The Understory

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In late May 2026, more than a thousand people gathered for three days beneath the vaults of Washington National Cathedral for the first Understory Festival: a living experiment in Christian humanism, where argument and silence, music and lament, poetry and debate were honored as different ways of attending to reality, and of exploring this question of what might be struggling to be born today. This limited series gathers the festival's main-stage talks and carries them to everyone who wasn't in the room, as well as to everyone who was and wishes to return. Voice by voice, you'll hear the thinkers, weavers, institution-builders, artists, and pastors who came together to ask: what is struggling to be born, what is a human being, and who is Christ for us today. Presented by Comment.

  1. 3d ago

    Covenantal Community — Elizabeth Oldfield

    "Friendship," says Elizabeth Oldfield, "is our theory of change." For six years, she has shared a house in South London with others in an intentional community, which she says has taught her more about sin and grace than the rest of her Christian life combined. Oldfield is a British broadcaster, a former director of the think tank Theos, and host of the podcast The Sacred. She is also the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times and a contributing editor at Comment. In this conversation, she joins social entrepreneur and fellow British broadcaster Krish Kandiah and Lee Camp, creator and host of No Small Endeavor, for a conversation about covenantal community, the mess of life, and the beauty, goodness, and truth that lie beneath the rubble of a fractured Christian overstory. Oldfield reflects on the formative work of daily relationships, sloth as a habit of escaping the present moment, and the power of listening to someone long enough to love them. Together they discuss sin as relational fracture rather than a cudgel, the phone as a window we keep climbing out of, and the quiet radicalism of friendship. Recorded late Friday night, May 29, 2026, in the Bethlehem Chapel at the Understory festival. Mentioned: Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, by Elizabeth Oldfield; Low Anthropology, by David Zahl; Unapologetic, by Francis Spufford; Glittering Vices, by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung; Evagrius Ponticus on acedia; Martin Luther's homo incurvatus in se; Oliver Burkeman on The Ezra Klein Show Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Episode Highlights "Community is where your illusions about yourself go to die." (Elizabeth Oldfield) "I have been discipled more thoroughly in six years living in community than in the entire rest of my life as a Christian." (Elizabeth Oldfield) "Under the rubble is such extraordinary treasure and beauty and … centuries-honed wisdom." (Elizabeth Oldfield, on the Christian tradition) " The social scientists call it homophily. I call it People Like Me syndrome. … We relentlessly prefer people that remind us of ourselves. … When you listen deeply to someone without trying to argue with them … it's like the antidote to the People Like Me poison." (Elizabeth Oldfield) About Elizabeth Oldfield Elizabeth Oldfield is a writer, broadcaster, and coach, and the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. Since 2017, she has hosted The Sacred, a podcast that makes room for guests across deep differences to reflect on their most cherished values. For a decade, she directed Theos, a Christian think tank in the UK, after beginning her career at the BBC, where she contributed to Beyond Belief and The Moral Maze. Her writing has appeared in the Financial Times, Prospect, and The Times. She is a contributing editor at Comment and lives in an intentional community in South London. Helpful Links and Resources Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, by Elizabeth Oldfield: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/fully-alive/421700 The Sacred, hosted by Elizabeth Oldfield: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sacred/id1326888108 Elizabeth Oldfield's website: https://www.elizabetholdfield.com Theos, the think tank she directed: https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp: https://www.nosmallendeavor.com Glittering Vices, Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung's book on the seven deadly sins: https://renovare.org/books/glittering-vices #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #ElizabethOldfield #FullyAlive #IntentionalCommunity #SevenDeadlySins #Acedia #Friendship #ChristianHumanism

    Covenantal Community — Elizabeth Oldfield

  2. Nov 4

    Assistance in Living, Assistance in Dying — Rebecca Vachon, Leonie Herx, J.S. Park, Sara Hendren, Louis Kim, and Lydia Dugdale

