Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Scan Media, LLC
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  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Politics and Religion. We’re not supposed to talk about that, right? Wrong! We only say that nowadays because the loudest, most extreme voices have taken over the whole conversation. Well, we‘re taking some of that space back! If you’re dying for some dialogue instead of all the yelling; if you know it’s okay to have differences without having to hate each other; if you believe politics and religion are too important to let ”the screamers” drown out the rest of us and would love some engaging, provocative and fun conversations about this stuff, then ”Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other” is for you!

  1. David M. Drucker of The Dispatch on the MAGA Coalition, the Media, and What Twitter Gets Wrong

    21H AGO

    David M. Drucker of The Dispatch on the MAGA Coalition, the Media, and What Twitter Gets Wrong

    What do voters actually want? And does what happens on social media have anything to do with it? David Drucker spent his twenties running his parents' manufacturing businesses in East LA. He was paying workers' comp, dealing with state regulations, signing the checks. Then he became a political journalist. That backstory turns out to matter. In this conversation, the senior writer at The Dispatch joins Corey to talk about what it means to cover American politics from the ground up. Drucker has built his career on getting out of Washington and talking to actual voters, and what he finds there consistently upends the assumptions of the media and political class. Most people are not as angry as your social media feed suggests. Most people have nuanced, complicated views. And most of them are voting on one thing: whether their lives are getting better or worse. The conversation ranges from the craft of journalism and the culture of The Dispatch to the internal fault lines of the MAGA coalition, the 2026 midterms, and the U.S. war in Iran. Drucker's analysis is sharp, his sourcing is deep, and his instinct, shaped by years of traveling the country, is to trust voters more than pundits. David Drucker is a senior writer at The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining in 2023, he was a senior correspondent at the Washington Examiner, a reporter at Roll Call, and covered California politics and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from the Sacramento bureau of the Los Angeles Daily News. He is the author of In Trump's Shadow and a regular presence on cable news and nationally syndicated radio. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Twitter Is Not the Town Square: The loudest voices online represent a small and unrepresentative slice of the electorate. Most Americans hold more nuanced, less partisan views than social media suggests, and they vote accordingly. The Ground Truth: There is no substitute for traveling and talking to voters in their own communities. Drucker has built a career on it. The alternative is reporting from inside an echo chamber. MAGA Voters Are Not Isolationists: They're against wars we lose. They're perfectly fine with projecting American power against bad actors. The vocal anti-war voices on the MAGA right are a minority within the coalition, not its center of gravity. The Economy Is the Election: Voters put Trump back in the White House expecting him to replicate his first-term economy. They don't think he's done that. That perception will drive the 2026 midterms. Politicians Are in the Service Business: They do what they believe they must to keep their jobs. Voters who complain about dysfunction are often sending contradictory signals, demanding results while simultaneously demanding that their representatives refuse to deal. The Dispatch as a Model: Drucker describes a publication built on being correct rather than fast, on traveling to where the story is, on editing everything twice, and on a business model not driven by clicks. AI and Journalism: Drucker doesn't use AI in his writing or drafting, and he doesn't trust it yet. He wants to see the original source material, not a summary. The Coalition Problem After Trump: Trump is just populistic enough for the populists and just normal enough for the normies. That is a unique skill. The next Republican nominee will not automatically inherit the coalition he built. Links and Resources The Dispatch: thedispatch.com David M. Drucker on Twitter: x.com/DavidMDrucker David on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/davidmdrucker.bsky.social Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials… Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

    1h 7m
  2. Not a Cult. A Coalition. Stephen Hawkins of More in Common on What Trump Voters Actually Believe

    5D AGO

    Not a Cult. A Coalition. Stephen Hawkins of More in Common on What Trump Voters Actually Believe

