No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

What if the greatest danger of artificial intelligence isn’t what it might do someday, but the power it already wields today? Social scientist and AI ethics leader Dr. Rumman Chowdhury joins Lee C. Camp to challenge popular narratives about artificial intelligence, arguing that the real story is not superintelligence or apocalypse, but power, incentives, and responsibility. Drawing on her work at Twitter and her nonprofit ⁠Humane Intelligence⁠, Chowdhury explores how systems of surveillance, corporate profit, and moral outsourcing shape our technological future and what it will take to build AI that serves authentic human flourishing. Key Ideas: Learn to Ask “Who Benefits?”Behind every AI system are incentive structures and power arrangements within for-profit companies. Cultivating the habit of asking who gains and who pays the cost helps us see technology more truthfully. Refuse to Blame the MachineCalling harm “the AI’s fault” allows humans and institutions to evade responsibility, so ethical clarity begins by keeping people accountable. Pay Attention to What’s Already HereFears about future AI apocalypse distract us from the real effects already shaping culture, labor, democracy, and community right now. Be Wary of Convenience That Watches YouSurveillance almost always arrives disguised as safety or ease, but recognizing how data collection concentrates power helps us protect human dignity and freedom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Rumman Chowdhury⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Amishi Jha. Is it possible that for half of our waking life, we are not paying attention to what we’re doing? In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, many of us are coming to terms with the fact that our capacity for paying attention is laughably weak. Our work, mental health, and relationships suffer because of it. But what if there was a tried-and-true way to change this, something like “push-ups for your brain?” Neuroscientist Amishi Jha has dedicated her career to studying this question, and the results are in. In this episode, she describes the practice of mindfulness meditation - why it can work for everyone (not just the spiritual folks), and how it only takes 12 minutes each day to reach one’s “Peak Mind.” ⁠⁠⁠ Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Amishi Jha⁠⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

When fear becomes the price of being “informed,” how do we tell the difference between paying attention and being emotionally hijacked? After a trio of viral Threads posts seem to declare that terror is the only appropriate response to our moment, we dig into how social media turns unprocessed fear into a public spectacle, and why outrage and panic are increasingly treated as signs of intelligence or moral seriousness. Drawing on mental health research, media studies, and theology, we ask whether constant distress actually helps us engage the world more faithfully or quietly numbs our capacity for compassion and action. Things we mentioned in this episode: Books + Articles: ⁠We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat⁠ ⁠Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth⁠ ⁠The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson⁠ ⁠A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson⁠ ⁠Night by Elie Wiesel⁠ ⁠A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly⁠ ⁠Media and compassion after digital war: Why digital media haven't transformed responses to human suffering in contemporary conflict by Andrew Hoskins⁠ ⁠We Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi⁠ Shows + Movies: ⁠Run Away⁠ on Netflix ⁠Stranger Things⁠ on Netflix ⁠The Prince of Egypt⁠ Songs + Podcasts: ⁠If You Believe by Rachael Lampa (A Walk to Remember Soundtrack)⁠ ⁠Dare You To Move by Switchfoot (A Walk to Remember Soundtrack)⁠ ⁠Musa al-Gharbi interview on No Small Endeavor⁠ ⁠Munther Isaac interview on No Small Endeavor⁠ Follow No Small Endeavor to be notified when Lee's episode with Kim Stanley Robinson drops! 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

Is it possible that for half of our waking life, we are not paying attention to what we’re doing? In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, many of us are coming to terms with the fact that our capacity for paying attention is laughably weak. Our work, mental health, and relationships suffer because of it. But what if there was a tried-and-true way to change this, something like “push-ups for your brain?” Neuroscientist Amishi Jha has dedicated her career to studying this question, and the results are in. In this episode, she describes the practice of mindfulness meditation - why it can work for everyone (not just the spiritual folks), and how it only takes 12 minutes each day to reach one’s “Peak Mind.” ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Amishi Jha⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Malcolm Gladwell. What causes suffering in our society? Intentional evil? Or something less apparent and possibly more unsettling—indifference? In this conversation, master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell and host Lee C. Camp explore the moral power of storytelling in light of Gladwell’s latest Revisionist History series, ⁠⁠The Alabama Murders⁠⁠. What begins as a devastating true crime account of a 1988 murder in northwestern Alabama unfolds into something far more unsettling: a decades-long moral failure cascade marked not by villainy alone, but by indifference. Malcolm corresponded and interviewed Lee for the series to understand the religious and cultural context of the narrative. Together, they examine how stories can awaken our capacity to see, care, and imagine a different world. Key Ideas: How Story Can Awaken Moral Vision Stories do moral work by helping us see what we have learned to accept as normal—and revealing it instead as a distortion. Good Stories Betray Expectations Well Powerful stories disrupt our predictions about the world, forcing us to imagine alternative possibilities for justice and goodness. Take Indifference Seriously Drawing on the insight that “sin is often a failure to bother to care”, Gladwell argues that indifference may be the defining moral danger of modern life. Honor Beauty Without Blindness Truthful storytelling can hold together love for communities and traditions while honestly naming the harm they sometimes produce. Forgiveness Should Have an Action Is forgiveness without action actually forgiveness? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Malcolm Gladwell⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

What do Stranger Things conspiracy theories, failed prophecies, and religious history have in common? A deep human struggle to face disappointment without rewriting reality. After the finale, many Stranger Things fans convinced themselves a secret ninth episode was hiding in plain sight. In this episode, Lee and Savannah use “Conformity Gate” as a surprisingly rich case study in how humans respond to disappointment and unmet expectations. From the Great Disappointment of 1844 to classic research on cognitive dissonance, we explore why people so often reinterpret failure instead of accepting it. Things we mentioned in this episode: ⁠ When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter⁠ 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

What causes suffering in our society? Intentional evil? Or something less apparent and possibly more unsettling—indifference? In this conversation, master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell and host Lee C. Camp explore the moral power of storytelling in light of Gladwell’s latest Revisionist History series, The Alabama Murders. What begins as a devastating true crime account of a 1988 murder in northwestern Alabama unfolds into something far more unsettling: a decades-long moral failure cascade marked not by villainy alone, but by indifference. Malcolm corresponded and interviewed Lee for the series to understand the religious and cultural context of the narrative. Together, they examine how stories can awaken our capacity to see, care, and imagine a different world. Key Ideas: How Story Can Awaken Moral Vision Stories do moral work by helping us see what we have learned to accept as normal—and revealing it instead as a distortion. Good Stories Betray Expectations Well Powerful stories disrupt our predictions about the world, forcing us to imagine alternative possibilities for justice and goodness. Take Indifference Seriously Drawing on the insight that “sin is often a failure to bother to care”, Gladwell argues that indifference may be the defining moral danger of modern life. Honor Beauty Without Blindness Truthful storytelling can hold together love for communities and traditions while honestly naming the harm they sometimes produce. Forgiveness Should Have an Action Is forgiveness without action actually forgiveness? ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Malcolm Gladwell Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Carlos Whittaker. Carlos Whittaker was spending the equivalent of 100 full days a year on his phone. You might not be far behind. Carlos—an author and social media influencer who has raised millions for charity online—realized he was scrolling his life away. So he tried something drastic. In his book ⁠Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human⁠, he recounts the experiment that changed everything: seven weeks completely unplugged. The results were startling. According to before-and-after brain scans and cognitive testing from Dr. Daniel Amen, Carlos’ cognitive performance shot from the 50th percentile to the 99th, and his cerebellum showed the equivalent of five years of healing. But the deeper transformation happened in the quiet space that screens had been drowning out. He relearned how to wonder—at a monk’s prompting to “behold,” he climbed a mountain, then later found himself lying on the ground studying a single roly-poly. He picked up life-altering questions from Amish communities about when to embrace or reject new technology. He rediscovered the simple joy of savoring a cup of coffee. If you feel fogged, distracted, or numb from living through a screen, this episode might be the reset you need. Key Ideas How do you decide whether to adopt new technology? The Amish ask one clarifying question: “Will this bring us closer together or drive us further apart?” When was the last time you wondered about anything? With answers always seconds away, we’ve lost the mental and spiritual muscle of curiosity—along with the connection and clarity it creates. Tech isn’t neutral. It’s shaping our brains. After seven screen-free weeks, Carlos’ memory score jumped from the 50th to the 99th percentile, and his cerebellum showed dramatic healing. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Carlos Whittaker⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

