For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Drew Collins, Evan Rosa
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For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

  1. Remembering Pope Francis / Nichole Flores and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

    3H AGO · BONUS

    Remembering Pope Francis / Nichole Flores and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

    Pope Francis died on Monday April 21, 2025. And to remember and celebrate his life, we’re bringing out an episode from our archives featuring social ethicist and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, Nichole M. Flores. Ryan McAnnally-Linz interviewed her in early 2021 about Fratelli Tutti, an encyclical teaching he published 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. From that encyclical he writes: *“Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together… By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together. Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all."* (Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti) Last year, in the midst of a global nightmare, Pope Francis invited the world to dream together of something different. He released *Fratelli Tutti* in October 2020—a message of friendship, dignity, and solidarity not just to Catholics, but "to all people of good will"—for the whole human community. In this episode, social ethicist Nichole Flores (University of Virginia) explains papal encyclicals and works through the moral vision of *Fratelli Tutti*, highlighting especially Pope Francis’s views on faith as seeing with the eyes of Christ, the implications of human dignity for discourse, justice and solidarity, and finally the language of dreaming together of a different world. **Support For the Life of the World: [Give to  the Yale Center for Faith & Culture](https://faith.yale.edu/give)** **Show Notes** - Read the entire text of Fratelli Tutti online [**here**](http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20201003_enciclica-fratelli-tutti.html) - What is a papal encyclical? For “All people of good will”—not just Catholics - Examining the signs of the times, e.g., Fratelli Tutti will always be connected to its global context during a pandemic. - What is Fratelli Tutti? What does its title mean? - Brothers and Sisters All: Using Italian, a particular language, as a pathway to the universal, rather than traditional Latin title - Pope Francis’ roots in Latin America: How his particularity as Latin American gives him a universal message; local and communal belonging; neighborhoods contributing to the common good - Seeing/Gazing: Faith as seeing with the eyes of Christ (*Lumen Fidei*) - Undermining human dignity in social media discourse; the failure of grandstanding rather than encounter - Solidarity as a dirty word: conflicts within Catholicism about how to understand and apply justice and solidarity in real life - Solidarity requires encounter with the other - Social friendship and fraternity - Human dignity in the tradition of Catholic social ethics - Dreaming together: fighting against the temptation to dream alone, inviting us to imagine; cultivating a conversation that forms collective imagination and aesthetic reality. **About Nichole Flores** Nichole Flores is a social ethicist who is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She studies the constructive contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics to the life of democracy. Her research in practical ethics addresses issues of democracy, migration, family, gender, economics (labor and consumption), race and ethnicity, and ecology. Visit [**NicholeMFlores.com**](https://nicholemflores.com/) for more information.

    35 min
  2. Art and Sacred Resistance: Art as Prayer, Love, Resistance and Relationship / Bruce Herman

    6D AGO

    Art and Sacred Resistance: Art as Prayer, Love, Resistance and Relationship / Bruce Herman

