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PODCAST

Living On Common Ground

Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario? Every environment? Your church, your school, your work, your friends. Left, right. Conservative, liberal. Religious, secular. From parenting styles to school choice, denominational choice to governing preference, it seems you"re always being asked to take a side.This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

19:48

Energy, Logos, And A Baby In Bethlehem

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/12/25

Send us a text What if Christmas isn’t magic from far away, but matter aligning with love right here? We open with holiday greetings and step into a reimagined Nativity that holds science and faith together. Starting from the Big Bang and the birth of consciousness, we explore the logos as the universe’s deep pattern—energy organizing toward truth, beauty, justice, and love—and we ask what changes when that pattern takes on skin. Mary’s yes and Joseph’s courage become more than pious moments...

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43:26

Joy Without Permission; Finding Common Ground At...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/12/18

Send us a text Every December, something in us softens. The traffic is still bad and the lines are still long, yet we wait with a little more patience and offer a little more grace. We wanted to understand that shift without scolding or sanctimony, so we sat down to unpack holiday joy from two very different angles: a progressive Christian’s lens on incarnation and an atheist’s take on seasonality, nostalgia, and community. Our conversation starts with a sermon in progress and a question tha...

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48:23

Bridging Divides Without Losing Yourself

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/12/11

Send us a text Feeling cornered by purity tests and tribal litmus checks? We’ve been there. As a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be close friends, we trade quick outrage for slow curiosity and ask a tougher question: are we building bridges or policing borders? From social media habits to Stoic clarity, we unpack how certainty hardens into fundamentalism and how to interrupt that slide before it fractures our families, feeds, and neighborhoods. We start with sm...

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44:34

Lines We Cross For Friendship

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/12/04

Send us a text What if a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist could argue hard topics, laugh at themselves, and keep choosing friendship? That’s the spirit of this conversation as we map common ground without sanding off our edges—tackling public education, healthcare, and the blurry line between rights and services. We start by calling out how split life feels and then test our labels. Music sparks a detour to Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and why compatibilism appeals to people who di...

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41:41

What If Survival Isn’t The Point, But Connection Is

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/11/27

Send us a text Division feels baked into everything—work, faith, politics, even friendships—yet the best conversations still start on shared ground. We sit down as a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist, grateful for a friendship that doesn’t need uniformity, and we follow a thread from holiday calm to the future of intelligence. Along the way, we ask hard questions about survival, connection, and what it really takes for people and systems to flourish. We begin with the quiet gr...

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43:32

What If Wisdom At Creation Was A Woman?

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/11/20

Send us a text When every headline demands a side, what if we started with a question? We sit down as a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist to explore how creation stories frame our deepest assumptions about chaos, order, and the feminine. From Genesis’ hovering spirit over the deep to the Babylonian Enuma Elish’s splitting of Tiamat, we trace how cultures turn raw potential into a livable world—and how those choices shape what we call sacred. We dig into wisdom literature where...

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43:48

Nihilism, Friendship, And Finding Meaning

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/11/13

Send us a text Feeling pulled to choose a side in every room you enter? We bring a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist to the same table to ask a harder question: if life doesn’t come preloaded with meaning, what should we build together? We start by untangling nihilism from its stereotypes. Passive nihilism stares into the void and shrugs; active nihilism treats the blank space as a canvas. From that lens, we revisit Joseph Campbell, Nietzsche’s much-misread “God is dead,” and ...

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43:04

How We Disagree Without Losing Respect

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/11/06

Send us a text Feeling squeezed into a corner by every conversation? We push back with a frank, funny, and steady exchange between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who’ve made a promise: stay friends, stay curious, and keep the hard questions on the table. Together we take on the urge to be right, the fear of feeling like a fool, and the hidden role ego plays when debates turn into dead ends. We dig into whether admitting “I might be wrong” weakens belief or actually makes ...

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57:29

God, Gum, And Emery Boards: A Surprisingly Deep Dive

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/10/30

Send us a text Ever catch yourself deciding that someone’s chewing or phone volume is a moral failure? We start there—small frictions that expose big assumptions—and climb toward the larger question: how do we live together with sharp differences, without losing honesty or hope? As a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist, we test the edges of our friendship by trading judgments for curiosity, and certainty for conviction. Jeff shares the heart of several writing projects, includin...

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48:19

Government Shutdowns, Stoicism, And What Really Matters

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/10/23

Send us a text Feeling tugged to take a side on everything? We zoom out from the outrage to ask a harder question: what actually matters enough to shape your day, your community, and your character. Starting with the government shutdown, we separate optics from impact—what really happens when federal spending pauses, why retroactive pay masks immediate pain for contractors, and how uncertainty moves markets more than ideology. It’s not financial doom, but it is a strain on real people who liv...

