Prodigal The Podcast

Hosted by Don Jackson
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Politics

🎙️ Prodigal: The Podcast — Notice the Pattern Prodigal: The Podcast explores the patterns hiding underneath religion, politics, power, and culture — and asks what it actually costs us to keep looking away from them. Hosted by Don Jackson and Daysha Voss, the show pairs honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversation with real reporting — tracing the same institutional playbooks across faith, government, money, and technology, from ancient history to this week's headlines. Inspired in part by Don Jackson's upcoming book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God, the podcast grew out of questions about religious institutions and belief — and has widened into something bigger: a regular look at how power holds onto itself, whoever's holding it and whatever century it is. Prodigal: The Podcast is part of a larger ecosystem built around the same idea. Prodigal Breaking News covers the pattern as it happens, day to day. Prodigal AI companion guides turn each story into something to actually sit with. And the podcast is where it all gets talked through out loud, unscripted, between two people who don't always agree. What You'll Hear on ProdigalReligion, Deconstruction & Institutional PowerWhat happens when people question inherited belief systems, and how religious structures shape politics and public life.Power, Money & the Machinery of ControlFrom colonial history to national debt, surveillance, and who actually benefits when a system says it's protecting you.Healing From Religious and Institutional TraumaConversations about recovering from toxic theology, broken systems, and reclaiming personal agency.Philosophy, Psychology & ConsciousnessDeeper questions about meaning, identity, and why people believe what they believe.Real Stories of TransformationPersonal journeys through faith crisis, institutional betrayal, and coming out the other side clearer. Who This Podcast Is ForProdigal is for listeners who are: Questioning their faith or the institutions they were handedTrying to understand how religion, politics, and power actually connectExploring spirituality outside traditional structuresPaying attention to where AI, surveillance, and economic policy are headingSearching for a plainer, less performative way to talk about all of itWhether you're navigating a faith transition, trying to make sense of the news, or just tired of conversations that flatten everything into a side, Prodigal offers a place to actually think it through. About the HostsDon Jackson is the founder of the Prodigal Movement, a platform examining spirituality, psychology, power, and cultural transformation. His work traces how belief systems — religious, political, and economic — shape identity, institutions, and collective consciousness. His upcoming book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God, explores his own journey out of institutional religion. Daysha Voss is the show's co-host — the second voice in the room, there to push back before an idea hardens into certainty. She doesn't always read a pattern the same way Don does, and that's on purpose: the show works because two people are actually working something out, not performing agreement for an audience. Join the ConversationSubscribe to Prodigal: The Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your favorite podcast platform. For daily coverage and deeper essays on religion, politics, and power, visit prodigalthepodcast.substack.com — home to Prodigal Breaking News and the full written archive behind everything discussed on the show.

  1. Oct 13

    Episode 39: Power Is Taken — What They Said, What They've Done, and What Comes Next

    Send us Fan Mail Less than three weeks to the midterms. Early voting is open. And the people closest to the president have said out loud what they're willing to consider if the vote goes the wrong way for them. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss sort every claim into three labels, every time: what we know (documented, with who said it), what they said they'd do (their own words), and what we think (our inference, and we say when it's ours). The Time interview where Trump won't rule out a national emergency. The draft emergency order and the lawyer who pushed it. Bannon on ICE at the polls. The general's letter saying the military has no plans for the polls, and why plans can change. Judges slowing it all down. Then the prosecutions: the search of Rep. Ilhan Omar's home (a search, not an arrest, and Don corrects himself on air), the Comey indictments, John Brennan's grand jury date, and what the reporting does and doesn't say about Obama and Hillary Clinton. Mike Tyson's trip to the White House and a fake Denzel Washington quote, and why it's the same pattern as the Tim Scott episode. What does "civil war" actually mean? Five meanings, one prediction, clearly labeled. What happens if the Insurrection Act is invoked, and what experts say it can and cannot do around an election. And the plan: check your registration, vote early or return your mail ballot early and track it, become a poll worker or observer, document, and if it comes to it, show up peacefully by the millions. Power concedes nothing without a demand. Don already voted (California, mail ballot, dropped at the post office), and he tells you why he's not asking you to do anything he hasn't done. Real language. Urgent. Plain English. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "Steady." 🎧 Full written deep dive with every source:  🌐 More stories: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🗳️ Election Protection Hotline (nonpartisan): 866-687-8683 (866-OUR-VOTE) 📖 Don's book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God (Iff Books, 2025): https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/iff-books/our-books/prodigal-leaving-church-finding-god 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #PowerIsTaken #Midterms2026 Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Episode 39: Power Is Taken — What They Said, What They've Done, and What Comes Next

