Shifting Culture

Joshua Johnson
  • 4.9 (70)
  • 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. Ep. 432 Zachary Wagner - Is Virtue Formation the Answer to the Crises Men and Boys are Facing Right Now?

    1d ago

    Ep. 432 Zachary Wagner - Is Virtue Formation the Answer to the Crises Men and Boys are Facing Right Now?

    There's no shortage of voices telling men who they should be right now and most of them are answering the wrong question. In this conversation with Zachary Wagner, author of Men of Virtue, we get underneath the culture war noise around masculinity and into something more substantive: the four concrete crises facing men and boys today, why virtue formation is better than role definition as a response, and how the fruit of the Spirit offers a more deeply human, and more countercultural, vision of manhood than anything the manosphere or the stoics are selling. This is a conversation about character, embodiment, fatherlessness, meaning, and what it might look like for men to be formed into something more Christ-like. Zachary is an author, ordained minister, and New Testament scholar. He grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago in a homeschooling family as the fourth of six siblings, an environment that sparked his lifelong love of languages, ideas, and reading. After completing degrees from the Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Zachary and his family moved to Oxford, England, in 2020 for him to pursue a DPhil (PhD) in New Testament studies. His research focused on the theme of reward in the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Matthew, and he successfully defended his thesis in 2025. He published his first book, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality, in 2023 with InterVarsity Press. His second book, Men of Virtue: How the Fruit of the Spirit Forms Male Character in the Modern World, will release from Brazos Press in May 2026. He is currently pursuing publication for his DPhil thesis, as well as a further writing and research projects on Christianity and Stoicism. Zachary was ordained for gospel ministry in 2022 and has over a decade of nonprofit leadership experience. He currently serves as the director of programs at the Center for Pastor Theologians, where he also co-hosts the Pastor Theologians Podcast. He lives just outside Chicago in an intentional community with his wife, three kids, and two additional housemates. Zachary's Book: Men of Virtue Zachary's Recommendations: Against the Machine Babel 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 Support the show

    56 min
  2. Ep. 431 Fr. John Dear - Surrendering to the God of Peace and Following the Nonviolent Jesus

    4d ago

    Ep. 431 Fr. John Dear - Surrendering to the God of Peace and Following the Nonviolent Jesus

    In this episode, Fr. John Dear joins me to explore his latest book, Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace and one of the core convictions at the center of it: genuine peacemaking begins not with better strategy or more effort, but with total surrender to the God of peace, to the will of God. We talk about what it looks like to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, why following the non-violent Jesus is the way, and how the daily practice of "not my will, but yours" carries not only inner transformation, but political implications that go all the way to the streets. Fr. John Dear is an American peace activist, lecturer, author and Catholic priest residing in the Diocese of Monterey in California. Dear has written 40 books on Jesus, peace and nonviolence, and has been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, poverty, racism, executions, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. He is the founder and director of the Beatitudes Center, where he offers the "Nonviolent Jesus Podcast".  Fr. John's Book: Universal Love 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 Support the show

    1h 5m
  3. Ep. 430 Jennifer Garcia Bashaw & Aaron Higashi - Interpreting the Bible in a World Fighting Over What It Means

    5d ago

    Ep. 430 Jennifer Garcia Bashaw & Aaron Higashi - Interpreting the Bible in a World Fighting Over What It Means

    What are you actually doing when you read the Bible? Interpretation. Every time we open the text, we're already choosing which questions to ask, which lenses to bring, and whose interests get served by the answers we land on. In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi, authors of Serving Up Scripture, to talk about what responsible interpretation looks like, why certainty works against it, and how the same passages have been used both to enslave and to liberate. We also walk through different types of questions to ask while reading scripture. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw is a professor at Campbell University and an ordained Baptist minister. She has a PhD in New Testament from Fuller Seminary and is the author of Scapegoats: The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims and John for Normal People: A Guide through the Drama and Depth of the Fourth Gospel. Aaron Higashi is a public Bible scholar with a PhD in biblical interpretation from Chicago Theological Seminary. He writes Bible commentaries, including 1 & 2 Samuel for Normal People: A Guide to Prophets, Kings, and Some Pretty Terrible Men, and answers Bible questions on Instagram at @abhigashi. Jennifer and Aaron's Book: Serving Up Scripture Jennifer's Recommendation: Reading the Women of the Bible 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 Support the show

    52 min
  4. Ep. 429 K.J. Ramsey - Finding Joy in the Place Between Our Pains

    May 29

    Ep. 429 K.J. Ramsey - Finding Joy in the Place Between Our Pains

    What does joy look like in the midst of pain and grief? K.J. Ramsey's memoir, The Place Between Our Pains, was written while she was fighting for her life - and in this conversation, she talks about what that actually means. We get into how dependence on others opens us to love in ways independence never could, why grief is a gate into aliveness rather than a place to get stuck, and what it looked like to launch a book about joy while facing a tumor diagnosis and an IV drip on launch day. This is a conversation about the kind of joy that doesn't require a tidy resolution and why that might be the kind we're searching for. K.J. Ramsey is an increasingly feral mystic who is utterly devoted to the joy of being alive. She is a body-centered licensed professional counselor specialized in trauma recovery and an acclaimed author of prose and poetry, including The Book of Common Courage, The Lord Is My Courage, and This Too Shall Last, as well as the bestselling essay Substack Embodied. KJ advocates for fellow autoimmune patients and lives in Colorado with her husband Ryan, a hospice chaplain, and their two velcro dogs. K.J.'s Book: The Place Between Our Pains K.J.'s Recommendation: Project Hail Mary 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 Support the show

