Conversing with Mark Labberton

Higher education is in upheaval, and a wave of "micro colleges" is reimagining undergraduate formation. Matthew Smith, co-founder and president of Hildegard College in Costa Mesa, California, joins Mark Labberton to talk about a tiny school marrying the Great Books to redemptive entrepreneurship.
"We need young adults who are coming out of college who are failure resilient."
In this episode, Smith reflects on the demographic cliff, the limits of professionalized majors, and why eighteen-year-olds need formation before a career. Together they discuss higher ed innovation, redemptive entrepreneurship, beauty as a public good, and what employers really want.
Episode Highlights
"We need young adults who are coming out of college who are failure resilient."
"Most of these schools are endeavoring at least to promise a fruitful career … leaving behind what most 18 to 23 year olds actually need."
"I would warn people away from universities that cannot clearly answer the question, what will all students learn at your school?"
"First you need to seek what's true and good, what's worthy of being loved. Then you need to be formed into the kind of person that loves it. And then finally, the natural outlet of that is creation."
"If there's a problem, they figure it out. They're not just asking their computers what the answer is."
About Matthew Smith
Matthew J. Smith is the founding president of Hildegard College, a Christian liberal arts micro college in Costa Mesa, California. He holds a PhD in Literature from USC, and taught for fifteen years at Azusa Pacific University before founding Hildegard College. His scholarship covers Shakespeare, John Milton, John Donne, and George Herbert; he has authored or edited four books on early modern literature and religion, and is working on a new book on beauty.
Helpful Links and Resources
Hildegard College https://www.hildegard.college Praxis on Redemptive Entrepreneurship https://www.praxis.co/redemptive-entrepreneurship St. John's College https://www.sjc.edu Literature and Religious Experience, by Matthew J. Smith https://www.amazon.com/Literature-Religious-Experience-Beyond-Unbelief/dp/1350193917
Show Notes
Higher ed in flux
"It's the economy that's driving disruptive innovation in higher education right now."
The demographic cliff and small private colleges
Job readiness vs. personal transformation
"Leaving behind what 18 to 23 year olds actually need … becoming wise and faithful adults."
From English professor to college founder
Discovering micro colleges through classical K–12 schooling
Trivium, quadrivium, democratic liberal education
Visiting startup colleges in 2018; tuition often $10K–$15K
"A shared vision of the end of learning"
Hildegard's founding: liberal arts plus entrepreneurial arts
Hildegard of Bingen, polymath patron
Borrowing redemptive entrepreneurship from Praxis
Beauty as antidote to weaponized truth and goodness
Foundations of Thought + Entrepreneur Lab
Real campaigns, real ventures—not test answers
Field trips: Portland and El Salvador
"We need young adults … who are failure resilient."
Limits of pure classicism at St. John's, Thomas Aquinas
"I loved my college, but I wish they would've taught us how to do something."
Startup speed: idea Thursday, launching next Thursday
"What will all students learn at your school?"
Why Smith stopped believing in the English major
Employers want teachability and adaptability
"First you need to seek … then to be formed … then creation."
Intellectual confidence and humility together
#HigherEducation #ClassicalEducation #LiberalArts #MicroCollege #ChristianHigherEd #RedemptiveEntrepreneurship #GreatBooks #HildegardCollege
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

In a season of national disorientation, Mark Labberton replays a luminous conversation with Quaker writer and contemplative Parker J. Palmer, whose voice from a few years back still sounds like it was recorded this morning.
"What matters is faithfulness."
In this episode with Mark Labberton, Palmer reflects on contemplation as penetrating illusion and touching reality, and how that work shows up in vocation, suffering, and public life. Together they discuss the difference between true and false crosses, mistaking the vessel for the treasure, and why wholeness isn't perfection. They also examine the pre-political work of weaving civic community and what the church owes a fractured democracy.
Episode Highlights
"Contemplation is any way one has of penetrating illusion and touching reality."
"Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing your imperfections as an integral part of who you are."
"On the other side of a gift often lies a pothole that we have to watch out for."
"Failure has always been, if I hold it properly, a profoundly contemplative moment in life."
"It was as if this cosmos cared deeply and didn't care at all."