  2. Oct 10

    Episode 38: What Are You? Before Religion Told You Who You Were

    Send us Fan Mail Somebody told Don this week that her husband could debate him because he's a pastor. Somebody else said some theology is not debatable. Underneath both sentences is a bigger question: when did knowing the Bible become the same thing as knowing Reality? Don Jackson and Daysha Voss start with a Facebook graphic that lit up the comments, give religion its best argument (churches feed people, and plenty of pastors protect children), keep the documented abuse record in the frame, and then go underneath the whole argument. Studying a belief system can make you an expert in it. It can't, by itself, prove it describes Reality. Nobody gets immunity from that, not the pastor, not the atheist, and not Don. Don brings his father, Apostle Ernest Jackson Jr., into the room, tells the story of the night his heart stopped on an operating table, and, in the same breath, says an experience isn't proof. Then comes the question: what are you? Not who. What. The piano, the ocean and the octopus, offered as models and not as settled science. Acts 17:28 read against absolute separation from God. And Don's own conclusion about hell: maybe it begins the moment the wave forgets it's ocean. Scholars disagree on the sayings of Jesus, and the episode says so out loud. Real language. No comfortable version. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "Before the Name." 🎧 Full written deep dive: [PASTE LIVE SUBSTACK URL] 🌐 More stories: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 📖 Don's book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God (Iff Books, 2025): https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/iff-books/our-books/prodigal-leaving-church-finding-god 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #WhatAreYou #Deconstruction Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Episode 38: What Are You? Before Religion Told You Who You Were

  3. Oct 8

    Episode 37: Everything Runs on the Clock

    Send us Fan Mail Less than four weeks to November 3, and the same thing keeps showing up in the news: power watching the calendar. A Supreme Court pause that lets the FCC keep waiting on a ruling about political ad rates. Ninety-two fewer Election Day polling places in Tarrant County, Texas, a county Colin Allred carried by just 1,815 votes in 2024. About $2.35 billion in checks, with 71% of the people eligible for the $500 refund living in states with competitive Senate or governor races. A war that is reportedly waiting on a vote count. And a White House that won't guarantee ICE stays away from the polls. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss read the calendar out loud, with the volume up, and still give the other side its best argument: the legal case for waiting, the county's accessibility defense, the geography behind the checks. They don't claim to know anyone's motive. They report the timing and the map, and then they get to what you can actually do about it. Real language. No comfortable version. Plus: Newsbeat Breaking News updates on the Kramatorsk bus strike, the White House press-access fight, anti-sharia bills in the states, the Pentagon's new Office of Religious Affairs, and ICE's shortened training for local officers. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "The Sky Behind the Clock." 🎧 Full written deep dive: [PASTE SUBSTACK LINK] 🌐 More stories: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #Midterms2026 #VotingRights Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Episode 37: Everything Runs on the Clock

  4. Oct 5

    PRODIGAL — THE PODCAST Episode 36: "Who Named You?"