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47:52

From Trash Tomatoes to Climate Politics: How Ideas...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/10/16

Send us a text Seeds don’t look like certainty—until you’ve seen them sprout a dozen times. We start with a backyard mystery of “trash tomatoes” and end up mapping how humans learn, trust, and pass on what we call truth. Along the way, we push into the hard question: when policies claim to be “for your own good,” are they honest stewardship or just control with better branding? We explore how knowledge travels across generations, why some explanations (like demon possession) once felt as rea...

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49:08

School, Civics, and the Battle for Young Minds

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/10/09

Send us a text What happens when a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist ask whether public schools are built to indoctrinate—and refuse to turn the question into a shouting match? We start with history, not heat, tracing Horace Mann’s citizen-making vision, the Prussian roots of standardization, and the slow drift from local classrooms to district, state, and federal control. If every layer sets the rules of what counts as “good citizenship,” then the fight isn’t over whether indo...

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53:04

Can Compassion Have Conditions?

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/10/02

Send us a text Homelessness is one of America's most divisive issues, with battle lines seemingly drawn between compassion and accountability. But what happens when a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist sit down to tackle this thorny topic? Surprisingly, they find significant common ground. Our conversation explores whether public assistance should come with obligations, and how government incentives might actually worsen the problem they're meant to solve. Drawing from personal...

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58:59

Holy Tax Exemptions: Should Churches Keep Their...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/09/25

Send us a text The line between faith and politics has always been contested ground, but in today's hyper-polarized climate, the question burns more intensely than ever: Should churches that promote political messages maintain their tax-exempt status? This episode brings together two unlikely friends – a progressive Christian pastor and a conservative atheist – who begin with surprising agreement before diving into the nuanced reality. They challenge the very definition of "political," ackno...

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59:13

When Violence Divides Us: Finding Common Ground After...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/09/18

Send us a text When violence enters our political landscape, can meaningful conversation still survive? In this timely episode, recorded just hours after a high-profile political shooting, two friends from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum wrestle with one of America's most divisive topics: gun rights and the Second Amendment. The heart of their discussion centers on a fundamental question: Does the right to bear arms truly serve as a check against government tyranny in modern Ameri...

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64:56

Deglobalization, Military Power, and the Stories We...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/09/11

Send us a text What happens when we question the stories nations tell themselves? In this thought-provoking episode, we tackle the complex question of whether American military operations worldwide ultimately help or harm US interests. The conversation begins with an examination of historical context, specifically addressing covert operations like the CIA's Project Ajax in 1953, where America overthrew a democratically elected government. This launches us into an exploration of how official ...

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66:18

Beyond Reconciliation: Creating a True Common Memory

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/09/04

Send us a text What happens when we peel back the layers of American mythology to examine the true foundations of our nation? Mark Charles, author of "Unsettling Truths" and a dual citizen of the United States and the Navajo Nation, joins us for a profound conversation that challenges conventional narratives about American history. Charles takes us on a journey through the Doctrine of Discovery—a series of papal edicts declaring that lands not ruled by European Christian men were essentially...

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54:56

The Mirage of Finding Yourself in a Market-Driven World

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/08/28

Send us a text "Finding yourself is a lie perpetrated by our consumerist culture." With this provocative statement, two friends – a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist – launch into a fascinating exploration of identity, authenticity, and the forces that shape our understanding of self. The conversation challenges a concept many of us take for granted: that somewhere within us exists a "true self" waiting to be discovered. But what if this idea is merely a clever marketing strat...

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18:39

BONUS EPISODE: Peter Rollins-From Shared Beliefs to...

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/08/24

Send us a text Ever wondered why building communities often leads to deeper divisions? In this special follow-up to our conversation with Peter Rollins, we explore a radical alternative to traditional community-building that might change how you think about human connection forever. Rollins draws a crucial distinction between three forms of social bonds. Communities form around shared identities, beliefs, and especially shared enemies—inherently creating insiders and outsiders. The commons a...

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62:02

The Sin of Certainty: A Conversation with Pete Enns

Living On Common Ground ·

2025/08/21

Send us a text "I have no idea what I'm talking about and I don't mind that," admits theologian Pete Enns in this refreshingly honest conversation about faith beyond certainty. This realization brought him not panic or dread, but profound relief—a sentiment that has guided his work helping others navigate their spiritual journeys. Pete shares how embracing uncertainty transformed his relationship with Christianity, moving from rigid certainty to authentic questioning. As an academic expert i...

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28 results

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