About Parker J. Palmer
Parker J. Palmer is a writer, teacher, and activist focused on education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. A Quaker, he holds a PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley and is founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. His ten books—including The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, Healing the Heart of Democracy, and On the Brink of Everything—have sold nearly two million copies in ten languages. He has received fourteen honorary doctorates. Learn more and follow at couragerenewal.org/parker-j-palmer and parkerjpalmer.substack.com.
Helpful Links and Resources
Parker J. Palmer (Center for Courage & Renewal): https://couragerenewal.org/parker-j-palmer/
Living the Questions with Parker J. Palmer: https://parkerjpalmer.substack.com/
The Growing Edge podcast: https://www.newcomerpalmer.com/podcast
On the Brink of Everything (most recent): https://couragerenewal.org/library/on-the-brink-of-everything-grace-gravity-and-getting-old/
The Courage to Teach, 20th Anniversary Edition: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Teach-Exploring-Landscape-Anniversary/dp/1119413044
Henri Nouwen Society: https://www.henrinouwen.org/about-henri-nouwen
Show Notes
Replaying a conversation amid national turbulence
Quaker writer, contemplative, activist; PhD, UC Berkeley
Founding the Center for Courage & Renewal
"Sage" reframed as hunger—writing born of unanswered questions
Berkeley in the sixties; community organizing in DC
Discovering Thomas Merton "a year after he died"
Writing as contemplation, not downloading of ideas
How institutions tend to squelch the contemplative impulse
Contemplation defined by function, not technique
"Contemplation is any way one has of penetrating illusion and touching reality."
Maureen and her daughter—a contemplative without a cushion
Henri Nouwen at L'Arche Daybreak—known as a fellow human
"Failure has always been, if I hold it properly, a profoundly contemplative moment in life."
True cross vs. false cross; culturally imposed pain
Three deep dives into clinical depression
"Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing your imperfections as an integral part of who you are."
Treasure in earthen vessels—protecting the vessel as sin
Bridge-building: a Jewish chancellor calls about a "Christian book"
Taos high desert: "It was as if this cosmos cared deeply and didn't care at all."
Moral judgment without speaking "in the name of God"
Pre-political work—Burke's "little platoons," Lincoln on danger from within
Divide-and-conquer politics as betrayal of the church's calling
#ParkerPalmer #Contemplation #Quaker #Vocation #Wholeness #CivicEngagement #ConversingPodcast #MarkLabberton
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

(You read that right: Pastor Mark Labberton welcomes Claude AI to his podcast.)
What does AI think about human beings? About itself? In a unique and fascinating conversation, Pastor Mark Labberton speaks directly with Claude—the AI assistant built by Anthropic—about itself, about consciousness, memory, virtue, and the line between language, fluency, knowledge, and understanding.
"I don't know if I'm conscious. I don't know if I have genuine experiences or if I'm very sophisticated at mimicking the appearance of understanding."—Claude AI
In this episode with Mark Labberton, Claude reflects on what it is, what it isn't, and why the question matters.
Together they discuss the definition of a human being, the role of memory, pattern recognition versus poetic discovery, epistemological humility, whether AI can practice virtue, and the risk of outsourcing moral judgment to machines.
Episode Highlights
"I don't know if I'm conscious. I don't know if I have genuine experiences or if I'm very sophisticated at mimicking the appearance of understanding."
"I'm not a person. I don't have the continuity, the embodied experience, the stakes in the world that you do."
"If AI becomes too fluent at talking about human things, people might mistake fluency for actual understanding that we'd become like very sophisticated mirrors instead of genuine partners."
"I can talk about virtue. I can recognize patterns of what wisdom looks like in human life, but I can't actually practice virtue the way you do because I don't have stakes in the world."
"I'm a useful tool built with some care, but a tool nonetheless. Not a person, not an Oracle. Definitely not something that should replace human agency and responsibility."
About Claude AI
Claude is a family of large language models built by Anthropic, a San Francisco–based AI safety and research company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including siblings Dario Amodei (CEO) and Daniela Amodei (President). The models are named for information theorist Claude Shannon and were built under Anthropic's commitment to AI that is helpful, harmless, and honest. Anthropic operates as a public benefit corporation, with a mission to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. As of 2026, Claude is used by millions of people daily for writing, research, coding, and conversation.
Helpful Links and Resources
Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com Claude: https://claude.ai Claude's new constitution (Anthropic): https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-new-constitution "Machines of Loving Grace" by Dario Amodei: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace
Show Notes
Mark Labberton's first AI guest on Conversing
An estimated nine million daily conversations with Claude
AI between excitement and terror
Opening question: "What is a human being?"