    Modern medicine has spent a century training its practitioners to see patients as machines with broken parts—what physician Brewer Eberly has called "the great unsouling of the patient." Physician-assisted dying is spreading across the West, palliative care remains underfunded, and many elders spend their final days alienated from community. We have lost the language for suffering, the patience for dying, and too often the nerve to say that death is not the final word. Rebecca Vachon, director of health research at Cardus, opens in conversation with Dr. Leonie Herx, a palliative-medicine specialist who describes palliative care as whole-person medicine that attends to patients' lives all the way to the hour of their deaths. The circle then widens. Design researcher Sara Hendren, who studies disability and the built world, turns the conversation on a single word: choice. J.S. Park, a chaplain for eleven years at a Level 1 trauma center, describes asking patients what would dignify their dying, and urges them to discuss it early with their families. Louis Kim, a former technology executive now pursuing a second career in palliative care, asks what artificial intelligence will force us to say about being human. And Dr. Lydia Dugdale, a physician and ethicist who has revived the medieval concept of ars moriendi, the art of dying well, reminds us that to die well, we must first live well. Recorded in the Resurrection Chapel on the second afternoon of the 2026 Understory festival. Mentioned: The Patient as Person, by Paul Ramsey; Brewer Eberly on "the great unsouling of the patient"; Cicely Saunders and the founding of modern palliative care; Heidi Janz on being "temporarily able-bodied"; the friends of the paralyzed man in the Gospel of Mark; Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande; The Pitt television series; the ars moriendi; This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust; The Lost Art of Dying, by Lydia Dugdale; David Albert Jones on suicide contagion; Not Dead Yet (US disability rights organization); the death café movement; jesa, the Korean remembrance of death days; From Here to Eternity, by Caitlin Doughty; Accompany Them with Singing, by Thomas G. Long Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Episode Highlights "We're not burdens. We bear each other's burdens, and that's actually our responsibility in loving service to bring Christ to each other." (Leonie Herx) "We are very, very good at masking the dying process with the use of technology. In fact, we're very good at dragging out the dying process." (Lydia Dugdale) "My decision is a choir of voices in which I am woven with all of the people who have been with me through my life and through my suffering. I'm not just self-made . . . I'm we-made." (J.S. Park, on patients who decide with family) "If life is a gift to one, and then if one's life might be made a gift, then it is the invitation also to make one's dying well a gift." (Sara Hendren) "AI can't replicate human relationships. Well, human relationships in reality aren't that great either." (Louis Kim, on a common AI-ethics refrain) About the Panel Rebecca Vachon, moderator, directs the health program at Cardus and holds a PhD in public administration from the University of Ottawa. Leonie Herx is a palliative-medicine physician in adult and pediatric care, senior scientific director of Covenant Health's Palliative Institute, and a Cardus senior fellow. Sara Hendren, moderator, is an artist, design researcher, and Northeastern University professor, and author of What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. Louis Kim is a former HP vice president who led work on AI, a Master of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School, and a member of Comment's editorial board. J.S. Park is an interfaith chaplain at Tampa General Hospital and author of As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve. Lydia Dugdale is a primary care physician in New York City, director of Columbia University's Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and author of The Lost Art of Dying. Helpful Links and Resources Cardus Health, Rebecca Vachon's program: https://www.cardus.ca/research-policy/health  "The Lost Art of Dying Well," Lydia Dugdale in Columbia Magazine: https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/lost-art-dying-well  The Lost Art of Dying, Lydia Dugdale: https://publishersweekly.com/9780062932631  As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve, by J.S. Park: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180352094-as-long-as-you-need  Accompany Them with Singing: The Christian Funeral, Thomas G. Long: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780664233198  The Patient as Person, by Paul Ramsey: https://isps.yale.edu/research/publications/isps02-003  #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #PalliativeCare #AssistedDying #ArsMoriendi #Chaplaincy #Grief #Disability #EndOfLifeCare #ChristianHumanism

    Assistance in Living, Assistance in Dying — Rebecca Vachon, Leonie Herx, J.S. Park, Sara Hendren, Louis Kim, and Lydia Dugdale

  3. Oct 28

    Power's Shifting Machinery — Romanita Hairston, Kristine Braden, and Michael Van Pelt

