Humanize Me

Before recent events in Israel and Palestine, Bart Campolo had this conversation with Salwa and Gerard of an organization called Military Court Watch in Jerusalem. In it, we hear about Salwa's experiences growing up in the region, and what drew Gerard to working there as an attorney. There are no easy answers about the conflict there, and we don't offer any in this episode. But human rights, humanist ideas and a focus on children are highlighted in a very insightful way.

Bart and John discuss the a question from a listener called Paolo about believing in miracles. Even though he has many issues with the rational case for Christianity, Paolo's own experiences make him inclined to hold onto his faith. And let's be honest, we live in a world where weird things sometimes happen. Do you believe in miracles?

Johann Hari is an international best-selling author, journalist and thinker who has written two books we especially love: Chasing the Scream (about drugs and addiction) and Lost Connections (about what produces depression). So he may be one of the most fitting guests we've had. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Johann talks about the purpose of pain, the value of community, understanding despair, how people learn social skills and friendship, why our intuitions on addiction may bewrong and our intuitions on depression may be right, the psychological poisons in our culture, releasing shame as an antidepressant, and much more. All things Johann can be found at JohannHari.com.

...in the nicest possible way. On a recent episode, Bart Campolo casually referred to a bar full of people you might like to strike up a conversation with, saying, 'There's a woman, there's a man, there's a woman who used to be a man.' A trans woman called Rya wrote us an email, in the process giving us the perfect model for how to address someone you disagree with. It was so perfect we thought we'd share it. Also on this episode, the music of New Tycoon (a song called Ancient from the album Wholiness).

How do we recapture political nuance, thoughtfulness and open-mindedness at a time when alternative media has hooked us on politics and broke our democracy? Claire Potter is a Professor of History and co-Executive Editor of Public Seminar at The New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village, New York City. In this conversation, she and Bart Campolo talk about the state of our political discourse and the attitudes that can promote the change we all want to see.

Bart talks to Joe Blankholm, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who with his colleagues is conducting a survey of secular communities across the United States. Take the survey at http://secularcommunities.com/scs

A question from a former church pastor about finding connections and community with other people on the other side of faith. Bart thinks it's harder as an adult than when you were in high school or college, but has some thoughts that may inspire some practical moves. Things we mention during the episode:  https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/resources http://clergyproject.org https://www.facebook.com/groups/1772151613053280 https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/style/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html https://secularcommunities.com/scs

How can we learn to have our disagreements across ideological divides more constructively and respectfully? David C. Smalley may be something of an expert at this point, having conducted hundreds of long-form conversations - many of them with Christians - on his podcast for the last 11 years. In this episode with Bart Campolo, David talks about how he approaches these on-air disagreements, and what allows him to stay friends with many of his guests after they hang up the phone.

Bart and John share thoughts about the Inauguration of President Biden, the emotions it raises, what is entailed in turning the page as a nation, how to begin to bring Trump's most fervent supporters back into conversation, the importance of rituals like this, the Inauguration as a civic religious ceremony, and the actual religion in the ceremony - including the biggest bible we've ever seen.

What does it take to cope in a high-pressure, competitive environment... without falling into harmful behavior? Ali Tamposi is a grammy-nominated songwriter who has written for some of the biggest names in pop music: Kelly Clarkson, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, John Legend, Ozzy Osbourne and many others. She's also Bart Campolo's daughter-in-law-to-be. Bart and Ali talk about what it's like to be in a songwriting session, how high-pressure, competitive environments can bring out everyone's insecurities, the better of her two coping strategies, how gender plays a role, how a good key relationship can make all the difference, and how you can't always change the room but rather what you bring to it.