Conversing with Mark Labberton invites listeners into transformative encounters with leaders and creators shaping our world at the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life.
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Beauty, Horror, and the Human Condition, with Elizabeth Bruenig
Episode 180
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 • Duration 44:50
“It’s sort of strange to think about beauty and horrible circumstances together. But I try, probably clumsily at times, to bring beauty to a thing that's really horrible. … But in terms of covering executions, there is just a void there. The main character always dies.” (Elizabeth Bruenig, from the episode)
Despite sin, there remains an inherent beauty and goodness throughout creation … including humanity.
And even in the most divisive circumstances, when we appeal to the beauty and horror in our shared human condition, we might be able to find common ground for mutual understanding and collaboration. And sometimes, in the best circumstances, we might even find a beautiful and life-giving encounter with the other.
In this episode, celebrated journalist and self-described “avid partisan of humankind” Elizabeth Bruenig (staff writer for The Atlantic, and formerly the New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Republic) joins Mark Labberton to talk about journalism, her journey toward Catholicism, the complex moral and emotional lives of human beings, capital punishment and violence, and the prospects for introducing beauty into polarized politics and horrifying evil.
About Elizabeth Bruenig
Elizabeth Bruenig is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was previously an opinion writer for the New York Times and the Washington Post, where she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. She has also been a staff writer at The New Republic and a contributor to the Left, Right & Center radio show. She currently hosts a podcast, The Bruenigs, with her husband, Matt Bruenig. Elizabeth holds a master of philosophy in Christian theology from the University of Cambridge. At The Atlantic, she writes about theology and politics.
Show Notes
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Elizabeth Bruenig shares about her religious and philosophical background
Bruenig shares about her journey toward Roman Catholicism
The Eucharist and embodied experience of God
The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
“I don't need to be studying and getting degrees, I need to just be living my life radically as a Christian.”
Journalism, paying attention, and compassionate
“I'm very interested in people and people's moral lives. Things like honor and shame, guilt—you know, very complex emotions—interest me a lot, and I think everyone has them all the time. People have these spiritual, ethical, moral struggles going on inside them. And so everybody is a little universe unto themselves.”
What it means to be a Staff Writer
Journalism with narrative, story, opinions, and arguments
“I have found that to be a very successful way of garnering stories. It's just to listen to people.”
“The first execution I ever witnessed, I witnessed for the New York Times, it was during Trump's spree of federal executions. I think they executed something like 13 people in six months, really unprecedented. I wanted to report on that.”
Media witnesses as
The Executions of Alfred Bourgeois, David Neal Cox, James Barber, Kenny Smith, and Alan Miller
“I have had the opportunity to speak with men who were about to die.”
“The Man I Saw Them Kill”
“The idea of execution promises catharsis. The reality of it delivers the opposite, a nauseating sense of shame and regret. Alfred Bourgeois was going to die behind bars one way or another, and the only meaning in hastening it, as far as I could tell, was inflicting the terror and the torment of knowing that the end was coming early. I felt defiled by witnessing that particular bit of pageantry, all of that brutality cloaked in sterile procedure. So much time and effort goes into making executions seem like exercises of justice, not just power. Extreme measures are taken at each juncture to convince the public, and perhaps the executioners themselves, that the process is a fair, dispassionate, rational one. It isn't. There was no sense in it, and I can't make any out of it. Nothing was restored, nothing was gained. There isn't any justice in it, nor satisfaction, nor reason. There was nothing, nothing there.”
Faith, the void of execution
“I find that reading great essays summons language in me.”
On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry
“Beauty inspires reproduction”
“It's sort of strange to think about beauty and horrible circumstances together. But I try, probably clumsily at times, to bring beauty to a thing that's really horrible. … But in terms of covering executions, there is just a void there. The main character always dies.”
“I had a religious conviction going into the first execution that I was at that executions were wrong and it wasn't really based on anything that I could point to. I just had the, you know, very simple notion that killing people is wrong and that it's wrong in, in all cases, even if the person is a very bad person.”
