For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Drew Collins, Evan Rosa

We live in a time of disillusionment. Trust is waning in the public sphere, religious affiliation is on decline, and some feel a deep tension or ambivalence about their community—whether that’s a region, family, political party, or spiritual tradition.

How should we think about the experience of disillusionment, particularly the threat of becoming disillusioned with faith?

Aimee Byrd, author of several books on contemporary issues facing Christianity. And after her own experience becoming disillusioned with the church, she wrote her most recent offering: The Hope in Our Scars: Finding the Bride of Christ in the Underground of Disillusionment.

In this conversation, Aimee Byrd joins Evan Rosa to discuss: how to diagnose and understand disillusionment—particularly disillusionment with church and the trappings of Christian faith & culture; as well as the problem of spiritual abuse and the broken forms of faith that allow it to persist. She explores the Old Testament’s *Song of Songs*—exploring how it honors the depth of human longing and desire. She considers how beauty validates our yearnings and invites us toward a lasting faith and gives us new sight and recognition, and ultimately takes a hard look at what it means to explore our wounds and scars in search of hope and faith.

“Black motherhood has consistently been a contested space. Black women have just fought for their rights to be. And so when we say Black motherhood, to me, the reality of Black motherhood itself is the resistance. And we still stand and we claim what it means to be Black mothers. We've got to consistently stand firm trying to raise healthy children in spite of it all.”

Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas (Episcopal Divinity School) discusses the gift and grace of Black motherhood to the world and what we can learn from Black mothers about love and resistance. Appreciating the example they set for the meaning of justice that emerges from love, and the capacity for love that emerges from justice, Dr. Douglas offers beautiful examples and expressions of the joy and abundance that Black motherhood means.

She reflects on the impact of her maternal grandmother on her life; the Langston Hughes poem “Mother and Son”—which is a testimony of perseverance and robust agency; the glorious hush harbor sermon and ode to self-love and dignity, delivered by Baby Suggs Holy, known as “The Sermon in the Clearing" in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. It gave me chills to hear Dr. Douglas read the sermon. She looks back to the example set by Mamie Till, the mother of Emmitt Till, who as a 14 year old boy was lynched in 1955. And Dr. Douglas speaks in witness to the fear, pain, and grief of the Black mother during the Black Lives Matter era, drawing not only on her expertise in Womanist Theology, but her close relationship with her own son.

Miroslav Volf remembers his mentor and friend, German theologian Jürgen Moltmann (April 8, 1926 – June 3, 2024). Followed by Moltmann's reflections on joy, hope, and how he came to faith during World War II as a conscripted German soldier.

How do you find hope when you can only see yourself and your future in light of your past mistakes? Practical theologian Sarah Farmer joins Evan Rosa to discuss women's prisons, agency, connection, and theological education for incarcerated women—all featured in her recent book, Restorative Hope: Creating Pathways of Connection in Women’s Prisons.

Protests dominate the news. But what is the freedom of assembly? What the First Amendment calls “the right of the people peaceably to assemble”? Legal scholar John Inazu (Washington University, St. Louis) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of the freedom of assembly—its history, meaning, interpretation, and application—as well as how it impacts the ability for citizens to gather to demonstrate and protest.

Poet Micheal O'Siadhail discusses his latest collection of poetry, Desire—reading several poems and commenting on how he dealt with the pandemic and sought to understand it through verse. With Evan Rosa, he discusses his poetry as a living and synthetic record of human history, the nature of human greed and avarice and how it has marred the earth, and the calling to reshape our desires toward what's truly worth desiring: a desire for the sacred, for the transcendent, and ultimately, a desire of God for God's own sake.