The Whole Person Revolution

The gift logic at its purest sounds like the height of virtue: self-sacrificing, open-handed, generous, gentle. But how does it square with the demands of justice? Can they co-exist in the same moral galaxy? This week's episode wrestles with these questions, and our interlocutors come from inside the  Comment  team: associate editor Heidi Deddens and senior editor Brian Dijkema. Two different lens...

We don't naturally think of performance as a two-way street. But the reality is all stories told well invite us to inhabit something personal, and something shared. In this episode, two actors, directors, and longtime friends Chris Domig and Mark Lewis discuss the circular potency of gifts, and how they've each woven that circularity into their crafts both on and off the stage.

An economy of giving is easier to dream about than to implement. But one institution is testing its promise with all that it has. In this episode, president of Hope College, Matthew Scogin, unveils a pioneering financial model that has the potential to disrupt American higher ed for the better, showcasing the surprise riches of a generative logic en route.  

"Solidarity is always intentional, always messy." Pancho Argüelles is the executive director of the Living Hope Wheelchair Association, a community-based organization of migrants with spinal cord injuries. Born in Mexico City, for more than thirty years now he has worked on human rights issues in Mexico, Central America, and the United States. Animated by questions of solidarity and justice, human...

On April 12, 2013 as Taylor Schumann was beginning her work day working at the New River Community College in Christiansburg, Virginia, a gunman walked in and shot her. She survived, but not without deep scars both physical and psychological. How does one recover from such a horrific event? What are the lessons of post-traumatic growth?

What is the relationship between justice and beauty, repair and renewal? What inspires us to create? Mako Fujimura, an artist, and his wife, Haejin Shim, a lawyer, together are building a richer understanding of the interdependencies here, interdependencies that we all will need as we exit the pandemic and relate to an altered world.  Makoto Fujimura is a contemporary artist, curator, writer, and...

Love and science don't always make easy conversation partners, but Amy O'Dell has found a way to make them at once intelligible to each other, and transformative for the lives of children and their families. Here is her story, and the story of Jacob's Ladder .

How can institutions be transformational, not simply transactional? What is higher education, specifically, doing to meet the hungers of a generation increasingly adamant that "the whole person" be acknowledged and respected? Dr. Nathan Hatch is the president of Wake Forest University, and has not only thought about these questions for decades, but shaped an entire institution around them. Here ar...

How might we each play a role in sowing a more woven, widely shared commons? Father Jack Wall and Joe Boland have spent years walking in solidarity with people from some of America's poorest communities to build up vibrant and transformative communities of faith. Learn from the edges. There is something there for our center.    

Leadership Foundations is a global faith-based network that works to renew the social fabric in 45 cities around the globe. In this conversation, LF president Dave Hillis and his Atlanta-based colleague, Cornelius Williams, elucidate their earned conviction that relationships that change our cities change our world

In 2016, homicides in Chicago reached an all-time high. A group of local business, government and civic and faith leaders came together with a sense of urgency and prayerful hope, trusting that in the composite whole of their skillsets, networks, and diverse perspectives, a more integrated approach might rise up to quell the violence. Four years later, something beautiful is afoot. Michael Allen a...

In a year of intensified racial heat and ideological warfare, cultivating the skills of bridge-building feels more urgent than ever. But do Christians bring anything distinctive to the task? Robin Shaw and Joe Meyer, co-leaders of a "Be the Bridge" group, humbly think yes.

"Home" strikes a million chords for each of us: familiarity, pain, loss, and roots that go deeper than words. But what happens when we choose to return in commitment to the place that bore us, believing that our individual agency matured (perhaps) elsewhere might come back to help nourish a future in the forgotten places? Lead for America is cultivating a 21st-century story about homecoming by giv...

On November 8, 2018, a massive fire was triggered in northern California and decimated the town of Paradise and surrounding mountain communities in less than half a day. Nearly two years later, as the nation grapples with urgent questions around community resilience in the wake of trauma, two pastoral figures from the area, Richard Yale and Lew Powell, reflect on mission, relationalism, and the ci...

Bridge-building and breaking down barriers can sound innocuous enough, even praiseworthy, but what's the underside of the embroidered tapestry? Dwan Dandridge and Chris Lambert have been doing this work in Detroit for some years now, and aren't afraid of the mess.

Sometimes it's the people we assume are the most broken that have the most to teach. The Other Side Academy is a life-training school for people with long criminal and addiction histories. Students commit to a minimum of a two-year residency — many as an alternative to incarceration — and from there undergo one of the most rigorous regimens of moral recalibration out there. The community's secret...

America's criminal justice system - and police norms in particular - are under the public microscope. Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro are cops from San Antonio's police department who have played a pivotal role in seeding a more humane culture there, with ripple effects emanating out into the broader community. In this episode, they share all that they've learned and would like to see as the country...