⁠⁠⁠ In the first episode of 2026, we are diving into Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what it reveals about faith, leadership, hypocrisy, presence, and how competing visions of Christianity shape real people and communities. In this episode of The Subtext, we dive beneath the mystery of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what the film exposes about faith, church culture, power, and human nature. Through the contrast of Father Jud’s vision for self-giving love and Monsignor Wicks’ manipulative, rage-driven religiosity, we unpack themes of projection and hypocrisy, insecure versus secure spiritual leadership, and how love shows up through presence. We also read critiques that the film presents two “toothless” versions of Christianity and ask what the story ultimately suggests about God, church, and culture wars. Things we mentioned in this episode: ⁠ The Gospel Coalition "2 Corrupted Christianities in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’"⁠ ⁠ The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen⁠ ⁠Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing by Hillary L. McBride⁠ 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

Carlos Whittaker was spending the equivalent of 100 full days a year on his phone. You might not be far behind. Carlos—an author and social media influencer who has raised millions for charity online—realized he was scrolling his life away. So he tried something drastic. In his book Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human, he recounts the experiment that changed everything: seven weeks completely unplugged. The results were startling. According to before-and-after brain scans and cognitive testing from Dr. Daniel Amen, Carlos’ cognitive performance shot from the 50th percentile to the 99th, and his cerebellum showed the equivalent of five years of healing. But the deeper transformation happened in the quiet space that screens had been drowning out. He relearned how to wonder—at a monk’s prompting to “behold,” he climbed a mountain, then later found himself lying on the ground studying a single roly-poly. He picked up life-altering questions from Amish communities about when to embrace or reject new technology. He rediscovered the simple joy of savoring a cup of coffee. If you feel fogged, distracted, or numb from living through a screen, this episode might be the reset you need. Key Ideas How do you decide whether to adopt new technology? The Amish ask one clarifying question: “Will this bring us closer together or drive us further apart?” When was the last time you wondered about anything? With answers always seconds away, we’ve lost the mental and spiritual muscle of curiosity—along with the connection and clarity it creates. Tech isn’t neutral. It’s shaping our brains. After seven screen-free weeks, Carlos’ memory score jumped from the 50th to the 99th percentile, and his cerebellum showed dramatic healing. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Carlos Whittaker Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Charles Duhigg. What if the biggest lever to your happiness isn’t found in your big decisions, but in the small, automatic things you do every day? Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg joins Lee C. Camp to explore how habits quietly shape our character, our choices, and our capacity for authentic human flourishing. Drawing on Aristotle, neuroscience, and his book ⁠⁠The Power of Habit⁠⁠, Duhigg unpacks the classic “cue–routine–reward” loop, keystone habits, and why willpower alone so often fails us. He then turns to his book ⁠⁠Supercommunicators⁠⁠ to show how changing the way we speak and listen can transform our relationships, our communities, and our search for meaning and purpose. Key Ideas: Habits shape character: How Aristotle’s vision of virtue and excellence as “what we repeatedly do” connects with modern habit science and the quest for a flourishing, ethical life. The roadmap of habit formation: The habit loop of cue, routine, and reward—and why lasting change comes not from white-knuckled willpower, but from redesigning our cues and rewards to support authentic living and habits for happiness. Keystone habits lead to other better habits: Keystone habits like exercise, making your bed, or food journaling that trigger chain reactions in finances, procrastination, self-control, and our sense of identity and agency. Classifying types of conversations can help you connect: From Supercommunicators: the three kinds of conversations (practical, emotional, social), the “Matching Principle,” and the looping-for-understanding practice that can heal conflict, deepen empathy, and nurture flourishing relationships. Understanding cues for connection: How laughter, curiosity, and deep questions signal “I want to connect with you,” and why Duhigg believes anyone can learn practices of communication that contribute to the common good and true happiness. ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Charles Duhigg⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

What if the biggest lever to your happiness isn’t found in your big decisions, but in the small, automatic things you do every day? Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg joins Lee C. Camp to explore how habits quietly shape our character, our choices, and our capacity for authentic human flourishing. Drawing on Aristotle, neuroscience, and his book The Power of Habit, Duhigg unpacks the classic “cue–routine–reward” loop, keystone habits, and why willpower alone so often fails us. He then turns to his book Supercommunicators to show how changing the way we speak and listen can transform our relationships, our communities, and our search for meaning and purpose. Key Ideas: Habits shape character: How Aristotle’s vision of virtue and excellence as “what we repeatedly do” connects with modern habit science and the quest for a flourishing, ethical life. The roadmap of habit formation: The habit loop of cue, routine, and reward—and why lasting change comes not from white-knuckled willpower, but from redesigning our cues and rewards to support authentic living and habits for happiness. Keystone habits lead to other better habits: Keystone habits like exercise, making your bed, or food journaling that trigger chain reactions in finances, procrastination, self-control, and our sense of identity and agency. You should experiment with your life: The difference between stated and revealed preferences: why we can sincerely want to live with purpose and yet keep acting against our own values—and how gentle “self-experiments” help align our behavior with our deepest commitments. Classifying types of conversations can help you connect: From Supercommunicators: the three kinds of conversations (practical, emotional, social), the “Matching Principle,” and the looping-for-understanding practice that can heal conflict, deepen empathy, and nurture flourishing relationships. Understanding cues for connection: How laughter, curiosity, and deep questions signal “I want to connect with you,” and why Duhigg believes anyone can learn practices of communication that contribute to the common good and true happiness. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Charles Duhigg Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠⁠⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠⁠⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠⁠⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠⁠⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Sharon McMahon. Have you ever wished someone would explain the inner workings of America’s political landscape — without taking sides or fueling the outrage machine? With over 1.3 million Instagram followers, Sharon McMahon, known affectionately as “America’s Government Teacher,” has spent her career doing exactly that. Drawing from her roots in public education, Sharon rose to prominence on social media during the chaotic 2020 election season. Her clear, fact-based explanations of complex government processes have garnered her a loyal following of self-proclaimed “Governerds,” and today, her teaching reaches millions through her acclaimed podcast, Here's Where It Gets Interesting, her best-selling book The Small and the Mighty, and The Preamble, one of America's most widely-read nonpartisan newsletters. In this thoughtful conversation, Sharon reflects on the transformative power of education, the urgent need for informed civic participation, and the hopeful possibilities that emerge when we approach politics not as partisan warriors but as compassionate, curious learners. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Sharon McMahon Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

