For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

For twenty years, Christian Wiman has lived with a rare, incurable cancer. In the fall of 2022, during a stretch when the illness was especially bad, he wrote to his friend and Yale colleague Miroslav Volf: “I don’t know what faith means anymore. I’m a 56-year-old with a pile of books behind me and an experimental bone marrow transplant ahead of me, and I don’t know what faith means.” That letter...

More than forty years after his twenty-five-year-old son Eric died in a climbing accident, philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff joins Miroslav Volf to revisit the grief behind his classic Lament for a Son and his recent Living with Grief. “If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead.” In this episode they reflect together on mourning loss, refusing both the consolations of theo...

We’re used to hostile online encounters with total strangers. It fuels the digital economy. But what if there were a way to experiment with radical emotional honesty with an anonymous other—much the same as you’d experience at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting? The anonymous founder of This Life, an audio-only app built on anonymity, joins For the Life of the World to argue that emotional and spirit...

What does it take to put a fractured world back together? Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon joins Evan Rosa to explore William Blake as the great counter-Enlightenment guide for our anxious, divided age. "The world comes to be seen as it truly is, which is infinite, and that can embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing." In this episode with Evan Rosa, Vernon expl...

What sustains faith when prayer feels flat and God seems distant—and there's no clear tragedy to explain it? Anglican priest and former New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren joins Macie Bridge to talk about weariness, burnout, and the quiet middle stretches of a long spiritual life. Drawing on her new book What Grows in Weary Lands, she turns to the Desert Fathers and Mothers for a resilie...

What if the anxiety you most want to get rid of is the one you most need to listen to? Existential psychologist Dan Koch and marketing strategist Kristen Tideman join Evan Rosa for a conversation about what anxiety is actually for—and what happens when it turns against you. "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice is to accept them or pretend th...

As Christians enter the most solemn stretch of the liturgical year, theologian David Ford — who spent over twenty years writing his commentary on the Gospel of John — makes the case that no other Gospel prepares you for the cross the way John does. "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross. All through the gospel, every chapter, John is saying — wh...

The book of Ecclesiastes has puzzled readers for millennia with its unflinching observations about absurdity, meaninglessness, vanity, and futility. Biblical scholar Jesse Peterson joins Evan Rosa to discuss his book, Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value , bringing contemporary philosophy into dialogue with this ancient text and reflecting on what happens when a sage confronts the gap between expe...

Increasingly, it seems that a very public and nationalized Christianity is bouncing back as a live, contested question around the world, and there’s a temptation to exist on the extremes of either loyalty to the point of idolatry, or total opposition to the point of suspicion of the human beings we need to get along with every day. That creates a dilemma for Christian witness, one that can perhaps...

Theologian Bo Karen Lee joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz to explore how the multiple layers of trauma—pandemic grief, racialized violence, intergenerational wounding, vicarious suffering—can be met by the resources of Ignatian spirituality and contemplative prayer. Writing and teaching at the intersection of Christian formation and social justice, Lee brings both scholarly precision and uncommon personal...

What happens when we stop treating the Bible as a sacred object and start paying attention to how we actually use it? In this conversation, theologian David Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and the ethics of reading scripture in a fractured world. In this episode with Evan Rosa, Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and how readers shape the meaning and moral impact of...

Today we’re bringing you an episode with Esau McCaulley, from the Lenten season of 2023. Esau sees Lent as a practice of collective generational wisdom, passed down through centuries of sacramental rhythms—but as a contemporary reality, Lent is a spiritual rebellion against mainstream American culture. He construes Lent as a season of repentance and grace; he points out the justice practices of Le...

Work shapes identity, community, and meaning—but how should faith show up in professional life? Sociologist Elaine Ecklund discusses religion in the workplace, drawing on research conducted with co-author Denise Daniels. “I think our faith compels us to hope for and enact flourishing for everyone.” In this episode with Evan Rosa, Ecklund reflects on vocation, gender, authenticity, and principled p...

