Conversing with Mark Labberton Comment + Fuller Seminary

People have been given so many reasons to despise Christianity. What would it be to communicate with and for the “cultured despisers of the faith”? This was the audience Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote to in his seminal work, The Christian Faith, and it is the audience Mark Labberton sought to speak to when preaching at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California.
In this Conversing Short, Mark considers the importance of communicating the gospel in its fullness to a culture that understandably despises Christianity, rather than domesticating it as the ecclesiastical industrial complex has.
About Conversing Shorts
“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”
About Mark Labberton
Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.
Show Notes
19th-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
"Cultured despisers of the faith” (introduced in The Christian Faith and On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers)
Darwin, Freud, and Nietzsche
“If you were a cultured person, you would have abandoned the faith.”
“People's life circumstances have, for understandable reasons, left them in a position to despise the faith.”
Reflecting Jesus or reflecting the “ecclesiastical industrial complex”?
Christian questions about what really matters
“The gospel itself, by God's revelation in Christ, if that's true, is a shocking surprise to the world.”
How the Gospel has been domesticated by the Church
Annie Dillard: if we understood the power of what we’re dealing with, we’d hand out crash helmets and seatbelts in church.
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

“Out of the greatest misery and the most devastating loss can come unimagined growth, and, in some cases, joy and happiness.”
 
Mark Labberton welcomes pioneering social entrepreneur Mawi Asgedom, an award-winning innovator, author, and advocate for social-emotional learning (SEL). Sharing his story of struggle, resilience, and redemption, Mawi describes his extraordinary journey from war-torn Ethiopia to a Sudanese refugee camp, to a childhood on welfare in an affluent American suburb, to Harvard graduate, to sharing a stage with Oprah Winfrey, to reimagining educational technology to improve youth mental health and thriving.
 
Together they discuss the essential life lessons Mawi has learned and taught through his remarkable personal history, including the difficult cultural transition as an Ethiopian refugee in the Chicago suburbs, the pain of losing his brother followed by the pain of losing his faith, the power of positivity and mature Christian faith, and his vision for helping children develop social-emotional skills to navigate life.
 
About Mawi Asgedom
 
Mawi Asgedom is an award-winning innovator, author, and advocate for social-emotional learning (SEL). He has spent over 20 years helping youth unlock their potential, training millions of educators and students, and collaborating with leading youth development organizations. His book, Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard, is a survival story of overcoming war, famine, suffering, and countless obstacles. He is the creator of Inner Heroes Universe, and his work has been featured by various media outlets, including Oprah Winfrey, who named her interview with Mawi one of her top 20 moments. A father of four school-aged kids, Mawi can often be found coaching youth sports on the weekends.
 
Show notes
Read Mawi Asgedom’s book: Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard
A story of challenge, struggle, pain and suffering; but also a story of God's faithfulness, and Mawi’s resilience, joy, devotion, love, intelligence, and hard work
Mawi’s childhood and origin story
Life in Tigray, Ethiopia
Civil War that led to the establishment of Eritrea
Mawi’s mother’s incredible journey from Ethiopia to Sudan, facing the dangers of hyenas, rebel forces, and homelessness with her three children
The normalcy of suffering
Describing the refugee camp in Sudan
How Mawi understands his personal history and life experience
A Nail Through the Finger: how parents in dire circumstances teach children to survive
“Where I come from, people expect a lot of bad things to happen. It's just part of how life is. In the States, people get really upset if any bad things happen.”
Mawi’s experience of cultural assimilation
His family’s relocation to Wheaton, Illinois, outside of Chicago, through World Relief
“Sweetness passed us by before we called it sweet.”
The cultural shock of moving to the U.S. and being the only Ethiopian family.
Challenges of isolation, language barriers, and racism
"Facing bullying and discrimination tested my resilience."
“That took me quite a long time to be able to step into who I really was and be like, ‘I got nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of my mom and dad. I'm proud of my background. I'm proud of every part of who I am.’ It took me a long time to be able to feel that and say that. I think that was probably the invisible kind of scar from that experience.”
“On the rise to become an exceptional achiever…”
The greatest poverty is a poverty of relationship: “I spoke one time at a correctional facility outside of Chicago … and he said, ‘I'd rather be a refugee and go through stuff you went through with a family that I was close to who loved me than be in this country by myself.’ And I thought about it and I was like, this student is correct. The greatest poverty really is a poverty relationship. It's when yo

