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PODCAST

Shifting Culture

Shifting Culture is a podcast about faith, justice, and spiritual formation in a divided world. Hosted by Joshua Johnson, the show features long-form conversations with authors, theologians, artists, and cultural thinkers exploring the way of Jesus, nonviolence, reconciliation, and human dignity.Each episode goes beyond theory to ask practical questions: How do we break cycles of violence and fear? What does it mean to love our enemies? How do faith, culture, creativity, and justice shape the way we

religion & spirituality christianity

All Episodes

53:30

Ep. 384 Nathan Clarkson - I'm the Worst: How Freedom...

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/20

In this episode, I sit down with Nathan Clarkson, author of I’m the Worst, for an honest conversation about brokenness, shame, confession, and freedom. Nathan shares what it was like growing up in a well-known Christian family, learning how to perform moral goodness while hiding the parts of himself he didn’t know how to face, and how confronting that reality became the beginning of healing rather than the end of the story. We talk about moral superiority, cancel culture, and the ways fear tu...

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54:25

Ep. 383 Winfield Bevins - How Beauty Will Save the World

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/16

In this episode, I sit down with Winfield Bevins to talk about beauty and why it matters for everyday life, the church, and spiritual formation. We discuss his book How Beauty Will Save the World and how beauty shapes attention, formation, and the way we live, work, and follow Jesus. Winfield shares his own story, including seasons of burnout and vocational transition, and how art and creativity became central to his faith and calling. We talk about creativity beyond the arts, the pace of mod...

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57:19

Ep. 382 David Dault - The Accessorized Bible: How We...

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/13

In this episode, I talk with David Dault about his book The Accessorized Bible and the ways the Bible is actually used in our churches, institutions, and public life. We wrestle with how the Bible can be taken seriously without being turned into a prop, a weapon, or a justification for harm. Our conversation moves through questions of power, responsibility, and interpretation, and keeps returning to a simple but difficult concern: whether or not our ways of using the Bible are making life mor...

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86:16

Ep. 381 Best of 2025: Top 10 Movies of the Year

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/09

In this episode, I’m joined by Craig Detweiler and Elijah Davidson for our Best Movies of 2025 conversation. We count down our top films of the year and explain why each one made our list. We talk about the themes that stood out in 2025 movies, including grief, violence, faith, memory, creativity, and what it means to be human. We also discuss overlooked films, shrinking theatrical releases, genre storytelling, and how personal experiences shaped the way we watched and ranked these movies. Th...

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58:47

Ep. 380 Ryan Burge - The Vanishing Church and the...

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/06

What’s actually happening to the church in America and why does it matter beyond Sunday morning? In this episode I’m joined by Ryan Burge, a social scientist who studies religion in the U.S. and brings long-term data, charts, and lived pastoral experience into a conversation often driven by fear or nostalgia. We discuss his book The Vanishing Church, the quiet decline of the moderate church, the rise of polarization inside Christianity, and how broader cultural tribalism has reshaped faith co...

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62:28

Ep. 379 Kelley Nikondeha Returns - Jubilee Economics

Shifting Culture ·

2026/01/02

What does it mean to take Jesus seriously when he announces good news to the poor, freedom for the captive, and release from debt? In this episode of Shifting Culture, I’m joined by theologian and practitioner Kelley Nikondeha to talk about her new book Jubilee Economics and the disruptive, concrete vision of Jubilee found in Scripture. We explore why Jubilee was never just a spiritual metaphor but a real economic practice involving debt forgiveness, land, labor, and community restoration. Ke...

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42:02

Ep. 378 Best of 2025: Most Listened to Episodes of...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/30

As 2025 comes to a close, I wanted to pause and look back, not at what was loud or polarizing, but at what people actually stayed with. This episode gathers the 10 most listened to conversations of the year, and together they reveal something honest about this moment: a deep longing for a faith shaped by humility instead of power, a discipleship rooted in real life, and a way of Jesus that resists fear, shame, and easy answers. This episode counts down from #10 to #1. I introduce each clip, t...

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97:20

Ep. 377 Best of 2025: Top 10 Books of the Year

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/26

In this episode, I am joined by Lore Wilbert and Byron Borger for a roundtable countdown of our top ten books of 2025. Moving from number ten to number one, we reflect on the novels, memoirs, theology, and cultural criticism that most shaped our reading year. Along the way, the conversation opens into deeper questions about faith and doubt, grief and hope, community and isolation, and what it means to stay human in an anxious, mechanized world. Rather than chasing trends, this episode lingers...

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60:07

Ep. 376 Bill & Kristi Gaultiere - Receiving and...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/23

In this episode, I sit down with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere for a thoughtful conversation about empathy - what it really is, why it’s so often misunderstood, and why it matters for the way of Jesus. We talk about God’s great empathy for us and how the incarnation reveals a God who enters our experience, not just intellectually but emotionally and bodily. Together, we explore the role of emotions in the spiritual life, the weight of shame and grief, the reality of compassion fatigue, and how em...

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49:46

Ep. 375 Leonard Sweet - Living into the Imagination...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/19

In this episode, I’m joined by theologian and storyteller Leonard Sweet for a deep conversation on the imagination of Jesus and why imagination is central to faith, discipleship, and what it means to be human. We talk about how Jesus doesn’t simply explain reality but reshapes it through story and metaphor, and why Jubilee sits at the heart of his vision for the world. We also explore what it means to move beyond fear-based, information-driven faith toward a life where Christ is formed in us....