Can faith sustain courage and openness in a polarized democracy? Former Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich reflects on faith, fear, character, and public life amid deep political polarization and religious tension in America. “There is a certain comfort in knowing you have somebody who’s always in your corner.” In this conversation with Evan Rosa, Kasich reflects on personal fait...

Mortality, fragility, forgiveness, and peace. Journalist and author Stan Grant offers a genre-bending work of prayer, memory, and theology shaped by fatherhood, Aboriginal inheritance, masculinity, and mortality. “I see this as a gift from God, a creator that allows us to find each other again.” In this conversation with Evan Rosa, Grant reflects on his 2025 book, Murriyang: Song of Time —his phil...

Slavery did not end in the nineteenth century—it persists today, hidden in global supply chains, religious justifications, and systems of power. Kevin Bales and Michael Rota join Evan Rosa to explore modern slavery through history, psychology, and theology, asking why it remains so difficult to see and confront. “It’s time some person should see these calamities to their end.” (Thomas Clarkson, 17...

Poet and essayist Carol Ann Davis (Fairfield University) joins Evan Rosa for a searching conversation on violence, childhood, and the moral discipline of attention in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. Reflecting on trauma, parenting, childhood, poetry, and faith, Davis resists tidy narratives and invites listeners to dwell with grief, healing, beauty, and pain without resolution. “I don’t believe life...

“Our longings are much more powerful than our logic, and our desires are stronger than our reason.” (Graham Tomlin on the thought of Blaise Pascal) The Rt. Rev. Dr. Graham Tomlin (St. Mellitus College, the Centre for Cultural Witness) joins Evan Rosa for a sweeping exploration of Blaise Pascal—the 17th-century mathematician, scientist, philosopher, and theologian whose insights into human nature r...

Loneliness seems to be part of what it means to be a relational being. Does that mean loneliness can never really be “solved”? Here’s one way to think about loneliness: As a gap between relational expectation and social reality—something that signals our essentially relational, reciprocal nature as human beings. This episode is part 6 of a series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and p...

Living alone may be difficult, but what about dying alone? Physicians and nurses are the new priests accompanying people as they face death. But the experience of nursing homes, assisted living, and palliative wards are often some of the loneliest spaces in human culture. “He said, ‘Someone finally saw me. I’ve been in this hospital for 20 years and I didn’t think anyone ever saw me.’” This episod...

What is the role of solitude in Christian history? Medievalist Hetta Howes comments on the allure of enclosure, how seeking solitude supports community, and what these ancient lives reveal about our modern search for connection. “Even those moments of solitude that she’s carving for herself are surprisingly sociable.” This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological,...

Is technology the source or salve of social isolation? Given the realities of increasing division, the epidemic of loneliness, and unwanted isolation today, how should we think about the theological, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of the human experience of aloneness? “AI technologies aren’t capable of creating conditions in which grace can happen—it’s endemic to personhood.” This episode is pa...

Consider human ecological loneliness and our longing for reconnection with all creation. What healing is available in an era defined by environmental loss and exploitation? Can we strengthen the fragile connection between modern society and the space we inhabit? “Loneliness is the symptom that desires its cure.” In this episode Macie Bridge welcomes writer, translator, and poet Laura Marris to ref...

Theologian Miroslav Volf reflects on solitude, loneliness, and how being alone can reveal our humanity, selfhood, and relationship with God. This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone. “Solitude brings one back in touch with who one is—it’s how we stabilize ourselves so we know how to...

From bipartisan cooperation to prayerful gratitude, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joins Drew Collins to reflect on joy, wisdom, and love of enemy in a divided nation—offering a vision of public service grounded in the way of Jesus. “Jesus defied expectations—he welcomed the stranger, he fed the hungry, he loved his enemies.” Together they discuss the role of faith in public life amid deep division. R...