Humanize Me

How should we deal with irrational or difficult people? And what are some good strategies for establishing healthy boundaries with such people in our lives? As a very pro-social podcast, we realized this may be our weakness after we talked to Chrissy Stroop in Episode 618. Chrissy, a trans woman, told us she did not feel it her responsibility to keep toxic or unsupportive people in her life, and B...

Let's be honest: some people just don't inspire our empathy! In this last episode of 2021, Bart responds to a post on the Humanize Me Facebook Group, in which a woman feels unempathetic about consequences suffered by her sister due to the sister's own bad decisions. She feels like a bad person, she says, but should she? And how should we feel about our own lack of empathy in such situations?

Bart with a solo episode on how we create meaning in our lives, and get access to meaning as we live in connection to the universe.

Chrissy Stroop is a writer and scholar who, despite being an 'exvangelical', remains interested in, and critical of, evangelical culture. When she recently mentioned Bart Campolo in an article, we reached out to ask her if she wanted to have a conversation about how evangelicals think and talk about those who leave the faith. But the conversation took a different turn, becoming a friendly disagree...

Bart responds to a question from a listener who wants to know why he doesn't talk more about his time as a Christian minister in poor urban neighborhoods, and what his experiences make him think about the possibility of future change.

Derek Gaunt in an educator and author with 20 years of experience as a hostage negotiator for law enforcement agencies in the Washington DC metro area. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Derek talks about 'tactical empathy', emotional intelligence, controlling how someone feels about you, building trust, truly listening to someone's story, understanding motivation, looking for hidden messages...

Bart tells his story at the progressive Christian Wild Goose Festival.

Bart talks about a 'combo platter' leading to a big mental block recently, and asks whether we can learn to overcome them more effectively when they happen.

Does the mind have an immune system? It turns out it does, according to Andy Norman, who applies the emerging science of cognitive immunology to our divided, post-truth culture. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Andy is pushed to explain how the concepts in his book 'Mental Immunity' can help people navigate our chaos of disinformation, propaganda, hate, and division.

Bart and John talk about the current status of life in a waning pandemic, including: the psychology of lockdown, the permanency or otherwise of the changes, appetite for social life, impact on infants and high school seniors, the prospect of a rebounding economy and whether or not we took advantage of the 'magic' of the pause.

Before recent events in Israel and Palestine, Bart Campolo had this conversation with Salwa and Gerard of an organization called Military Court Watch in Jerusalem. In it, we hear about Salwa's experiences growing up in the region, and what drew Gerard to working there as an attorney. There are no easy answers about the conflict there, and we don't offer any in this episode. But human rights, human...

Bart and John discuss the a question from a listener called Paolo about believing in miracles. Even though he has many issues with the rational case for Christianity, Paolo's own experiences make him inclined to hold onto his faith. And let's be honest, we live in a world where weird things sometimes happen. Do you believe in miracles?

Johann Hari is an international best-selling author, journalist and thinker who has written two books we especially love: Chasing the Scream (about drugs and addiction) and Lost Connections (about what produces depression). So he may be one of the most fitting guests we've had. In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Johann talks about the purpose of pain, the value of community, understanding des...

...in the nicest possible way. On a recent episode, Bart Campolo casually referred to a bar full of people you might like to strike up a conversation with, saying, 'There's a woman, there's a man, there's a woman who used to be a man.' A trans woman called Rya wrote us an email, in the process giving us the perfect model for how to address someone you disagree with. It was so perfect we thought we...

How do we recapture political nuance, thoughtfulness and open-mindedness at a time when alternative media has hooked us on politics and broke our democracy? Claire Potter is a Professor of History and co-Executive Editor of Public Seminar at The New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village, New York City. In this conversation, she and Bart Campolo talk about the state of our political disco...

Bart talks to Joe Blankholm, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who with his colleagues is conducting a survey of secular communities across the United States. Take the survey at http://secularcommunities.com/scs

A question from a former church pastor about finding connections and community with other people on the other side of faith. Bart thinks it's harder as an adult than when you were in high school or college, but has some thoughts that may inspire some practical moves. Things we mention during the episode:  https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/resources http://clergyproject.org https://www.fa...

How can we learn to have our disagreements across ideological divides more constructively and respectfully? David C. Smalley may be something of an expert at this point, having conducted hundreds of long-form conversations - many of them with Christians - on his podcast for the last 11 years. In this episode with Bart Campolo, David talks about how he approaches these on-air disagreements, and wha...

Bart and John share thoughts about the Inauguration of President Biden, the emotions it raises, what is entailed in turning the page as a nation, how to begin to bring Trump's most fervent supporters back into conversation, the importance of rituals like this, the Inauguration as a civic religious ceremony, and the actual religion in the ceremony - including the biggest bible we've ever seen.

What does it take to cope in a high-pressure, competitive environment... without falling into harmful behavior? Ali Tamposi is a grammy-nominated songwriter who has written for some of the biggest names in pop music: Kelly Clarkson, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, John Legend, Ozzy Osbourne and many others. She's also Bart Campolo's daughter-in-law-to-be. Bart and Ali talk about what it's like to be i...

Bart joins Konrad Benjamin, host of the Australian podcast Ideas Digest, to talk about why he isn't a progressive Christian but rather a secular humanist, and to assert that they ALWAYS become atheists.

A coronavirus story, Bart’s contention that Christmas should be once every 4 years, and a reminder that life isn’t ‘supposed to’ be perfect.

The second of two classic installments of this podcast that we’re posting on the topic of better conversations. Last week, we heard about the method called 'street epistemology'. This time, we're hearing about 'deep canvassing', used by our guest David Fleischer of the Los Angeles LGBT Center to change votes. We hope it’ll help you think about how to engage with people more productively, and enabl...

In a reprise of this classic conversation with Anthony Magnabosco, we talk about a conversational tool which can change the course - and productivity - of those most difficult exchanges, the ones between people who disagree on fundamental things in life. Anthony is an advocate of 'street epistemology', and it could be a very useful idea in these divided times. This is the first of two 'classic' ep...

Bart gives a stream-of-consciousness update from under his rock, including stark thoughts about the recent attempted suicide of a close friend, an unexpected gift from another, and an attempt to recenter around gratefulness. The classic article on chess Bart mentions (circa 1992) can be found at https://vault.si.com/vault/1992/03/02/the-child-is-the-master-playing-a-young-chess-prodigy-rekindled-t...