Conversing with Mark Labberton

In a country splitting apart over so much, three words point toward a better way to live: attention, agency, and power. David French returns to Conversing to take up all three. A New York Times opinion writer since January 2023, French writes from a conservative theological background about law, culture, religion, and armed conflict, and has found himself writing directly into the middle of divided hostilities.
French comments on how attention, agency, and power took shape in him, and how each gets distorted by partisan fundamentalisms (on both the right and left) built to shut conversation down rather than open it up. He and Mark discuss the courage required to seek out the strongest version of an opposing view, the ways we extend ourselves grace we deny to everyone else,  the spiritual danger of believing you must hold power before you can do any good, and the Civil Rights Movement's commitment to "reconciliation over victory" as a promising model for Christian public life today.
Episode Highlights
"One of the things that was so damaging … was that humility was often seen as inconsistent with conviction."

"A lot of life is … embracing agency and … becoming more and more aware of the tidal forces that brought us to a particular point."

"Curiosity and openness requires courage because you're told what to think about everybody, and if you … question that, you can be thrown out of your tribe. You can lose your community."

"We must pursue justice, but when we think we have to have power to pursue justice, then we're on the road to perdition."

About David French
David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times writing on law, faith, and politics. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he spent much of his career as a constitutional litigator and once led the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He grew up in the Churches of Christ in Kentucky, studied at Lipscomb University—where he now teaches—and served in Iraq as a US Army judge advocate, earning a Bronze Star. With Russell Moore and Curtis Chang, he created The After Party, a curriculum for Christian political engagement. His most recent book is Divided We Fall.
Helpful Links and Resources
David French's New York Times column, where he writes on law, faith, and politics: https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-french

David French on X: https://x.com/DavidAFrench

The After Party, the Redeeming Babel curriculum for Christian political engagement French made with Russell Moore and Curtis Chang: https://redeemingbabel.org/the-after-party/free-course

Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, French's book on American polarization: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250836731/dividedwefall

Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, a study of American individualism: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520254190/habits-of-the-heart-with-a-new-preface

Show Notes
Three words to guide public life: attention, agency, power

A born contrarian shaped by a fundamentalism: "collectively contrarian" yet "individually very conformist"

Harvard Law exposed how "contingent and place-based my own beliefs are"; experiencing a pull toward "the story behind the story"

Attention as discipline—seeking "the best expression of opposing views," never the other side's worst

Partisans slander rather than engage: "language designed to shut off conversation, not to invite it"

Reading the Bible cover to cover in sixth grade, arriving at the lesson that "we're way too dogmatic about stuff"

How to embody a faith that can hold conviction and humility side by side

Agency according to Gandalf: "It's not up to us to determine the times in which we live," only how we respond

Curiosity requires courage, since dissent threatens loss of community

Power's real peril—"the spiritually corrupting power of power" and fooling yourself into virtue

The undermining of justice by seeking to hold and maintain power; examples in Rosa Parks and Jim Crow segregation / Jesus and the Roman Empire

Christian nationalism as "for the nation to be good, Christians must rule"

Restoring the Civil Rights Movement's commitment to the way of Jesus: reconciliation, not victory

#DavidFrench #Conversing #FaithAndPolitics #ChristianNationalism #Attention #Agency #Power #Curiosity #CivilRights

