Faith and Letters Ben Bishop

John Darnielle is the lead vocalist and primary member of the Mountain Goats, an American indie rock band, and the author of three novels. His debut, "Wolf in White Van," was nominated for the National Book Award. His most recent novel is "Devil House."

Peter Wehner served in three Republican presidential administrations, including as an advisor to President George W. Bush. His essays and opinion pieces on politics and religion appear regularly in the pages of both The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is also the author of several books, including most recently, The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.
The subtitle of that book makes his position on the former president clear: I can think of no more consistently staunch critic of Donald Trump than Pete has been these last seven years. One of his main themes as a columnist is the relationship between American evangelicalism and the political movement for which Donald Trump has become both champion and avatar, as well as the distress this has caused him and many other American Christians.
As someone who grew up in the evangelical world, and has been deeply disturbed by the way in which many evangelicals have countenanced, and at times even celebrated, the caustic, self-interested politics of former President Trump, I’ve found a kind of sanity in Pete’s unvarnished take on the situation. 
He and I discussed how to write honestly about those you disagree with without falling into the very hatred you hope to be opposing, his experience working with religious believers in power, and the vexing question of why so many of us Christians don’t seem all that different from anyone else. 

Ken Myers is the founder of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, a quarterly audio periodical that features his interviews with a wide-ranging slate of writers and thinkers, from the well-known and popular to the relatively obscure. Whether discussing medications with a clinical psychiatrist or the music of Bach with a biographer, Ken is continually circling the interests and questions that have fueled his project for thirty years now; questions like, “what is a good life,” “what is a healthy culture,” “what is the shape and order of creation,” and “what might we as Christians most benefit from focusing our attention on?” 

Fred Bahnson's essays and journalism have appeared in Harper's, Orion, Oxford American, Image, and The Sun, among other publications, and he has been the recipient of a Pulitzer Center grant. He is also the author of Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith. 
Fred's work in recent years has featured Christian contemplatives and mysticism, in addition to his longstanding interests in the natural world and our relationship to it as people of faith. Fred and I ended up spending a good portion of this conversation talking directly about his own practice of contemplation, and my struggles with the practice of silence. We later got around to discussing the work of Barry Lopez, a writer who is near to my heart and whom Fred met and wrote about not long before Barry's death in 2020. 
https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/the-quest-to-save-ancient-manuscripts-gao-mali/
https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/an-unbroken-grace/

Laura Jansson is a practicing doula, Orthodox Christian, and the author of Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy, a creative work of theology that examines a broad range of Christian imagery and scripture through the lens of pregnancy and childbirth. From Jesus' exhortation to Nicodemus that he be "born again," to a comparison of labor and birth to the Easter journey through death and resurrection, to meditations on the awesome mystery of a woman's ability to touch the power of God as she participates in literal co-creation, Laura's work is inventive, humane, and deeply moving. Whether you're a parent or not, there's something for everyone here. 

In 1996, Dr. John Mark Reynolds founded the Torrey Honors College, the Great Books program at Biola University. After many years there, he went on to serve as provost at Houston Baptist University, and later to help start The Saint Constantine School, an Orthodox Classical Christian school in Houston, Texas where he currently serves as president. 
I studied under Dr. Reynolds during my first year at Biola, and I have always thought back fondly on my time in the program. After that initial exposure, I’ve continued to be fascinated by the assumptions and values that underpin classical education, as well the development of the Western canon. I enjoyed reconnecting with Dr. Reynolds, and getting an opportunity to ask about his own take on, and experience with, this ancient vision of human formation.