The Whole Person Revolution

When the word "evangelicalism" is mentioned today, few are quiet with their opinions. But just what is its mission and personality, current state and future trajectory? In this episode, Anne talks to Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and finds her frustrations mollified. Join them as they explore the precise shape of hope for a more socially transformative witness, one that doesn't just protect its cultural bedfellows but also self-purifies to serve as salt in the nation.

The American political system today thrives on division and demonization, forcing politicians to prioritize winning electoral votes over and above solving complex issues through cooperation. In the context of such entrenched dysfunction, is it possible to reshape the incentives? Katherine Gehl is an entrepreneur with a big idea: Final Five Voting. This innovative approach employs an instant runoff system and ranked ballots, promoting healthy competition and transforming bipartisan cooperation into an asset rather than a threat.

How to form a diverse coalition on a volatile topic like immigration reform? Our guest Ali Noorani was tackling this very question while leading the National Immigration Forum for fourteen years. Now, from his new seat in philanthropy at the Hewlett Foundation, Ali continues to explore the processes behind shifts in attitude, values, and public policy on immigration, keeping in mind proposals that would benefit the whole country.

How are you bringing people into your life, into your space and story? Comment managing editor Beca Bruder welcomes Bri Stensrud, the director of Women of Welcome, to shed light on the shifting attitudes of evangelicals in the United States towards immigrants and refugees. At the heart of their discussion is the transformative power of embracing curiosity about others, inviting them to come a little closer, and displacing fear with generosity.

When it comes to stirring a movement that will last, is it better to begin by diagnosing a shared problem, or rather to start with the power of possibility and the gifts already present? A seasoned sower of the common good, Peter Block has an opinion.

At what level do vast social and ecological problems begin? Elizabeth Oldfield is host of The Sacred podcast and the former director of Theos, the leading religion and society think tank in the U.K., where she oversaw a range of ambitious attempts to influence legislation, inform journalists, and leaven the cultural atmosphere in public life. She left Theos two years ago with a hunch that some of the largest societal cancers we face germinate in the broken places of relationship and disconnection—with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with the earth. In response, she and her family have gone all-in on an intentional Christian community in east London, discerning day by day how to live out an alternative way of life in an urban, highly individualistic and consumerist context.

We have as much access to entertainment as we have ever had in history, yet nothing catches our attention. What is really happening when we are bored, and what does it say about us? Kevin Gary is the author of the book Why Boredom Matters and the essay "To the Bored All Things Are Boring." In conversation with our associate editor Jeff Reimer, Gary dives deep into the nuances between situational and existential boredom, and how it affects our perception of life.

Most of us have a movie in our memory banks that changed, forever after, the way we understand the nature of reality, of life in this world. Award-winning filmmaker Ben Rekhi has committed his talents to the conviction that movies are uniquely equipped to educate our emotions and shape our beliefs. Ben has directed and produced films as wide-ranging as Waterborne, The Ashram, Watch List, and The Reunited States, and he has more up his sleeve. In this episode, Rekhi reflects with Anne on the relationship between film and social change—what it has been, what it is today, and what it could yet be.

Real and enduring social change can feel impossible when it seems our society has split into a million fragments. How does collective action succeed when our lenses are so individuated? Christy Vines founded the Ideos Institute to solve just this problem, discovering "empathic intelligence" as a strategic way of living and engaging with the created order around us. She talks with Anne about the formation of this intelligence—how exactly it can be learned and taught.