Underneath all the political polarization, rage-baiting, punditry, and aggression, there is a crisis of civic agency. American citizens feel politically disempowered and undermined. And the effect, over time, will be that we lose our ability to self-govern. What is needed is a path between belligerence and withdrawal.
In this episode, Michael Wear (Center for Christianity and Public Life, author of The Spirit of Our Politics) joins Mark Labberton to discuss provocation and political effectiveness; the value of gentleness in public life; concrete signs of hope in local political action; the open horizon of the 2028 primaries; and what it would take to reset America's political "agency quotient."
Episode Highlights
"Checks and balances is just a longer way of saying agency."
"I think gentleness is profoundly underappreciated. I think that people are on guard for being taken advantage of, for being imposed upon, for being manipulated, for being used."
"In parenting and in politics … we could really, especially in the moment, delude ourselves into thinking that to get a reaction and to be effective are synonymous."
"Christians have an alternative imagination that our politics desperately needs, and we're actually robbing the public of that."
"We continue down this crisis of … both a real and perceived lack of agency, in such a way that the project of self governance is made incoherent."
About Michael Wear
Michael Wear is the founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan Washington nonprofit that contends for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. He directed faith outreach for President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign and served in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, among the youngest White House staffers in modern history. He is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics and Reclaiming Hope, and co-author of Compassion and Conviction.
Helpful Links and Resources
Michael Wear's website, with his writing, speaking, and social channels: https://www.michaelwear.com/
The Spirit of Our Politics, Wear's most recent book: https://www.michaelwear.com/spirit-of-our-politics
Reclaiming Hope, Wear's first book: https://www.michaelwear.com/reclaiming-hope
The Center for Christianity and Public Life: https://www.ccpubliclife.org/
"Politics should not just happen to you": https://theheartofthepublic.substack.com/p/politics-should-not-just-happen-to
For the Good of the Public Summit, October 5–7, 2026, Washington, DC: https://www.ccpubliclife.org/summit
Settled, the Minnesota nonprofit building church-based Sacred Settlements: https://www.settled.org/
Civic Trust, Matt Harder's participatory budgeting organization: https://www.civictrust.us/
Michael Wear on X: https://twitter.com/MichaelRWear
Show Notes
Contending for the credibility of Christian resources in public life
CCPL turns four this October; the For the Good of the Public summit, Oct 5–7 in DC
Why pairing a think tank with intensive leadership formation is personally sustaining, not just strategic
Gentleness as an underrated public virtue; bodies relaxing once people sense they won't be imposed upon
Parker Palmer on a politics made of brokenhearted people
Getting a reaction versus being effective; the diminishing returns of provocation, until the mission's telos shifts unnamed
Jesus writing in the sand as an interruption at a moment primed for violence
Dallas Willard on formation: not the practices but who you are, on the spot
Pope Leo fielding American-frame questions and answering in ways that break the frame's logic
The pastor who mistook refreshing RealClearPolitics five times a day for civic involvement
A caution against a posture toward the church more dour than reality calls for
Settled's church-hosted Sacred Settlements in Minnesota, built on bipartisan zoning reform: https://www.settled.org/
Leaving the Obama White House more hopeful than arriving
A decade that stripped ordinary agency: contested elections, COVID isolation, AGI moguls, social media reversals
San Francisco AI planning, where "top-down imposition" meant opposite things to technologists and theologians
Congress's dereliction—Yuval Levin's institutionalism, plus the Chevron and unitary-executive critiques
Abdication that disempowers not just 435 House members but the voters who sent them
East-West contrast: California's robber-baron drive and agency reserved for the wealthiest
Resetting the agency quotient; participatory budgeting via Civic Trust: https://www.civictrust.us/
Open 2028 primaries in both parties as a possible reopening of the horizon
Christian agency surrendered through alignment versus exercised through accountable loyalty