Two executions in the New Testament: the one Jesus halts, and the one that kills Jesus
Execution as a subhuman act
The logic of criminal justice system and capital punishment
The difficulty of introducing beauty into polarized politics
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8)
Groaning beauty
“All of creation groans under the weight of sin.”
“The holiness of creation, the goodness of it, is so strong that it can't be, I don't think, entirely blotted out by sin. I just don't think that humans have the power to rob of beauty that which was made beautiful.”
Finding beauty in visual culture, pop culture, museums, essay writing, and art
On Beauty, Eula Biss— “… her prose, you know, glitters to me. I think it's fantastic. Not too melodramatic, restrained. And elegant.”
Marilynne Robinson, imagination and beauty
The political landscape
Fears
“I think when what's up for debate is like the rule of law, then I'm going to go with the candidate who whatever other faults is actually in favor of the rule of law. I think that's very important.”
Assisted Suicide and Physician Assisted Suicide
“I don't think I can write without bringing in theology, because it's so much a part of what I consider to be true. And so to give readers an honest view into what I'm thinking I have to provide the theological Issues that I'm thinking through.”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
Reading Genesis, with Marilynne Robinson
Episode 179
Tuesday, October 1, 2024 • Duration 46:23
“We have to go back to the very basic thing of understanding our shared humanity. And we’ve departed a long way from that—even the best of us, I’m afraid. It is just stunning. I mean, we are such a danger to everything we value.” (Marilynne Robinson, from the episode)
Today on the show, Mark Labberton welcomes the celebrated novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson to discuss her most recent book, Reading Genesis. Known for novels such as Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, and Lila, she offers a unique perspective on ancient scripture in her latest work of nonfiction.
In this enriching and expansive conversation, they discuss the theological, historical, and literary value in the Book of Genesis; the meaning of our shared humanity; fear and reverence; how to free people from the view of God as threatening; the complicated and enigmatic nature of human freedom; the amazing love, mercy, and long-suffering of God on display in the unfolding drama of the Genesis narrative; and overall: “The beautiful ordinariness of a God-fashioned creature in ordinary communion with one another.”
About Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson is an award-winning American novelist and essayist. Her fictional and non-fictional work includes recurring themes of Christian spirituality and American political life. In a 2008 interview with the Paris Review, Robinson said, "Religion is a framing mechanism. It is a language of orientation that presents itself as a series of questions. It talks about the arc of life and the quality of experience in ways that I've found fruitful to think about."
Her novels include Housekeeping (1980, Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist), Gilead (2004, Pulitzer Prize), Home (2008, National Book Award Finalist), Lila (2014, National Book Award Finalist), and most recently, Jack (2020). Robinson's non-fiction works include Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989), The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998), Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (2010), When I was a Child I Read Books: Essays (2012), The Givenness of Things: Essays (2015), and What Are We Doing Here?: Essays (2018). Her latest book is Reading Genesis (2024).
Marilynne Robinson received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brown University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977. She has served as a writer-in-residence or visiting professor at a variety of universities, including Yale Divinity School in Spring 2020. She currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. She has served as a deacon for the Congregational United Church of Christ. Robinson was born and raised in Sandpoint, Idaho and now lives in Iowa City.
Mark introduces Marilynne Robinson and her most recent foray into biblical interpretation
Overarching narrative of God’s time vs. Human time
Theological, biblical, historical, and literary categories
Why Genesis? Why biblical commentary?
“Genesis is the foundational text, and God’s self-revelation is the work of Genesis.”
The expansiveness of the creation narrative from the beginning of everything to two people hoeing in a garden.
Elohim and the universal God-name
Monotheism and the enormously cosmic assertion of the nature of God
From cosmology to granular human existence
Amazement and the Book of Genesis
“God saw the intentions of our heart and they were only evil always.”
