson (Brazos Press)
• Joy (poetry anthology) — edited by Christian Wiman (Yale University Press)
• The Meaning of Your Life — Arthur C. Brooks

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CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What does it look like to be a faithful Christian in the public square without losing your soul in the process? In this conversation, host Rebecca Cooks sits down with Justin Giboney — attorney, ordained minister, political strategist, and co-founder of the AND Campaign — for a candid, thought-provoking dialogue on faith, politics, and moral imagination.

Drawing from his book Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, Giboney challenges Christians to move beyond partisan tribalism, recover the bold example of the Civil Rights generation, and engage culture with truth, justice, and the transforming power of the gospel.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How Giboney went from knocking on doors in Southwest Atlanta to running campaigns — and what he learned along the way
• What a “culture war” actually is, where it started, and why the Black church refused to be defined by it
• Why fighting against evil doesn’t automatically make you good — and what the Civil Rights generation understood that we’ve largely forgotten
• What “moral imagination” means: the ability to see not just what is, but what ought to be based on God’s character and promises
• Practical advice for Christians who feel stuck between candidates — including Giboney’s framework for values-based voting
• How to stay engaged when politics feels exhausting — and when it’s actually okay to step back
• The Shirley Chisholm story: what moral imagination looks like in action, and why it still has the power to change people

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Justin E. Giboney (JD, Vanderbilt) is the co-founder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization that equips Christians to engage in politics with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. He is an ordained minister, attorney, and political strategist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and Christianity Today. He is the author of Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around (IVP, 2025) and co-author of Compassion (&) Conviction (IVP, 2020).

RESOURCES

• Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around by Justin Giboney — ivpress.com
• The AND Campaign — andcampaign.org

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

Dallas Willard believed that the aim of God in human history is the formation of a community of loving persons — people apprenticed to Jesus, shaped by his character, and prepared to co-reign with him in eternity. In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Dan Hummel sits down with Keas Keasler, author of the first comprehensive academic study of Willard’s theology. Together they trace Willard’s life from Depression-era Missouri to the halls of USC, unpack the philosophical roots of his spiritual formation theology, and ask why his vision for discipleship feels especially urgent in the church today.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why Keas Keasler spent seven years researching Dallas Willard — and what he discovered that surprised him
• The key biographical facts of Willard’s life: a broken childhood, a pivotal choice between philosophy and seminary, and 47 years at USC
• How Willard’s friendship with Richard Foster and a small Quaker church in Southern California helped birth the modern spiritual formation movement
• Why Willard chose phenomenology — the study of consciousness — and how it shaped his theology of transformation
• What it means that Willard was a committed metaphysical and epistemic realist — and why that grounds everything he taught
• Willard’s vision of humans as co-rulers with God: what it means, what the parable of the pounds has to do with it, and why formation is training for that calling
• The famous Willard line: “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning” — and the sophisticated theology behind it
• The Golden Triangle of spiritual formation: the Holy Spirit, the spiritual disciplines, and the ordinary decisions of daily life
• The “sanctification gap” that Richard Lovelace identified in the 1970s — and why it has only widened since
• Why there is a crisis of character in the church today, and what Willard’s vision offers as a remedy

GUEST BIO

Keas Keasler (PhD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology at Friends University, where he also serves as Program Director of the MA in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership. He is a Research Affiliate of the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture and the Dallas Willard Research Center at Westmont College. An ordained Baptist minister, Keasler has traveled to over forty countries and preached on six continents.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Kingdom Apprenticeship by Keas Keasler (IVP Academic)
• Hearing God by Dallas Willard (IVP)
• Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard
• The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
• Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
• Becoming Dallas Willard by Gary Moon
• The Kingdom Among Us by Michael Stewart Robb
• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
• Conversatio.org – Dallas Willard Audio Archive (1,300+ recordings)
• The Martin Institute at Westmont College
• Renovaté

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

Artificial intelligence is everywhere — but what does it mean for us as humans, as embodied creatures, and as people of faith? In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Dan Johnson sits down with Noreen Herzfeld, a computer scientist turned theologian who has been thinking seriously about AI and humanity since the 1980s. Together they explore why we are driven to create AI in our own image, what Christian theology says about embodiment and relationship, and why the church should be cautious about AI.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why humans are compelled to create AI in their own image — and what that reveals about us
• How the Imago Dei (image of God) shifts from intellect to relationship in 20th-century theology — and why it matters for AI
• What Christianity's strong theology of embodiment means in a world increasingly dominated by language and the cloud
• Why AI chatbot "relationships" are fundamentally different from — and inferior to — human relationships
• Where AI has real, appropriate uses (narrow, domain-specific tools like AlphaFold) and where it falls dangerously short
• Why Noreen sees limited good use for AI in ministry — and significant risks in pastoral care and counseling settings
• How large language models differ fundamentally from earlier AI — and why they hallucinate
• The collision course between AI energy consumption and climate change
• Why Noreen would advise most people: don't use it at all

