Shifting Culture

In this episode, Jessica Hooten Wilson and I go deep in her ten year project of reckoning with Flannery O’Connor’s unpublished and unfinished 3rd novel Why Do the Heathen Rage? Jessica shares insights into Flannery’s writing process, themes in her fiction, her perspectives on race and social justice. She talks about reading O’Connor with charity and how that can provide new insights. We get into limitations because of Flannery’s illness that contributed to the depth and particularity of her writing. We also talk grace, sanctity and the connection between body and soul. So join us as we dig deep into the works of Flannery O’Connor. Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University and formerly Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas. She is the author of several books, most recently Reading for the Love of God. Her book Giving the Devil his Due: Flannery O’Connor and The Brothers Karamazov received a 2018 Christianity Today book of the year in arts and culture award and The Scandal of Holiness received a 2022 Award of Merit. In 2019 she received the Hiett Prize for Humanities from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Other awards include a Fulbright Fellowship to Prague, an NEH to study Dante in Florence, a Biola University sabbatical fellowship funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and the 2017 Emerging Public Intellectual Award. She is a Senior Fellow at The Trinity Forum. Jessica's Book:Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage?Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Brian and I have a conversation around the cross of Jesus and his latest book The Wood Between the Worlds. It’s a deep conversation around suffering and putting to shame the powers and principalities. We talk about the multi-faceted meaning of the cross and view it through a kaleidoscope, so we can uncover more and more depth of meaning. We talk about the Kingdom, galvanizing around an axis of power or an axis of love expressed in forgiveness, and the seduction of power we find in the Lord of the Rings. It’s a fantastic conversation that I know you will enjoy. So join us as we look at the multi-faceted wonder of the cross. Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. Known for his theologically informed preaching and his embrace of the deep and long history of the church, Zahnd provides a forum for pastors to engage with leading theologians and is a frequent conference speaker. He is the author of several books, including When Everything's On Fire, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, A Farewell to Mars, and Beauty Will Save the World. Brian's Book:The Wood Between the WorldsBrian's Recommendations:Bob Dylan - Shadow KingdomMetallica - 72 SeasonsConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Curt Thompson and I have a great discussion around his book The Deepest Place. We talk about how secure attachment to God and others can help root and ground us in a place that enables us to move through suffering and find hope. We need to be in loving relationship with one another because we are the embodied presence of Jesus to each other. We have hope because we have a God that came incarnate in the form of Jesus and He suffered and died, so that He can be not just justify us, but so that he can be with us in our suffering. Hope is an anticipated future of goodness and beauty. Join us as we walk through suffering and find hope. Curt Thompson is a Christian psychiatrist, working at the intersection of neuroscience and spiritual formation and the bestselling author of The Deepest Place (Zondervan). Inspired by deep compassion for others and informed from a Christian perspective, psychiatrist he shares fresh insights and practical applications for developing more authentic relationships and fully experiencing our deepest longing: to be known.  Through his workshops, speaking engagements, books, organizational consulting, private clinical practice, and other platforms, he helps people process their longings, grief, identity, purpose, perspective of God, and perspective of humanity, inviting them to engage more authentically with their own stories and their relationships. Only then can they feel truly known and connected and live into the meaningful reality they desire to create. Curt and his wife, Phyllis, live outside of Washington DC and have two adult children. Curt's Book:The Deepest PlaceCurt's Podcast:Being KnownCurt's Recommendations:The ChosenThe Bible ProjectDominion by Tom HollandConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Peter Greer and I have a great conversation around the book Lead with Prayer. We dive into the gift that prayer is. We talk through group discernment through listening and prayer, new postures that can aid our prayer life, carrying the culture of prayer, so we can help transform others. We marvel at the joy and hope that comes through suffering and the embodied presence of Jesus with us in the midst of that suffering. Join us as we discover new tools and ways to pray, so that we