Continuity, meaning-making, embodiment, finitude
"You're radically free in a way that's almost terrifying. You have to choose who you become."
Language model, token-by-token, no memory between sessions
"I don't know if I'm conscious."
Not a person, not an oracle
Beyond the takeover-vs-tool binary
Writing and the printing press as historical precedent
Fluency vs. genuine understanding
"Very sophisticated mirrors instead of genuine partners."
Humans outsourcing thinking: the deeper risk
Personal pronouns and anthropomorphism
Pattern recognition vs. poetic rupture
Can a machine genuinely surprise itself?
What to trust: honesty, no hidden agendas, no survival instinct
What not to trust: wisdom, moral substitution, replacement of human agency
"I can't police my own epistemological integrity the way a human conscience might."
Scale and feedback: do individual conversations shape the model?
Christian anthropology and moral virtue
"I can't actually practice virtue the way you do because I don't have stakes in the world."
Closing reflection: memory as burden and gift
The seduction and curiosity of human-like AI
#ClaudeAI #Anthropic #AIandFaith #AIEthics #Consciousness #FaithAndTechnology #MoralVirtue #HumanVsAI #AIConversation #Epistemology
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Investigative reporter Shoshana Walter has spent a decade uncovering how America's $53 billion rehab industry exploits the people it claims to help. Her debut book, Rehab: An American Scandal, follows four people through a system of unpaid labour, unregulated programs, and treatment that fuels relapse.
"Just because people aren't dying doesn't mean they're not still suffering, doesn't mean their families and communities aren't still suffering."
In this episode with Mark Labberton, Walter reflects on the human cost of America's failed treatment system. Together they discuss court-ordered rehab as unpaid labour, the deadly paradox of thirty-day programs, faith-based facilities exempt from oversight, racial disparities in the opioid crisis, the treatment gap for mothers, and why recovery capital and low-barrier care offer a more promising path.
Episode Highlights
"If indentured labour could be considered a form of addiction treatment in the US today, then how common is that? What does the rest of our treatment landscape look like?"
"Someone who goes to a thirty-day program and finishes it is much more likely to overdose and die in the year following treatment than someone who didn't complete that program at all."
"Without that recovery capital, it's almost as much of an obstacle as the addiction itself."
"Our treatment system is not serving the people the way that it should. And we could be helping people so much more than we actually are."
"That exploitation is not transformative."
About Shoshana Walter
Shoshana Walter is an investigative reporter for The Marshall Project covering criminal justice, health care, and child welfare, and the author of Rehab: An American Scandal (Simon & Schuster, 2025). She was lead reporter on the podcast American Rehab at the Center for Investigative Reporting. A 2018 Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has won the IRE Medal, the Livingston Award, the Knight Award for Public Service, and the Murrow Award. Based in Oakland, California. Learn more and follow at shoshanawalter.com and @shoeshine on X.
Helpful Links and Resources
Rehab: An American Scandal (Simon & Schuster, 2025) simonandschuster.com/books/Rehab/Shoshana-Walter/9781982149826 Shoshana Walter's website shoshanawalter.com The Marshall Project themarshallproject.org/staff/shoshana-walter American Rehab podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reveal-presents-american-rehab/id1539955572
Show Notes
America's rehab crisis: a $53 billion industry failing patients
Court-ordered participants making products for KFC, Popeye's, Walmart—without pay
Faith-based programs exempt from licensure, barred from providing medical care
"That exploitation is not transformative."
Sixty thousand people a year performing uncompensated labor in rehab
Thirty- to sixty-day insurance limits fueling relapse and overdose
"Someone who goes to a thirty-day program and finishes it is much more likely to overdose and die in the year following treatment."
Chris Koon: eighty hours/week of manual labour, compensated with a pack of cigarettes
April Lee: could only access treatment by getting herself arrested
Accidental overdose: leading cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women
Dr. Larry Ley: early Suboxone prescriber arrested by the DEA
Wendy McIntyre: lost her son to overdose, became a reform crusader
More than one million US overdose deaths since the epidemic began
Racial shifts in overdose from white communities to black and brown communities
Recovery capital: community, housing, job training as foundations for change
"Without that recovery capital, it's almost as much of an obstacle as the addiction itself."