    53 min
  5. Ep. 428 Tim Ross - What Secrets Do to the Body and Why Confession Is the Path to Healing

    May 26

    Ep. 428 Tim Ross - What Secrets Do to the Body and Why Confession Is the Path to Healing

    In this conversation, Tim opens up about the wound that shaped his early life, the silence that followed, and what the long road toward healing has actually required. We get into what secrets do to the body, the difference between vertical confession and horizontal healing, why accountability that feels like parole isn't really accountability, what grief work demands and what gets stuck when we skip it, and what it looks like to stop letting a younger, wounded version of yourself run the show. Tim Ross, bestselling author and host of the popular podcasts The Basement and Wide Open, was born in Inglewood, California, and went to college to study administration of justice to become a law enforcement officer. But God had other plans and Tim gave his life to Jesus Christ on January 14, 1996, and he started preaching on February 25, 1996. He's been walking with Jesus ever since. In June of 1997, he moved to Dallas, and in the time he's spent in the great state of Texas, Tim served in several ministry capacities, including youth evangelist, young adult pastor, director of student ministries, associate campus pastor, executive pastor of Apostolic Ministries, and lead pastor. Tim now occupies his time as a podcaster, social media influencer, bestselling author, and preacher. Tim's Book: The Missing Peace 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 Support the show

    53 min
  6. Ep. 427 Richard Beck Returns - Reading the Bible Through the Lens of Love

    May 22

    Ep. 427 Richard Beck Returns - Reading the Bible Through the Lens of Love

    In this conversation with Richard Beck, author of The Book of Love, we explore what it actually means to read Scripture through the hermeneutic of love. Richard helps us see that we have to reckon with our attachment to God - whether we actually believe he's for us - because that fear or security shapes everything about how we read. We get into the violent texts of the Old Testament, why both conservatives and progressives have their own blind spots, how the Bible raises hard questions, and what seeing the cross through a hermeneutic of love looks like. Richard Beck is professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where he also lives. He is a popular blogger and speaker and the author of several books, most recently The Shape of Joy and The Book of Love. His published research also covers topics as diverse as the psychology of profanity and why Christian bookstore art is so bad. Beck leads a Bible study each week for inmates at a maximum-security prison. Richard's Book: The Book of Love Richard's Recommendations: What it Means to be Protestant 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 Support the show

    55 min
  7. Ep. 426 Brian Zahnd - Unseen Existences: Why the Western World Forgot the Spiritual Realm Exists

    May 19

    Ep. 426 Brian Zahnd - Unseen Existences: Why the Western World Forgot the Spiritual Realm Exists

    Brian Zahnd joins me to talk about his new book Unseen Existences — and we get into why modern Western people suffer a kind of spiritual homelessness, how philosophical materialism has convinced us the spiritual world isn't real, and what it looks like to recover a sense that heaven and earth actually overlap. We also dig into the Incarnation as a doorway into mystery, wonder and awe as non-negotiables for living faith, and what it means to hold onto a God who intervenes without turning prayer into a transaction. Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. Known for his theologically informed preaching and his embrace of the deep and long history of the church, Zahnd is a frequent speaker at conferences, universities, and seminaries around the world. As a pastor-theologian, he is the author of numerous titles, including The Wood Between the Worlds, When Everything's on Fire, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, A Farewell to Mars, and Beauty Will Save the World. Brian's Book: Unseen Existences Brian's Recommendation: Wendell Berry 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 Support the show

    55 min
  8. Ep. 425 Elizabeth Berget - How Motherhood Reveals the Maternal Heart of God

    May 18

    Ep. 425 Elizabeth Berget - How Motherhood Reveals the Maternal Heart of God

    Elizabeth Berget joins the podcast to explore the maternal heart of God — tracing how the Hebrew word rakum, often translated simply as "compassionate," is linguistically rooted in the word for womb, and what it means that God reaches for that word first when describing himself to Israel. The conversation moves through pregnancy, labor, and the crucifixion, the theology of secure attachment, what scripture's birth language reveals about salvation, and why expanding our image of God isn't a departure from orthodox Christianity but a return to something ancient that's largely been lost in translation. ELIZABETH BERGET is a speaker and author of Love like a Mother: How the Sacred Work of Motherhood Reveals the Maternal Heart of God. Her work has appeared in Christianity Today, Coffee + Crumbs, Mothering Spirit, and other online spaces where mothers gather to find meaning in the mundane. She shares her thoughts in her Substack newsletter, Back of the Flock, where she explores the image of God in the everyday work of motherhood. Berget has lived in Africa and Asia but now resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, three kids, and one mischievous dog. And yes, she'd love to hold your baby. Elizabeth's Book: Love Like a Mother Elizabeth's Recommendations: Nervous Systems Living Easter 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 Support the show

    55 min
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4.9
out of 5
70 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
    435
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Shifting Culture
  • Show Website
    Shifting Culture

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