GUEST BIO

Noreen Herzfeld is one of the rare scholars who holds advanced degrees in both computer science and Christian theology. She earned her M.S. and M.A. from Penn State, took a sabbatical to study why humans want to build AI in our image, and ended up earning a Ph.D. in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. She has been teaching and writing at the intersection of technology and faith for over two decades. Her books include In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), and The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic World (Fortress, 2023). She also directs the Benedictine Spirituality and Ecotheology Program at St. John's School of Theology and Seminary and is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies in Koper, Slovenia.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Noreen Herzfeld's faculty page: csbsju.edu/sot/person/noreen-herzfeld/
• In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit — (Fortress Press, 2002)
• Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World — (Templeton, 2009)
• The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic World — (Fortress, 2023)
• AlphaFold (DeepMind protein folding AI) — deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold
• Sherry Turkle, MIT sociologist — referenced in discussion of chatbot relationships

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What does it mean to be human before God? In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Dan Johnson sits down with pastor and author Reed Dent, whose new book The Gospel of Being Human: How Asking Better Questions of the Bible Reveals Who We Are (co-authored with Marty Solomon) challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions in Christian culture: that being human is a problem to overcome. 

Drawing on Scripture and theology — from Genesis to Jonah to the death of Moses — Reed invites us to reconsider the story we've been told. Rather than seeing our humanity as something to escape, he makes a compelling case that it's the very point of the gospel. God doesn't want to replace your humanity. He wants to partner with it.

This is a rich and honest conversation about identity and what it looks like to live as a human being made in the image of God.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why the gospel is good news before its bad news — and how that changes everything
• How framing humanity as fundamentally broken shapes the way we read Scripture, pray, and relate to God
• What the story of Jonah reveals about mercy, anger, and the deeper questions the Bible is really asking
• How Genesis 2 and the story of Eve reframe our understanding of sin, guilt, and complexity
• Why the death of Moses challenges us to reconsider what our aim as human beings really is
• Practical guidance for walking someone through an identity crisis — rooted in belovedness, not shame
• How a richer biblical view of humanity offers a way forward for those disillusioned with the church
• What Psalm 139 teaches us about holding anger, brokenness, and trust together as one human experience

GUEST BIO
Reed Dent — Pastor, Author, and Campus Minister

Reed Dent is a pastor, campus minister, and co-author of The Gospel of Being Human alongside Marty Solomon (host of the BEMA Discipleship podcast). Reed has spent years working with college students — including at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — walking with 18-to-23-year-olds through questions of faith, identity, and what it means to follow Jesus in the real world. His writing and ministry are shaped by a conviction that Scripture, read on its own terms, consistently affirms the dignity and goodness of human beings made in the image of God.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• The Gospel of Being Human by Reed Dent & Marty Solomon (NavPress, April 2026): navpress.com
• Asking Better Questions of the Bible by Marty Solomon (companion book referenced in this episode)
• BEMA Discipleship Podcast (Marty Solomon): bema.tv 

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What role does forgiveness play in the hard, often painful work of building peace? In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Jean Geran sits down with her longtime friend Todd Deatherage, co-founder of Telos, a nonprofit helping leaders navigate conflict and work toward reconciliation in some of the world’s most challenging places.

Drawing from decades of experience in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the American South, Todd shares why forgiveness can’t be forced — but why, when it does happen, it has the power to break open even the most entrenched cycles of hurt. From the story of Mama Callie Greer in Montgomery, Alabama, to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa, this conversation is for anyone wrestling with what it means to pursue peace without sacrificing justice.

What You Will Learn

• Why forgiveness is essential to peacemaking — but can never be required or rushed
• The six principles of peacemaking that guide Telos’s work around the world
• The difference between inner transformation and systemic justice — and why both matter
• The story of Callie Greer: how one woman’s act of forgiveness launched a lifetime of advocacy
• What the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa teaches us about truth, forgiveness, and communal healing
• Why forgiveness across communal lines creates space for the offender to be transformed — not just the victim
• How restorative justice works, and why the American criminal legal system leaves so little room for repair
• The meaning of shalom — and why “peace” is a pale translation
• Communal responsibility, historical injustice, and what it means to say “I’m not responsible”
• Why “hurt people hurt people” — and why healed people have the power to bring healing to the world

Guest Bio

Todd Deatherage spent ten years on Capitol Hill and six years at the U.S. State Department working on human rights and international religious freedom — where he and Jean first became friends and colleagues. In 2009, he co-founded Telos, a nonprofit that helps leaders better understand conflict and equips them to pursue reconciliation and peace in some of the world’s most difficult contexts. Telos has created experiential learning journeys in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the American South (Restory Us). Todd’s work is deeply rooted in his Christian faith and his conviction that justice, peacemaking, and forgiveness are inseparable.