Some moments stay with us long after the episode ends. In this special episode, Lee C. Camp and Jakob Lewis revisit the conversations from 2025 that changed them—clips that still echo with courage, tenderness, and the invitation to live well. Key Ideas: Focus on What You Can Do. Sharon McMahon reminds us that while none of us can fix everything, each of us can meaningfully contribute to the common good through small, faithful actions. Reclaim Trust in Your Body. Jen Hatmaker’s story shows how healing from spiritual shame begins with listening again to our intuition, our bodies, and the wisdom we were taught to doubt. Let Small Words Change You. Terrence Lester’s life was redirected by a single affirmation from an unhoused stranger—revealing how everyday encounters can spark courage, purpose, and justice. Stay Human in an AI World. Baratunde Thurston and Astro Teller explore how technology invites us to ask what is uniquely human—and why deep community and local practice matter more than big “moonshot” fixes. Rewrite Your Inner Story. Sheryl Crow’s vulnerable reflections show how naming early wounds and dismantling shame can help us live more authentically, with freedom and grounded joy. Tend Your Own Small Garden. In previewing The Subtext, Savannah Locke and Lee C. Camp offer a hopeful vision: in a complex world, flourishing begins with the corner of the world that’s ours to steward. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠⁠⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠⁠⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠⁠⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠⁠⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Munther Isaac. Imagine you're in charge of pastoring a congregation amidst a war. What does it mean to love your enemies when violence is outside your window, and visceral images of your congregation’s devastation fill your phone? How would you find hope and carry on? Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac joins Lee C. Camp from his home in the West Bank to discuss his book Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza. Drawing from his experience shepherding congregations through two years of war, Munther reflects on grief, anger, and the moral danger of becoming numb to suffering, while still insisting on nonviolence, justice, and the stubborn call to love of enemy. This conversation wrestles with the collision of politics and theology, the misuse of religious language, and what authentic human flourishing, meaning, and courage can look like in the midst of rubble. Key Ideas: Christ also asked where God was amidst suffering. Munther insists that, in Gaza’s devastation, God is not distant but present “under the rubble,” with the oppressed, displaced, and grieving. Nonviolence and creative resistance are needed to break cycles of violence. What it means for a Palestinian pastor to reject terrorism and militarism, yet still speak of “creative resistance in the logic of love” as a practice of justice, courage, and meaningful living. Language can be used to warp our imagination. How labels like “terrorism” and “self-defense” can distort moral vision, and why Munther believes reclaiming moral language is essential to the common good and the search for meaning and purpose. To stop loving is to lose our humanity. Munther’s insistence that true happiness and well-being require refusing to dehumanize even one’s enemies. Religious imagination has real-world implications. Theological worldviews often shape policy, war, and public imagination. Munthers asks, what might it mean for theology and culture to serve justice, mercy, and flourishing instead? A warning to our listeners—this episode contains descriptions of violence and graphic imagery. Please listen with care. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for Munther Isaac⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. For an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

Family estrangement is rising, but the cultural story behind it is far more complex than “cutting off toxic people.” In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack the social, psychological, and technological shifts that quietly reshaped our expectations of family. and why forgiveness, repair, and humility might be the most countercultural practices left. In this episode, Savannah and Lee dig into the cultural forces behind the surge in family estrangement, from postmodern distrust of authority to therapy-speak, safetyism, digital overwhelm, and the luxury of disconnection. Drawing on Rachel Haack’s Substack newsletter, they explore how concept creep, para-connection, and wealth have shaped our expectations of parents, children, and in-laws, and why privilege can make cutting off family easier than repairing them. Together they reflect on the emotional weight, legitimate complexities, and real pain inside estrangement, before ending with a conversation on forgiveness…not as excusing harm, but as a courageous path towards freedom. Things we mentioned in this episode: ⁠⁠Labubu Pendant Blind Box⁠⁠ ⁠⁠James by Percival Everett⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Why Everyone’s Cutting Everyone Off: The Cultural Story Behind Family Estrangement⁠⁠ ⁠⁠David Schnarch's books⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart⁠⁠ ⁠⁠The Pastor: A Crisis by Bradley Jersak and Wm. Paul Young⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Why Concepts Creep to the Left by Jonathan Haidt⁠⁠ 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

Imagine you're in charge of pastoring a congregation amidst a war. What does it mean to love your enemies when violence is outside your window, and visceral images of your congregation’s devastation fill your phone? How would you find hope and carry on? Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac joins Lee C. Camp from his home in the West Bank to discuss his book Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza. Drawing from his experience shepherding congregations through two years of war, Munther reflects on grief, anger, and the moral danger of becoming numb to suffering, while still insisting on nonviolence, justice, and the stubborn call to love of enemy. This conversation wrestles with the collision of politics and theology, the misuse of religious language, and what authentic human flourishing, meaning, and courage can look like in the midst of rubble. Key Ideas: Christ also asked where God was amidst suffering. Munther insists that, in Gaza’s devastation, God is not distant but present “under the rubble,” with the oppressed, displaced, and grieving. Nonviolence and creative resistance are needed to break cycles of violence. What it means for a Palestinian pastor to reject terrorism and militarism, yet still speak of “creative resistance in the logic of love” as a practice of justice, courage, and meaningful living. Language can be used to warp our imagination. How labels like “terrorism” and “self-defense” can distort moral vision, and why Munther believes reclaiming moral language is essential to the common good and the search for meaning and purpose. To stop loving is to lose our humanity. Munther’s insistence that true happiness and well-being require refusing to dehumanize even one’s enemies, guarding the heart from numbness, and insisting that we are created to love one another. Religious imagination has real-world implications. Theological worldviews often shape policy, war, and public imagination. Munthers asks, what might it mean for theology and culture to serve justice, mercy, and flourishing instead? A warning to our listeners—this episode contains descriptions of violence and graphic imagery. Please listen with care. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Munther Isaac Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠⁠⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠⁠⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠⁠⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠⁠⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. For an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Jeff Chu. Change can come in the most unlikely places. For Jeff Chu, he found meaning and purpose in a pile of compost. At the peak of his journalism career — writing for Time and Fast Company, perched 29 floors above Manhattan — Jeff Chu stared out his office window and asked a question he could no longer avoid: “What is this all for?” That moment of vocational and existential reckoning set him on an unexpected journey — one that led to Princeton Theological Seminary, a plot of farmland known as the Farminary, and ultimately, to the compost pile that led him to write his book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, which we discuss in today’s episode. Key Ideas: The long, honest work of vocational discernment: rage, anxiety, hard conversations with his husband, and the slow dawning realization that questions of calling and authentic living are often answered over years, not days. Life at the Farminary: learning theology with his hands in the dirt, discovering in the compost pile that what looks like waste and failure can, through community and time, become good soil for new life, faith, and hope. The practice of attention and slowing down—walking land after a snowfall, watching purple martins swirl over downtown Nashville, greeting a backyard mulberry tree—as a quiet path into wonder, gratitude, and the psychology of well-being in a distracted age. What gardening teaches about relinquishing control and embracing interdependence: we can plant and tend, but we cannot make a seed grow—an agrarian lens for habit formation, spiritual practices, and surrendering our illusion of power. Jeff’s journey of belonging as a gay Christian and Chinese American—learning to claim his story, honor his ancestors (and his grandmother’s fried rice), trust that he belongs to God, and extend that belonging outward through friendship, hospitality, and communal care. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and find more conversations on truth, beauty, goodness, and human flourishing at nosmallendeavor.com. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Jeff Chu⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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