Checks and balances as another name for agency
#CivicAgency #SpiritOfOurPolitics #FaithAndPolitics #Gentleness #ParticipatoryBudgeting #CivicRenewal #ChristianityAndPublicLife #MichaelWear
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

"It is not just that God has a heart for justice," says Sharon Cohn Wu (International Justice Mission), "it is that it is inextricably his character and cannot be otherwise, and that it is so perfectly married with mercy and grace that we somehow survive."
Sharon Cohn Wu has served for more than twenty years with IJM, where she is now regional president of North America. A lawyer (JD, Harvard Law), she has spent her career calling for "loud justice"—that is, visible, swift, community-wide accountability—using the criminal justice system and political will to help IJM achieve its mission to increase freedom and safety for the most vulnerable. She's a key voice in pursuing IJM's stated goal: protection for 300 million people across 46 jurisdictions by 2030, and freedom for more than a million.
With Mark Labberton, she reflects on her calling as a lawyer to stand between vulnerable people and those who would crush them; why we need systems to seek and secure justice for the most vulnerable to violence; the economics of vulnerability and the predators who exploit it; how public accountability changes expectations and what society will tolerate; and what decades of looking at the worst of human behavior have done to Cohn Wu's emotional, moral, and spiritual life.
Episode Highlights
"Hope is as contagious as despair."
"In the early days, let's say I might have accidentally over-indexed on rage from time to time."
"It is not just that God has a heart for justice, it is that it is inextricably his character and cannot be otherwise, and that it is so perfectly married with mercy and grace that we somehow survive."
"There's nothing inevitable about this type of violence."
"We need consistent and loud justice. 'Loud' meaning the whole community knows that someone was held accountable for this crime against this small child."
About Sharon Cohn Wu
Sharon Cohn Wu is regional president of North America for International Justice Mission, where she has served for over two decades. She began in casework, went on to lead all of IJM's field programs, and pioneered its Justice System Strengthening projects. She built anti-trafficking operations across South and Southeast Asia, including IJM's first USAID police training grant in Cambodia, and most recently advised the organization on violence against women and children. She studied at the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School and practiced at Arnold & Porter.
Helpful Links and Resources
International Justice Mission: https://www.ijm.org
Ending violence against women and children: https://www.ijm.org/our-work/violence-women-children
IJM's research library and external program evaluations: https://www.ijm.org/studies
Good News About Injustice, by Gary Haugen: https://www.ivpress.com/good-news-about-injustice
The Locust Effect, by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-locust-effect-9780190229269
The Prophets, by Abraham Joshua Heschel: https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9780063335363
Become an IJM prayer partner: https://www.ijm.org/get-involved/pray
Show Notes
Sharon Cohn Wu's vocational background: law as a family trade among lawyers, judges, rabbis, and teachers
Experience: DOJ Criminal Division; corporate law
Gary Haugen's Good News About Injustice
Early years at IJM: gratitude for every single person freed from slavery, prostitution, and dire circumstances
Shifting from case volume to public justice system performance: police, prosecutors, courts, social services
"Hope is as contagious as despair," sustained by survivors, staff, and externally audited reductions in violence
Violence against women and children as a distinct crime: economic exposure, family dissolution, and a justice system survivors avoid
Justice made loud and public, with visible, swift accountability as social and moral deterrent, leading to cultural change
IJM's 2030 goal of 300 million protected across 46 jurisdictions and over a million freed—with half a billion as the horizon
Reality over strategy: a night walk to a Guatemalan police station, Ghanaian survivors warning families about Lake Volta recruitment
Rage mitigated by conviction that God cares more, praying for the fear of the Lord, and Heschel's The Prophets on injustice as offense against God
#InternationalJusticeMission #IJM #HumanTrafficking #ModernSlavery #JusticeSystems #ViolenceAgainstWomen #FaithAndJustice #Conversing #CommentMagazine #FullerSeminary
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

