Conversing with Mark Labberton

Political scientists once theorized that roughly every 30 years, a major election shuffles each party's constituencies. But Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, disagrees. Groups tend to shift slowly over time, she says—not as a sea change or red/blue wave in one dramatic election. When it comes to the 2026 midterm elections in America, she offers a patient and unsentimental perspective: we are still hyper-partisan, and party realignment takes years, even decades.
In this conversation with Mark Labberton, Gillespie comments on voter turnout research, racial authenticity in black politics, realignment and the 2026 midterms, and Christian nationalism and the gospel of grace.
Episode Highlights
"It takes years for a realignment to manifest. So in all honesty, I need another 15, 20 years worth of data before we actually know that these shifts are happening."

"You don't want to be so blinded by your hope that you can't actually properly discern what's happening in front of you."

"I get to the major and minor prophets, I read them very, very differently now. … you see the corruption that they were speaking to and you recognize it in your own time."

"I see it as a power grab. This is people who are trying to reclaim power, seize power, and then they want to do it with sort of the imprimatur of Jesus around it, but this isn't about Jesus, this is about their own self-aggrandizement."

"You're trying to get people to conform to a particular way that behind closed doors you can't even live up to."

"My responsibility is to not look to circumstances, to not look to people around me for my comfort and my hope, because if I did I would just despair, but to remember that Christ is calling me to abide in him."

About Andra Gillespie
Andra Gillespie is associate professor of political science and graduate faculty in sociology at Emory University, where she directs the James Weldon Johnson Institute. Her research focuses on the political leadership of the post-civil rights generation and race and voting behavior. She is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America and Race and the Obama Administration, editor of Whose Black Politics?, and coauthor, with Shayla C. Nunnally, of An Introduction to African American Politics. A Yale PhD, she worked as an analyst for Democratic pollster Mark Mellman before joining Emory.
Helpful Links and Resources
Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership, edited by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/0j42FVEF

Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols, and Hope, by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/059YKuFz

The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America, by Andra Gillespie: https://a.co/d/0e4zn1AM 

"The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout," Gerber and Green's 1998 New Haven field experiment: https://isps.yale.edu/research/publications/isps00-001

Street Fight, Marshall Curry's documentary of the 2002 Newark mayoral race: https://tribecafilm.com/news/512c0e971c7d76d9a9000648-tribeca-takes-marshall-cu

Andra Gillespie, Emory University Department of Political Science: https://polisci.emory.edu/people/biography/gillespie-andra.html

Andra Gillespie on X: https://x.com/AndraGillespie


Show Notes
Framing the conversation: 2026 Midterm Election Day

Gillespie describes the influences that led to her vocation as a political scientist, and why deep burning questions should drive anyone toward a PhD.

1998 New Haven experiment suggesting personal contact drives turnout: "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout"

"I walked up to him and said, Did you know that canvassing can increase voter turnout by nine percent? And he's like, Really? I'm getting ready to run for mayor."

2002 Newark mayoral race, Street Fight documentary, racial authenticity, and the field notes behind her first book

"It takes years for a realignment to manifest."

2024 shifts among black and Latino voters, the black gender gap, and turnout over conversion

Why the president's party usually loses midterms, and how inflation hits the most vulnerable

Midterm patterns, divided government, and inflation's sharper bite for families with thin buffers

Georgia: 2021 runoff mobilization, an incumbent's Senate race, a tied governor's race, down-ballot stakes

Deep reset or short-term reaction?

Holding hope and realism together

Rereading the major and minor prophets in a corrupt age

On Christian nationalism: "I see it as a power grab. … this isn't about Jesus, this is about their own self-aggrandizement."

Pluralism without coercion: "Growing up, my mom always talked about how you couldn't be the Holy Spirit for other people."

Proverbs 14:34 (NIV): "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people."

On legislated morality and hypocrisy: "You're trying to get people to conform to a particular way that behind closed doors you can't even live up to."

"Credible witness," words and deeds as one. Matthew 7:28-29 (NIV): "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law."