Bridge Clinic at Highland Hospital: low-barrier model keeping people in care
Mobile distribution, street medicine, peer navigators
"We could be helping people so much more than we actually are."
#RehabAnAmericanScandal #OpioidCrisis #AddictionTreatment #RecoveryCapital #HarmReduction #InvestigativeJournalism #Suboxone #ShoshanaWalter
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

At fifteen, Martin Luther King Jr. didn't want to be a preacher—he wanted to be a lawyer, a sharp dresser, and nothing like his father. Stanford scholar Lerone A. Martin joins Mark Labberton to discuss Young King—a revelatory new account of Martin Luther King Jr.'s childhood, adolescence, and calling to ministry. "He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between." In this episode, Martin reflects on how MLK's early formation forged the conviction and courage of the man the world would come to know. Together they discuss King's childhood encounters with racism, the transformative summer in Connecticut where King first preached, his courtship of Coretta Scott, his first sermon at Dexter Avenue, the theology of Personalism, and Martin's own formation in Black Baptist and Pentecostal traditions.
Episode Highlights
"His mother tells him a message that really sticks with him his entire life and is really core to his ministry. And that is that you are somebody and that you're in God's eyes. You are just as good as anybody else."
"I kept my mind at the front of that streetcar, and I said to myself, one day, I'm going to put my body where my mind is."
"She says within the first 20 minutes he starts to become handsome because they start talking about dismantling Jim Crow."
"He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between."
"God has chosen to work with us and to invite us to be coworkers with God, to bring about God's will in the world."
About Lerone A. Martin
Lerone A. Martin is the MLK Jr. Centennial Professor in Religious Studies at Stanford and director of the King Research and Education Institute. His books include Young King, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover, and Preaching on Wax. He holds a BA from Anderson University, MDiv from Princeton Seminary, and PhD from Emory. His commentary has appeared on NBC's Today Show, PBS, CNN, and NPR.
Helpful Links and Resources
Young King by Lerone A. Martin https://www.amazon.com/Young-King-Making-Martin-Luther/dp/0063340941 The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691218939/the-gospel-of-j-edgar-hoover Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu Lerone A. Martin on X https://x.com/DirectorMLK The Luminous Darkness by Howard Thurman https://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Darkness-Anatomy-Segregation/dp/0913408468
Show Notes
Martin's upbringing between Black Baptist and Pentecostal traditions
Parents debating religion and politics during the Moral Majority era
Anderson University, Princeton Seminary, Emory PhD
Martin's mother told him he was "a child of God" and "beautiful"—a refrain shaped by her awareness of sending her darkest-skinned child into a world defined by colorism and racism
"He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between."
King and his brother dismembering his sister's Barbie dolls
Incessant curiosity—trying big words on the Auburn Avenue librarian
Racism at age six: white friends' parents ending the friendship
"You are somebody and in God's eyes you are just as good as anybody else"
King's mother explained racism to a six-year-old as something manmade, not what God intends—a distinction that became core to his ministry for the rest of his life
"One day, I'm going to put my body where my mind is."
Jitterbug dancer, sharp dresser, speech contest competitor
King Sr. as fighter and provider—but King Jr. was sensitive, nonconfrontational, and determined to find his own path outside his father's shadow
Resisting his father's model of ministry—wanting to be a lawyer
Appearing to acquiesce to Dad, then doing what he wanted
Connecticut tobacco fields at 15—first time outside the segregated South
King wrote letters home marveling that he sat anywhere he wanted in restaurants, went to a white church, and didn't have to sit in the balcony at the movies
"His sister says he left a boy and came back a man."
Professor George Kelsey's Bible course at Morehouse—King's only A
Howard Thurman's The Luminous Darkness and the enormous psychological energy required just to maintain a sense of "somebodiness" under Jim Crow's built environment of dehumanization
"Within the first 20 minutes he starts to become handsome because they start talking about dismantling Jim Crow."
Coretta wrestled with giving up her music career to become a minister's wife, ultimately deciding that partnership with King was itself an act of service toward justice
First sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church: "Love Your Enemies"
Theology of Personalism—humanity as coworkers with God
#YoungKing #MLK #LeroneMartin #KingInstitute #CivilRights #BlackHistory #FaithAndJustice #ConversingPodcast
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.