    “Art is a form of prayer … a way to enter into relationship.” Artist and theologian Bruce Herman reflects on the sacred vocation of making, resisting consumerism, and the divine invitation to become co-creators. From Mark Rothko to Rainer Maria Rilke, to Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” and T.S. Eliot’s *Four Quartets*, he comments on the holy risk of artmaking and the sacred fire of creative origination. Together with Evan Rosa, Bruce Herman explores the divine vocation of art making as resistance to consumer culture and passive living. In this deeply poetic and wide-ranging conversation—and drawing from his book *Makers by Nature—*he invites us into a vision of art not as individual genius or commodity, but as service, dialogue, and co-creation rooted in love, not fear. They touch on ancient questions of human identity and desire, the creative implications of being made in the image of God, Buber’s *I and Thou*, the scandal of the cross, Eliot’s divine fire, Rothko’s melancholy ecstasy, and how even making a loaf of bread can be a form of holy protest. A profound reflection on what it means to be human, and how we might change our lives—through beauty, vulnerability, and relational making. **Episode Highlights** “We are made by a Maker to be makers.” “ I think hope is being stolen from us Surreptitiously moment by moment hour by hour day by day.” “There is no them. There is only us.” “The work itself has a life of its own.” “Art that serves a community.” “You must change your life.” —Rilke, recited by Bruce Herman in reflection on the transformative power of art. “When we're not making something, we're not whole. We're not healthy.” “Making art is a form of prayer. It's a form of entering into relationship.” “Art is not for the artist—any more than it's for anyone else. The work stands apart. It has its own voice.” “We're not merely consumers—we're made by a Maker to be makers.” “The ultimate act of art is hospitality.” **Topics and Themes** - Human beings are born to create and make meaning - Art as theological dialogue and spiritual resistance - Creative practice as a form of love and worship - Christian art and culture in dialogue with contemporary issues - Passive consumption vs. active creation - How to engage with provocative art faithfully - The role of beauty, mystery, and risk in the creative process - Art that changes you spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually - The sacred vocation of the artist in a consumerist world - How poetry and painting open up divine encounter, particularly in Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” - *Four Quartets* and spiritual longing in modern poetry - Hospitality, submission, and service as aesthetic postures - Modern culture's sickness and art as medicine - Encountering the cross through contemporary artistic imagination ***“Archaic Torso of Apollo”*** **Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 –1926** We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. **About Bruce Herman** Bruce Herman is a painter, writer, educator, and speaker. His art has been shown in more than 150 exhibitions—nationally in many US cities, including New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston—and internationally in England, Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, Canada, and Israel. His artwork is featured in many public and private art collections including the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art in Rome; The Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts print collection; The Grunewald Print Collection of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; DeCordova Museum in Boston; the Cape Ann Museum; and in many colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Herman taught at Gordon College for nearly four decades, and is the founding chair of the Art Department there. He held the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts for more than fifteen years, and continues to curate exhibitions and manage the College art collection there. Herman completed both BFA and MFA degrees at Boston University College of Fine Arts under American artists Philip Guston, James Weeks, David Aronson, Reed Kay, and Arthur Polonsky. He was named Boston University College of Fine Arts Distinguished Alumnus of the Year 2006. Herman’s art may be found in dozens of journals, popular magazines, newspapers, and online art features. He and co-author Walter Hansen wrote the book [*Through Your Eyes*](https://www.amazon.com/Through-Your-Eyes-Dialogues-Paintings/dp/0802871178), 2013, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, a