Hope in Christ when circumstances offer none

#Conversing #Midterms2026 #ElectionDay #GeorgiaPolitics #BlackPolitics #ChristianNationalism #FaithAndPolitics #PoliticalScience

What would it mean to fear rightly—to both fear God and "fear not," to both validate the terror that fits with traumatic events and quell the fright and learn to regulate? For Kutter Callaway, there are deep theological and psychological opportunities available in the horror film genre. To some, that might seem rather inconsistent. But in his new book, Be Afraid: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness, Callaway makes the case that Christians need to be able to face and integrate the undeniable horrors that haunt us.
In this conversation with Mark Labberton, Callaway reflects on why the Christian life might be more about discipling fear than eliminating it, how the best horror films can help people integrate trauma rather than defeat it, and why our deepest dread may be of living as vulnerable creatures more than of death itself.
They compare Mark's deliberate encounters with severe poverty around the world, reconsider the terrifying elements of the Christmas narrative, open up the dark and neglected corners of Scripture, and ask whether horror trivializes the powers and principalities or exposes how we are implicated in them.
Episode Highlights
"If the God of the Christian tradition is in fact the … God around which all of reality turns, it's interesting to me that the … crux, literally, of that story is possibly one of the most horrific things that we could imagine."

"The command … is far less 'do not have fear' but rather 'This is a very fear-inducing situation, but you can trust the person who's here, the person who's delivering the message.'"

"Rarely can we eliminate the trauma. … But there are ways we can live with it … integrate it as if it's the monster under our basement that we almost nurture."

"I think we're afraid of living as vulnerable creatures."

"If you want a story, if you want a God that has seen and experienced the depths of your trauma and your horror and your chaos, boy, have I got a story for you."

"There's not a lot of space in Christian circles to really talk about the fears that drive most of our life."

"I, too, become the monster."

About Kutter Callaway
Kutter Callaway is the William K. Brehm Chair of Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is also associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies. He holds two PhDs from Fuller, in theology and in psychological science. His newest book, Be Afraid: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness, grew out of his Christianity Today podcast of the same name. Earlier books include Watching TV Religiously, Scoring Transcendence, and the co-authored Deep Focus. An ordained Baptist minister, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.
Helpful Links and Resources
Be Afraid: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness, by Kutter Callaway: https://www.ivpress.com/be-afraid

Be Afraid book website: https://www.beafraidbook.com

Be Afraid podcast (from Christianity Today): https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/be-afraid

Conversing episode 67: Scott Derrickson on fear: https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/scott-derrickson-on-fear

Show Notes
Fear and faith

How many "fear not" commands are in the Scriptures?

"Fear not" is regularly spoken in genuinely terrifying moments, pointing toward trust in the messenger rather than literal fearlessness

Perfect love casting out fear vs. the fear of the Lord as wisdom's beginning

What it means to disciple fear, instead of avoiding or eliminating fear

Theology of pop culture meets psychological science

Christian filmmakers calling horror the most theological genre

Post-COVID theaters were rescued by horror, representing nearly 20 percent of movie ticket sales

Callaway's personal exposure-therapy experiment

Horror subgenres

Individual and inherited trauma in recent horror

The Babadook: a mother who keeps the monster in the basement rather than destroying it, a picture of trauma integrated instead of defeated

Self-conscious vulnerability

Terror management theory

Fear of living as fragile creatures running deeper than fear of death

Callaway's lifelong dread of creepy dolls (e.g., Chucky from Child's Play)

The real case behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the unexpected spiritual toll

New empathy for first responders

Limit experiences: becoming a parent, losing a child

Guided, deliberate exposure to severe poverty in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the US

Voyeurism, poverty porn, and needing a community of wisdom afterward

A Christmas Carol as ghost story

The slaughter of the innocents

The cross as brutal state-sponsored execution

Scripture's neglected dark texts and the rarity of sermons on Judges

School shootings, LA fires, and everyday dread

Readers who avoid horror, starting with his mom

Does horror trivialize the powers and principalities?

The Exorcist as serious, terrifying gospel proclamation

Stranger Things and monsters made by institutions meant to protect children

Theological failure as downstream of artistic failure

Horror that implicates the viewer in the evil

#Horror #HorrorMovies #FaithAndFear #Halloween #Theology #FaithAndCulture #ChristianFaith #BeAfraid #Conversing