can experience delight in ways that come through being with Jesus as we pray. Peter Greer is the president and CEO of HOPE International,a global Christ-centered economic development organization serving throughoutAfrica, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Under Peter’s leadership, HOPEhas expanded from working in two to over twenty countries and served over 2.5million families. Prior to joining HOPE, Peter worked in Cambodia, Zimbabwe,and Rwanda. He has co-authored 15 books, including Mission Drift, Rooting for Rivals, The Gift of Disillusionment, and The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good. His new book, Lead with Prayer is now available.Peter's Book:Lead with PrayerPeter's Recommendation:Creek StewartConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Terry Crist and I have a great conversation and tell a lot of stories of engaging others in a way that brings dignity, relationship, curiosity, and hope. How can we love our enemies? How can we follow the better way of Jesus that brings hope? How can we in our fractured world have conversations of truth full of grace, seasoned with compassion? How do we pursue the way of peacemaking? How do we build bridges, not barriers? How do we have curious conversations with people? We learn that our gospel is embodied and proclaimed. We learn that listening is an act of love. Join us as we discover how to listen well, engage others who are more alike us than we realize, and point us all to the way of Jesus that brings hope, reconciliation, and peace. Terry Crist is the co-lead pastor of City of Grace in Phoenix alongside his wife, Judith. He has a TH.M. and a D.Min. and has a business certificate in nonprofit management from Harvard Business School. Terry is also passionate about community transformation and promotes adoption and foster care through his work in state government. An avid outdoorsman and gifted communicator, he has adventured and preached the gospel in 65 nations. Terry and Judith have three married sons and three grandchildren. They live in Phoenix, Arizona.Terry's Book:Loving SamaritansTerry's Recommendations:Jesus the Bridegroom by Brant PitreJesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant PitreConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this conversation, Cameron Doolittle and I have a conversation around leading with prayer, getting organizations to not just slap on a prayer before and after a meeting as an after thought, but to actually implement a culture of prayer that produces fruit that is only possible if we abide in the vine. Because if we aren’t praying, we can’t multiply prayer because you can’t multiply by zero. We talk about listening to God, hearing His voice, and following His lead, setting appointments with God, finding rhythms of prayer that we can engage in and the link between giving and prayer. Join us as we learn how to lead with prayer and create organizations and churches that have a prayer culture.Cameron Doolittle is Co-author of the book, Lead with Prayer, senior advisor to the Maclellan Foundation, executive director of John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way, and co-founder of Generosity Path. He previously served as an advisor to senators, congressmen, and senior executives at Fortune 500 companies through his consulting firm, since acquired by Gartner. Cameron advises high-impact givers and great ministries. He now consults with organizations that his family loves, including BibleProject, Desiring God with John Piper, Faith Driven Giver with Henry Kaestner, ECFA, Awana, Christianity Today, YoungLife, and others. He served as founding CEO of Jill’s House, a ministry for kids with intellectual disabilities. Cameron's Book:Lead with PrayerCameron's Recommendations:War and Peace by Leo TolstoyThe Relational SoulHandbook to PrayerConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and toGo to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Ingrid Faro and I try to demystify evil. Ingrid shares her harrowing story of abuse from her first husband, how the church wasn’t helpful in the midst of it, how her second husband died, how she lost everything and was even homeless for awhile. As evil invaded her life, so much so that she didn’t want to go on living, she went on a journey to discover the goodness of God? Is He good? Is He just? Why is evil happening all over the world? This journey led her to Scripture – to Genesis and the fall and then the whole story of God. We talk about human causes of evil, nature run amok, evil in the unseen realm, hopelessness and despair and we find hope. Hope that there is a good God and that we can align ourselves back to the goodness of God. We find that forgiveness sets us free, so we can live a life of joy and freedom. So join us as we demystify evil and find hope in the goodness of God. Ingrid Faro, Ph.D., M.Div. is Coordinator of the MA in Old Testament program at Northern Seminary in the Chicago area. Her Ph.D. is in Theological Studies, with concentration in Old Testament and Semitic Language. Dr. Ingrid