    62% of Trump voters say being MAGA is not an important part of their identity. So who, exactly, did we just elect? Stephen Hawkins has been trying to answer that question with data for nearly a decade. As Director of Research at More in Common since its founding in 2016, he helped author the landmark Hidden Tribes study and now leads the Beyond MAGA project, the most comprehensive look yet at the psychology of the 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2024. In this conversation, Corey and Stephen dig into the four distinct types of Trump voters, the emergent phenomenon of "traditionalism" among Gen Z, the widening gap between MAGA hard-liners and the reluctant right, and what any of this means for a country that our guest describes as feeling "pre-hot conflict." Stephen brings the rigor of a public opinion researcher and the perspective of someone who has lived, worked, and changed his mind on both sides of America's ideological divide. This is not a conversation about demonizing Trump voters or excusing them. It is about understanding them, and about what that understanding demands of the rest of us. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Coalition, Not Cult. The Beyond MAGA study surveyed nearly 11,000 Trump voters and found four distinct segments: MAGA Hard-liners (29%), Anti-Woke Conservatives (21%), Mainline Republicans (30%), and the Reluctant Right (20%). Three out of five Trump voters say being MAGA is not a central part of their identity. The Exhausted Majority Under Pressure. Stephen expects Hidden Tribes 2.0 to show the wings have grown, not shrunk. The exhausted majority may be moving from exhaustion toward something closer to despair. New Traditionalism and the Logic of Transgression. Among younger Trump voters, traditional or religious identity functions as a form of rebellion in a secular culture. For some Gen Z voters, Christianity is more countercultural than secularism. Supporting Trump taps the same energy as defying the teacher everyone dislikes. The Respect Gap. 84% of Trump voters feel respected by Trump. Only 21% feel respected by Democratic politicians. That 63-point gap is why even reluctant Trump voters are unlikely to migrate to the other party, regardless of policy grievances. No Inflection Points. The Epstein files, Greenland threats, Medicare subsidy rollbacks, military actions in Venezuela and Iran: none of them meaningfully moved Trump voter support. Reconsideration is happening among those who were already hesitant, not among convinced supporters. Stories, Values, Listen. Corey and Stephen both land on the same framework for better cross-divide conversation: surface the other person's story, understand their underlying value system (not just their policy positions), and listen with genuine curiosity rather than loading up your rebuttal. The Case for Clarity. More in Common is nonpartisan and does not have electoral ambitions, but Stephen does not mince words: the country feels pre-hot-conflict, and what it needs is not more outrage but more precision about who is actually out there and what they believe. About Our Guest Stephen Hawkins is Director of Research at More in Common, a nonpartisan organization working to understand and address the forces driving political division in nine countries. He has overseen the organization's research since its founding in 2016, including the landmark 2018 Hidden Tribes study and the 2026 Beyond MAGA project. Prior to More in Common, Stephen conducted public opinion research for Fortune 100 companies, United Nations agencies, electoral campaigns, and political movements. He has appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and regularly on Colorado Matters. He holds a master's in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School and a B.A. in political science and international affairs from George Washington University's Elliott School. Links and Resources Beyond MAGA report: beyondmaga.us More in Common on Substack: moreincommon.substack.com More in Common: moreincommonus.com Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials… Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

    1h 15m
  3. Frederick J. Riley, WEAVE's Executive Director: Connection — Not Policy — Is the Only Thing That Saves Us. Here's Who's Making It Happen.

    MAR 10

    Frederick J. Riley, WEAVE's Executive Director: Connection — Not Policy — Is the Only Thing That Saves Us. Here's Who's Making It Happen.

    What does it look like to grow up in a city running power cords between neighbors' houses just to stay warm — and then spend your career trying to rebuild that ethic everywhere else? Fred Riley is the Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, where he leads a national effort to fund, highlight, and connect the grassroots leaders who are stitching communities back together. Fred grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, shaped by a mother who "kneaded the dough" of her kids like bread — and by teachers, pastors, and neighbors who saw something worth nurturing. That formation is the whole story of why Weave exists, and why Fred is the right person running it. This conversation goes deep: from the Baltimore neighborhood that got a symphony performance because one woman cleaned out a vacant lot, to the moment Fred lived for months with his boxes packed — because he wasn't planning to stay. And somehow it circles back to why, at the end of the day, the most radical thing any of us can do is knock on a neighbor's door. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Weave the Social Fabric Project: Founded by David Brooks at the Aspen Institute, Weave identifies and resources "weavers" — people living counter-culturally in their communities by showing up for neighbors, organizing mutual aid, and building trust where it's been lost. Connected Service: Not volunteering for a community, but with one. Repetitive, in-person, relational — the kind of service that actually builds bonds rather than just checking a box. The Trust Map: Weave's tool at trustmap.org lets you find your community's trust score and connect to stories and resources that can help shift it. The Whole-Self Prerequisite: You can't show up for a community when you're not whole yourself. Fred's personal journey — weight, identity, a period of planning to end his life — is inseparable from the conviction he brings to this work. Cement the Relationship First: Fred's answer to the TP&R question: don't go in leading with politics. Find the shared humanity first. If the relationship is solid enough, the disagreements become manageable — or irrelevant. See People as Kids in Adult Clothes: A framework from Fred's own therapy: if you can picture the childhood behind someone's adult behavior, you unlock a level of empathy that makes even hard conversations possible. About Our Guest Fred Riley is the Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute. He previously served as Chief Advancement Officer for the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati and built his career in youth development and community organizing. He lives in Washington, D.C. Links and Resources Fred Riley / Weave Weave: The Social Fabric Project: weavers.org Trust Map: trustmap.org Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials… Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