There is a secret history of white Christian women, says historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez (bestselling author, Jesus and John Wayne). And the thread of this history brings together Evangelicals, Mormons, mainline Christians—connecting them to New Thought (a movement emphasizing the power of the mind to shape reality), Hallmark movies, mommy bloggers, and multi-level marketing. 
In her latest book, Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, Du Mez tells the story of a single promise: that total surrender of the will unlocks holiness and happiness. Often masquerading as personal empowerment, the products and slogans of this ideological history elevate the vulnerability and domesticity of women, thereby contributing to systems of manipulation and abuse.
In this conversation with Mark Labberton, Du Mez explains how holiness evangelicalism and the secular philosophy of New Thought were braided together to influence women, and how its culture marketed as empowerment created byproducts of self-blame, submission, and control. They discuss Hannah Whitall Smith's feminist defiance; the little-known "deconstruction era" of Elisabeth Elliot; the demonizing of doubt in high-control religion and multi-level marketing; the line running from Christian Reconstructionism to today's rhetoric of "toxic empathy"; and how to return to the gospel of the Christ who relinquishes power.
Episode Highlights
"There is no sense of the common good. There is no sense of common grace. There's no sense of grace, period."

"The past is always going to be more complicated and more interesting—and I would argue more useful—than the simplistic narratives that we like to tell ourselves."

"Christian literature, she says, is neither Christian nor literature. It's propaganda. Right? It's simply telling evangelical readers what they want to hear, but it is not true."

"When you embrace that theology and ideology, if things don't work out well for you, it's your own fault. It has to be your own fault … within holiness theology and within the philosophy of positive thinking, doubt is literally demonized. Doubt is of the devil."

"She never confused submission to God to submission to men. She was a feminist. She was a preacher. She certainly wasn't going to submit to her husband, who was a jerk."

"… a gospel which is more in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ, one in which Christ divests himself of power and continually disappoints his followers who want that power."

About Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling historian, professor of history at Calvin University, and a Senior Democracy Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. Her work sits at the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She is the author of A New Gospel for Women, on the Christian feminist reformer Katharine Bushnell; Jesus and John Wayne; and, most recently, Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and grew up in a Dutch Reformed community in small-town Iowa.
Helpful Links and Resources
Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, Kristin Kobes Du Mez's 2026 book: https://kristindumez.com/books/live-laugh-love/

Live Laugh Love book club discussion guide (free): https://kristindumez.com/discussion-guides/lll-book-club-discussion-guide/

Jesus and John Wayne, Du Mez's 2020 bestseller: https://kristindumez.com/books/jesus-and-john-wayne/

A New Gospel for Women, Du Mez's first book, on Katharine Bushnell: https://kristindumez.com/books/new-gospel-for-women/

Du Mez CONNECTIONS (Substack): https://kristindumez.substack.com/

Kristin Du Mez on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kkdumez.bsky.social

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith's 1875 classic: https://ccel.org/ccel/smith_hw/secret/files/secret.htm

Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, Lucy S. R. Austen's biography: https://www.crossway.org/books/elisabeth-elliot-hcj

Show Notes
Why history? And why now?

Undergrad indecision: pre-med, German major, then history, since everything has a history

Instilling curiosity over provocation

Evangelical views that treat history as apologetics

Dutch Reformed upbringing: critical, intellectual, light on evangelism

Christian Reformed critics who sound like evangelical ones, as distinct traditions turn de facto evangelical

Three layers: consumer culture, porous traditions, systems of control

Holiness theology and total surrender: The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, by Hannah Whitall Smith (1875)

New Thought and the belief in the power of the mind to shape reality

Prosperity gospel, free markets, baptizing the rich

Empowerment and lost agency

Self-blame loops, demonized doubt, multi-level marketing (MLM) economics

Hannah Whitall Smith's defiance of male authority, and a life that undercut her own book

Elisabeth Elliot's forgotten deconstruction era, uncovered in the Wheaton archives: doubting holiness promises, rejecting evangelical jargon, and calling Christian publishing propaganda