thirty-year retrospective of Herman’s art as seen through the eyes of his most dedicated collector. To learn more, explore [A Video Portrait of the Artist](https://www.bruceherman.com/bruce-herman-a-video-portrait) and [My Process – An Essay by Bruce Herman](https://www.bruceherman.com/process). **Books by Bruce Herman** [*Makers by Nature: Letters from a Master Painter on Faith, Hope, and Art](https://www.ivpress.com/makers-by-nature)* (2025) [*Ordinary Saints](https://ordinary-saints.com/the-program/) (*2018) [*Through Your Eyes: The Art of Bruce Herman](https://www.amazon.com/Through-Your-Eyes-Dialogues-Paintings/dp/0802871178) (*2013) [*QU4RTETS](https://iamculturecare.com/projects/qu4rtets)* with Makoto Fujimura, Bruce Herman, Christopher Theofanidis, Jeremy Begbie (2012) [*A Broken Beauty*](https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Beauty-Theodore-L-Prescott/dp/0802828183) (2006) **Show Notes** - **Bruce Herman on Human Identity as Makers** - We are created in the image of God—the ultimate “I Am”—and thus made to create. - “We are made by a Maker to be makers.” - To deny our creative impulse is to risk a deep form of spiritual unhealth. - Making is not just for the “artist”—everyone is born with the capacity to make. - **Theological Themes and Philosophical Frameworks** - Influences include Martin Buber’s “I and Thou,” René Girard’s scapegoating theory, and the image of God in Genesis. - “We don't really exist for ourselves. We exist in the space between us.” - The divine invitation is relational, not autonomous. - Desire, imitation, and submission form the core of our relational anthropology. - **Art as Resistance to Consumerism** - “We begin to enter into illness when we become mere consumers.” - Art Versus Propaganda - Culture is sickened by passive consumption, entertainment addiction, and aesthetic commodification. - Making a loaf of bread, carving wood, or crafting a cocktail are acts of cultural resistance. - Desire - “Anything is resistance… Anything is a protest against passive consumption.” - **Art as Dialogue and Submission** - “Making art is a form of prayer. It’s a form of entering into relationship.” - Submission—though culturally maligned—is a necessary posture in love and art. - Engaging with art requires openness to transformation. - “If you want to really receive what a poem is communicating, you have to submit to it.” - **The Transformative Power of Encountering Art** - Quoting Rilke’s *Archaic Torso of Apollo*: “You must change your life.” - True art sees the viewer and invites them to become something more. - Herman’s own transformative moment came unexpectedly in front of a Rothko painting. - “The best part of my work is outside of my control.” - **Scandal, Offense, and the Cross in Art** - Analyzing Andres Serrano’s *Piss Christ* as a sincere meditation on the commercialization of the cross. - “Does the crucifixion still carry sacred weight—or has it been reduced to jewelry?” - Art should provoke—but out of love, not self-aggrandizement or malice. - “The cross is an offense. Paul says so. But it’s the power of God for those being saved.” - **Beauty, Suffering, and Holy Risk** - Encounter with art can arise from personal or collective suffering. - Bruce references Christian Wiman and Walker Percy as artists opened by pain. - “Sometimes it takes catastrophe to open us up again.” - Great art offers not escape, but transformation through vulnerability. - **The Fire and the Rose: T. S. Eliot’s Influence** - Four Quartets shaped Herman’s artistic and theological imagination. - Eliot’s poetry is contemplative, musical, liturgical, and steeped in paradox. - “To be redeemed from fire by fire… when the fire and the rose are one.” - The collaborative *Quartets* project with Makoto Fujimura and Chris Theofanidis honors Eliot’s poetic vision. - **Living and Creating from Love, Not Fear** - “Make from love, not fear.” - Fear-driven art (or politics) leads to manipulation and despair. - Acts of love include cooking, serving, sharing, and creating for others. - “The ultimate act of art is hospitality.” --- --- ## Media & Intellectual References - [*Makers by Nature* by Bruce Herman](https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802883371/makers-by-nature/) - [*Four Quartets* by T. S. Eliot](http://www.davidgorman.com/4quartets/) - [*The Archaic Torso of Apollo* by Rainer Maria Rilke](https://poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/RilkeTorso.php) - [Wassily Kandinsky, “On the Spiritual in Art”](https://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art206/onspiritualinar