Conjuring the idea of a vindictive God—as opposed to a merciful, long-suffering, and loving God
“It's hard to wiggle people free from the idea that God is primarily threatening.”
The role of fear in sin, temptation, and evil
“I think the fall is a sort of realization of a fuller aspect of our nature, which is painful to us and painful to God. But it's our humanity.”
From the book: “The narrative of scripture has moved with astonishing speed from let there be light to this intimate scene of shared grief and haplessness. There is no incongruity in this. Human beings are at the center of it all. Love and grief are, in this infinite creation, things of the kind we share with God. The fact that they have their being in the deepest reaches of our extensionless and undiscoverable souls only makes them more astonishing. Over and against the roaring cosmos, that they exist at all can only be proof of a tender solicitude.”
Ancient Near Eastern mythology
“Meaning cannot leak out of this. It’s absolutely meaningful.”
Genesis is a “particular series of stories that are stories of the tumbling, bumbling, faithful, faithless, violent, peaceable, loyal, disloyal agency of human beings.”
Mystery
Theology as a vision, a revelation
“The beautiful ordinariness of a God-fashioned creature in ordinary communion with one another.”
The impact of Genesis in the history of our understanding of humanity, freedom, relationships, and so much more.
Law as a liberation of one another: it limits your behavior and is emancipating to everyone around you.
God’s patience with human freedom and the ability to go wrong
The enigma of freedom
“From the very beginning, the Bible seems aware that we are our enemy and that we are our apocalyptic beast.”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
Performance-Based Identity, with Ben Houltberg
Episode 170
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 • Duration 01:00:19
“When we pursue excellence it doesn’t have to come at the cost of our emotional and relational health.” (Ben Houltberg)
How do we form an identity and sense of self? Do we define ourselves based on the fragile glass shelter of what we achieve or how well we perform? If so, how does that affect our sense of meaning and purpose in life?
With the 2024 Paris Olympics underway, it’s easy to imagine how an elite athlete at the top of her game might form an identity based on her athletic or competitive performance.
In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes developmental scientist Ben Houltberg to reflect on the pursuit of achievement and excellence, exploring what’s at stake for our psychological and spiritual health when we find our identity and life’s meaning in our performance.
Together they discuss: the glass shelter of athletic achievement and the opportunity that emerges when it inevitably shatters; the various performance contexts of family, relationships, education, sports, career, and religion; the dangers of conditional acceptance based on performance; the performance-enhancing impact of healthy coaching and mentoring relationships; the transformative effects of unconditional love; and ultimately, how to be free from a performance-based identity.
About Ben Houltberg
Benjamin Houltberg is a developmental scientist, experienced marriage and family therapist, and president and CEO of Search Institute. He is associate research professor at the University of Southern California, and was previously associate professor of human development at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Psychology. Follow him @benhoultberg, and learn more about Search Institute online.
Show Notes
About Ben Houltberg: developmental scientist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and CEO of Search Institute
About “performance-based identity”
Olympics and athletic performance-based identity
“When we pursue excellence it doesn't have to come at the cost of our emotional and relational health.”
“What is my purpose?”
Olympic athlete Simone Biles’ public breakdown and dominant return to gymnastics
“If you think about the natural trajectory of an elite athlete, it is towards a performance-based identity.”
How elite athletes form their identity in their athletic performance.
“A Glass Shelter” of athletic achievement: what happens when that glass shelter breaks?
When the glass shelter breaks, it becomes a transformative opportunity.
“Whether it was youth sports and training for a marathon, or whether it was in elite athletes or whether it was in different large organizations and their staff employees … the profile emerges that it is in some ways a human condition: that performance-based identity can really trap us into an approach to life and an approach to relationships and approach to competition that is undermining us and will eventually lead to a shattered sense of self.”