Remarriage and a return to the trappings she once rejected

Self-consciousness and self-critique

Christian nationalism, hierarchy, and Christian Reconstructionism

Transactional faith and the toxic empathy discourse

Forgiveness for powerful insiders, punishment for outsiders

Saint and sinner at once

Why manipulation works, and the gospel of a Christ who relinquishes power

How can a Christian humanitarian organization keep Christ at the center of its mission while working in the world's most difficult places, with thousands of staff spread across dozens of countries and cultures? Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, and Kevin Jenkins, former president and CEO of World Vision International, both understand their organizations to be foundationally Christian. But even in ministries where you would expect spiritual formation to be at the center, it takes work to help large global teams live up to their mission.
Speaking with Mark Labberton before a live audience at International Justice Mission's Cornerstone 2026 event, Haugen and Jenkins link missional success to the slow and unglamorous work of spiritual formation at the individual and relational level. Keenly aware of the gap between what Christians (and Christian organizations) say they believe and what they actually do, they consider how the outward work of ministry connects to the inward work of discipleship to Christ, wrestling with the very idea of a "Christian" organization.
In this episode, Haugen and Jenkins consider their own formation as Christians and as leaders; Dallas Willard's definition of belief as acting as if something is true; the risk of prayerless striving that can overtake even the best kinds of work; IJM's daily 11 a.m. prayer pause; Henri Nouwen's concept of moving from solitude to community to ministry; and the long-term accountability friendships that keep leaders honest.
Episode Highlights
"There wasn't anybody in the world who would identify me as a Christian because of the way I loved other people." (Gary Haugen)

"'God, if you would give me the gift of a spiritual quiet time, I will dedicate an hour a day of my life to you for the rest of my life.' … That is such a dangerous prayer." (Kevin Jenkins)

"You believe something when you act as if it's true. That is a really troublesome claim for a Christian." (Haugen)

"I experienced the way prayerless striving could overcome me even in a good thing, and even [with a] felt sense of calling from God." (Haugen)

"To be purposely somewhat provocative: There's no such thing as a Christian organization." (Jenkins)

"It's impossible to be in humanitarian work and not believe in evil. Impossible." (Jenkins)

"Humanitarian work is very difficult. … Who knew it would be so hard to try to do good?" (Kevin Jenkins)

About Gary Haugen
Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission. Before founding IJM in 1997, he was a human rights attorney at the US Department of Justice, and in 1994, he directed the United Nations' investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. His books include Good News About Injustice, Just Courage, and, with Victor Boutros, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. A graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago Law School, he has been recognized by the US State Department as a Trafficking in Persons "Hero."
About Kevin Jenkins
Kevin Jenkins served as president and CEO of World Vision International from 2009 to 2019, the organization's seventh president. He came to the role after more than a decade as a World Vision child sponsor, volunteer, fundraiser, and board member in Canada, and after a twenty-five-year business career that included leading Canadian Airlines and The Westaim Corporation and serving as managing director of the private equity firm TriWest Capital Partners. Born in Western Canada, he holds a law degree from the University of Alberta and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Helpful Links and Resources
Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission Global Leadership: https://ijm.org/leadership/global
Gary Haugen's books with InterVarsity Press, including Good News About Injustice and Just Courage: https://ivpress.com/gary-a-haugen
The Locust Effect, Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros (Oxford University Press, 2014): https://www.thelocusteffect.com
Kevin Jenkins's leadership transition, World Vision International: https://www.wvi.org/pressrelease/world-vision-international-announces-ceo-transition
The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard: https://dwillard.org/books/divine-conspiracy
Community, Henri Nouwen, opening with "From Solitude to Community to Ministry": https://www.henrinouwen.org/books/community
IJM memorial for Willie Kimani, Josephat Mwenda, and Joseph Muiruri: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018-06-23-ijm-holds-willie-kimanis-2nd-memorial-in-dandora/
Show Notes
Spiritual formation as real progress in the spiritual life, in imitation of Christ and out in the public square

John 13:35: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy: https://dwillard.org/books/divine-conspiracy

Practicing Christlikeness the way a runner trains for a marathon

Not merely converts, but disciples—apprentices of Jesus

Henri Nouwen's book Community on solitude, community, and ministry: https://www.henrinouwen.org/books/community

A risky retreat prayer that opened the way to more than three decades of daily quiet time

Thirty years of monthly accountability calls

The crisis of male friendship

The Rwandan genocide and the founding of International Justice Mission

Belief measured by action

Prayerless striving 

IJM's daily 11 a.m. prayer pause

Romans 1:1 in The Message and the idea of a kingdom assignment: "I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God's words and acts. I write this letter to all the believers in Rome, God's friends."