    1h 6m
  4. You Voted for Policy. Did You Vote for This?

    MAR 6

    You Voted for Policy. Did You Vote for This?

    What do you actually mean when you say the Pledge of Allegiance? And are you still willing to mean it? For years, Corey stood in silence during the Pledge of Allegiance, troubled by what looked too much like idol worship. Then something shifted. Reading the words instead of performing them, he realized the pledge was never about the flag or the man holding the office. It was about the republic for which it stands. In a moment when that republic is under genuine pressure, this episode is about the difference between supporting a policy and cheering the dismantling of the constitutional constraints that govern how it gets carried out. Those are not the same thing, and the confusion between them is where democracies go wrong. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Republic, Not Ruler: The Pledge of Allegiance is a pledge to a constitutional order, not to a flag, a party, or a person. Reading those words carefully changes everything about what it means to say them. Policy vs. Method: You can support stronger border enforcement and still insist on due process. You can back economic protectionism and still insist Congress holds the commerce power. Supporting a goal is not a blank check for any method of achieving it. Article I Is Not Ambiguous: The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war and regulate commerce with foreign nations. This isn't interpretation. It's the plain text, and conservative and liberal scholars alike have been raising the alarm for years. The Gap Is Real: Trump won with just under 51% of the vote. His approval is now below 40%. That gap consists of real people who voted for a sane border policy and lower grocery prices, and are now watching something different. They are not the same people as those applauding masked agents conducting raids with minimal judicial oversight. Authoritarianism Begins with Exceptions: It doesn't begin with troops in the streets. It begins when citizens decide constitutional limits are optional when the right person is in charge. That logic, extended to the next administration, is what's actually on the table. Jonathan Rauch Said the Word: One of the most careful, fair-minded political thinkers in America, someone who literally wrote the book defending free inquiry from both the left and the right, used the word "fascism" for the first time after concluding the resemblances had become too many and too strong to deny. The question isn't whether he went too far. The question is why so many others are still hesitating. A Declaration, Not a Reflex: What was once a civic ritual has become something else. Saying those words in a moment when the republic is under pressure is not nationalism. It's resistance. Links and Resources David French (referenced) Constitutional scholar, First Amendment advocate, columnist - www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/opinion/trump-iran-congress-approval.html Jonathan Rauch (referenced) Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought — press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo18140749.html Yes, It's Fascism - www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/ Justice Neil Gorsuch (referenced) Concurrence in the recent tariff case, arguing for the constitutional role of Congress as deliberative body - www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/24-1287#writing-24-1287_CONCUR_5 Connect with Us Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials… Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

    23 min
  5. LA Times’ Gustavo Arellano on ICE Raids, Latino Voters, and America’s Breaking Point

    MAR 3

    LA Times’ Gustavo Arellano on ICE Raids, Latino Voters, and America’s Breaking Point