    In our current economic reality, capital outruns governance. Networks displace institutions. Technology concentrates decision-making in fewer hands while distributing surveillance to all. If power is something to steward and not only to check, what would it mean to wield it for human flourishing rather than extraction? Cardus CEO Michael Van Pelt moderates two leaders who have spent their careers inside the machinery of capital. Romanita Hairston, born in a small Arkansas town, now leads the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, sitting where capital accumulates and where it is given away. Kristine Braden joined Citigroup the same week she became a Christian and spent three decades in global banking abroad, eventually leading Citi across Europe. Told early on that a Christian couldn't be a banker, she answered: "Wouldn't you rather your banker be a Christian?" Together, the panel weighs courtesy bias and the rings of power, wealth concentrated among a few thousand billionaires, the speed of networked change, and whether a corporation can be a place where people are allowed to be human. Recorded in St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel at the Understory festival. Mentioned: The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien; the UBS "Global Wealth Report 2025"; the EU Artificial Intelligence Act; Joseph Henrich's research on dominance and prestige; the US Surgeon General's advisory on loneliness and isolation; The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith; David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17); the anti-corruption presidency of Benigno Aquino III in the Philippines Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Episode Highlights "Goliath looks so large. But David yet has a stone." (Romanita Hairston, on everyday agency) "What we need most in the halls of power is a return to ethics and character." (Kristine Braden) "Today, capital funds technology. Technology builds and controls networks. And the networks extract our attention and convert it back to capital." (Romanita Hairston) "Courtesy bias is the absence of people telling you things that are hard to hear." (Romanita Hairston, on holding power) "You have to continually demolish the icon that you naturally become because you're in a position of power." (Romanita Hairston) About the Panel Romanita Hairston is CEO of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, after two decades at World Vision and senior roles at Microsoft. Kristine Braden is a longtime Citi executive who led the bank's Europe cluster and served as chief of staff to CEO Mike Corbat. Michael Van Pelt, moderator, is cofounder and CEO of Cardus, the Canadian think tank that publishes Comment. Helpful Links and Resources M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, led by Romanita Hairston: https://murdocktrust.org/2022/03/m-j-murdock-charitable-trust-announces-romanita-hairston-as-new-ceo Kristine Braden, Vontobel board profile: https://www.vontobel.com/en/about-vontobel/corporate-governance/board-of-directors/kristine-braden Michael Van Pelt at Cardus: https://www.cardus.ca/tagged-personnel/michael-van-pelt  UBS Global Wealth Report: https://www.ubs.com/dk/en/wealthmanagement/insights/global-wealth-report.html  The EU AI Act, European Commission: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai  "Dominance in Humans," in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2022), Joseph Henrich and colleagues: https://henrich.fas.harvard.edu/publications/dominance-humans  Surgeon General's advisory on loneliness and isolation: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html  #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #PowersShiftingMachinery #Stewardship #Philanthropy #Banking #ChristianHumanism #Leadership #FaithAndWork

    Power's Shifting Machinery — Romanita Hairston, Kristine Braden, and Michael Van Pelt

  4. Oct 21

    Renewal and the Academy: Reimagining Institutional Stewardship — Shirley Hoogstra, Robin Baker, Shirley Mullen, Claude Alexander, and Aaron Winkle