    1h 2m
  3. The Fear to Hope: Ukrainian Pastor on Democracy, Fear, and Abundant Life in the Midst of War / Fyodor Raychynets

    MAR 13

    The Fear to Hope: Ukrainian Pastor on Democracy, Fear, and Abundant Life in the Midst of War / Fyodor Raychynets

    "Do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them—learn how to deal with them—because unless you do, you cannot live your life abundantly and fully." (Fyodor Raychynets) Evoking courage, resilience, and faith in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to *For the Life of the World* three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In conversation with Evan Rosa, Fyodor shares his reflections on fear, freedom, and the emotional and spiritual challenges of living fully in a time of war. He discusses his response to recent global political developments, the struggle of holding onto hope, and the importance of confronting fear rather than suppressing it. Drawing from the Gospel of Mark’s iteration of Jesus walking on water, his own personal grief and therapy, and the lived experience of war, Fyodor sees fear not as something to be avoided or gotten rid of, but as something to understand and face with courage. "We are in a situation where we are scared to hope." "Do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them—learn how to deal with them—because unless you do, you cannot live your life abundantly and fully." "If I want to say to someone, ‘I love you,’ I say it. If I want to forgive, I forgive. If I want to do something meaningful, I do it now—because tomorrow is never guaranteed." "The enemy wants us to live in fear, to be paralyzed by it. But to live fully is to resist." "When Jesus scared his disciples on the water, he was bringing their fears to the surface—so that they could face them and find true freedom." **Show Notes** Image: “Walking on Water”, by Ivan Aivazovsky, Russia, 1888 Episode Summary - Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets reflects on faith, fear, and hope after three years of war. - The role of fear in spiritual and personal transformation. - A biblical perspective on confronting fear, drawn from the Gospel of Mark. - Political and emotional reactions to recent global events impacting Ukraine. - Living fully in the present as an act of resistance against fear and oppression. Faith, Fear, and Freedom - Fyodor Raychynets returns to discuss Ukraine’s ongoing struggle and his evolving faith. - "Fear to hope"—the challenge of holding onto hope when the world is falling apart. - Why fear should be faced rather than suppressed. - The spiritual wisdom of encountering fear: “When Jesus scared his disciples, it was for their good.” - The difference between being reckless, cowardly, or courageous—all of which share the common state of fear. The Ukrainian Perspective on Global Politics - How Ukraine perceives the shifting stance of U.S. foreign policy. - The impact of Zelenskyy’s visit to the Oval Office and international reactions. - The challenge of fighting for democracy when global powers redefine the terms of war. - The fear that democratic values are no longer upheld by those who once championed them. Biblical and Psychological Perspectives on Fear - Mark’s Gospel and the fear of encountering God in unexpected ways. - Fyodor quotes Carl Jung: "Where our fears lie, that is where change is most needed." - Facing fear as a practice of faith and emotional resilience. - The importance of naming fears, localizing them, and even “inviting them in for tea.” - How unprocessed fear can lead to paralysis or aggression. Living in the Present: The Antidote to Fear - Why Fyodor refuses to postpone life until after the war. - "We don’t know what tomorrow brings. So I live today, fully." - A powerful response to fear: doing good, loving openly, and forgiving freely. - The lesson of war: never get used to abnormal things. - Holding onto humanity in the face of devastation. Linked Media References - Mark 6L: 45-52 [Jesus Walks on Water](https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=608897584) - Episode 110 of For the Life of the World [A Voice from Kyiv](https://faith.yale.edu/media/a-voice-from-kyiv-fyodor-raychynets) - Episode 138 of For the Life of the World / [Ukrainian Pastor Speaks Out: Resist Evil, Be Present, and Remember How Little You Control](https://faith.yale.edu/media/ukrainian-pastor-speaks-out) - [Ukraine War Updates - BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682) About Fyodor Raychynets Fyodor Raychynets is a theologian and pastor in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is Head of the Department of Theology at Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in Leadership and Biblical Studies, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. He studied with Miroslav Volf at Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia. Follow him on Facebook [**here**](https://www.facebook.com/fyodor.raychynets). Production Notes - This podcast featured Fyodor Raychinets - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    54 min
  4. What the Devil: Christian Imagination, Morality, and Two-Step Devil / Jamie Quatro