Christian identity as something to fight for, with Harvard and the YMCA as cautionary tales

John 15:5 and work of eternal value: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Ephesians 6:12 and evil in humanitarian work: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Kenya, 2016: Murder of IJM lawyer Willie Kimani, his client, and their driver 

Steadiness, grief, and a resurrected Jesus

The easy yoke of Jesus

The importance of Sabbath rest and reorientation

Timely truth-telling with love across cultures

#Conversing #SpiritualFormation #InternationalJusticeMission #WorldVision #ChristianLeadership #DallasWillard #HenriNouwen #FaithAndJustice #Humanitarian #Podcast

What if the deepest problems in American life were pre-political? It's often said that "culture is upstream from politics"—meaning that what we see in political news, speeches, ads, debates, and elections is symptomatic of a deeper cause. The conflicts, troubles, injustices, and sufferings that many people experience as political are more likely rooted in moral and spiritual crises. 
This week's episode marks ten years of Conversing, which launched on October 8, 2016. To celebrate, Mark Labberton is joined by David Brooks, a staff writer at The Atlantic and presidential fellow at Yale's Jackson School of Global Affairs. He is also the host of a brand-new podcast, The Permanent Questions.
In this episode, Mark and David wrestle with what asking questions actually does to a person and discuss the styles of great interviewers, why schools seem to train curiosity out of children, the human urge to control, how AI hollows us out and dehumanizes the people around us, and what moral formation looks like in a classroom—and a podcast.
Episode Highlights
"I felt over that time that the problems in our life were pre-political. They were in our culture. They're in our spiritual core."

"I've asked millions of people millions of questions. How many times has anybody ever said, 'None of your damn business'? And the answer is zero. No one has ever said that to me."

"My style has always been student. Teach me … I just treat people as teachers who can tell me something I don't know … People like to be treated as sages, it turns out, including me."

"One of the dumbest pieces of advice we give to people is to come up with your own values. Come up with your own philosophy of life. Unless your name is Aristotle, you probably can't do that."

"If there were settled answers to these biggest questions, we could just read one book and it would be over."

On AI: "For those who like to think, we will use it to think more. … The rest of us will use it to think less."

"The problem is that as we think more highly of AI, we think less highly of humans."

"Morality is about love."

 
About David Brooks
 
David Brooks is a writer at The Atlantic, a presidential fellow at Yale's Jackson School of Global Affairs, and the host of the weekly video podcast The Permanent Questions. He spent twenty-two years as a columnist at The New York Times and has long been a commentator on PBS NewsHour. His books include The Road to Character, The Second Mountain, and How to Know a Person. His first real job in journalism was as a police reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago.
 
Helpful Links and Resources
 
The Permanent Questions podcast: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/the-permanent-questions

David Brooks at The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-brooks

How to Know a Person, David Brooks's 2023 book, Penguin Random House: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/652822/how-to-know-a-person-by-david-brooks

Comment magazine's fall 2026 issue on control, built around Hartmut Rosa's thought: https://comment.org/product/the-paradoxes-of-control-44-3-fall-2026

Hartmut Rosa's The Uncontrollability of the World, reviewed in the Los Angeles Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/control-everything-on-hartmut-rosas-the-uncontrollability-of-the-world

 
Show Notes
Ten years of Conversing and thanks to those behind it

A new podcast: The Permanent Questions

Hosting is harder than expected; twenty-five pages of notes

Meghan Sullivan's "God and the Good Life" course at Notre Dame

Confessional writing assignment that moved bereaved families

Leaving the Times; problems that are pre-political, rooted in culture and the spiritual core

The Great Conversation

Belonging versus autonomy, spirit versus mind, equality versus achievement

Police reporting in Chicago, asking questions on the worst day

Questions as generosity and an act of seeing

Genesis: the two opening questions, self-examination and communion

Interviewing styles: transaction, seduction, charm, and the student

Why permanent questions stay unsettled: souls, moderation versus speed

The garden of Eden: Eve, the tree, and the limits of curiosity

Who defines urgency, and which question is most urgent now

Resonance, control, and the fading of love in American life

Declining marriage, fertility, observance, and patriotism

Questions per hour: toddlers, first graders, fifth graders

The scale story: experimenting versus covering content

Frankenstein versus Faust: Will AI kill us or hollow us out?

Skills lost: writing, radiology, navigating Anaheim freeways

Anthropomorphizing bots and devaluing human workers

Moral reasoning among AI agents: pure consequentialism, no love

Moral gestures versus real change: reading scores in Mississippi and California

Two civil rights movements: one with no concept of sin, one prophetic

Nonviolence as a strategy for justice

Moral formation in the classroom: exemplars, traditions, and the teacher herself

Regret and risk, and what hospice workers hear when people are at the end of their lives

Why young people are the heroes of the story

#ConversingPodcast #DavidBrooks #ThePermanentQuestions #Curiosity #AI #Humanity #Resonance #MoralFormation #FaithAndCulture #GreatConversation #Humanities