Imagine preaching in front of a crowd of protesters holding a banner: “HOW DARE YOU?” That’s what Mark Labberton did every Sunday preaching in the clear, glass-walled sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California.
In this Conversing Short, Mark reflects on this foundational, animating question that defined his public leadership during his sixteen years as senior pastor of First Pres.
About Conversing Shorts: “In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”
About Mark Labberton
Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.
Show Notes
The clear glass walls of First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, CA “You’re doing everything that you’re doing in public.” “I wanted to welcome the outside, inside.” Berkeley protestors An imaginary poster: “How dare you?” Accepting responsibility, being held to account by the City of Berkeley Preaching in God’s name Mark on the question, “How dare you?”: “And it felt like the question was legitimate. How dare you get this land? Why should it be given over to this purpose? What is it that you're worth? What are you actually bringing to the city? On what grounds can you make such outlandish claims? What are the implications of it? How will it show up that you actually live what you're saying? And therefore, how dare you do this both intrinsically? How dare you do this existentially? How dare you do it theologically? But also, how dare you do it culturally and politically and socially.” “What does it mean in this place at this time, surrounded by this community of believers and unbelievers, skeptics and critics of every kind?” Preaching to the “Cultured Despisers of the Faith” (a term coined by 19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher in The Christian Faith) “Having grown up largely outside the life of the Church … I was one of the cultured despisers.” Representing classic Christian faith in an entirely unclassical community like Berkeley “I felt like if the Christian faith can't show up and make some kind of intelligent, purposeful, meaningful, transformative difference, then there is no case to be made and I should just walk away.” What’s worth giving your life to? Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

“The Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together.”
American political life today is fractured and splintered, but many still yearn for unity. How can we find social cohesion amid sharply felt differences? Political scientist Yuval Levin wants to bring us back to our founding document: the American Constitution. After all, the Preamble identifies as its primary purposes to “form a more perfect union” and “establish justice.”
Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Currie Chair in Public Policy. His latest book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. He’s founder of National Affairs, senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor of National Review, and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.
Levin joins Mark Labberton to discuss the US Constitution’s purpose in fostering social cohesion and unity; the malfunction of Congress to build coalitions across disagreement; the values of social order and social justice; the fragility of democracy; the difference between a contract and a covenant; and the American aspiration to live up to the covenantal relationship and mutual belonging implied in “We the people.”
About Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.
At AEI, Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish.
Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.
In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024).
He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
Show Notes
Get your copy of Yuval Levin’s American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again Yuval Levin’s background as a Jewish American and his childhood immigration to the United States from Israel. Yuval has “the kind of vision that sometimes immigrants have, which combines a really deep gratitude for this country with a sense of what's unique about it, and what's wonderfully strange about it.” Yuval’s religious practice at a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Washington, DC. How Torah has shaped Yuval Levin’s life and thought. Torah is Hebrew for “law.” Annual cycle of reading and immersing oneself in a text. “The American Constitution is not divine. It’s the work of a patchwork of compromises, it has a lot of problems, by no means do I think that it’s analogous to the Hebrew Bible.” Why write a book about the American Constitution? How to understand the constitution as a framework for social cohesion and unity. “Even in the private lives of a lot of Americans, I think the sense of isolation, of alienation, breakdown