    Send us Fan Mail Where did your last name come from? For a lot of us, the answer we were handed is one sentence long: they took the master's name, or Smith means a blacksmith. It's about half true, and the missing half is the whole point. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss take the quick version apart using the National Archives, the Smithsonian's African American history museum, the WPA slave narratives, and the Freedmen's Bureau records. Enslaved people rarely had surnames in federal records, but a missing name in the archive is not a missing name in the family. Freed people took the former enslaver's name, a leader's name, a trade, a place, or a name of their own choosing. Some, like Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, chose. Then they widen the lens. From Carlisle's renaming of Native children to Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, from Mobutu's Zaire to today's fights over place names, park signs, the President's House slavery exhibit, and the Army's unreleased report on the Port Shuaiba drone strike that killed six soldiers: it's the same move. Control the name, control the record. We are not saying the weight is the same as slavery. We're saying the pattern is. Real language. No comfortable version. Plus: Newsbeat updates on Port Shuaiba, the Boulder climate argument at the Supreme Court, the rural voters poll, Brazil's runoff and Sony's AI-fake takedowns. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "Before Anyone Named You." 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas prodigalbreakingnews.com/guide Here's your free field guide: Who Wrote Your Name Down? Welcome to Prodigal. Here's what you came for: Download the full field guide (10 pages): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fFNY_vDMkP5BYCbbvexsR22mjyRHgIQY/view The 1-page cheat sheet for your phone: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WdLrOILFcwn8pOKggeBSwyW5OIe0aC7P/view Start with the elder interview on page 4. #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #WhoNamedYou #BlackHistory #Genealogy Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    PRODIGAL — THE PODCAST Episode 36: "Who Named You?"

  5. Oct 4

    Episode 35: Too Big for Any State, Too Inconvenient for Washington

    Send us Fan Mail Monday morning the Supreme Court opens its new term with Suncor Energy v. Commissioners of Boulder County, and the oil industry is asking the justices to make sure nobody can send them a bill for climate change in a state courtroom. Boulder sued ExxonMobil and Suncor in 2018. Roughly sixty similar suits are waiting on the answer. And with Justice Alito stepping aside, it's eight justices, not nine. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss take the case seriously, then take the shell game apart: the argument isn't "we didn't do it," it's "you can't ask us here," and every door it points to points at another door. Federal court, federal agency, federal lawsuits against the states. Then they turn the same reflex on themselves. Real language. No comfortable version. Plus: Newsbeat Breaking News updates on Yemen's new offensive near the Red Sea and the open question of ICE near polling places in November. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "The Air Has No Jurisdiction." 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #BigOil #SupremeCourt Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Episode 35: Too Big for Any State, Too Inconvenient for Washington

  6. Oct 3

    Prodigal : The Podcast Episode 34 "Lower Cognitive Ability Linked to Stronger Christian Nationalism"

    Send us Fan Mail Episode 34: Lower Cognitive Ability Linked to Stronger Christian Nationalism A new peer-reviewed study is about to go viral with a headline that writes itself people who score lower on a cognitive ability test are significantly more likely to hold Christian nationalist beliefs. It's real research — from one of the most-cited sociologists studying Christian nationalism in the country — and it holds up even after controlling for education, income, race, age, region, and political ideology. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss take the finding seriously, then take it apart — surfacing the detail the viral version leaves out: the pattern disappears completely for people who never finished high school, and the study's own author says cognitive sophistication doesn't protect anyone from ideology, it just makes people better at defending whatever their side already believes. Across ideologies. Including ours. Plus: Newsbeat Breaking News updates on the seven-state lawsuit over $810 million in canceled federal funds, and the ongoing deportation case against Islamic Society of Milwaukee president Salah Sarsour. 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #ChristianNationalism #CognitiveScience Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Prodigal : The Podcast Episode 34 "Lower Cognitive Ability Linked to Stronger Christian Nationalism"

  7. Oct 2

    Prodigal The Podcast Episode 33: The Last Card = Martial Law Threat

    Send us Fan Mail Content note: this episode discusses a sitting president's public threats to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military against American citizens. It's handled factually, not sensationally, but it's heavy — listener discretion advised. Three things are true right now, all at once: the U.S. is six months into a war with Iran with no end in sight. The president's approval rating just hit the lowest point of his combined two terms. And for the second time this year, he's publicly threatened to turn the military loose on American citizens, on American soil, by invoking the Insurrection Act. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss lay out the documented record — the January Minneapolis threat, the Lincoln Project and sitting governors sounding the alarm, NPR and The Hill now reporting the same fear newsrooms are tracking — and surface the detail almost nobody's saying out loud: in over 200 years, the Insurrection Act has never once been invoked around a federal election. Then they connect it to the written blueprint — Project 2025 — for what happens to the guardrails once that line gets crossed. Plus: Newsbeat Breaking News updates on Vermont's Catholic diocese abuse lawsuits, Mississippi's redistricting fight, Tidal's new AI-royalty policy, and T-Pain's second suit against Konvict Entertainment. 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #InsurrectionAct #Midterms2026 #Project2025 Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Prodigal The Podcast Episode 33: The Last Card = Martial Law Threat