    MAR 5

    What the Devil: Christian Imagination, Morality, and Two-Step Devil / Jamie Quatro

    Mystics and prophets have reported receiving visions from the Divine for centuries—”Thus saith the Lord…”—Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Catherine of Siena, or Julian of Norwich. The list goes on. But what would you think if you met a seer of visions in the present day? Maybe you have. What about a prophet whose visions came like a movie screen unfurled before him, the images grotesque and vivid, all in the unsuspecting backwoods setting of Lookout Mountain, deep in the south of Tennessee. Would you believe it? Would you believe him? The beauty of fiction allows the reader to join the author in asking: What if? That’s exactly what Jamie Quatro has allowed us to do in her newest work of literary fiction, *Two-Step Devil.* What if an earnest and wildly misunderstood Christian is left alone on Lookout Mountain? What if the receiver of visions makes art that reaches a girl who’s stuck in the darkest grip of a fraught world? What if the Devil really did sit in the corner of the kitchen, wearing a cowboy hat, and what if he got to tell his own side of the Biblical story? On today’s episode novelist Jamie Quatro joins Macie Bridge to share about her relationship to the theological exploration within her latest novel, *Two-Step Devil;* her experience of being a Christian and a writer, but not a “Christian Writer”; and how the trinity of main characters in the novel speak to and open up her own deepest concerns about the state of our country and the world we inhabit. Jamie Quatro is the [*New York Times Notable*](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/books/review/i-want-to-show-you-more-by-jamie-quatro.html) author of [*I Want to Show You More*](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/broken-vows), and [*Fire Sermon*](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/books/review/fire-sermon-jamie-quatro.html). [*Two-Step Devil](https://groveatlantic.com/book/two-step-devil/)* is her latest work and is the winner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing, and it’s also been named a *New York Times* Editor's Choice, among other accolades. Jamie teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program. SPOILER ALERT! This episode contains substantial spoilers to the novel’s plot, so if you’d like to read it for yourself, first grab a copy from your local bookstore, then two-step on back over here to listen to this conversation! **About Jamie Quatro** Jamie Quatro is the [*New York Times Notable*](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/books/review/i-want-to-show-you-more-by-jamie-quatro.html) author of [*I Want to Show You More*](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/broken-vows), and [*Fire Sermon*](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/books/review/fire-sermon-jamie-quatro.html). [*Two-Step Devil](https://groveatlantic.com/book/two-step-devil/)* is her latest work and is the winner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing, and it’s also been named a *New York Times* Editor's Choice, among other accolades. Jamie teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program. **Show Notes** - Get your copy of [*Two-Step Devil* by Jamie Quatro](https://groveatlantic.com/book/two-step-devil/) - [Click here to view the art that inspired Jamie Quatro’s *Two-Step Devil*](https://www.notion.so/FAITH-YALE-EDU-Management-be71c0f3a4ae415b8f5afa32f8cb657c?pvs=21) **Production Notes** - This podcast featured Jamie Quatro with Macie Bridge - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    59 min
  5. The Scandal of Giving and Forgiving / Miroslav Volf