AI is reshaping the music industry at a breakneck pace. AI musicians are topping charts, landing record deals, and attracting massive corporate investments. What does this mean for artists? How might this challenge us to think about embodiment, creativity, labor, and what it means to actually be human? When AI musicians start topping the music charts, we’re not just talking about technology. We’re deciding what makes art human, what makes labor fair, and what makes a person irreplaceable. AI musicians are breaking into the charts, labels are investing heavily in machine-generated artistry, and Christians, creators, and consumers are wrestling with what it means to open ourselves (and industries) to something that isn’t human. In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack the rise of AI “artists” like Solomon Ray and Breaking Rust and ask how AI might transform our view of embodiment, truthfulness, and creativity. Listen to our playlist featuring real, human artists: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35w8gz81cYShmsf6T2hshQ?si=t0Ae38obT7q0SSfQfMuo6A Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-subtext-recs/pl.u-6mo44y8imzGlYq Things we mentioned in this episode: No Small Endeavor Podcast Recommended Episodes Lee's books Jesse Welles Hillbilly Hymn by Nathan Evans Fox Savannah's music 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

Change can come in the most unlikely places. For Jeff Chu, he found meaning and purpose in a pile of compost. At the peak of his journalism career — writing for Time and Fast Company, perched 29 floors above Manhattan — Jeff Chu stared out his office window and asked a question he could no longer avoid: “What is this all for?” That moment of vocational and existential reckoning set him on an unexpected journey — one that led to Princeton Theological Seminary, a plot of farmland known as the Farminary, and ultimately, to the compost pile that led him to write his book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, which we discuss in today’s episode. Key Ideas: How Jeff’s successful journalism career left him asking, “What is work for?” and wondering how to live with more meaning and purpose rather than producing a “luxury product” that might vanish without changing anyone’s life. The long, honest work of vocational discernment: rage, anxiety, hard conversations with his husband, and the slow dawning realization that questions of calling and authentic living are often answered over years, not days. Life at the Farminary: learning theology with his hands in the dirt, discovering in the compost pile that what looks like waste and failure can, through community and time, become good soil for new life, faith, and hope. The practice of attention and slowing down—walking land after a snowfall, watching purple martins swirl over downtown Nashville, greeting a backyard mulberry tree—as a quiet path into wonder, gratitude, and the psychology of well-being in a distracted age. What gardening teaches about relinquishing control and embracing interdependence: we can plant and tend, but we cannot make a seed grow—an agrarian lens for habit formation, spiritual practices, and surrendering our illusion of power. Jeff’s journey of belonging as a gay Christian and Chinese American—learning to claim his story, honor his ancestors (and his grandmother’s fried rice), trust that he belongs to God, and extend that belonging outward through friendship, hospitality, and communal care. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and find more conversations on truth, beauty, goodness, and human flourishing at nosmallendeavor.com. ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Jeff Chu Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠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, 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 Hillary McBride. At sixteen, Lee C. Camp drove five miles over the speed limit and was seized by terror. In his mind, if he died breaking the law, he was going to hell. That childhood fear, shaped by a theology steeped in shame and judgment, is the kind of spiritual residue clinical psychologist Hillary McBride sees in her work every day. Clinical psychologist and researcher Hillary McBride joins Lee C. Camp to explore spiritual trauma: how religious ideas, communities, and leaders can wound our deepest sense of self — and how healing becomes possible through embodiment, grief, and honest meaning-making. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma therapy, and her book Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing, Hillary helps us name religious gaslighting, purity culture, and fear-based images of God while offering a path toward authentic human flourishing and more compassionate faith. Key Ideas: How Hillary defines trauma as “too much, too fast, too soon” combined with “not enough of what we needed” — and what makes spiritual trauma uniquely complex, especially in high-control religious environments that normalize harm and call it “God’s will.” The dynamics of spiritual gaslighting: when leaders tell you your heart is deceitful, you can’t trust your own experience, and they alone can interpret God for you — often reinforced with images of hell and eternal punishment as tools of control. How trauma fragments our sense of connection — to our bodies, to others, to the earth, and to God — and why embodiment, nervous system awareness, and somatic practices are essential for healing, not just “right beliefs” or spiritual practices that bypass our pain. Why deep therapeutic work is not self-indulgent but a form of love: as we heal perfectionism, shame, and spiritual wounds, we become more able to live with purpose, practice courage and compassion, and participate in the healing of our communities and culture. For more conversations like this, subscribe to No Small Endeavor. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Hillary McBride⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠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, 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

What if the real magic of Wicked isn’t the spells, but the way friendship, shame, and belonging shape who we become? In this episode, Savannah and Lee dive into the deeper themes of Wicked: For Good, from dreams that come true but don’t satisfy, to the power of propaganda, to the power of shame with an in-group/out-group mentality. They also unpack Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship: how Elphaba gives Glinda moral courage and authenticity, and how Glinda gives Elphaba trust, confidence, and a place to be known without performing. Things we mentioned in this episode: Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? by Dr. Joshua Bowen Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr That All Shall Be Saved by David Bentley Hart The New Testament: A Translation David Bentley Hart 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

