The Story Behind 'The Anxiety Opportunity'

We are in an anxious age. By some estimates, a third of all Americans will struggle with anxiety in their lives, and nearly 20% currently suffer from an anxiety disorder. For those suffering the mental distortions of anxiety, life can be difficult, and hope elusive. And for many Christians who have tried and failed to stop their slide into fear and worry by simply “laying down their burdens,” they may feel an added sense of spiritual failure as well.

We’re joined on our podcast by psychiatrist Curt Thopmson and theologian Curtis Chang who help us explore a counterintuitive approach to understanding our anxiety:

I believe the Bible and Jesus's own life invites us to treat [anxiety] not as a problem to make go away, but precisely as a signal. A signal, an invitation, what I call an opportunity, an invitation to walk through anxiety, to actually experience it in the way that actually we were designed to by God for spiritual growth in Jesus, where we actually meet Jesus more deeply, precisely in our anxiety.

It's not that we have to make anxiety go away, and then finally, then we're like qualified to somehow be with Jesus. It's that actually in our experience of anxiety, that's where we encounter Jesus most deeply and encounter the truths about ourselves most deeply.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2023. Watch the full video of the conversation here. Learn more about Curt Thopmson and Curtis Chang.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self, by Curtis Chang

The Age of Anxiety, by W.H. Auden

The Anatomy of the Soul, The Soul of Shame, The Soul of Desire, by Curt Thompson

Jonathan Haidt

Richard Schwartz

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

Wrestling with God, by Simone Weil

Augustine's Confessions

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day

Related Conversations:
Rebuilding our Common Life with Yuval Levin
The Challenge of Christian Nationalism with Mark Noll and Vincent Bacote
The Decadent Society with Ross Douthat
Science, Faith, Trust and Truth with Francis Collins
Beyond Ideology with Peter Kreeft and Eugene Rivers
Justice, Mercy, and Overcoming Racial Division with Claude Alexander and Mac Pier
Healing a Divided Culture with Arthur Brooks
After Babel with Andy Crouch and Johnathan Haidt

How to Know a Person with David Brooks
Trust, Truth, and The Knowledge Crisis with Bonnie Kristian
Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang & Curt Thompson

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.