    We measure a forest by the height of its trees, but its future takes root lower, in the understory. Colleges, churches, and schools are part of that soil: formative communities shaping the moral imagination of future leaders. Those who lead them are stewards, not mere administrators, and they steward under strain—fiscal pressure, threatened accreditation, political scrutiny, phone-shaped students, and a doubting public. Shirley Hoogstra, president emerita of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), handed four leaders a phrase from the Comment Manifesto. Robin Baker of George Fox University argues we face not a season of change but a change of age. Houghton University's Shirley Mullen insists that institutions need constant tending. Aaron Winkle of Grand Rapids Christian Schools tells what a student named Max taught him about being loved. And bishop Claude Alexander turns the premise back: Those who form others must themselves be formed. Recorded in the Virginia Mae Center on the Understory festival's final morning. Mentioned: Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age, by Felicia Wu Song; the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7); a New York Times essay on Deep Springs College; the work of Robert Putnam and Aaron Renn; the festival debate between David Brooks and Ross Douthat; the Comment Manifesto Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Episode Highlights "We're not living through a season of change but a change of age, which requires reinvention rather than just strengthening." (Robin Baker, quoting Aaron Renn) "They are foundational. But they are foundational in the way that agriculture is foundational, not the way that stone walls are foundational." (Shirley Mullen, on the necessity and value of institutions) "I would never go work at an … institution that wasn't fully committed to including students of all abilities. Not because it's good for them. But because I need it." (Aaron Winkle, on full inclusion) "Clarity about from whom the trust comes, for whom the trust is exercised, to whom the trust goes." (Claude Alexander, on stewardship) "There was simply no response that was adequate. So I simply had to listen." (Robin Baker, on a public reckoning in Portland) About the Panel Shirley Hoogstra, moderator, is president emerita of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, which she led from 2014 to 2024.  Robin Baker is a historian and president of George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, a role he has held since 2007.  Shirley Mullen is a historian, president emerita of Houghton University, and author of Claiming the Courageous Middle.  Aaron Winkle is superintendent of Grand Rapids Christian Schools and former head of school at Living Stones Academy.  Claude Alexander is bishop and senior pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and author of Necessary Christianity. Helpful Links and Resources Robin Baker, president of George Fox University: https://www.georgefox.edu/about/president/index.html Claiming the Courageous Middle, by Shirley Mullen: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/authors/shirley-a-mullen/3799 Grand Rapids Christian Schools: https://www.grcs.org Becoming the Church: God's People in Purpose and Power, by Claude R. Alexander Jr.: https://www.ivpress.com/becoming-the-church  "Shirley: A Lasting Legacy," on Shirley Hoogstra's CCCU tenure: https://www.cccu.org/magazine/shirley-lasting-legacy Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age, by Felicia Wu Song (2021): https://ivpress.com/restless-devices #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #RenewalAndTheAcademy #HigherEducation #ChristianHumanism #InstitutionalStewardship #ChristianEducation #Leadership

    Renewal and the Academy: Reimagining Institutional Stewardship — Shirley Hoogstra, Robin Baker, Shirley Mullen, Claude Alexander, and Aaron Winkle

  5. Oct 14

    Deep Roots or Open Arms? — Bishop Claude Alexander, Tim Dixon, Maria Liu Wong, Bishop Vivian Grubb, Brian Dijkema, Chris Oldfield, and Shirley Mullen