At sixteen, Lee C. Camp drove five miles over the speed limit and was seized by terror. In his mind, if he died breaking the law, he was going to hell. That childhood fear, shaped by a theology steeped in shame and judgment, is the kind of spiritual residue clinical psychologist Hillary McBride sees in her work every day. Clinical psychologist and researcher Hillary McBride joins Lee C. Camp to explore spiritual trauma: how religious ideas, communities, and leaders can wound our deepest sense of self — and how healing becomes possible through embodiment, grief, and honest meaning-making. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma therapy, and her book Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing, Hillary helps us name religious gaslighting, purity culture, and fear-based images of God while offering a path toward authentic human flourishing and more compassionate faith. Key Ideas: How Hillary defines trauma as “too much, too fast, too soon” combined with “not enough of what we needed” — and what makes spiritual trauma uniquely complex, especially in high-control religious environments that normalize harm and call it “God’s will.” The dynamics of spiritual gaslighting: when leaders tell you your heart is deceitful, you can’t trust your own experience, and they alone can interpret God for you — often reinforced with images of hell and eternal punishment as tools of control. How trauma fragments our sense of connection — to our bodies, to others, to the earth, and to God — and why embodiment, nervous system awareness, and somatic practices are essential for healing, not just “right beliefs” or spiritual practices that bypass our pain. Why deep therapeutic work is not self-indulgent but a form of love: as we heal perfectionism, shame, and spiritual wounds, we become more able to live with purpose, practice courage and compassion, and participate in the healing of our communities and culture. For more conversations like this, subscribe to No Small Endeavor. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Hillary McBride Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠⁠ CTA: Please donate today at ⁠MercyShips.org/podcast⁠ Omaha Steaks: Visit ⁠OmahaSteaks.com⁠ for 50% off sitewide during their Sizzle All the Way Sale. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code FUN at checkout. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠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, 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 Tara Brach. How do you accept yourself fully, just as you are? And if you did, would you ever grow? “Being at peace with how we are in the moment is the precondition to transformation,” says psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach. In this episode she provides us with a simple practice to find peace and transformation known by the acronym RAIN. “We have amazing potential to change some of the habits that cause ourselves or others harm,” she says, “but we won't be able to access that if we're at war with ourselves.” Hear Tara’s stories from a life of practicing mindfulness, putting on display the wisdom and healing that come from pausing to accept the world as it is. This episode contains a brief mention of disordered eating. If you are in need of support, contact the National Alliance for Eating Disorders at 1-866-662-1235 ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Tara Brach Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ ⁠ 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, 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

When the headlines numb and the culture wars grind us down, what if hope isn’t a mood at all—but a practice you can do with your body, your friends, and your city? In this holiday special, Lee revisits four conversations to find practices of hope: meditation teacher Tara Brach on healing the “trance of unworthiness,” songwriter Tom Paxton on the folk community that fueled social change, marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on climate imagination, and educator Sharon McMahon on everyday civic action. Together they offer three grounded practices—for self, for community, and for the common good—that help us act toward a more beautiful future. Practice 1—Self: Tara Brach’s “two wings” of mindfulness and compassion help us befriend reality and begin change from within (“What is happening inside me right now? … Can I be with this?”). Practice 2—Community: Tom Paxton’s Greenwich Village years show how laughter, critique, and shared craft create courage—and movements. Make something together offline and let belonging fuel hope. Practice 3—Civic: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson invites a shift from apocalypse to imagination—joining others to scale solutions we already have; Sharon McMahon reminds us everyone can do something. Start local and “join something.” Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged holiday special with Tara Brach, Tom Paxton, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, and Sharon McMahon Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ ⁠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, 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 Lara Love Hardin. What if the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety—but connection? How does a woman go from 32 felony charges to the New York Times bestseller list, lunches with Oprah, and a life devoted to healing?Lara Love Hardin—literary agent, author, and prison-reform advocate—recounts her descent into opioid and heroin addiction, the shame that followed, and the community that made restoration possible. She traces the path from a Santa Cruz jail to acclaimed collaborations with figures like Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, and to her own bestselling memoir, ⁠The Many Lives of Mama Love⁠. Listeners will hear how practices of community, meditation, and honest storytelling can transform compulsion into connection and purpose. Key Ideas: “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection”—why isolation fuels compulsion and how community begins to heal it. Shame’s long shadow: from the “neighbor from hell” headline to reclaiming dignity—and why public humiliation rarely rehabilitates. Skills for staying: meditation, naming emotions, and building a circle you can be messy with. Rat Park revisited: an experiment with morphine and rats, why context and community change outcomes From ghostwriter to guide: what Lara learned about forgiveness (and self-forgiveness) working with Archbishop Tutu and meeting the Dalai Lama. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Lara Love Hardin Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

In this episode, Savannah rounds up several posts her algorithm served her this week: an influencer from The Bachelor warning Christians not to watch Love Island, a pastor speaking about slavery in the Bible, Billie Eilish calling out billionaires, and a thread about SNAP benefits. Plus, a little conspiracy chat to close things out, courtesy of Kim Kardashian and the moon landing. Things we mentioned in this episode: James by Percival Everett Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi The New Testament and the People of God by NT Wright Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be by J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh The Bible Is Not Enough by Scot McKnight Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond 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

What if the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety—but connection? How does a woman go from 32 felony charges to the New York Times bestseller list, lunches with Oprah, and a life devoted to healing?Lara Love Hardin—literary agent, author, and prison-reform advocate—recounts her descent into opioid and heroin addiction, the shame that followed, and the community that made restoration possible. She traces the path from a Santa Cruz jail to acclaimed collaborations with figures like Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, and to her own bestselling memoir, The Many Lives of Mama Love. Listeners will hear how practices of community, meditation, and honest storytelling can transform compulsion into connection and purpose. Key Ideas: “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection”—why isolation fuels compulsion and how community begins to heal it. Shame’s long shadow: from the “neighbor from hell” headline to reclaiming dignity—and why public humiliation rarely rehabilitates. Skills for staying: meditation, naming emotions, and building a circle you can be messy with. Rat Park revisited: an experiment with morphine and rats, why context and community change outcomes From ghostwriter to guide: what Lara learned about forgiveness (and self-forgiveness) working with Archbishop Tutu and meeting the Dalai Lama. ⁠ ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Lara Love Hardin⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Rick Steves. When Rick Steves was 14 years old, he stood in a park behind the Royal Palace in Oslo, watching families dot the grass in joyful togetherness. That was the moment. A dawning awareness that love — deep, sacrificial, attentive love — was not unique to his own family, but radiated across the globe. “This world is filled,” he remembers realizing, “with equally lovable little kids like me. Little children of God.” It was a quiet, early epiphany — but it would shape a life. Today, Rick Steves is a household name. But before the bestselling travel guides and beloved PBS shows, before the advocacy work and global partnerships, there was a deeply formative journey: the 1978 “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. In this conversation with Lee C. Camp, Steves opens up about the raw diary he kept on that trip — a travel journal long forgotten, then rediscovered during COVID — and how that coming-of-age adventure sparked a lifelong vocation in travel education. But this episode is more than a story about travel. It’s a meditation on what thoughtful travel can become: a political act, a spiritual practice, a tool for personal growth, a way of learning how to love our neighbors — whether they live across the street or across the sea. Rick Steves and Lee discuss how serendipity reveals virtue, how privilege demands stewardship, and why phrases like “have a safe trip” can be far less benign than we think. Rick Steves insists that the best kind of travel complicates our assumptions and broadens our perspective — and that we are, all of us, global citizens. This is a conversation about habit formation, global empathy, and the practices that help us live a good life. ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Rick Steves⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

In this episode, Savannah and Lee dive into the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, a smart and surprisingly tender rom-com about an agnostic podcaster (Kristen Bell) and a rabbi (Adam Brody) trying to make love work across lines of faith and conviction. The conversation unfolds into bigger questions: How do we love people whose choices we disagree with? When does compromise in a relationship become self-betrayal? Can married people be friends with people of the opposite sex? And what does it mean to convert to a different religion? Things we mentioned in this episode: The Chosen by Chaim Potok My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok Rainn Wilson on No Small Endeavor Soul Boom by Rainn Wilson Silence by Shusaku Endo 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

