the underview.

Mike Rusch

The underview is an exploration of the shaping of our place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. The underview is a series of discussions within and about the community of Northwest Arkansas. The underview explores our collective understanding and beliefs about the place we live. These discussions will include topics that are foundational to the identity of our region, the history of our communities, the truth of conflict with the land and its people, and the current challenges and opportunities for our community.

  1. the history of faith with Rachel Whitaker, part 2 (ep 3, 06).

    1시간 전

    the history of faith with Rachel Whitaker, part 2 (ep 3, 06).

    Send us Fan Mail In the conclusion of a two-part conversation, historian Rachel Whitaker of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History moves from the Civil War era into the twentieth century and the present day. Whitaker reveals the Ku Klux Klan's deep integration with church culture in 1920s Northwest Arkansas, reading from newspaper advertisements where the Klan pledged loyalty to local churches, describing ministers who invited congregations to Klan events, and documenting the organization's use of scripture and Christian vocabulary to justify exclusion, violence, and forced conformity. She traces the direct line between the social enforcement of early frontier churches and the Klan's more extreme methods, noting that the charges were the same, only the consequences had changed. The conversation also holds the stories of resistance and welcome. Whitaker tells the story of a Fayetteville congregation that voted overwhelmingly in the 1950s to welcome a Black college student, whose sister was one of the Little Rock Nine — over the objection of 39 members who signed a petition to block her membership. She names the women of Black churches who sheltered civil rights workers, and contemporary congregations doing justice work today. The episode closes with Whitaker's personal reflection on the relationship between faith and institutional power, and her advice to anyone navigating this landscape: read your sacred texts on your own, and if you're Christian, read the red letters. https://www.theunderview.com/the-history-of-faith-with-rachel-whitaker-part-2 About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    50분
  2. the history of faith with Rachel Whitaker, part 1 (ep 3, 05).

    2시간 전

    the history of faith with Rachel Whitaker, part 1 (ep 3, 05).

    Send us Fan Mail In the first part of a two-part conversation, historian Rachel Whitaker of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History traces the arrival of faith in Northwest Arkansas from the 1820s through the Civil War era. Drawing on church meeting minutes, census records, and primary source documents, Whitaker reveals how early congregations functioned not just as spiritual communities but as institutions of social control, expelling members for minor infractions, defining who belonged and who didn't, and wielding moral authority before formal government existed. She examines the Cumberland Presbyterians at Cane Hill, the Methodist circuit riders, the early Baptist farmer-preachers, and the complex relationship between faith traditions and the institution of slavery in the Ozarks. Whitaker also brings her own story to the table, raised across multiple denominations from Jehovah's Witness to Pentecostal to Southern Baptist, offering a deeply personal perspective on the difference between faith and the institutions that carry it. The conversation traces how churches used scripture to justify both abolition and the continuation of slavery, how enslaved people like Squire Jehagen built their own congregations as acts of resistance, and how the dehumanization required to exclude people from community has never been limited to race alone. This episode establishes the historical ground for Season 3 of the underview. https://www.theunderview.com/the-history-of-faith-with-rachel-whitaker-part-1 About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    54분
  3. the faith of Northwest Arkansas with Monica Kumar (ep 3, 04).

    4월 28일

    the faith of Northwest Arkansas with Monica Kumar (ep 3, 04).

    Send us Fan Mail In Season 3 of the underview, we begin where every honest conversation about faith has to begin with a starting point. Monica Kumar joins as co-host for "the faith of Northwest Arkansas," and this episode is the Monica's story, the work of naming who we are, what we carry, and what we are afraid of as we step into a season-long exploration of how faith shapes place and belonging across the Arkansas Ozarks. Monica is the founder of Bridging Us, Interim Executive Director of Aiding Survivors of Human Trafficking & Child Abuse, and a former Strategic Consultant with Engage NWA. Born in London to immigrant parents from India and Uganda, she came to Northwest Arkansas twelve years ago and has spent the years since asking how community supports human rights and how a place becomes home. This conversation reaches into Hindu upbringing, evangelical Christian formation, brave versus safe spaces, the burden of the normative experience, and the common hope two very different people can carry together into a season of listening. https://www.theunderview.com/the-faith-of-northwest-arkansas-with-monica-kumar Music courtesy of https://brianhirschy.com/ About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    1시간 8분
  4. the faith of Northwest Arkansas with Mike Rusch (ep 3, 02).

