Good Faith

How Are Protestants Navigating a Moral and Spiritual Vacuum in Evangelicalism?
 
Host Curtis Chang talks with former White House staffer and Atlantic columnist Pete Wehner about why Pope Leo XIV is resonating with Protestants and evangelicals despite historic theological divides. Together, they explore the Pope's moral leadership while contrasting his dignified, intellectually grounded public witness with Donald Trump's increasingly erratic influence on evangelical political culture. The conversation examines a perceived spiritual leadership vacuum within Protestantism and calls pastors, congregations, and followers of Jesus to cultivate beauty, goodness, and truth as a long-term path toward renewing Christian public witness.
 
00:34 - Introduction to Pope Leo XIV's Influence
02:29 - Is There a Protestant Appreciation for Catholicism?
03:59 - What Is This Pope's Impact on Public Theology?
06:06 - Papal Influence in Past Administrations
11:19 - The Collapse of Evangelical Public Theology
14:18 - Can Protestants Still Exert Moral Influence?
21:16 - The "Mad King" and Trump's Cognitive Decline
28:42 - What Can Pastors Do?
32:00 - The Importance of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth
37:08 - What Is The Pope's Transcendent Influence?
 
Sign up for the Anxiety Opportunity Course Use the code: Goodfaith
Sign up for The After Party
Sign up for The Good List
 
Referenced in the Episode:
Pete Wehner's article "The American Pope vs. the American President" 
Pete Wehner's article "The Apotheosis of Donald Trump"
Pope Leo XIV's Encyclical Letter: Magnifica Humanitas
The Madness of King George (YouTube free with ads)
David Bentley Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite
Wordsworth's The Prelude, Book 14 
Good Faith's course: The After Party
 
Scriptures Referenced:
1 Timothy 3 (ESV)
Titus 1 (ESV)
 
Protestant and Catholic Leaders Referenced:
Pope John Paul II
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Francis
Reinhold Niebuhr
C.S. Lewis
Billy Graham
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
John Stott
Karl Barth
Oliver O'Donovan
Rowan Williams
Dr. Tim Keller
More from Pete Wehner:
Pete Wehner's articles at The Atlantic
Pete Wehner's opinion pieces at The New York Times
 
Follow Us:
Good Faith on Instagram
Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter)
Good Faith on Facebook
 
The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.

How Can Freedom, Faith, and the Fight Beyond A Holiday Shape Us?
 
Host Curtis Chang talks with sociologist Dr. Angel Adams Parham about the history of Juneteenth, from the 1865 emancipation announcement in Galveston, Texas, to its meaning for American freedom, racial justice, and collective memory. Together, they explore the spiritual resilience of the Black church, its influence on Christian theology and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and why Juneteenth matters for all Americans. They also consider how Christians can celebrate Juneteenth with both joy and historical honesty.
 
02:05 - The Historical Story of Juneteenth
05:11 - What Were the Limitations of the Emancipation Proclamation?
09:28 - An American Pattern of Incomplete Freedom
13:34 - How Do We Preserve the Meaning of Juneteenth?
19:24 - The Pain of Historical Erasure & Cultural Setbacks
23:43 - Scripture as a Freedom Narrative Fostering Resilience
29:22 - The Universal Longing To Be Free
32:06 - The Black Church's Contribution to the Christian Story
35:54 - Embodied Practices for Juneteenth
39:09 - The Spiritual Promise of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
 
Register for our America 250 episode recording with Russell Moore and David French
Sign up for the Anxiety Opportunity Course Use the code: Goodfaith
 
Referenced in the Episode:
Transcript of The Emancipation Proclamation
Union General Gordon Granger's announcement: General Order No. 3
Claude Atcho's Reading Black Books 
Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (pdf)
Transcription of an interview with ex-slave Felix Haywood
Reggie L. Williams' Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus 
Phillis Wheatley's letter to Rev. Samson Occom
James Weldon Johnson's poem Lift Every Voice and Sing
Manhattan Harmony Four's recording Lift Every Voice And Sing
The Fisk University Quartet's Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
 
Scriptures Referenced:
Exodus 12:31–15:21 (ESV)
Isaiah 61 (ESV)
Leviticus 25 (ESV)
Luke 4:14–30 (ESV)
 
More From Dr. Angel Adams Parham:
Dr. Parham's bio: the University of Virginia
Dr. Parham's Website
Dr. Parham's book The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature
 
Follow Us:
Good Faith on Instagram
Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter)
Good Faith on Facebook
 
The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.

What does it mean to stay fully human in the age of AI?
 
Host Curtis Chang sits down with Pulitzer Prize finalist and acclaimed technology critic Nicholas Carr to explore how AI, social media, and digital life are reshaping human attention, identity, education, and spiritual formation. Carr warns that technologies promising efficiency often erode the embodied presence, deep thinking, struggle, and meaningful friction that make us fully human. Together, Curtis and Nicholas uncover surprising common ground in the urgent work of preserving human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence.
 
