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The Understory

Society EN ↓ 6 episodes

In late May 2026, more than a thousand people gathered for three days beneath the vaults of Washington National Cathedral for the first Understory Festival: a living experiment in Christian humanism, where argument and silence, music and lament, poetry and debate were honored as different ways of attending to reality, and of exploring this question of what might be struggling to be born today. This limited series gathers the festival's main-stage talks and carries them to everyone who wasn't in the room, as well as to everyone who was and wishes to return. Voice by voice, you'll hear the think...

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Is There a Word from the Lord? — Rev. Dr. Charlie Dates 18.06.2026 27:40

Is there a word from the Lord for us today? Pastor Charlie Dates closes the Understory festival with a sermon that speaks to a weary age hungry for both truth and hope. Introduced by Anne Snyder and preceded by a live musical offering from Grammy-winning gospel musician Kevin Bond, this final session asks the question beneath the entire gathering: Who is Christ for us today? Mentioned: Breaking Gr...

Is This a Time to Build, or a Time to Re-found? — David Brooks and Ross Douthat 18.06.2026 1:13:19

Do our institutions need repair—or replacement? In one of the festival's most anticipated conversations, longtime friends and conservative public intellectuals David Brooks and Ross Douthat debate whether our moment calls for rebuilding existing institutions or re-founding them altogether. Introduced by Christine Emba and reflected upon by Mark Labberton. Mentioned: Albert O. Hirschman Frederick B...

The Christian Humanist Lens on Our Moment — Luke Bretherton 15.06.2026 53:08

What happens when people no longer feel capable of shaping the world around them? Oxford theologian Luke Bretherton argues that beneath our political and cultural turmoil lie twin crises of agency and institutional trust. Drawing on the Christian humanist tradition, he proposes a recovery of the human person rooted not in autonomy or power but in participation, responsibility, and the image of Chr...

Unfinished Business: Picking Up the Mantle — Anika Prather 15.06.2026 27:05

What work has been left unfinished—and who will carry it forward? Scholar, educator, and founder Anika Prather traces a mantle passed from Elijah to Elisha, from Abraham Lincoln to later generations, and ultimately to us. Drawing on Scripture, history, song, and the Black Church tradition, she argues that the work of reconciliation, education, repair, and beloved community remains unfinished. Reco...

What Is Struggling to Be Born? — Fr. Tomáš Halík 11.06.2026 43:38

When old certainties crumble, what is God bringing forth? Opening the Understory festival from Prague, Czech Republic, priest and theologian Tomáš Halík reflects on faith after Christendom, the wounds that become sites of encounter with God, and why Christianity's future may depend less on restoration than on spiritual maturity. His remarks are followed by responses from Makoto Fujimura, Romanita...

Welcome to the Understory, Where the Future Quietly Takes Root — Anne Snyder 11.06.2026 32:26

In this opening episode, Comment editor-in-chief Anne Snyder delivers the remarks she offered on the first night of the Understory festival—a three-day gathering hosted by Comment at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Drawing on history's overlooked seedbeds of moral imagination, Anne reflects on what stirs beneath the surface of our exhausted public life: a scattered, largely invisible co...