    What does it look like to spend 25 years covering a story you wish you could stop covering — and still refuse to despair? Gustavo Arellano is an LA Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the son of two Mexican immigrants. In this conversation he covers the Trump deportation machine, Rancho Libertarianism, why Americans hate Mexicans but love Mexican food, and what it actually looks like to stay in relationship across political difference. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion   Key Takeaways The Deportation Leviathan: This isn’t about policy logic or net fiscal impact. It’s demonization as strategy, funded for decades, borrowed from California’s Prop 187 playbook. Agents of Their Own Lives: Undocumented people are not a pitiful mass. They are individuals who make this country better. Framing them as victims does them a disservice. Rancho Libertarianism: The political identity Gustavo coined for Mexican hill-country values: bootstrap mentality, community pride, distrust of government, refusal to be used by either party. It explains a lot about 2024. Latinos Are Not a Monolith: Every community on his 3,000-mile pre-election road trip had its own story. None of it reducible to a single bloc. You Eat Their Food, You Start to See Them: Mexican food as cultural bridge. The problem with Chipotle is that it’s a burrito gentrifier, displacing local traditions it doesn’t care about. Stay in the Friendships: A Trump-supporting friend promised to take up guns for Gustavo if ICE came for him. Gustavo told him to start carrying his passport, “because you’re darker than me.” The friend responded with a thumbs up. That, Gustavo says, was a victory. These Are Also the Best of Times: During Operation W*****k in the 1950s, the only people fighting back were communists. Today the resistance is broader than anything this country has seen on this issue. About Our Guest Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in commentary and part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. The son of two Mexican immigrants, he has covered immigration, Latino politics, and the American Southwest for 25 years. Links and Resources Gustavo Arellano Newsletter (free, weekly): gustavoarellano.org LA Times: latimes.com/people/gustavo-arellano   “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” (referenced at 00:26:00) Woody Guthrie’s song about the 1948 crash that killed 28 Mexican farmworkers. ICE’s January 2025 post calling the victims “illegal Mexican aliens” is what sent Gustavo to write about it. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (referenced at 00:57:00) On declining social capital. Gustavo’s prescription: join things, meet people, touch grass. Born in East LA (1987, referenced at 00:15:00) Cheech Marin’s satirical classic. Gustavo’s conversation about it with David Chang is what put it on Corey’s radar. Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials… Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

    1h 6m
  6. His Name Above Every Name: Dehumanization, Dignity, and the Practice of Seeing

    FEB 27

    His Name Above Every Name: Dehumanization, Dignity, and the Practice of Seeing

    What does it cost a person to go unseen? And what does it ask of us to truly see one another? In this solo reflection, Corey Nathan explores the moral weight of being seen and the deliberate cruelty of being made invisible. From Marilynne Robinson's Lila to Muhammad Ali's thundering "What's my name?" to Mother Teresa's gaze upon the discarded, this episode traces a thread that runs through literature, history, jazz, and the headlines of this particular moment. When Attorney General Pam Bondi turned her back on Jeffrey Epstein's survivors, when federal agents hide behind masks while the faces of those they detain are photographed and published, when a president plasters his name above John F. Kennedy's, these are not isolated incidents. They are a pattern. And naming that pattern is where the work begins. What would it mean to choose differently? To look at one another the way John Ames looked at Lila? To call each other by our own names? Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion What This Episode Explores The Need to Be Seen To be seen — truly seen, not used or categorized or erased — is both what we most need and what can make us most exposed. Marilynne Robinson's Lila captures this with devastating precision: the way genuine recognition can feel terrifying to someone who has only ever been seen as a body to be used. When Power Weaponizes Invisibility Pam Bondi sat before Congress with her back to Jeffrey Epstein's survivors. Federal agents conceal their identities behind masks while those they detain are pictured and named. Those killed in lethal operations are reduced to labels. The pattern Colonel David Lapan identified is not accidental: those with power choose who remains invisible and who is exposed. What's My Name Muhammad Ali didn't just fight Ernie Terrell in 1967. He demanded to be known on his own terms, not by a name others had assigned him. The jazz musicians of the 1940s did the same thing, quietly and subversively, by calling each other "man" in a culture that called Black men "boy." To name someone is to acknowledge their humanity. The Counterexamples From Mother Teresa to David Brooks to Vaclav Havel, this episode draws on voices who understood what it means to see and be seen, as well as why that capacity is never merely symbolic. It is the foundation of moral culture. The Challenge to the Church As a Christian, Corey wrestles honestly with a hard number: more than two-thirds of white evangelicals continue to support an administration whose record on human dignity, as described in this episode, is difficult to square with the gospel. What We Can Choose None of us can single-handedly reshape national politics. But we can choose how we see each other. We can turn around and see those this administration will not. Why This Matters Now The daily acts of seeing, naming, and beholding are not symbolic gestures. They are the building blocks of moral culture. And when those in authority systematically exploit the need to be seen or weaponize anonymity to strip others of their humanity, the response can't only be political. It has to be personal. As Jesse Jackson shared with a group of children on Sesame Street: I am... somebody. Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials... Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Final Thought The world will not always look at you the way you deserve to be seen. But you can choose to look that way at others. Now go talk some politics and religion. And step forward. With gentleness and respect.

    20 min
  7. The Art of Neighboring: Pastor Amy Schenkel on Building Community, One Picnic Table at a Time (A WEAVE: The Social Fabric Project Story)

    FEB 24

    The Art of Neighboring: Pastor Amy Schenkel on Building Community, One Picnic Table at a Time (A WEAVE: The Social Fabric Project Story)

    How do we rebuild the social fabric of our neighborhoods and congregations in an age of disconnection and division? In this episode, Pastor Amy Schenkel joins Corey to talk about what it means to be a "weaver" in your own community. From a front-yard picnic table that became a neighborhood gathering place to decades of church planting in downtown Grand Rapids, Amy brings a grounded, practical theology of neighboring that cuts across political and religious lines. Along the way, she and Corey explore the difference between curiosity and contentiousness, how congregations survive painful splits, and why "mission" might be the one thing that unites people who agree on very little else. Amy is a pastor and ministries coordinator at Neland Avenue Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a regional mission leader who has also served as North American and U.S. Director of Resonate Global Mission. She's a trained missiologist, a church planting veteran, and a certified speaker with the Weave Speakers Bureau. Calls to Action ✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters. ✅ Subscribe to Corey’s Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Subscribe to Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Neighboring as a Practice: Neighboring doesn't happen by accident. It takes intentionality, imagination, and a willingness to show up consistently for the people around you. The Front-Yard Principle: A picnic table in the front yard rather than the backyard signals openness. Shared space that's accessible but not invasive invites connection without pressure. Missional Imagination: There's no curriculum for how your church or community should engage its neighborhood. It requires listening, creativity, and the willingness to try things and sometimes fail. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD): Instead of cataloguing what's broken in a neighborhood, start by identifying what's already there: the gifts, talents, and resources people bring. Let the community lead its own renewal. Mission as Common Ground: Churches and communities can disagree deeply about politics and theology while still uniting around a shared calling to love their neighbors. Mission can hold together what ideology pulls apart. Curiosity Over Contentiousness: Everyone is an expert in something you know nothing about. Approaching others with genuine curiosity rather than a prepared rebuttal changes the entire nature of a conversation. The Non-Anxious Presence: When a community faces painful decisions, the most valuable thing a leader can bring is a calm, non-anxious presence. It lowers the temperature and makes honest dialogue possible. Broken Open: Weave identifies people who have been "broken open" by loss or hardship as some of the most effective community weavers. Suffering, when it doesn't harden us, can deepen our compassion for those on the margins. Dispositional Preparation: The preparation that matters most before a hard conversation isn't rehearsing your rebuttals. It's working on your own disposition, arriving curious, open, and genuinely willing to hear. The Image of God Principle: Even when a relationship feels impossibly strained, there's a way through. Lisa Sharon Harper's prayer, "The image of God in me loves the image of God in you," offers a floor to stand on when everything else feels unstable. About Our Guest Pastor Amy Schenkel is a pastor and ministries coordinator at Neland Avenue Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she works to help one congregation connect more deeply with its neighborhood. A graduate of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary, Amy was among the first women ordained in her classis within her denomination. Amy served for years with Resonate Global Mission, including as U.S. and North American Director, overseeing church planting and local mission engagement across the continent. Her work has always centered on a question at the heart of reformed missiology: how do ordinary people, in ordinary vocations, become agents of renewal in their communities? She and her husband Henry church-planted together in downtown Grand Rapids starting around 2000, learning early that a faith community rooted in a neighborhood has to think beyond Sunday mornings. Today she brings that same missional imagination to her work with individual congregations and with Weave: The Social Fabric Project, where she is a certified speaker available to address both secular and faith-based audiences. Links and Resources Weave: The Social Fabric Project weavers.org The Colossian Forum (recommended by Amy for congregations navigating conflict) colossianforum.org Lisa Sharon Harper (referenced in conversation) The Very Good Gospel and Fortune — both highly recommended by Amy lisasharonharper.com Amy Schenkel LinkedIn: Pastor Amy Schenkel Available through the Weave Speakers Bureau: weavers.org/speakers Connect on Social Media Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials... Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible. Gratitude as well to Village Square for coming alongside us in this work and helping foster better civic dialogue. Links and additional resources: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

    52 min
  8. Baseball Is Back (and So Is the Debate) | East Meets West Sports Crossover

    FEB 20

    Baseball Is Back (and So Is the Debate) | East Meets West Sports Crossover

    A Note for TP&R Listeners From time to time, it helps to talk about something other than politics in order to understand politics. Sports is one of the last shared civic spaces where identity, loyalty, disagreement, trash talk, and even tribalism can play out without destroying relationships. In other words, many of the same human instincts we explore on Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other show up in a baseball season just as clearly as they do in an election season. So today’s episode comes from another show in the SCAN Media family, East Meets West Sports, co-hosted with veteran broadcaster Rick Garcia. Same curiosity about why people care so deeply about what they care about. Just with box scores instead of polling numbers. If it’s your thing, great. If not, regular TP&R programming resumes next episode. Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other is proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what is broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. And thank you to Pew Research Center (pewresearch.org) for helping make conversations like this possible. East Meets West Sports with Rick Garcia and Corey Nathan Rick Garcia and Corey Nathan kick off baseball season with a deep dive into the offseason moves that have everyone talking and at least one list that has Corey fuming about West Coast bias. They break down the Dodgers' superteam additions of Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker, the Mets' stacked roster and farm system, and why teams like Pittsburgh can scout great talent but can't hold onto it. They also get into the salary cap debate, Steve Cohen's "no captain" declaration, and whether meddling owners ever really help their teams. And in Pop That Culture, they tackle the biggest controversy heading into the Winter Olympics: Norway's ski jumping suits, a crotch-area aerodynamics scandal that has to be heard to be believed. Find Us On Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Follow Rick Garcia: @RickGarciaNews on X (Twitter) Follow Corey Nathan: @coreysnathan on Substack, Threads, Instagram, X & more Key Takeaways 1. The Dodgers Just Keep Getting Better Yahoo Sports graded the Dodgers' offseason an A+, and it's hard to argue. Adding Edwin Diaz from the Mets and Kyle Tucker as a free agent gives them arguably the deepest roster in the game (even if Tucker now ranks as maybe the seventh-best player on his own team). 2. Corey Is Very Excited About the Mets (No Surprise There) Two surefire Hall of Famers in Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, a legit ace in Freddie Peralta, a deep rotation, improved defense up the middle, and a top-five farm system, even after trading prospects. Rookie of the Year candidate Nolan McLean headlines a wave of young talent coming up. Corey believes. Rick is... skeptical. 3. The "Most Improved" List Has a West Coast Bias Problem A MLB.com ranking of teams that improved most this offseason had the Giants and Rockies ahead of the Mets. The Rockies! Corey had thoughts. Many thoughts. The list is based on "projected WAR," which only raises more questions. 4. Small-Market Teams Are Wasting Their Advantages Pittsburgh has one of the best farm systems in baseball, including the top overall prospect, but keeps developing players for wealthier teams to sign away. Rick and Corey agree the game needs a salary floor, not just a luxury tax, to force lower-payroll owners to actually invest in their teams. 5. Steve Cohen Says No Captains, Ever The Mets owner drew headlines by declaring there will never be a team captain while he owns the club. Rick's take: that's exactly the kind of call owners shouldn't be making. Corey's take: Cohen is actually a good owner who trusts his front office. And Lindor leads whether he has a C on his jersey or not. 6. CrotchGate Comes to the Winter Olympics Norway's ski jumping team has been caught altering the crotch area of its suits to gain an aerodynamic edge. The physics actually make sense. A roomier suit creates lift during the V-position jump. Some athletes allegedly went further than just tailoring. Rick and Corey debate whether this is innovative gamesmanship or just cheating. There is only one correct answer. Or maybe two. The season starts. The arguments never do.

    32 min
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4.8
out of 5
150 Ratings

About

Politics and Religion. We’re not supposed to talk about that, right? Wrong! We only say that nowadays because the loudest, most extreme voices have taken over the whole conversation. Well, we‘re taking some of that space back! If you’re dying for some dialogue instead of all the yelling; if you know it’s okay to have differences without having to hate each other; if you believe politics and religion are too important to let ”the screamers” drown out the rest of us and would love some engaging, provocative and fun conversations about this stuff, then ”Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other” is for you!

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