00:37 - Introduction to Nicholas Carr and His work
03:52 - What Is Technology's Social Impact
04:03 - Disembodied Communication and Negative Emotions
05:27 - What It Means to Be Truly Human
11:32 - Information vs. Formation
14:38 - Why Is AI So Unsettling?
18:54 - Stop Rushing the Adoption of AI in Education
22:02 - AI and the Erosion of the Self
25:08 - An Institutional Response to AI
27:36 - Forming the Next Generation
31:10 - Countercultural Imperatives for Leaders
 
Register for our America 250 episode recording with Russell Moore and David French
Sign up for the Anxiety Opportunity Course Use the code: Goodfaith
 
Mentioned in This Episode:
Nicholas Carr's The Atlantic article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" 
Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains 
Nicholas Carr's Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart 
Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation
Vatican document on AI, Antiqua et Nova
The Christian Scholars' Conference at Pepperdine University
 
More From Nicholas Carr:
Nicholas Carr's website
Nicholas Carr's Substack: New Cartographies
Nichoals Carr's blog: Rough Type
 
Follow Us:
Good Faith on Instagram
Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter)
Good Faith on Facebook
 
The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.

Have You Ever Met a Secular Professor Who Became a Christian?
 
In this episode of Good Faith, Curtis Chang talks with historian and UNC professor Molly Worthen about her surprising journey from secular skeptic to Christian believer—and what her story reveals about faith, doubt, college, and perceived crises in higher education. They explore why so many Christian students struggle with faith on secular campuses, how parents can help college-bound kids find mentors and community, and how Christian study centers are creating spaces for honest questions, intellectual formation, and spiritual growth. Molly also explains why the search for meaning in the age of AI may open new doors for Christian faith to thrive.
 
02:58 - Professor Molly Worthen Describes Her Faith Journey
06:22 - Is The Resurrection a Historical Truth?
10:23 - Molly's Leap of Faith Was Intellectual
11:25 - Why Do Students Leave Church in College?
13:48 - The Role of Christian Study Centers 
19:49 - Students Seeking Mentorship 
25:41 - Faith, Politics, and Crisis of Meaning
29:43 - The Timeless Questions of Faith Are Still the Dominant Ones
31:14 - What's The Professional Cost of Being a Public Christian on Campus?
34:01 - Can You Have a Healthy Relationship With Doubt?
39:28 - Advice for Parents of College-Bound Students
 
More about the Consortium of Christian Study Centers
More about the North Carolina Study Center
Register for our America 250 episode recording with Russell Moore and David French
 
Mentioned in This Episode:
Molly Worthen's Spellbound
LifeWay Research: Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church as Young Adults
Tim Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
 
More From Molly Worthen:
Molly Worthen's faculty page at UNC
Molly Worthen's website
Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism
 
Follow Us:
Good Faith on Instagram
Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter)
Good Faith on Facebook
 
The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.

Are Aliens Demons, Our Cosmic Neighbors, or Something Stranger?
 
Host Curtis Chang and author Andy Crouch explore the theological implications of UFOs, extraterrestrial life, and the possibility that humans are not the only created beings in the cosmos. They ask whether aliens should be understood as material creatures, angels and demons, image bearers, or cosmic neighbors—and what Scripture, Christian theology, and even Aquinas suggest about our human uniqueness. Along the way, they consider whether first contact would reveal Christian love, humility, and wonder—or our instinct toward fear and domination.
 
00:47 - Introduction to Alien Life and Declassified UFO Reports
02:19 - Do Aliens Exist?
08:32 - The Value of Pondering Alien Life
13:02 - Aliens vs. Angels and Demons
23:18 - God's Mysterious Creatures in Scripture
27:42 - The Octopus Dilemma and Human Specialness 
38:26 - Missional Work and Alien Life?
44:26 - The Nature of God's Love
48:49 - Domination or Love : The Human Response to Aliens
50:58 - Andy Imagines Worshipping with Cosmic Neighbors
 
Turn on Apple Podcasts Automatic Downloads:
Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Apps, then tap Podcasts.
Tap Automatically Download, then tap an option.
Tip: To automatically download episodes from a particular podcast, go to the Podcasts app on your iPhone, tap Library, then tap Shows. Touch and hold the show, then tap Settings. Tap Automatically Download to limit automatic downloads to a certain number of episodes or a timeframe.
Sign up for the Anxiety Opportunity Course Use the code: Goodfaith
 
Scriptures Referenced:
Job 1–2 (ESV)
Job 38–41 (ESV)
Genesis 1–2 (ESV)
Genesis 4 (ESV)
Ephesians 2 (ESV)
2 Peter 1:4 (ESV)
Romans 8 (ESV)
Isaiah 11 (ESV)
Romans 10 (ESV)
 
Mentioned in This Episode:
UFO-related declassified files
UAP disclosure
Meghan Sullivan and Notre Dame's DELTA project
What is the Fermi paradox?
Eleanor Stump's Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering
C.S. Lewis's Perelandra
Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary: A Novel
A scene from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A scene from Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
A scene from Denis Villeneuve's Arrival
St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica: reason / will / dominion
Salvation as Theosis: The Teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy (article)
Isaiah's peaceable kingdom 
Thunderbird in Native American traditions
Do octopus brains work like humans'? (article)
Pythagoras and Johannes Kepler's Musica Universalis or the Music of the Spheres
 
More From Andy Crouch:
Check out Andy's website
Check out Andy's work at Praxis
Read Andy's book: The Life We're Looking For
 
Follow Us:
Good Faith on Instagram
Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter)
Good Faith on Facebook
 
The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.