    The deepest resources of the Christian tradition refuse the false binary of rootedness and openness. On the festival's second afternoon, six practitioners gathered around expansive questions: Must deep roots and open arms compete? What traditions are worth nurturing and passing on to the next generation? Can the open-armed avoid thinning into nothing in particular, or the followers of a way avoid hardening into closed systems? What does that look like in the lived reality of institutional practice? Tim Dixon, cofounder of More in Common, opens with a skeptic won over at Thanksgiving. Maria Liu Wong and Bishop Vivian Grubb share a twenty-year friendship across Chinese-Baptist and Pentecostal worlds at City Seminary of New York. Brian Dijkema, Cardus's president for Canada, ponders the tree's hidden roots and public branches. Philosopher Chris Oldfield describes hospitality as a near-monastic rule of life in a South London intentional community. Shirley Mullen, president emerita of Houghton University, recounts a divided room that learned to speak. Bishop Claude Alexander gathers the threads, and Miroslav Volf closes in prayer. Recorded in the Bethlehem Chapel at the Understory festival. Mentioned: "O Radix," by Malcolm Guite; "The Ephesian Moment," by Andrew Walls; Ivan Illich's 1996 radio conversation with Jerry Brown on hospitality; the 1619 Project from the New York Times; Paul's letter to the Ephesians Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Episode Highlights "It's not about an 'us' and a 'them,' it's about a larger us." (Tim Dixon) "Roots—even if there's crown shyness—roots overlap." (Brian Dijkema, on crown shyness in trees) "We sometimes say friendship is our theory of change." (Chris Oldfield on living in intentional community) "Part of the work of … the traditional, stereotypical power people in the room … was to be silent but not to be inactive." (Shirley Mullen) "Even at our best, each one of us is both prodigal and self-righteous." (Miroslav Volf, in prayer) About the Panel Tim Dixon cofounded More in Common, researching polarization and belonging across democracies; formerly speechwriter to two Australian prime ministers.  Maria Liu Wong is provost of City Seminary of New York and author of On Becoming Wise Together.  Vivian Grubb is bishop of True Holy Church "City of Refuge" in Brooklyn and is a faculty member of City Seminary of New York.  Brian Dijkema is president, Canada, at Cardus.  Chris Oldfield is a philosopher and research associate at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. He lives in community in Peckham, England.  Shirley Mullen is president emerita of Houghton University and author of Claiming the Courageous Middle.  Claude Alexander, moderator, is bishop and senior pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Miroslav Volf is a systematic theologian and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School. Helpful Links and Resources More in Common, Tim Dixon's organization: https://www.moreincommon.com City Seminary of New York: https://www.cityseminaryny.org Chris Oldfield at the Faraday Institute: https://faraday.cam.ac.uk/about/people/chris-oldfield Malcolm Guite's Advent antiphon sonnets, including "O Radix": https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/advent-antiphons "The Skill of Hospitality," L.M. Sacasas on Ivan Illich (Breaking Ground): https://breakingground.us/ivan-illich-technology-skill-of-hospitality/ The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, Andrew Walls (home of "The Ephesian Moment"): https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/47237613 #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #DeepRootsOpenArms #Hospitality #Belonging #Polarization #ChristianHumanism #PublicTheology

    Deep Roots or Open Arms? — Bishop Claude Alexander, Tim Dixon, Maria Liu Wong, Bishop Vivian Grubb, Brian Dijkema, Chris Oldfield, and Shirley Mullen

  6. Oct 7

    Getting Unstuck on Immigration — Diego Sánchez, Jennie Murray, Jim Robb, Peter Skerry, and David Lapp

    Immigration debates tend to oscillate between abstract policy positions and individual stories conscripted by either side. This panel, inspired and moderated by Braver Angels' principles of structured civil dialogue, charts a new path toward finding common ground. Braver Angels cofounder David Lapp moderates four panelists: Diego Sánchez, an immigration lawyer, formerly undocumented for fourteen years and now a US citizen. Jennie Murray, president and CEO, National Immigration Forum. Jim Robb, vice president of alliances and activism for NumbersUSA. Peter Skerry, professor of political science, Boston College, who chairs Braver Angels' Immigration Policy Roundtable. The panelists address a wide range of current issues in immigration policy, including the sequence of legalization, the asylum backlog, employers' use of E-Verify to confirm legal employment status, and legal status for longtime undocumented contributors to the US economy. They also consider scarcity versus abundance and the cost of sentimentalizing immigration, asking, "Who is my neighbour?" This panel was recorded on day two of the 2026 Understory festival in the Saint Joseph of Arimathea Chapel at the Washington National Cathedral. Mentioned: the Dream Act; DACA; E-Verify; the "Gang of Eight" bill; the Voting Rights Act; Bibles, Badges and Business; Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move, by Jim Robb Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you get your podcasts. Episode Highlights "She said, 'You have to pray for this baby.' And she grabbed my hand and put it on her stomach. And that is why I'm in this work." (Jennie Murray, on a Matamoros trash dump) "We ought not to sentimentalize this issue." (Peter Skerry, on immigrant grandmothers) "So we're at a stage of mutually assured destruction on legislation, and I'm tired of it." (Jim Robb, on gridlock) "Behind closed doors, a lot of us look at each other and we say, 'All right, we agree on these things. But how are we going to get the politics to agree to us?'" (Diego Sánchez, on politics) "We do have resources and we are able to think out of that scarcity mindset, flip it to an abundance mindset and try to solve this together." (Jennie Murray, on scarcity) About the Panel David Lapp (moderator): Cofounder of Braver Angels and director of its Citizens Commission on Immigration. Diego Sánchez: Vice president of policy and strategy at the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, immigration lawyer, former DACA recipient. Jennie Murray: President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, which works with faith, law enforcement, and business leaders. Jim Robb: Vice president of alliances at NumbersUSA, which he helped found in 1996; author of Political Migrants. Peter Skerry: Boston College political scientist and author of Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority; chairs the Immigration Policy Roundtable. Helpful Links and Resources Citizens Commission on Immigration, Braver Angels: https://braverangels.org/immigration The Dream Act of 2025, introduced by Senators Durbin and Murkowski: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-murkowski-introduce-the-dream-act "What is E-Verify," from the federal program: https://www.e-verify.gov/about-e-verify/what-is-e-verify Bibles, Badges and Business for Immigration Reform, National Immigration Forum: https://forumtogether.org/article/bibles-badges-and-business-principles NumbersUSA: https://www.numbersusa.org Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration: https://www.presidentsalliance.org #Immigration #BraverAngels #UnderstoryFestival #ChristianHumanism #Dreamers #EVerify #CommonGround #Polarization