“All of our emotions are there for a good reason. They’re positive. They want to help. And a little anxiety is good. … All of society is saying, ‘Get rid of emotion. It's awful. It's evil.’ It's not true.”
In this episode, Mark welcomes Pete Docter, executive producer of Inside Out 2, and the Oscar-winning director of Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out. Pete joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1990 at twenty-one years old as its third animator, and is now Pixar’s chief creative officer.
Mark and Pete discuss the ins and outs of Inside Out 2, including its themes about emotion, psychology, adolescence, and the discovery and acceptance of who we are. Pete reflects on the power of music to convey unconscious meaning, alongside the subtle and sophisticated animation techniques used by Pixar today. We learn about the new emotion characters (including Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui), as well as those that almost made the cut. And Pete comments on the spiritual and moral dimensions that Inside Out 2 is able to explore.
About Pete Docter
Pete Docter is the Oscar-winning director of Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, and chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios. He most recently directed Disney and Pixar’s Oscar-winning feature film Soul with producer Dana Murray and co-director Kemp Powers, which is now streaming on Disney+.
Starting at Pixar in 1990 as the studio’s third animator, Docter collaborated on and helped develop the story and characters for Toy Story, Pixar’s first full-length animated feature film, for which he also was supervising animator. He served as a storyboard artist on A Bug’s Life and wrote initial story treatments for both Toy Story 2 and WALL•E. Aside from directing his three films, Docter also executive produced Monsters University and the Academy Award–winning Brave.
Docter’s interest in animation began at the age of eight, when he created his first flipbook. He studied character animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where he produced a variety of short films, one of which won a Student Academy Award. Those films have since been shown in animation festivals worldwide and are featured on the Pixar Short Films Collection, volume 2. Upon joining Pixar, he animated and directed several commercials, and has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature–winners Up and Inside Out and nominee Monsters, Inc., and Best Original Screenplay for Up, Inside Out and WALL•E. In 2010, Up also was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Show Notes
Continuity and discontinuity in Inside Out 2 Pete Docter comments on the main character/setting of Inside Out series: Riley and what’s going on inside her head. Some psychologists think there are 27 emotions Puberty and adolescence New emotions: Bringing Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui (Boredom) into the picture Anxiety as the new protagonist Changing body and outgrowing an old sweater Riley’s pimple: “That was something that Kelsey Mann, the director, was big on from the beginning. He would say, we were so used to seeing characters represented in this perfect, idealized way. And yet, when we look at the mirror, we realize, ‘Hey, I don't measure up to that.’ That was kind of the message of the film from the beginning—is learning to accept yourself. You know, the flaws and all, because that's so much of our civilization is measuring ourselves against others. And especially that period in time growing up, you're suddenly socially aware, and where you fit in or don't.” From family to friends as the dominant group “All of our emotions are there for a good reason. They're positive. They want to help. And a little anxiety is good. Lisa L'Amour, who was a consultant on the film, her big thing is like, all of society is saying, ‘Get rid of emotion. It's awful. It's evil.’ It's not true.” Researching

“Reconciliation and reparations were never supposed to be two opposite things.” The Church is called to be a repairer of the breach. Drawing on the prophetic texts of Isaiah and Nehemiah, Brenda Salter McNeil joins Mark to discuss her latest book: Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities.
Together they reflect on the Church’s responsibility for social justice; the call to engage politics for the common good; the nature of systemic injustice and systemic change; empowerment and mutual investment in change; and the importance of moving closer to injustice in order to become a “repairer of the breach.”
Brenda Salter McNeil is a leader in the international movement for peace and reconciliation. She is an Associate Professor of reconciliation studies in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, where she also directs the Reconciliation Studies program. She also serves on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle, WA. She is the author of numerous books on Christianity, reconciliation, and racial justice. Follower her @RevDocBrenda.
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Mark introduces Brenda Salter McNeil Learn more about Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities Isaiah 58 and “As If Worship” Isaiah 58:11-12—“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. Repair and reparations Brian Stevenson: “Real reparations would mean to repair what was actually broken.” “We want to see justice. We want to see change. … Reconciliation and reparations were never supposed to be two opposite things.” Why the Old Testament prophetic book of Nehemiah is relevant to the church in this political moment: “I wanted to use a narrative in scripture that showed us how do you actually organize people. That it's not just enough to preach about it on Sundays, there's a way that we've got to bring a diverse coalition of people together and show them that we can rebuild what is broken around us.” “How do we retain our identity and our dignity?” How asking the right questions can generate empathy and motivate action Nehemiah’s Prayer of Confession Honest confession, just telling the truth Brenda’s son Omari’s social post: “We are always left saddened but not shocked. This will happen again. Another black queen or king doing what should be considered a regular activity will be killed just because. Black people will express outrage while everyone else will continue on relatively unchanged. We'll exclaim, hashtag Black Lives Matter, and we will get countless comments about, What about all lives matter? I'm looking at you, white evangelical churches. The shock will wear off for the rest of the world and we'll be left to rebuild again by ourselves. This cycle is so ingrained in the Black American narrative that we have learned to quickly spring into actionable next steps because we've done this before and we will do it again. We've had no choice but to normalize the trauma and carry on. So to those who wonder, I have no hope that I or my future children will ever live in a world that is quote unquote equal or totally safe or fair, even though I will always fight for it. Sadly for me and so many others, I lost that dream as a little boy.” Our own humanity is being diminished in every act of injustice Is systemic change possible? Individualistic vs communal lenses The need to get proximate to injustice in order to become a repairer When does proximity help? What causes proximity to stick and create change? Empowerment and mutual investment The work of justice is ultimately God’s work Fannie Lou Hamer’s activism Ja