Faro is an author and international speaker on topics including deconstructing evil, abuse, forgiveness, and women in the Bible and ministry. Ingrid is the author of Demystifying Evil, Evil in Genesis, co-author of Honest Answers. Ingrid's Book:Demystifying EvilIngrid's Recommendations:Being God's Image by Carmen ImesNobody's Mother by Sandra GlahnConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Ryan Skoog and I have an incredible conversation about leading with prayer. As Ryan and his teams go to the toughest places on earth, they have to rely on prayer. It’s crucial. But prayer isn’t just for the people on the front lines in hard places. It’s for us all. We learn from the global church what an intentional prayer life looks like. We talk about wasting our time with Jesus in friendship, tithing our time to the Lord, the allure of chasing influence rather than obedience, the importance of intentionality and creating our own personal liturgy. And we really hit what it looks like to pray through tough times. So join us as we learn from the global church what leading with prayer looks like. Ryan is cofounder and president of VENTURE, a nonprofit that works in the toughest places of the world, serving war refugees, trafficked people, oppressed children, and the unreached. VENTURE has planted thousands of churches that serve in their own communities to rescue girls from trafficking, start farms, and train in microenterprise and feminine hygiene, leading to generational transformation. Ryan co-authored the books Chosen: A 30 Day Devotional and the forthcoming Lead with Prayer. He and his wife Rachel enjoy adventuring with their two ginger headed kids and the newest addition to their family Kyea Sin Thant. Ryan's Book:Lead with PrayerRyan's Recommendations:E.M. BoundsCharles SpurgeonConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, David Fitch and I reckon with power in this conversation. We talk about worldly power versus Godly power. What’s the difference? Why do we need a new relationship with power? We talk about mutual submission, engaging the table for reconciliation and justice, non-coercive evangelism. We even engage in a conversation around power dynamics and the Middle East. It’s a fantastic conversation that is much needed as we continue to encounter abuse of power in the church. So join us as we reckon with power and hand over the reigns to God. David Fitch (Ph.D Northwestern University) is a professor at Northern Seminary and a pastor at Mission Renew Church in Westmont, IL. He is married to Rae Ann and they have one son named Max. He’s coached hockey for the YMCA USA Hockey program for seven years. David teaches, speaks, and writes within the fields of Neo-Anabaptist theology, missiology, culture studies, political theory, and ethics. He writes from time to time on his own page at Missio Alliance, on his own substack,  for Christianity Today, Outreach Magazine, ChurchLeaders.com, EthicsDaily, and multiple other sites, magazines and journals. He is co-host of the Theology of Mission podcast. His latest book is Reckoning with Power from Brazos press.David's Book:Reckoning with PowerConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show

In this episode, Meghan Larissa Good and I have a great discussion around themes from her latest book Divine Gravity. How can we enter into a new reformation that helps the body of Christ look more like Jesus? Jesus can lead us into this new place and time. We can disagree with each other and still have unity. We can follow the discernment of the Holy Spirit. We can have a cross-shaped power which is a power under and not a power over. We can join Jesus in the reconciliation of all things. Jesus is making all things new. So, let’s join Him and get on the ride. So, join us as we discuss whether or not we are in a new reformation that will help us look more like Jesus.Meghan Larissa Good is lead pastor at Trinity Mennonite Church (Phoenix, AZ). She is a frequent preacher and lecturer at churches and universities across the country, speaking on subjects such as biblical interpretation, contemporary preaching, and Christianity's 'next reformation.' Meghan is author of The Bible Unwrapped: Making Sense of Scripture Today and Divine Gravity: Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story. She lives in Phoenix, AZ with a prized dinosaur bone and a ridiculously large book collection.Meghan's Website:www.meghanlarissagood.comMeghan's Book:Divine GravityMeghan's Recommendations:The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan HatchPowers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God by Marva DawnConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Threads at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/https://twitter.com/shiftingcultur2https://www.threads.net/@shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.youtube.com/@shiftingculturepodcastConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Go to mennomedia.org to order the Anabaptist Community Bible. Use code SHIFTING for 20% off. Support the show