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55:53

Ep. 374 Kate Murphy - The Way of Jesus is Often Found...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/16

In this episode, pastor and author Kate Murphy shares the surprising story behind Lost, Hidden, Small, a season when ministry fell apart, illusions shattered, and the only way forward was surrender. Kate reflects on discovering that God often does His deepest work in places that look like failure, weakness, and smallness, and how her congregation learned to see again, love their neighbors without transaction, and trust God for resurrection they could not manufacture. This conversation offers ...

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51:22

Ep. 373 William J. Kole - Gun Violence Must End:...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/12

Journalist and author William J. Kole joins me to unpack the deep and often hidden ties between white evangelicalism, politics, fear, and America’s gun culture. Drawing from his new book In Guns We Trust, Bill shares how his own ministry collided with concealed weapons, why fear has shaped so much of the church’s response to gun violence, and how Christian nationalism and the idolizing of the Second Amendment have influenced our national crisis. We talk about the shift from historic Christian...

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53:21

Ep. 372 Dorothy Littell Greco - Rooting Out Misogyny...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/09

In this conversation, I sit down with Dorothy Greco to explore misogyny not just as individual prejudice, but as a system that shapes our culture, our institutions, our churches, and even our closest relationships. Dorothy walks me through how misogyny shows up in medicine, economics, purity culture, pornography, and the daily lives of women, and why it remains so difficult to see and name. We talk about the ways entitlement and distorted power sustain this harm, and how the way of Jesus offe...

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53:52

Ep. 371 Valentyn Syniy - Serving God in the Midst of...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/08

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Valentyn Syniy, president of a theological seminary in Kherson, to explore what it means to lead, shepherd, and hold on to hope in the midst of war. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Valentyn lost almost everything - his home, his church community, and the entire seminary campus he helped build. Yet in the chaos of evacuation, the trauma of displacement, and the destruction of his city, he discovered a deeper sense of calling and a renewed understandi...

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57:19

Ep. 370 Stephanie Spellers - What the Nones and Dones...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/05

The church is in a moment of honest reckoning. Attendance is shrinking, institutions are thinning, and many who once belonged now stand on the outside looking in. In this conversation with author and priest Stephanie Spellers, we explore what the “nones” and “dones” are teaching us about faith, community, and the way of Jesus. Stephanie invites us to look directly at decline, name the shame we carry, and listen to the prophetic longings rising from a generation hungry for authenticity, belong...

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57:07

Ep. 369 Mark Yarhouse & Julia Sadusky - Navigating...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/12/02

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Mark Yarhouse and Dr. Julia Sadusky about the rapidly expanding language of emerging sexual identities and what it means for the young people we care about. We explore why new terms keep appearing, how identity forms in adolescence, and what teens are actually trying to express when they use language many of us have never heard before. Rather than reacting with fear or reducing anyone to a label, Mark and Julia help us rethink our posture, moving toward curios...

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52:57

Ep. 368 Faith Womack - Discovering the Fullness of...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/11/28

In this episode, I’m joined by Faith Womack, known to many as Bible Nerd Ministries, for a deeply refreshing conversation on how to read Scripture with clarity, curiosity, and joy. Faith shares her own story of growing up with mishandled and misapplied Bible teaching, and how learning the basics of hermeneutics transformed everything for her. We talk about context, genre, the big story of God’s redemption, why so many of us default to reading ourselves into the text, and how Scripture becomes...

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63:11

Ep. 367 Brian Recker - How the Fear of Hell Holds...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/11/25

In this episode, I talk with Brian Recker about his new book Hell Bent and the ways fear-based theology has shaped so many of our spiritual imaginations. Brian grew up learning about hell and God in the same breath, and he unpacks how that fusion created a system built on binary thinking, punishment, and spiritual insecurity. We explore his journey from fundamentalism to evangelical ministry to a reimagined faith centered on love, liberation, and a vision Jesus preached. We get into Gehenna, ...

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51:16

Ep. 366 Jenny Marrs - Trust God, Love People

Shifting Culture ·

2025/11/21

In this episode, I sit down with Jenny Marrs, author, adoptive mom, and co-host of HGTV’s Fixer to Fabulous, for a tender and deeply human conversation about grief, waiting, restoration, and the steady presence of God in the middle of it all. Jenny shares openly about a season of profound loss, the long and miraculous journey to bring her daughter home from the Congo, and the everyday choice to trust God when life feels overwhelming or out of control. We talk about compassion in a divided wor...

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59:40

Ep. 365 Diana Butler Bass - Time, Love, and a...

Shifting Culture ·

2025/11/18

In this episode, I talk with Diana Butler Bass about her new book A Beautiful Year and the deeper story that sits beneath our experience of time. We explore how the Roman calendar still shapes us with the imagination of empire - militarism, consumerism, and control - and how the Christian calendar offers a counter-formation rooted in love, hope, peace, and a circular sense of time that keeps drawing us deeper into God. Diana walks us through Advent’s darkness and silence, the meaning of waiti...

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387 results

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