    Getting Unstuck on Immigration — Diego Sánchez, Jennie Murray, Jim Robb, Peter Skerry, and David Lapp

  7. Sep 30

    Critical Yeast vs. Critical Mass — Cherie Harder, Lisa Slayton, Louis Kim, Ian DeWaard, and David Bailey

    How does cultural and moral renewal actually happen? Two schools of thought emerge to answer this recurring question from the 2026 Understory festival. The first argues that critical mass is the key to social change, requiring enough people mobilized to tip institutions, policies, and norms. The second, based on John Paul Lederach's theory of critical yeast, posits that culture change is rarely the size of a coalition but the quality and placement of small, leavening minorities operating in the right relationships at the right moments. While the distinction may seem academic, it shapes how funders deploy capital, how organizers build, how pastors imagine their congregations, and how every person of conviction decides where to spend their finite life. In this debate on tomorrow's theory of change, Cherie Harder, The Trinity Forum president and longtime Comment collaborator, stewards four perspectives. Leadership coach and nonprofit executive Lisa Slayton reflects on the critical yeast change that occurs in Alcoholics Anonymous. Louis Kim, a former VP at Hewlett Packard and now a master of divinity student at Duke, addresses the hazards of critical yeast becoming a "cocoon of righteous irrelevance." Ian DeWaard of the Christian Labor Association of Canada argues that while a small community can model dignity, it cannot on its own secure the kinds of societal changes that underlie that passion and those ideas. And David Bailey, founder of Arrabon, draws us back to the power of two-by-two ministry and what Jesus's form of ministry teaches us about scaling. Mentioned: The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, by John Paul Lederach; To Change the World, by James Davison Hunter; the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Rev. Sam Shoemaker; Abraham Kuyper and Pope Leo XIII; "Whispering to a Revolution," by Louis Kim (via Comment); Christianity at the Crossroads: The Global Church from the Print Revolution to the Digital Era, by David N. Hempton; Mark 4; Hebrews 11 Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you listen, and find every episode at https://comment.org/shows/the-understory/ Episode Highlights "Movements are rarely built by people obsessed with immediate results, high impact, and fast scale. They are built by people willing to plant faithfully, invest relationally, and surrender outcomes." (Lisa Slayton) "The stone is in the cathedral. It's not in the quarry." (Louis Kim, on purpose-built change) "Yeast is necessary, but it's not sufficient." (Ian DeWaard) "What oftentimes gets lost is the level of formation and discipleship." (David Bailey, on the Civil Rights Movement) "Show up, be fully present, tell the truth, release the outcomes." (Lisa Slayton, closing reflection) About the Panel Cherie Harder (moderator): President of The Trinity Forum, senior fellow at Cardus, and member of Comment's editorial board. Lisa Slayton: Founding partner and CEO of Tamim Partners, former Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation president, and coauthor of Life in Flux. Louis Kim: Comment contributing editor and former Hewlett-Packard vice president, now studying hospice and palliative care at Duke Divinity School. Ian DeWaard: Ontario and Manitoba director of CLAC (Christian Labour Association of Canada), with the union since 2000. David Bailey: Founder and CEO of Arrabon, a spiritual formation ministry cultivating reconciling communities; public theologian and ordained minister. Helpful Links and Resources The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, John Paul Lederach's book on peacebuilding and critical yeast: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-moral-imagination-9780199747580 "Whispering to a Revolution," Louis Kim's Comment essay on social movements: https://comment.org/whispering-to-a-revolution Christianity at the Crossroads: The Global Church from the Print Revolution to the Digital Era, David N. Hempton's book on networks, nodes, and nuclei: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/christianity-at-the-crossroads/85E469C200B4C553A9ADFB1234713E8B Cherie Harder at The Trinity Forum: https://ttf.org/about-us/trinity-forum-staff Life in Flux, coauthored by Lisa Pratt Slayton: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/authors/lisa-pratt-slayton/3814 Louis Kim at Comment: https://comment.org/contributors/louis-kim Ian DeWaard at CLAC: https://www.clac.ca/Your-voice/Article/clac-director-awarded-the-king-charles-iii-coronation-medal Arrabon, founded by David Bailey: https://arrabon.com/about #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #CriticalYeast #CriticalMass #SocialChange #TheoryOfChange #CultureChange #FaithAndPublicLife #CivilRights