When Rick Steves was 14 years old, he stood in a park behind the Royal Palace in Oslo, watching families dot the grass in joyful togetherness. That was the moment. A dawning awareness that love — deep, sacrificial, attentive love — was not unique to his own family, but radiated across the globe. “This world is filled,” he remembers realizing, “with equally lovable little kids like me. Little children of God.” It was a quiet, early epiphany — but it would shape a life. Today, Rick Steves is a household name. But before the bestselling travel guides and beloved PBS shows, before the advocacy work and global partnerships, there was a deeply formative journey: the 1978 “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. In this conversation with Lee C. Camp, Steves opens up about the raw diary he kept on that trip — a travel journal long forgotten, then rediscovered during COVID — and how that coming-of-age adventure sparked a lifelong vocation in travel education. But this episode is more than a story about travel. It’s a meditation on what thoughtful travel can become: a political act, a spiritual practice, a tool for personal growth, a way of learning how to love our neighbors — whether they live across the street or across the sea. Rick Steves and Lee discuss how serendipity reveals virtue, how privilege demands stewardship, and why phrases like “have a safe trip” can be far less benign than we think. Rick Steves insists that the best kind of travel complicates our assumptions and broadens our perspective — and that we are, all of us, global citizens. This is a conversation about habit formation, global empathy, and the practices that help us live a good life. Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Rick Steves Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Pádraig Ó Tuama. Pádraig Ó Tuama joins us for part three of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here Pádraig Ó Tuama--poet, theologian, and peacemaker--returns to No Small Endeavor for an expansive, searching conversation about words, wounds, witness, and wisdom. Former leader of Ireland’s Corrymeela peace and reconciliation community and host of Poetry Unbound, Ó Tuama draws from a deep well of personal and communal experience—where poetry is not just a literary act but a practice of survival, accountability, and attention. Pádraig Ó Tuama reflects on growing up Catholic and gay in 1980s Ireland, and the complex legacy of faith, repression, and language he inherited—narratives that led him through years of exorcism and reparative “therapies.” With honesty and grace, he shares how poetry helped him reclaim agency and reframe pain, offering listeners a poignant example of how the “art of noticing” becomes a form of resistance and self-development. He reads moving excerpts from his recent collection Kitchen Hymns, including poems on belief, disillusionment, and friendship—each one an invitation to live more humanely and attentively. Lee and Pádraig also delve into the mechanics of peacebuilding, the failures and contradictions within justice work, and how poetic language can uncover what politics often obscures. This episode is as much about being human as it is about art and theology: a tender meditation on how we live with purpose, create for the common good, and show up in the world with courage and compassion. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for our episode with Pádraig Ó Tuama ⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠⁠piperandleaf.com⁠⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit ⁠Nationsu.edu/endeavor⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

When Turning Point USA launches an “All-American Halftime Show” to rival Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, it’s more than a musical critique, it’s a signal of a culture war. In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack why something as ordinary as a halftime show can feel like a referendum on faith, family, and freedom. From the backlash that followed Reconstruction to Reagan’s alliance with the religious right, to today’s debates over gender, race, and education, the culture wars have always been about who stays in power. How can we interact with culture wars better? How should we treat “hot topic” issues? Things we mentioned in this episode: Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton James by Percival Everett All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert Awake by Jen Hatmaker The Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin Bad Faith by Randall Balmer Mere Discipleship by Lee C. Camp All the Buried Women podcast Ed Larson on No Small Endeavor Randall Balmer on No Small Endeavor Garrett Graff 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

Pádraig Ó Tuama joins us for part three of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here Pádraig Ó Tuama--poet, theologian, and peacemaker--returns to No Small Endeavor for an expansive, searching conversation about words, wounds, witness, and wisdom. Former leader of Ireland’s Corrymeela peace and reconciliation community and host of Poetry Unbound, Ó Tuama draws from a deep well of personal and communal experience—where poetry is not just a literary act but a practice of survival, accountability, and attention. Pádraig Ó Tuama reflects on growing up Catholic and gay in 1980s Ireland, and the complex legacy of faith, repression, and language he inherited—narratives that led him through years of exorcism and reparative “therapies.” With honesty and grace, he shares how poetry helped him reclaim agency and reframe pain, offering listeners a poignant example of how the “art of noticing” becomes a form of resistance and self-development. He reads moving excerpts from his recent collection Kitchen Hymns, including poems on belief, disillusionment, and friendship—each one an invitation to live more humanely and attentively. Lee and Pádraig also delve into the mechanics of peacebuilding, the failures and contradictions within justice work, and how poetic language can uncover what politics often obscures. This episode is as much about being human as it is about art and theology: a tender meditation on how we live with purpose, create for the common good, and show up in the world with courage and compassion. ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for our episode with Pádraig Ó Tuama Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠piperandleaf.com⁠ Nations U: Use code ENDEAVOR50 when you visit Nationsu.edu/endeavor Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Haleh Liza Gafori. Haleh Liza Gafori joins us for part two of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here, Haleh Liza Gafori—poet, musician, and translator—guides us into the world of the Sufi poet Rumi. We explore how his 13th-century Persian verse still speaks to the modern crises of anxiety, spiritual disconnection, materialism, and self-repression. But this isn’t just about literary history. For Gafori, Rumi has been a companion in healing, a guide through spiritual trauma, ego detachment, and the tyranny of the self. We discuss poetry as a political act, a mystical practice, and a form of social critique. We look at how Iranian-American identity, religious fundamentalism, and Western imperialism shape the psyche—and how mystical poetry can help us see through, and beyond, these entanglements. We ask what it means to live a good life when the systems around us are built on fear and greed—and what role language, art, theology and ecstatic love can play in imagining something different. Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ of our abridged episode with Haleh Liza Gafori on her translation of Rumi⁠⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠piperandleaf.com⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

When the “Liver King” built an empire on raw meat, steroids, and slogans about being “a real man,” what if he wasn’t selling a message based on muscles but mortality? In this episode, Savannah and Lee dig into how the fear of death shapes our obsession with control, strength, and self-sufficiency. Drawing from Untold: The Liver King, Scott Galloway’s research on the masculinity crisis, and Richard Beck’s The Slavery of Death, they trace a cultural thread that might tell us something about how we handle one of the rare, universal experiences: death. Things we mentioned in this episode: ⁠ Reviving Old Scratch by Richard Beck⁠ ⁠ The Slavery of Death by Richard Beck⁠ ⁠ The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin⁠ ⁠ Scott Galloway on Armchair Expert⁠ ⁠ The Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty⁠ 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