    FEB 26

    The Scandal of Giving and Forgiving / Miroslav Volf

    It’s easy to forget how utterly scandalous the concepts of grace and forgiveness are. Grace is an absolutely unmerited, undeserved benevolence. Forgiveness is an intentional miscarriage of retributive justice, ignoring of the wrong by a wrongdoer. In Miroslav Volf’s understanding, forgiveness “decouples the deed from the doer.” Today’s episode features some highlights from Miroslav’s personal reflections about each chapter of his book *Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace*, including his thoughts about one of the most painful moments in his family’s history, the death of his 5-year-old brother Daniel when Miroslav was just a small boy. *Free of Charge* was published in 2006, and we just released a 10-video curriculum series through [faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge](http://faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge). It also includes a 48-page discussion guide with new material to help facilitate not just deeper reflection about giving and forgiving, but a viable, livable path toward these core Christian practices. This series is free for Yale Center for Faith & Culture email subscribers. So head over to [faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge](http://faith.yale.edu/free-of-charge) to sign up today. **Production Notes** - This podcast featured Miroslav Volf - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett, and Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    32 min
  6. Kendrick Lamar's Political Theology / Femi Olutade

    FEB 21

    Kendrick Lamar's Political Theology / Femi Olutade

    Super Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13-minute half-time tour de force of political theology and protest art. Acting like a parable to offer more to those who already get it, and to take away from those who don’t get it at all, the performance was so much more than a petty way to settle a rap beef. But what exactly was going on? Today’s episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. Evan Rosa welcomes Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Femi joined Dissect Podcast host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar. About Femi Olutade Femi Olutade is the lead writer for Season 5 of Dissect, an analysis of Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN. He’s arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. A lifelong fan of hip hop and student of theology, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick, as well as Christian scripture and moral theology. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Femi joined host Cole Cushna as lead writer for a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar. Show Notes Femi Olutade’s Theology of Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Half-Time Show (Video) Kendrick Lamar’s Half-time Show Lyrics (Full) Season 5 of Dissect: Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. Kendrick Lamar’s Political Theology as a Diss Track to America Super Bowl LIX was amazing, but not because of the football, or the commercials. It was the 13 minute half-time tour de force that Kendrick Lamar offered the world. Uncle Sam introduces the show, the quote “Great American Game.” A playstation controller appears. Is the game football? Video game? Or some other game? Kendrick appears crouched on a car—dozens of red, white, and blue dancers emerge, evoking both the American flag which they eventually form, as well as the gang wars between bloods and crips—or as Kendrick says in Hood Politics, “Demo-crips” and “Re-blood-icans” And what ensues is an intricately choreographed set of layered meanings, allusions, hidden references and Easter eggs—not all of which have been noticed, not to mention explained or understood. You can find links to the performance and the lyrics in the show notes. Femi Olutade on the Theology of Kendrick Lamar Today’s episode is an introduction to the political theology of Kendrick Lamar. And joining me is Femi Olutade, arguably the living expert on the theology of Kendrick Lamar. As a lifelong fan of hip hop, he’s deeply familiar not just with music Kendrick made, but the influences that made Kendrick. Femi has written incredibly nuanced theological musicological reflections about Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 album DAMN., which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. And I became familiar with Femi’s work in 2021, while listening to a podcast called Dissect—which analyzes albums line by line, note by note. They cover mostly hip hop, but the season on Radiohead’s In Rainbows is also incredible. Femi joined host Cole Cushna to co-write a 20-episode analysis of DAMN., offering incredible insight into the theological, moral, and political richness of Kendrick Lamar, which repays so many replays. Forward, AND backward. Yes, you can play the album backwards and forwards like a mirror and they tell two different stories, one about wickedness and pride, and the other about weakness, love, and humility. If you want to jump to my conversation with Femi about Kendrick Lamar’s Political Theology, please do, just jump ahead a few minutes. Not Just a Diss Track to Drake, but a Diss Track to America But I wanted to offer a few preliminaries of my own to help with this most recent context of the Super Bowl halftime performance. Because almost immediately, it was interpreted as nothing more than one of the pettiest, egotistical, and overkill ways to settle a rap beef between Kendrick and another hip hop artist, Drake. Some fans celebrated this. Others found it at best irrelevant and confusing, and at worst an offensive waste of an opportunity to make a larger statement before an audience of 133 million viewers. In my humble opinion, both get it wrong. Kendrick Lamar simply does not work this way. If it was the biggest diss track of all time, it wasn’t aimed merely at Drake, but America. And if it was offensive, it was because of its moral clarity and force, striking a prophetic chord operating similar to a parable. Jesus and Kendrick on Prophecy and Parables Parables, according to Jesus, are meant to give more to those who already have, and take away from those who already have nothing (Matthew 13:13). Because, as the prophet Isaiah says, “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand” (Isaiah 6:9). At this point, it’s possible that you’re entirely confused, and if so, I’d invite you to hang with me and lean in. Watch it again, listen more closely. Because rap, according to Jay Z, is a lean-in genre. You can’t understand it without close examination, without contextual, bottom-up, historical appreciation, or without a willingness to be educated about what it’s like to be Black in America. But I guarantee you that in Kendrick Lamar’s outstanding choreographed prophetic theatre, there’s much more going on—”there’s levels to it”—to quote Lamar. You Picked the Right Time, but the Wrong Guy And if you want it clearly spelled out for you—a cleaner, smoother, tighter, more palatable, less subtle social commentary that can be abstracted from history, circumstance, and the genre of rap itself so that it can be rationally evaluated—well, you’re occupying the exact position Kendrick is critiquing, which he prophetically predicts in the very performance itself. As he warns us: The revolution 'bout to be televised You picked the right time, but the wrong guy Still, what was that?? First, it’s public performance art, so just let it land. Watch it again. Notice something new. Submit yourself to it. Let it change you. The Black American Experience in Hip Hop and Kendrick Lamar And if you really want to understand it, you need to be open to the possibility that some social commentary can only be understood in light of certain lived experiences. In this case, at least the Black American experience. And then, rather than demanding that Kendrick explain it to you in your own vernacular, listen to what he’s already said. Lean in an listen to his whole body of work, learn his story, expertly rendered in jaw-dropping lyrical performance. Drive with him through his childhood streets of Compton on Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. Journey with him from caterpillar to butterfly on To Pimp a Butterfly, look in the mirror presented before you in the Pulitzer-prize winning DAMN., hear out his messy psyche laid bare in Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, take a ride with him in GNX… In the days following Kendrick’s super bowl performance, J Kameron Carter, Professor of African American Studies, Comparative Literature, and Religion at the University of California at Irvine, called for a more in-depth study of the 13-minute performance, noting that: “[B]lack performance carries within it an interrogation of the question of country as the problem and question of US political theology and the legacy of Christian empire.” This episode isn’t meant to close any books or offer a full explanation of Kendrick’s performance, let alone his music, but just to lean in, and to quote Kendrick, “salute truth and the prophecy.” Production Notes This podcast featured Femi Olutade Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    1h 5m
  7. The Psychology of Disaster: The Impact of Calamity on Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health / Jamie Aten and Pam King