Resources & Links

• Telos: telosgroup.org
• Restory Us (experiential learning in the American South): telosgroup.org
• One Day After Peace — documentary referenced in this episode
• Poor People’s Campaign (Rev. William Barber): poorpeoplescampaign.org
• Previous UpWords Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Enright on forgiveness: slbf.org/studio
• Listen and view other podcasts in the Forgivness Series: https://slbf.org/questions-of-faith-podcast-episodes

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What does it mean to give yourself fully to something — a marriage, a calling, a city, a cause — and still make peace with the fact that you won't get everything you hoped for? In this episode of The Upwards Podcast, host John Terrill sits down with professor, author, and longtime friend Steve Garber for a wide-ranging conversation about vocation, faithfulness in a particular place over time, and the trap of dualism.

Drawing on literature, theology, biography, and lived experience, Steve invites listeners into the central question of his new book, Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate - Is it worth doing something that matters, even when you don’t get everything you hoped for?

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
00:00 — Introduction: Steve Garber and the questions that have shaped his life and writing

03:26 — Steve’s father, plant pathology, and the question of germination: how a scientist’s work became a metaphor for vocation

07:52 — Dropping out of college, living in communes, and what those years taught Steve about the nature of learning

11:40 — “Common grace for the common good”: why a theology of common grace matters for how we work in the world

16:40 — “Vocation is integral, not incidental”: what it means to live seamlessly, without dualism

17:59 — Can you know the world and still love it? Making peace with the proximate: the essay that became a life philosophy

21:31 — Who is this book written for? How Steve’s audience has grown from university students to the whole world

28:39 — Telos and praxis: the fundamental question of the book — is it worth doing something that matters if you don’t get everything you hoped for?

33:19 — Already but not yet: Tolkien, Frodo, and what the last pages of The Return of the King taught Steve in his 60s that he missed at 20

36:36 — The Clapham Community, Wendell Berry, and why commitment to a people and a place matters

41:26 — NT Wright on joy and sorrow woven into the fabric of a life

44:45 — The perennial question: What does it mean to be human in 2026?

49:23 — What Steve may write next: pedagogy and learning “over the shoulder and through the heart”

ABOUT STEVE GARBER

Steven Garber was professor of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College, Vancouver, and the principal of The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation & Culture. A consultant to foundations, corporations, and schools, he is a teacher of many people in many places. His books include Visions of Vocation and The Fabric of Faithfulness, and he is a contributor to the books Faith Goes to Work: Reflections from the Marketplace and Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalogue.

BOOKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

• Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate by Steve Garber (Paraclete Press, 2026)
• The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior by Steve Garber (IVP, 1996; revised ed. 2007)
• Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good by Steve Garber (IVP, 2014)
• The Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King) by J.R.R. Tolkien (George Allen & Unwin, 1955)
• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (Knopf, 1961)
• Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)
• The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness by Peter L. Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner (Random House, 1973)

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What does it take to build a city where every person truly belongs? In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, we walk the streets of Madison, Wisconsin — metaphorically and literally — with two people who have spent their careers shaping it.

Host Rebecca Cooks welcomes Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison Inc., and Peter Tan, architect and Chief Design Officer Emeritus of Strang Inc., to discuss placemaking, the shifting character of downtown, the challenges of growth, and what it actually means to build a flourishing city for everyone.

From the magic of Memorial Union Terrace to the bold vision of the Envision Madison plan, this conversation is for anyone who loves their city and wants to understand how to make it better.

In This Episode

• Why Jason and Peter both call Madison's Union Terrace the city's "living room"
• The transformation of the East Washington corridor over 30 years
• What the Envision Madison plan is — and how you can have your say in shaping it
• The honest truth about gentrification: what it is, why it happens, and how good design can help
• Why development should always be seen as an opportunity, not a threat
• The "triple bottom line" for flourishing cities: people, planet, and profit
• Madison's approach to affordable housing — and why the most sustainable building is the one that already exists

GUEST BIOS

Jason Ilstrup — President, Downtown Madison Inc.

Jason has been a Madisonian since 2007 and has spent his career championing the city's downtown. As a former general manager of Hotel Red and now president of Downtown Madison Inc. (DMI), Jason brings hospitality, energy, and a deep love for people to the work of urban strategy and placemaking. He is currently leading the private-sector component of the landmark Envision Madison planning initiative.

Peter Tan — Architect & Chief Design Officer Emeritus, Strang Inc.

Peter moved to Madison in 1991 and has spent over three decades shaping the city's built environment. As an architect, he believes deeply that good design belongs to everyone — not just those with means. He has been involved in landmark projects across Madison.

Resources & Links
Envision Madison: downtownmadison.org

City of Madison planning resources: cityofmadison.com

CONNECT WITH US

Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour