Shifting Culture

Joshua Johnson
  • 4.9 (71)
  • Christianity

On Shifting Culture we have conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Hosted by Joshua Johnson, this podcast features long-form conversations with authors, theologians, artists, and cultural thinkers to trace how embodied love, courage, and creative faithfulness offer a culture of real healing and hope. 

  1. 20h ago

    Ep. 443 Paul Anleitner - The Anti-Story is Collapsing. What's Replacing It?

    In this episode, Paul Anleitner traces how a culture that once watched Rocky in full-throated sincerity learned to read everything through suspicion. We talk about the modern story we inherited, the postmodern anti-story that dismantled it, and the meaning crisis left in the rubble. There is a vibe shift happening as people reach for nostalgia and re-enchantment. We get into the three pillars of meaning, mean world syndrome, why Top Gun: Maverick and Project Hail Mary landed the way they did, and Paul's central claim: that kenosis, self-emptying love, is the shape of reality.  Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian who writes and speaks on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning.  He is the author of "Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning" (Nelson Books) His unique interdisciplinary approach integrates theology, philosophy, and science to help individuals and institutions navigate cultural shifts and address perennial religious longings. Paul's Book: Based on a True Story Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 443 Paul Anleitner - The Anti-Story is Collapsing. What's Replacing It?

  2. 3d ago

    Ep. 442 Randy Woodley - Has Plato Shaped Western Christianity More than Jesus and What Are We to do About it?

    In this episode, Randy Woodley argues that the church has been asking the wrong question. Not whether the story happened, but what the story asks of us. And to start to ask better questions, we have to go back to the root - where did this all come from? And how did Western Christianity get it wrong? We talk about Platonic dualism made belief more important than action, producing hierarchy, empire, and harm. We talk about reading scripture as story rather than evidence, replacing the word salvation with healing, and what repentance actually costs. If you've felt the distance between what you believe and how you live, this conversation names where that came from and what it takes to close that gap. Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley is a dynamic writer and speaker with a deep passion for creativity and Indigenous spirituality, justice, and earth empowerment. His diverse background and experiences have uniquely equipped him to bring about positive change in Indigenous communities for four decades. With his wife, Edith, (Shoshone) they have four children and six grandchildren.  An award-winning author and a tribally recognized Keetoowah descendant (UKB), the author of 15 books, Randy weaves together Indigenous wisdom, ecological sustainability, and spirituality. Randy is both an active farmer and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He is respected by Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities worldwide and has been featured in The New York Times, Politifact, Time Magazine, and The Huffington Post. Randy publishes a weekly Substack at https://rwoodley7.substack.com/ and is a faculty member at Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. Together, the Woodley’s co-sustain Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds, https://www.eloheh.org/ a non-profit, regenerative farm and school determined to assist others grow healthy food and combat the climate crisis. The Woodley’s are founders of Sho-Kee Cultural Consultants https://www.sho-kee.com/ where they bring Indigenous knowledge and cross-cultural expertise to clients nationwide, working with organizations, educational institutions, and creative projects. Randy's Book: How Western Christianity Got it Wrong Randy's Recommendations: Erased The Dawn of Everything Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 442 Randy Woodley - Has Plato Shaped Western Christianity More than Jesus and What Are We to do About it?

  3. Jul 7

    Ep. 441 Merideth Hite Estevez - Art is How God Loves Us

    In this episode, Merideth Hite Estevez joins me to talk about what happens when a lifetime of chasing excellence quietly empties out the joy that started it all. We dig into the idols hiding inside performance and perfectionism, why she redefines art not as a talent for the gifted few but as something anyone can do out of love, and what it means to create as an act of worship instead of proof of worth. It's a conversation about shame, recovery, and the spiritual thread running through every creative act - whether you call yourself an artist or not. Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez is a coach, educator, oboist, and author of The Artist’s Joy. Through her workshops, her award-winning podcast Artists for Joy, and her one-to-one coaching, she is a spiritual space-maker for artists, leading thousands in various fields to creative recovery. Dr. Estevez has performed with top orchestras and holds degrees in oboe from The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. Her writing, which Publishers Weekly calls “expansive and joyful,” illuminates the spiritual journey of the artist. Her next book, Art Is How God Loves Us, debuts in July 2026. She hails from Abbeville, SC, but now lives in Metro Detroit, Michigan, with her husband, Rev. Dr. Edwin Estevez, and their two children. Merideth's Book: Art is How God Loves Us Merideth's Recommendation: Counterweights Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 441 Merideth Hite Estevez - Art is How God Loves Us

  4. Jul 3

    Ep. 440 Daniel Hawk - Reckoning with America's Past and Imagining a Better Future

    America turns 250 this year, and we'll tell the old story again. But where does it actually start? Daniel Hawk traces our founding back past 1776 to the Doctrine of Discovery that gave Christian powers the right to seize "unclaimed" land, and to a reading of Genesis that turned wilderness into property and the people already here into obstacles. We talk about the myth of innocence: the belief that we are fundamentally good, that the brutal parts didn't happen or didn't count. It let us justify almost anything, and it left violence in our bones. We talk about how Scripture was used to take land and how it reads differently from underneath empire, about Canada and South Africa beginning to face their histories, and about what real repair asks of us - slow, relational, measured in generations. As we mark 250 years, this is an invitation to be honest about the first half of the story before we write the next. L. Daniel Hawk (PhD, Emory University) is professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio. Aspects of his work on biblical narrative take a postcolonial turn in books such as Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny and as coeditor of Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations. Daniel's Book: Undoing Manifest Destiny Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 440 Daniel Hawk - Reckoning with America's Past and Imagining a Better Future

  5. Jun 30

    Ep. 439 Kristin Lee - When the Faith You've Been Handed Begins to Crack, You Mend with Gold

    In this episode, I talk with Kristin Lee about what happens when a faith begins to crack, and whether the breaking might be the start of something truer. We get into kintsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with gold, what it costs to ask the questions we've been warned against, and what the church on the margins can teach the rest of us about following a marginal Jesus. What emerges is a picture of faith that doesn't hide its fractures but lets them become the places where the light gets in. Kristin T. Lee is a writer whose work has appeared in Christianity Today and Sojourners, and a primary care physician serving Boston's Chinatown community. She writes about faith, culture, books, and solidarity at The Embers. Her passion all the best books you've never heard of (and some that you have) via book reviews and reading groups on Instagram @ktlee.writes. Lee's work is informed by her experiences as an adoptive mother, host to refugees, and friend to those affected by incarceration. Kristin's Book: We Mend With Gold Kristin's Recommendation: The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 439 Kristin Lee - When the Faith You've Been Handed Begins to Crack, You Mend with Gold

  6. Jun 26

    Ep. 438 Kyle Strobel - When God Seems Distant it Isn't Because You Failed

    In this episode, I talk with Kyle Strobel about what's actually happening when God feels distant. Most of us start with passion - prayer comes easy, Scripture comes alive - and then a season arrives where the lights go out and we assume we've failed or been abandoned. Kyle offers a different reading than abandonment: the dryness isn't punishment or absence, but the desert where God weans us off the feeling and teaches us to abide. We get into the moralistic temptation that follows - how we turn disciplines, service, and even devotion into ways of managing God rather than meeting him - and why we have to relearn to live by faith and not by sight. Kyle Strobel is the director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, who writes and teaches in the area of spiritual formation. He is the author of many books, most recently the co-author of the book, When God Seems Distant: Surprising Ways God Deepens Our Faith and Draws Us Near (with John Coe). Kyle regularly speaks at conferences, church trainings, and serves on the preaching team at Redeemer Church. He can be found at KyleStrobel.substack.com. Kyle's Book: When God Seems Distant Kyle's Recommendation: A Lifting Up for the Downcast Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 438 Kyle Strobel - When God Seems Distant it Isn't Because You Failed

  7. Jun 23

    Ep. 437 Michael Rhodes - The Gospel is Political (Just Not How You Think)

    In this episode, Michael Rhodes claims the gospel is inherently political, and "the Lord reigns" was never just a private comfort but a statement about who actually runs the world. We name the two instincts that keep so many of us stuck: retreating into a safe bubble or chasing the halls of power, and why a more holistic approach is necessary. And we get practical: city council meetings, speed bumps, a libertarian business owner whose whole politics quietly rearranged once he started hiring single moms. In a moment when faith and politics have collapsed into the culture war, this feels like a third way, or a faithful way - a politics you can practice this week, on your own street, as a small taste of the beauty of the Kingdom of God. Michael J. Rhodes (PhD, Trinity College / University of Aberdeen) is lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is the author of several books, including Reimagining Biblical Politics, Just Discipleship, Formative Feasting,and Practicing the King's Economy (with Robby Holt and Brian Fikkert). Rhodes (an ordained EPC pastor) and his family currently live in South Auckland, where they are part of an intentional community engaged in Christian community development. Michael's Book: Reimagining Biblical Politics Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 437 Michael Rhodes - The Gospel is Political (Just Not How You Think)

  8. Jun 19

    Ep. 436 Amar Peterman - Loving Your Neighbor Across Real Difference

    In this conversation, Amar Peterman and I get into the slow, local, unglamorous work of becoming neighbors across real difference. We talk about the table as the place where the common good gets built, and why so many of us are far more comfortable playing host than being hosted - flinging our doors open without ever considering who actually walks through them. We get into hospitality as displacement, an accompaniment that refuses to leave, Thomas learning you can't reason your way to resurrection, and an imagination that can see life where everything around us insists there's only division. Here's the challenge: we have to learn to receive before we can ever give, to love people beyond their labels, and to start right where we are, with the one neighbor in front of us. Amar D. Peterman is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC and the former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America. Peterman holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His writing and research have been featured in Sojourners, Christianity Today, The Christian Century,The Fetzer Institute, The Berkley Forum, and more. He also publishes regularly on his Substack, This Common Life. Amar's Book: Becoming Neighbors Amar's Recommendations: Make Your Home in this Luminous Dark Glimmerings Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube Support the podcast and the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below Bring meaningful conversations about home, belonging and loving your neighbor to your friends, family or small group. Download World Relief’s free conversation cards at worldrelief.org/shiftingculture Go to eerdmans.com and use promo code CULTURE40 for 40% all books Support the show

    Ep. 436 Amar Peterman - Loving Your Neighbor Across Real Difference
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4.9
out of 5
71 Ratings

About

On Shifting Culture we have conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Hosted by Joshua Johnson, this podcast features long-form conversations with authors, theologians, artists, and cultural thinkers to trace how embodied love, courage, and creative faithfulness offer a culture of real healing and hope. 

Information

  • Creator
    Joshua Johnson
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    446
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Shifting Culture
  • Show Website
    Shifting Culture

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