    4월 21일

    the faith of Northwest Arkansas with Mike Rusch (ep 3, 02).

    Send us Fan Mail In the opening episode of Season 3, the underview begins its most ambitious exploration yet: the faith of Northwest Arkansas. From the seat of a gravel bike on a quiet Sunday morning in Benton County, the episode traces the religious history of the Ozarks from the earliest circuit riders and Cumberland Presbyterians at Cane Hill to the founding of Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, and Episcopal congregations, all of which arrived before the towns they would come to define. Drawing on the work of sociologist Émile Durkheim, the episode frames the church as the first institution in the Ozarks, one that built both a structure of meaning and a structure of power. That power watched as indigenous nations were removed, split congregations over slavery, welcomed the Klan through its front doors, and enforced the color line, while in the hush harbors, enslaved people built an invisible church that became a cathedral of resistance. The episode then turns inward, as the host wrestles with his own evangelical upbringing and the growing distance between the faith he was raised in and the faith he sees today. Asking hard questions about how personal belief becomes institutional power, and how Sunday's message shapes Monday's actions, the episode arrives at the central question of the season: how has faith shaped belonging in this place, and whose belonging has it excluded? The episode closes with a phone call to seek perspective that will help guide the season's conversations across traditions, from pastors and historians to scholars and seekers, as the underview explores how what we believe about God shapes what we believe about each other. https://www.theunderview.com/the-faith-of-northwest-arkansas-with-mike-rusch/ Music courtesy of https://brianhirschy.com/ About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    30분
  5. an introduction to the faith of Northwest Arkansas (ep 3, 01).

    시즌3 에피소드1 예고편

    an introduction to the faith of Northwest Arkansas (ep 3, 01).

    Send us Fan Mail Season 3 of the underview traces the faith that built Northwest Arkansas, from frontier revivals to megachurches, from the invisible church of enslaved people to the Spanish-language masses reshaping our region today. This season asks hard questions about religion as both meaning and power. Circuit riders crossed 600 miles to preach personal transformation. Cumberland Presbyterians established Cain Hill a decade before Arkansas was even a state. But religion also watched as indigenous nations were removed, split congregations over slavery, and enforced the color line at its front doors. In hush harbors, enslaved people found in the same Bible a different gospel, one of liberation, and built a cathedral of resistance.  We explore how what we believe about God shapes what we believe about each other, and how Sunday's message becomes Monday's action. This is the faith that built this place, broke this place, and might yet be the thing that heals it. https://www.theunderview.com/the-underview-season-3-introduction-faith-northwest-arkansas Music courtesy of https://brianhirschy.com/ About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    3분
  6. the journalist with Sam Hoisington (ep 2b, 48).

    2025. 12. 16.

    the journalist with Sam Hoisington (ep 2b, 48).

    Send us Fan Mail What happens to a community when no one is paying attention? Since 2005, America has lost more than 3,200 newspapers and the number of journalists per capita has dropped from 40 to just 8 per 100,000 people. The consequences are measurable: voter turnout drops, fewer people run for office, and communities lose the capacity to know what's happening to themselves. Bentonville had local journalism since 1857, but when local papers consolidated into regional coverage in 2015, nearly a decade passed without a news outlet focused solely on one of the fastest-growing cities in America. Sam Hoisington, a Bentonville native whose father worked at local newspapers for 30 years before the layoffs came, returned home in 2023 after building a successful news startup in Wisconsin. What he found was a gap. In 2024, he launched the Bentonville Bulletin, and his analysis reveals that 69% of the stories he's published have no equivalent coverage anywhere else. In this conversation, Sam discusses the real cost of growth, the infrastructure challenges facing the city, why belonging and local journalism are deeply connected, and what it takes to rebuild the connective tissue that helps a community see itself. https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-journalist-sam-hoisington-bentonville-bulletin About the underview: The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠ Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe Host: @mikerusch Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

    1시간 5분

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5
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The underview is an exploration of the shaping of our place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness. The underview is a series of discussions within and about the community of Northwest Arkansas. The underview explores our collective understanding and beliefs about the place we live. These discussions will include topics that are foundational to the identity of our region, the history of our communities, the truth of conflict with the land and its people, and the current challenges and opportunities for our community.

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