In February 2026, Jeanelle Austin filed for Minnesota Senate District 62. She started canvassing her district during a polar vortex, and persisted through triple-digit summer heat. And in August she lost in the Democratic Primary.
In this episode, she sits down with Mark Labberton to reflect on what this experience has taught her about power, democracy, and what citizenship and neighbor-love means in the South Minneapolis neighborhood where she grew up.
The executive director of Rise & Remember—the nonprofit that preserves the memorial at George Floyd Square—Austin followed a conviction, that if running for office meant she could save just one person's life, she would do it.
She reflects on what it means to "run for something rather than against someone," the win-win campaign she designed by first answering what she would do with power if she lost, and the democratic machinery most voters never see: caucuses, delegates, conventions, endorsements, and party mailers that carry only the endorsed name. She reveals the shadow side of running against an incumbent in her own party: friends who could not endorse her, the party regular who said challengers to progressive incumbents should be punished, the front-porch conversations, the youth-built platform she carried to a rural Republican youth group, and the value a campaign loss is still worth when first-time voters turn out.
Episode Highlights
"I remember telling myself I would run for office if it meant that I could save somebody's life."
"My dearest friends advised me to not run against someone, but to run for something … this was the first moment where I felt like I would be running for something, and something that really mattered."
"I also understood that my power did not come from this seat. My power came from my community, my family, my cultural identity."
"This is my home. This is where I grew up. This is my neighborhood. These are my people."
"Is it not our responsibility to lift up our best leaders and choose from among them? We are oftentimes choosing between the lesser of two evils."
"What are you willing to give up if you say that you love us as your neighbor?"
"We have the power as people to make this democracy what we need it to be. But we first have to believe in ourselves."
About Jeanelle Austin
Jeanelle Austin is executive director and co-founder of Rise & Remember, the Minneapolis nonprofit that preserves thousands of offerings left at George Floyd Square, where she also serves as lead memorial caretaker. She founded Racial Agency Initiative, a racial justice leadership coaching practice, in 2019. She holds a BA in Christian ministries from Messiah College and an MDiv in ethics and an MA in intercultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. In 2026 she ran in the DFL primary for Minnesota Senate District 62. The fourth of seven children, she grew up in Minneapolis's Bryant neighborhood, just blocks from the site of George Floyd's killing at 38th and Chicago Avenue.
Helpful Links and Resources
Jeanelle For The People, Austin's 2026 campaign site: https://jeanelleforthepeople.com/
Rise & Remember, the nonprofit Austin directs: https://riseandremember.org/about/
A timeline of Operation Metro Surge, Minnesota Reformer: https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/20/a-chronology-of-operation-metro-surge/
Show Notes
Jeanelle's pilgrimage in Palestine with a Black religious scholars delegation; meeting a father in the West Bank whose fifteen-year-old son was imprisoned for throwing rocks
"Run for something, not against someone."
What it means to a run a "win-win campaign," designed after being advised to decide what she would do with power if she lost
How power is located in community, family, and cultural identity rather than in a state senate seat
What it was like to challenge a beloved incumbent inside your own party
Caucusing for the first time, room to room, learning the process in real time
Jeanelle's campaign backdrop: Operation Metro Surge, polar vortex, No Kings protests
Her journey from caucus to delegate to convention to endorsement to party resources
Pre-recruited delegates and the structural advantage of incumbency; party mailers that carry only the endorsed candidate's name
Section 8 notice periods and the gap that produces homelessness
Youth-built priorities carried an hour west to a Republican youth group
Gun safety, neighbor-love, rural versus urban gun culture
Food shelves versus food stamps, and the question of dignity
Primary night at the People's Way, turn out for first-time local voters
Giving power back by teaching neighbors how to run for political office
#JeanelleAustin #GeorgeFloydSquare #Minneapolis #RunForOffice #Democracy #CivicEngagement #FaithAndPolitics #Conversing
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Growing up, Beth Moore was taught that 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 were the whole of what scripture had to say about women: submissive and silent. The founder of Living Proof Ministries and one of the most widely read Bible teachers in America, Moore objects to a hermeneutic limited to those passages.
In this episode, Mark Labberton revisits his 2018 conversation with Beth Moore, recorded in the months following her viral open letter, "A Letter to My Brothers." Almost 10 years later, debates over women in leadership and whether women are free to use their full gifts in the full service of the church still roil American Christianity. This episode is an invitation to hear Moore's unique journey—discovering what it means to receive women as teachers and instructors of scripture for the building up of the church—and about the faithfulness of God to one woman's story, as she tries simply to be heard. They discuss the cost of speaking up in 2018 and the backlash that came hardest from women, her decision to repent of her own complicity, the way gender gets used abusively in every part of the church, and what it looks like to keep going with Jesus when the way ahead is cloudy.
Episode Highlights
"I very much am a big believer in the harbor of the church, that when it functions well … it's such a safe place for me. It was safer than my home, Mark."
"Where I have been part of this and complicit in this, I will repent. So here is what I'm fighting for. I am fighting for us, and I don't just mean women. I mean women and men, brothers and sisters."
"There is absolutely no world in which I would not have spoken up. … It would've been like expecting a dog not to bark at a burglar."
"Where our Christianity … departs Christ-likeness, don't call it Christianity. … So if it is not like Him, it is not of Him."
"I may not get it right, but I can no longer lay down to what I know is wrong."
About Beth Moore
Beth Moore is an evangelist, author, and Bible teacher who founded Living Proof Ministries in Houston in 1994 to teach women the scriptures. Her books and studies, including Breaking Free and So Long, Insecurity, have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her 2018 open letter "A Letter to My Brothers" named the misogyny she had absorbed in conservative evangelical life. She left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 and now worships as an Anglican. Her memoir, All My Knotted-Up Life, won the 2024 ECPA Book of the Year. She teaches now on the podcast Living Proof with Beth Moore.
Helpful Links and Resources
Living Proof Ministries, the organization Beth Moore founded in 1994: https://www.lproof.org
"A Letter to My Brothers," May 2018 open letter: https://www.lproof.org/blog/a-letter-to-my-brothers
All My Knotted-Up Life, Beth Moore's 2023 memoir: https://www.tyndale.com/p/all-my-knotted-up-life/9781496472670
Show Notes
Moore's three-generation household; instability at home; the church as a harbor
Receiving her calling at eighteen, off a pre-law political science track
The surprise of discovering that theologically orthodox, scripture-loving people read women's ministry differently than her
Passion drawn from pain; early trauma and a pattern she couldn't break
Hypocrisy, pretense, and dreaming of fulfilled desires
Strongholds and sexual sin: what her early context named but never taught people how to fight
First Baptist Church Houston as a place safe enough to be corrected and still loved
Pastor John Bisagno (1934–2018) asking her to speak on a Sunday night, and her own objection that she was a woman
Palpable disesteem for a woman in ministry without academic credentials
Playing by rules that others were not keeping
Scripture as reason versus scripture as excuse
Repenting of her own complicity
Luke 8, the women at the resurrection, Paul's fellow workers at the end of Romans
Backlash to Moore came hardest from women, including readers who abandoned her studies
Asking questions on behalf of women without a microphone
Affirming women formally while gender bias persists structurally
The Samaritan woman at the well, and a Savior who gives dignity
Obedience over clarity when the way ahead is cloudy
#BethMoore #WomenInMinistry #Conversing #MarkLabberton #WomenInLeadership #Evangelicalism #BibleTeaching #ChurchToo #Complementarianism
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.