    FEB 12

    The Psychology of Disaster: The Impact of Calamity on Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health / Jamie Aten and Pam King

    Disaster preparedness is sort of an oxymoron. Disaster is the kind of indiscriminate calamity that only ever finds us ill-equipped to manage. And if you are truly prepared, you’ve probably averted disaster. There’s a big difference between the impact of disaster on physical, material life—and its outsized impact on mental, emotional, and spiritual life. Personal disasters like a terminal illness, natural disasters like the recent fires that razed southern Californian communities, the impact of endless, senseless wars … these all cause a pain and physical damage that can be mitigated or rebuilt. But the worst of these cases threaten to destroy the very meaning of our lives. No wonder disaster takes such a psychological and spiritual toll. There’s an urgent need to find or even make meaning from it. To somehow explain it, justify why God would allow it, and tell a grand story that makes sense from the senseless. These are difficult questions, and my guests today both have personal experience with disaster. Dr. Pam King is the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology, and the Executive Director the Thrive Center. She’s an ordained Presbyterian minister, and she hosts a podcast on psychology and spirituality called With & For. Dr. Jamie Aten is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert, helping others navigate mass, humanitarian, and personal disasters with scientific and spiritual insights. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute Wheaton College, where he holds the Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership. He is author of A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience. In this conversation, Pam King and Jamie Aten join Evan Rosa to discuss: - Each of their personal encounters with disasters—both fire and cancer - The psychological study of disaster - The personal impact of disaster on mental, emotional, and spiritual health - The difference between resilience and fortitude - And the theological and practical considerations for how to live through disastrous events. About Pam King Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. She hosts the [With & For podcast](https://thethrivecenter.org/podcast/), and you can follow her [**@drpamking**](https://twitter.com/drpamking). About Jamie Aten Jamie D. Aten is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert. He helps others navigate mass, humanitarian, and personal disasters with scientific and spiritual insights. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and Disaster Ministry Conference and holds the Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership at Wheaton College. And he’s the author of [*A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience](https://www.jamieaten.com/walkingdisaster).* Show Notes - [Humanitarian Disaster Institute](https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/humanitarian-disaster-institute/) - [Spiritual First Aid](https://www.spiritualfirstaid.org/) - Jamie Aten’s [*A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience*](https://www.jamieaten.com/walkingdisaster) - [The Thrive Center](https://thethrivecenter.org/) at Fuller Seminary - Pam King’s personal experience fighting fires in the Eaton Fire in January 2025 - 5,000 homes destroyed - 55 schools and houses of worship are gone - “Neighborhoods are annihilated …” - Jamie Aten offers an overview of the impact of disasters on humanity, and the human response - 1985: 400% increase in natural disasters globally - Japan 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami - Haiti 2010 earthquake - Physical, emotional, spiritual - Infrastructural impacts that set up disasters - USAID support - Jamie Aten’s experience during Hurricane Katrina - Personal disasters - Jamie Aten’s experience with colon cancer - “Evacuation Impossible” - Impact of disaster on personal sense of thriving - Thriving vs surviving - Understanding trauma - Collective traumatic events - The historically Black multigenerational community in Altadena - What constitutes thriving? - Thriving as adaptive growth: with and for others - Self-care is not just me-care, but we-care. - Trauma brain and the cognitive impacts of disaster - The psychological study of disaster: grapefruit vs beachball - [Humanitarian Disaster Institute](https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/humanitarian-disaster-institute/) - [Spiritual First Aid](https://www.spiritualfirstaid.org/) - A rupture of meaning making - Place and spirituality and the impact of disaster on sense of place - Bethlehem pastor Munther Isaac’s “Christ in the Rubble” - Finding meaning in both the restructuring or rebuilding, but also in the rubble itself - Hope embodied in service - Everything is a cognitive load - Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz’s *The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything* - Psychological and trauma-informed care - ”One of the things that we found was that when people received positive spiritual support, that they reported lower levels of trauma, lower levels of depression and lower levels of anxiety.” - Bless CPR - BLESS: Biological, Livelihood, Emotional, Social, Spiritual - “What’s the most pressing need?” - Spiritual health - Spirituality and our ultimate sources of meaning - Transcendence - Lament as a practice for dealing with disaster - Prayer or sacred readings - Meaning making and suffering:  Elizabeth Hall (Biola University) and Crystal Park (University of Connecticut) - Baton Rouge Flood 2016 - Navigating suffering - Religion in disaster mental health - Faith as a predictor for resilience - Meaning making outside of religion - Mr. Rogers: “Look for the helpers” - Best disaster preparedness: “Get to know your neighbor.” - “Proximity alone is not what it takes to become a neighbor.” - Neighbors helping neighbors - Managing burnout in helpers - “Spiritual self-aid” instead of “self-care” - Self-care is like surfing - “God holding the fragmented pieces of me” - “God’s love is with me.” - Spiritual fortitude in personal and natural disasters Production Notes - This podcast featured Jamie Aten and Pam King - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    58 min
  8. Our One and Only Earth: Environmental Ethics, Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Consumption / Ryan Darr & Ryan McAnnally-Linz

    FEB 7

    Our One and Only Earth: Environmental Ethics, Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Consumption / Ryan Darr & Ryan McAnnally-Linz