    Critical Yeast vs. Critical Mass — Cherie Harder, Lisa Slayton, Louis Kim, Ian DeWaard, and David Bailey

  8. Sep 23

    In the Time of Fire — Christian Wiman

    With a jolt through his spine, Christian Wiman's poem "In the Time of Fire" came to him. Included in his latest collection of poetry, The Dance, the poem's speaker shifts from a man to a woman, addressing the world as a prophetic voice of wisdom. Recorded live on May 29, 2026, Wiman recited his poem in the great nave of the Washington National Cathedral, to the crowd at the Understory Uprising, the festival's public evening of music and testimony. Episode Highlights "I had a sense of a prophetic voice speaking, and it sort of came to me at night once." (Christian Wiman, on the poem's origin) "It went with a jolt through my spine, 'cause it hadn't occurred to me." (Christian Wiman, on the voice of wisdom) Mentioned: "In the Time of Fire"; The Dance, by Christian Wiman; Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian, by Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman. Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org. The Understory is a production of Comment (comment.org), published by Cardus (cardus.ca). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you get your podcasts: comment.org/podcasts. About Christian Wiman is a poet, essayist, and former editor of Poetry magazine. He is the Clement-Muehl Professor in the Practice of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School; his seventh collection of poetry, The Dance, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2026. Helpful Links and Resources The Dance, Christian Wiman's seventh poetry collection and the source of this poem (FSG, 2026): https://squarebooks.com/book/9780374617400  Glimmerings: Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian, by Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman: https://bookshop.org/p/books/glimmerings-letters-on-faith-between-a-poet-and-a-theologian-christian-wiman/1a13ad79a59080d1 #TheUnderstory #ChristianWiman #Poetry #UnderstoryFestival #ChristianHumanism #Comment #TheDance

    In the Time of Fire — Christian Wiman
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

In late May 2026, more than a thousand people gathered for three days beneath the vaults of Washington National Cathedral for the first Understory Festival: a living experiment in Christian humanism, where argument and silence, music and lament, poetry and debate were honored as different ways of attending to reality, and of exploring this question of what might be struggling to be born today. This limited series gathers the festival's main-stage talks and carries them to everyone who wasn't in the room, as well as to everyone who was and wishes to return. Voice by voice, you'll hear the thinkers, weavers, institution-builders, artists, and pastors who came together to ask: what is struggling to be born, what is a human being, and who is Christ for us today. Presented by Comment.

Information

  • Channel
    Comment
  • Creator
    Comment
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026
  • Show Website
    The Understory

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