Haleh Liza Gafori joins us for part two of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here, Haleh Liza Gafori—poet, musician, and translator—guides us into the world of the Sufi poet Rumi. We explore how his 13th-century Persian verse still speaks to the modern crises of anxiety, spiritual disconnection, materialism, and self-repression. But this isn’t just about literary history. For Gafori, Rumi has been a companion in healing, a guide through spiritual trauma, ego detachment, and the tyranny of the self. We discuss poetry as a political act, a mystical practice, and a form of social critique. We look at how Iranian-American identity, religious fundamentalism, and Western imperialism shape the psyche—and how mystical poetry can help us see through, and beyond, these entanglements. We ask what it means to live a good life when the systems around us are built on fear and greed—and what role language, art, theology and ecstatic love can play in imagining something different. Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ of our abridged episode with Haleh Liza Gafori on her translation of Rumi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at ⁠piperandleaf.com⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

Joy Harjo joins us for part one of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here, three‑term U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muskogee Creek Nation) shares how her poetry emerges from pain, memory, and fierce hope. She reflects on the loss and colonization embedded in her own family story—from the Trail of Tears to the extraction of resources from her tribal lands—and how those historical wounds still pulse in our shared present. Harjo also traces her coming‑of‑age: learning to find voice through art and activism, encountering the power and beauty of Native elders and poets, recognizing the injustice hidden in history textbooks, and experiencing the healing that comes through being seen and witnessed in kindness. Amidst crises of war, climate, racial injustice, and spiritual dislocation, she argues that poetry is not luxury or escape—it is ritual, ceremony, language of the sacred, a way to speak to the soul and open space for listening and transformation. Her upcoming book Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age becomes a touchstone in this conversation—one that unearths the raw edges of adolescence, grief, identity, heritage, and hope. This episode invites you to reckon with legacy, cultivate courage, and consider how poetry and voice are vital to living with purpose, meaning, and belonging. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for our episode with Joy Harjo⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at piperandleaf.com Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

In this episode, Savannah and Lee celebrate the 25th anniversary of Gilmore Girls and use Melissa McCarthy’s viral story about Yanic Truesdale’s “fake” French accent as a springboard to talk about authenticity, faith, and what we’ve been trained to hear as “real.” From Luke’s Diner to the Sermon on the Mount, this episode asks: how do we tell the difference between the real thing and a good imitation…and would we even recognize Jesus’s accent if we heard it today? 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

Joy Harjo joins us for part one of a three-part series asking the question posed by poet Christian Wiman: What is poetry’s role when the world is burning? It’s not a metaphorical question. We’re living through wars, climate collapse, collective burnout, and political fragmentation. What possibly might human flourishing mean in such a context? And what might poetry have to do with it? Here, three‑term U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muskogee Creek Nation) shares how her poetry emerges from pain, memory, and fierce hope. She reflects on the loss and colonization embedded in her own family story—from the Trail of Tears to the extraction of resources from her tribal lands—and how those historical wounds still pulse in our shared present. Harjo also traces her coming‑of‑age: learning to find voice through art and activism, encountering the power and beauty of Native elders and poets, recognizing the injustice hidden in history textbooks, and experiencing the healing that comes through being seen and witnessed in kindness. Amidst crises of war, climate, racial injustice, and spiritual dislocation, she argues that poetry is not luxury or escape—it is ritual, ceremony, language of the sacred, a way to speak to the soul and open space for listening and transformation. Her upcoming book Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age becomes a touchstone in this conversation—one that unearths the raw edges of adolescence, grief, identity, heritage, and hope. This episode invites you to reckon with legacy, cultivate courage, and consider how poetry and voice are vital to living with purpose, meaning, and belonging. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for our episode with Joy Harjo⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Garrett Graff. What can it possibly mean to flourish in our tech saturated world? In the early 2000s, the internet felt like a civic miracle in the making, with profound possibilities for human flourishing and civic progress. Facebook gave voice to protestors in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Twitter helped bring down dictators. The web seemed poised to enhance democracy, amplify transparency, and connect us more deeply. But then the tide turned. This episode features Garrett Graff, historian, journalist, and host of the award-winning podcast Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet. In this sobering conversation, Graff joins Lee to unpack how a platform born of hope became a tool for outrage, surveillance, and even genocide. Drawing on more than three decades of digital history, Graff traces how tech's shift from user-driven exploration to algorithmic manipulation created not just a loss of innocence—but a structural system designed to enrage. We hear the story of the Arab Spring, where connectivity spurred revolution, only to become a mechanism of authoritarian control. We examine Myanmar, where unchecked hate speech on Facebook helped fuel mass atrocities. And we explore a haunting question: What kind of people are we becoming through our use of these technologies? Along the way, Graff reflects on his own tech optimism, the moral responsibility of tech executives, and why understanding internet history is a civic—not academic—duty. He and Lee also examine whether AI is already repeating these same mistakes. If you’ve ever asked how the internet became what it is today—or what role we each play in its future—this episode offers both clarity and a call to courage. Garrett Graff’s insights offer one of the most thoughtful takes yet on the digital age’s moral and social consequences. Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Garrett Graff. Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠⁠https://kachava.com⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠⁠AquaTru.com⁠⁠ and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

When a Christian influencer warns moms that Taylor Swift will lead their daughters astray, the conversation has moved beyond pop music and into culture. In this episode, Savannah and Lee trace how the church has wrestled with cultural artifacts, including Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, and what frameworks can help us understand modern reactions to celebrities like Swift. Then, they turn to Life of a Showgirl to explore how Taylor’s own storytelling exposes what we actually believe about celebrity, power, and holiness in the world. 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

What can it possibly mean to flourish in our tech saturated world? In the early 2000s, the internet felt like a civic miracle in the making, with profound possibilities for human flourishing and civic progress. Facebook gave voice to protestors in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Twitter helped bring down dictators. The web seemed poised to enhance democracy, amplify transparency, and connect us more deeply. But then the tide turned. This episode features Garrett Graff, historian, journalist, and host of the award-winning podcast Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet. In this sobering conversation, Graff joins Lee to unpack how a platform born of hope became a tool for outrage, surveillance, and even genocide. Drawing on more than three decades of digital history, Graff traces how tech's shift from user-driven exploration to algorithmic manipulation created not just a loss of innocence—but a structural system designed to enrage. We hear the story of the Arab Spring, where connectivity spurred revolution, only to become a mechanism of authoritarian control. We examine Myanmar, where unchecked hate speech on Facebook helped fuel mass atrocities. And we explore a haunting question: What kind of people are we becoming through our use of these technologies? Along the way, Graff reflects on his own tech optimism, the moral responsibility of tech executives, and why understanding internet history is a civic—not academic—duty. He and Lee also examine whether AI is already repeating these same mistakes. If you’ve ever asked how the internet became what it is today—or what role we each play in its future—this episode offers both clarity and a call to courage. Garrett Graff’s insights offer one of the most thoughtful takes yet on the digital age’s moral and social consequences. Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Garrett Graff. Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠https://kachava.com⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠AquaTru.com⁠ and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Anna Sale. When Anna Sale launched Death, Sex & Money in 2014, she was 30 years old, newly divorced, living alone in a studio apartment in New York City, and trying to figure out what her life would become. She had covered politics as a reporter, but her personal world was unraveling. So she started asking strangers to talk about hard things, the questions she herself was desperate to explore: How do people rebuild after loss? What do we do with grief, shame, money, or fractured relationships? What does it mean to live with honesty when the easy script disappears? Over the past decade, Anna Sale has become one of the most trusted voices on how to have hard conversations—the ones we often avoid but need most. Her hit podcast has been named Podcast of the Year by The Atlantic and Apple Podcasts, and her book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things, has been embraced as a guide for meaningful living. In this conversation, Anna and Lee explore the important difference between "let's talk about HARD things" and "yes, LET's! let's talk about hard things." And why talk about hard things might be, potentially, among the most life-giving conversations. They discuss shame and grief, the ways our families teach us what not to talk about, and the habits that help us listen well. Anna reflects on her own divorce, her Unitarian Universalist upbringing, and how practices of honesty and vulnerability help us build flourishing relationships even across cultural divides. Along the way, Anna shares wisdom on navigating sex and intimacy without shame, why money conversations trigger so much discomfort, and what facing death can teach us about authentic human flourishing. Her insights blend psychology and happiness research, theology and culture, and a deep faith in the inherent dignity of every person. A beautiful conversation about being human, and about what becomes possible when we have the courage to ask hard questions and the patience to really listen. Please be advised that this episode contains details that may be upsetting to some listeners, including reference to suicide. Additional resources are available at: ⁠ NAMI⁠ ⁠Crisis Textline⁠ ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Anna Sale⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠https://kachava.com⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠AquaTru.com⁠ and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