Actor vs performer in the world (Action vs. Performance)
Influenced by what other people think we are
How to understand “performance context” across domains of sports, education, career, relationships, family, morality, and society at large
The dangers of limiting our identities to performance
Conditional acceptance based on performance
Human relationships, connectivity, and collectivism as performance enhancing
Coaching and mentoring to deal with the stress of performing
NCAA sports
Helping young people find “the spark”—their passion and potential and purpose
How the Search Institute studies performance-based identity
Christian faith and unconditional love
How to be free from a performance-based identity
Finding our identity in beauty, connection, and commonality
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
80 - Phil Armstrong on the Tulsa Race Massacre
Tuesday, September 8, 2020 • Duration 55:44
Phil Armstrong, project manager of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, speaks about the Tulsa Massacre—its historical context, the trauma and silencing that followed, and the current work of commemoration and education being done surrounding it.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.
79 - Robert Chao Romero on the Brown Church
Tuesday, August 25, 2020 • Duration 51:01
Robert Chao Romero, professor of Chicana/o studies and Asian American studies at UCLA, shares about the long history of the Latina/o church and the necessity of a holistic gospel, which prioritizes both evangelism and social justice.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio
78 - Broderick Leaks on Mental Health on the College Campus
Tuesday, August 11, 2020 • Duration 44:51
Broderick Leaks (PhD ’19), director of counseling and mental health at USC Student Health, describes the increasing mental health needs of emerging adults and the work of providing them meaningful support in the university context.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.
77 - Brenda Salter McNeil on Reconciliation
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 • Duration 59:46
Brenda Salter McNeil, speaker, author, and professor, talks about the long work of reconciliation, the need to speak truth, and the ongoing process of repentance, forgiveness, and justice guided by God’s Spirit.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio
76 - Jennifer Wiseman on Astronomy
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 • Duration 50:13
Jennifer Wiseman, astrophysicist and astronomer, delves into the complexity and beauty of the universe and explains how being scientifically informed relates to the flourishing and improvement of life.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.
75 - Walter Brueggemann on Reading the Old Testament
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 • Duration 01:12:41
Walter Brueggemann, renowned author and Old Testament scholar, speaks about engaging the Biblical text with an artistic interpretive lens that resists universal generalizations, then participates in a Q&A with the Fuller community.
This audio was recorded during the 2015 Fuller Forum.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.
74 - Kerry Morrison on Homelessness and Mental Health
Tuesday, June 23, 2020 • Duration 47:28
Kerry Morrison, program director for Heart Forward LA, shares about her work on mental health with the homeless communities in LA and for her innovative and experimental approaches to taking on the broken systems.
For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.
“Our freedom is very costly. It’s costly to us. It’s costly to God.”
Imagination and the dynamics of freedom
“An enhanced reverence for oneself has to be rooted in a reverence for God.”
“The idea of the sacredness of God and the sacredness of the self.”
Fear and reverence
“You are holding in your imagination … and helping us to see, feel, and hear the voices and see the actions of ordinary human beings, who are both (like Psalm 8), ‘a little lower than the angels,’ and at the same time, ‘we are dust and to dust you will return.’”
Paying attention
Marilynne Robinson’s upbringing, access to nature, access to books, and plenty of solitude
Joseph and the ending of the Genesis narrative: How might the story of Joseph speak to our time?
“We have to go back to the very basic thing of understanding our shared humanity. And we've departed a long way from that—even the best of us, I'm afraid. It is just stunning. I mean, we are such a danger to everything we value. We are a danger to everything we value. And the fact that we can persist in doing that or tolerating it … there we are, you know? … We've always been strange, we human beings.”
The perplexity of freedom
“The way that Joseph understands his history is a comment on the idea of divine time.”
“Joseph did enslave the Egyptians.”
“There is no bow to tie around anything. There's simply whatever it yields in terms of meaning and beauty and so on.”
Matthew 28 and the Great Commission
“Christianity sliding into empire”
The value of resolution and the open-ended nature of the Genesis narrative