    How should we treat our one and only home, Earth? What obligations do we have to other living or non-living things? How should we think about climate change and its denial? How does biodiversity and species extinction impact human beings? And how should we think about environmental justice, the rights of animals, and the ways we consume the natural world? In this episode, Ryan McAnnally-Linz welcomes Ryan Darr (Assistant Professor, Yale Divinity School) to reflect on some of the most pressing issues in environmental ethics and consider them through philosophical, ecological, and theological frameworks. Together they discuss: - What and who matters in environmental ethics: Only humans? Only sentient animals? Every life form? The inorganic natural world? - The significance and difference between global and individual scale of climate issues - The ethics of climate change denial - Environmental justice and moral obligations to the environment—the question of what we owe to animals and the rest of the natural world - The importance of biodiversity and the impact of species loss and extinction - The ethics of eating animals - The problems with human consumption of the natural world - And the impact of cultivating a wider moral imagination of our ecological future About Ryan Darr Ryan Darr Ryan Darr is Assistant Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Environment at Yale Divinity School. His research interests include environmental ethics, multispecies justice, structural injustice, ethical theory, and the history of religious and philosophical ethics. He is currently writing a book that defends an account of environmental and multispecies justice as a framework for thinking ethically about the crisis of biodiversity loss and mass extinction. He is also developing an ongoing research project exploring the relationship between individual agency and responsibility and structural justice and injustice with a particular focus on environmental and climate issues. His first book, The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of Consequentialism, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2023. The book offers a new, robustly theological story of the origin of consequentialism, one of the most influential views in modern moral theory. It uses the new historical account to intervene in contemporary ethical debates about consequentialism and about how ethicists conceive of goods, ends, agency, and causality. Prior to joining the YDS faculty, Ryan held postdoctoral fellowships at the Princeton University Center for Human Values (2019-22) and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (2022-24). Show Notes - Get your copy of Ryan Darr’s The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of Consequentialism (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo208041496.html) - Complex ethical questions about climate change - Enmeshed in environmental systems - A crash course in environmental ethics - Which entities should we be thinking about ethically? - Are human beings the most important morally and ethically speaking? - What about animals, plants, or other kinds of life? - What about other species of animals - Anthropocentrism: Only humans matter. - Sentientism: Only sentient animals matter - Biocentrism: Every life form matters - Can we apply justice and rights to animals? - The polar bear on melting ice was the poster child for climate change; but this was a mistake because the effects on human beings is massive. - “All of us are affected.” - “We’re all vulnerable to climate change. …. kidding themselves and need to think more about this.” - Global south - Climate negotiations: Who needs to lower emissions and how? And how do we adapt? - Massive overwhelm at the scope of environmental problems: “Only massive changes can make a difference.” But “I have to change my life.” - How should we navigate the scale issue? - Don’t let large scale or small scale issues or changes eclipse the other. - Political action is crucial - “We need people willing to respond in the ways they can, where they are.” - Climate change denial - “There’s a lot of money flowing here.” Fossil fuel interests and others muddy the waters and create conflicts - “If it’s the case that millions of lives are at stake … I don’t see how some doubt - Reasons why people might deny climate change - “It’d be nice if climate change wasn’t real, but …” - Environmental justice and injustice - Toxicities released into the natural environment - Conservation and biodiversity loss - Approximately 8 million species on earth - It’s standard to lose a handful per million per year - Generally, you’re supposed to get more species on earth, short of a mass extinction event - But extinction rate is something like 100x to 1000x faster - Defaunation—reduction of fauna on earth - Measuring the biomass of various species (Humans make up 30% of the world’s biomass.) - Changes linked to colonialism and global capitalism - Why would God have created such a diverse species - Thomas Aquinas on why God created a world full of biodiversity: to reflect God’s extensive perfection - “On this view, the world is show less - What are the ethics of - Example: Wolves were intentionally eradicated in America, because “who wants a wolf in their neighborhood.” - Justice-oriented “Rights” and what we owe to each other, versus non-justice - Do we have obligations to animals? - Example: Kicking a Cat - “The Incredulous Stare” - Jainism and “ahiṃsā” (non-injury, no-harm, or non-violence toward all life forms, down to microbes) - “I’m inclined to think that I have obligations to almost all animals.” - At least “animals who are sentient”—desires, frustration of desires, pain, etc. - Is it permissible to eat meat? - Factory-farmed meat (effectively tormented) - Animal life has become commodity—valuable solely because of its use and with no regard for their well-being. - Consumers, Producers, and Wendell Berry: How should social roles relate to each other? - “Any question about justice have to begin from concrete social positions.” - Maintaining action and creativity - Practical recommendation for action to align our lives with our values - “I read fiction and short stories that tell stories of human beings in futures drastically affected by climate change as a way to open up my imagination to what’s possible.” - Dystopian narratives: leading to a sense of futility and hopelessness. - “I don’t think we know where anything is headed.” - “Humans have lived through upheaval so many times, and have found ways. … ‘People kept on baking bread as the Roman Empire fell.’” - Yale Divinity School class: “Eco-Futures”—imagining lives lived well in painful situations - If not hope, a sense of determination to do what can be done with the time that we have. - Kim Stanley Robinson's *The Ministry for the Future*: a technocratic novel about politics and policy solutions - Short fiction on *Grist*—[Imagine 2200: Write the Future](https://grist.org/climate-fiction/imagine-2200-contest-submissions/) - Margaret Atwood, *Everything Change* Production Notes - This podcast featured Ryan Darr and Ryan McAnnally-Linz - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett, and Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    47 min
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Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

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