Here’s a preview of a new podcast series that Lee recently appeared in, The Alabama Murders from Revisionist History. Florence, Alabama. 1988. A preacher has an affair. A woman is murdered. One death cascades into more, stretching across decades and leaving no one untouched — victims, bystanders, perpetrators, and those just trying to help. On The Alabama Murders, Malcolm Gladwell asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse? Find Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders wherever you get podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests in a military AI startup, it raises a deeper question: how do we live with integrity in systems that profit from harm? In this episode, we explore the uncomfortable relationship between the best and brightest, money, and violence—from Deerhoof’s protest to Oppenheimer’s legacy, from Walter Wink’s “powers that be” to Dorothy Day’s radical refusal to cooperate. Is resistance possible in a world where no dollar is clean? And what does the Kingdom of God have to do with any of it? 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

When Anna Sale launched Death, Sex & Money in 2014, she was 30 years old, newly divorced, living alone in a studio apartment in New York City, and trying to figure out what her life would become. She had covered politics as a reporter, but her personal world was unraveling. So she started asking strangers to talk about hard things, the questions she herself was desperate to explore: How do people rebuild after loss? What do we do with grief, shame, money, or fractured relationships? What does it mean to live with honesty when the easy script disappears? Over the past decade, Anna Sale has become one of the most trusted voices on how to have hard conversations—the ones we often avoid but need most. Her hit podcast has been named Podcast of the Year by The Atlantic and Apple Podcasts, and her book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things, has been embraced as a guide for meaningful living. In this conversation, Anna and Lee explore the important difference between "let's talk about HARD things" and "yes, LET's! let's talk about hard things." And why talk about hard things might be, potentially, among the most life-giving conversations. They discuss shame and grief, the ways our families teach us what not to talk about, and the habits that help us listen well. Anna reflects on her own divorce, her Unitarian Universalist upbringing, and how practices of honesty and vulnerability help us build flourishing relationships even across cultural divides. Along the way, Anna shares wisdom on navigating sex and intimacy without shame, why money conversations trigger so much discomfort, and what facing death can teach us about authentic human flourishing. Her insights blend psychology and happiness research, theology and culture, and a deep faith in the inherent dignity of every person. A beautiful conversation about being human, and about what becomes possible when we have the courage to ask hard questions and the patience to really listen. Please be advised that this episode contains details that may be upsetting to some listeners, including reference to suicide. Additional resources are available at: NAMI Crisis Textline Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Anna Sale Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to ⁠https://kachava.com⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠ AquaTru: Go to ⁠AquaTru.com⁠ and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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 Terence Lester. It was three days before Christmas when Terence Lester’s family dropped him beneath a bridge in Atlanta. With no change of clothes and a biting winter cold, he began a month-long experiment in solidarity with the unhoused. Strangers offered blankets, socks, even stories around a firepit. It was humbling, painful, and life-altering. And it was from this crucible that Love Beyond Walls was born—a nonprofit dedicated to restoring dignity and community for those pushed to the margins: an exploration into what human flourishing might entail among the disenfranchised. In this episode of No Small Endeavor, Lee C. Camp sits down with scholar and activist Terence Lester, whose own journey from dropout to doctorate is as much about human flourishing as it is about survival. His book, From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice, chronicles the wounds of generational trauma, systemic barriers, and the loneliness of feeling unseen—but also the surprising sanctuaries: a stranger’s word of courage, a teacher’s belief, and a church’s embrace, and the daily practices that sustain new ways forward. They explore how trauma shapes education, how community makes flourishing relationships possible, and how storytelling itself becomes a form of justice. Terence Lester reminds us that poverty is not just economic—it is cultural, emotional, spiritual—and that courage and compassion are required if we are to serve the common good. It is an invitation to become people who borrow and lend courage, to create sanctuaries for others, and to live with an intention toward justice, belonging, and authentic human flourishing. ⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Terence Lester⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE AquaTru: Go to AquaTru.com and use promo code NSE Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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

In this episode, Lee and Savannah explore why friendships are harder to form and sustain in today’s culture, despite living in the most “connected” era in history. They examine how technology and convenience have reshaped friendship from a priority into a luxury. They ask whether these shifts meet our deep human need for connection or quietly erode it. Ultimately, the conversation wrestles with how we might resist the forces of isolation and reclaim friendship as essential to a flourishing life. 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

It was three days before Christmas when Terence Lester’s family dropped him beneath a bridge in Atlanta. With no change of clothes and a biting winter cold, he began a month-long experiment in solidarity with the unhoused. Strangers offered blankets, socks, even stories around a firepit. It was humbling, painful, and life-altering. And it was from this crucible that Love Beyond Walls was born—a nonprofit dedicated to restoring dignity and community for those pushed to the margins: an exploration into what human flourishing might entail among the disenfranchised. In this episode of No Small Endeavor, Lee C. Camp sits down with scholar and activist Terence Lester, whose own journey from dropout to doctorate is as much about human flourishing as it is about survival. His book, From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice, chronicles the wounds of generational trauma, systemic barriers, and the loneliness of feeling unseen—but also the surprising sanctuaries: a stranger’s word of courage, a teacher’s belief, and a church’s embrace, and the daily practices that sustain new ways forward. They explore how trauma shapes education, how community makes flourishing relationships possible, and how storytelling itself becomes a form of justice. Terence Lester reminds us that poverty is not just economic—it is cultural, emotional, spiritual—and that courage and compassion are required if we are to serve the common good. It is an invitation to become people who borrow and lend courage, to create sanctuaries for others, and to live with an intention toward justice, belonging, and authentic human flourishing. ⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Terence Lester⁠ Thank you to our sponsors: Ka’Chava: Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use code NSE for 15% off your next order. Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BollAndBranch.com/NSE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tickets to Nov 23rd NSE Live in Nashville: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠ ⁠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, 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