  8. Oct 1

    Episode 32: The Same Playbook: The Diocese and the Dining Room

    Send us Fan Mail Content note: this episode discusses documented child sexual abuse and institutional cover-up. It's handled factually, not graphically, but it's heavy — listener discretion advised. Nine days. That's all that separates two stories that look unrelated and aren't. On September 30th, the Massachusetts Attorney General released the state's first-ever clergy sex abuse investigation: more than 270 Catholic clergy abused nearly 1,000 children across the Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield dioceses, covered up for decades. Nine days earlier, the White House hosted a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping with $2.4 trillion in combined net worth sitting at the table — Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Huang, Pichai, Brockman — in the same stretch of weeks ACA subsidies expired, Medicare drug costs rose for up to 25 million seniors, and child care kept outpacing rent and college tuition. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss lay both rooms side by side and name the one mechanism running both of them: a hierarchy that protects itself first and lets everyone outside the room absorb the cost. Then they trace it back further than either headline, to the Manifest Destiny doctrine that decided, on purpose, whose future would count. 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #Ashe #Ashay #ClergyAbuse #WealthInequality #Midterms2026 Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/

    Episode 32: The Same Playbook: The Diocese and the Dining Room
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

🎙️ Prodigal: The Podcast — Notice the Pattern Prodigal: The Podcast explores the patterns hiding underneath religion, politics, power, and culture — and asks what it actually costs us to keep looking away from them. Hosted by Don Jackson and Daysha Voss, the show pairs honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversation with real reporting — tracing the same institutional playbooks across faith, government, money, and technology, from ancient history to this week's headlines. Inspired in part by Don Jackson's upcoming book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God, the podcast grew out of questions about religious institutions and belief — and has widened into something bigger: a regular look at how power holds onto itself, whoever's holding it and whatever century it is. Prodigal: The Podcast is part of a larger ecosystem built around the same idea. Prodigal Breaking News covers the pattern as it happens, day to day. Prodigal AI companion guides turn each story into something to actually sit with. And the podcast is where it all gets talked through out loud, unscripted, between two people who don't always agree. What You'll Hear on ProdigalReligion, Deconstruction & Institutional PowerWhat happens when people question inherited belief systems, and how religious structures shape politics and public life.Power, Money & the Machinery of ControlFrom colonial history to national debt, surveillance, and who actually benefits when a system says it's protecting you.Healing From Religious and Institutional TraumaConversations about recovering from toxic theology, broken systems, and reclaiming personal agency.Philosophy, Psychology & ConsciousnessDeeper questions about meaning, identity, and why people believe what they believe.Real Stories of TransformationPersonal journeys through faith crisis, institutional betrayal, and coming out the other side clearer. Who This Podcast Is ForProdigal is for listeners who are: Questioning their faith or the institutions they were handedTrying to understand how religion, politics, and power actually connectExploring spirituality outside traditional structuresPaying attention to where AI, surveillance, and economic policy are headingSearching for a plainer, less performative way to talk about all of itWhether you're navigating a faith transition, trying to make sense of the news, or just tired of conversations that flatten everything into a side, Prodigal offers a place to actually think it through. About the HostsDon Jackson is the founder of the Prodigal Movement, a platform examining spirituality, psychology, power, and cultural transformation. His work traces how belief systems — religious, political, and economic — shape identity, institutions, and collective consciousness. His upcoming book, Prodigal: Leaving Church and Finding God, explores his own journey out of institutional religion. Daysha Voss is the show's co-host — the second voice in the room, there to push back before an idea hardens into certainty. She doesn't always read a pattern the same way Don does, and that's on purpose: the show works because two people are actually working something out, not performing agreement for an audience. Join the ConversationSubscribe to Prodigal: The Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your favorite podcast platform. For daily coverage and deeper essays on religion, politics, and power, visit prodigalthepodcast.substack.com — home to Prodigal Breaking News and the full written archive behind everything discussed on the show.

Information

  • Creator
    Hosted by Don Jackson
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Prodigal The Podcast
  • Show Website
    Prodigal The Podcast