Podcast
No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp
What does it really mean to live a good life—in our politics, our faith, our work, and our relationships?
On No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp, we explore the ideas, practices, and public debates that shape human flourishing today. Each week you’ll hear thought-provoking conversations with bestselling authors, philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, theologians, artists, and political leaders—people wrestling with the biggest questions of meaning and purpose in our time.
Together we ask:
How can religion be a force for healing instead of division?
What does neuroscience reveal about happiness, habits, and productivity?
Where do politics and justice meet the pursuit of the common good?
How do truth, beauty, and goodness help us live well—personally and collectively?
If you care about faith, politics, social justice, science, or the search for meaning, you’ll find courageous, practical conversations here. Because pursuing a meaningful life is no small endeavor—and we’re with you on the road.
Learn more at nosmallendeavor.com.
- Religion & Spirituality chart
- #35
- Episodes
- 546
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 51 min
- On air since
- 2020
- Latest episode
- 1 day ago
Episodes
546 episodes, newest first
-
51 min
286: Donna Jackson Nakazawa: How to Stop Ruminating
Show notes
Can’t stop replaying what you wish you had said to someone instead? Or maybe your inner monologue won’t stop asking, "What did they mean by that comment?” Our guest today explains the function of our mental ruminations and how to stop them. Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist, and in her new book Mind Drama: The Science of Rumination and How to Outwit Your Inner Defeatist, she shares what to do when your thoughts start spiraling.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for the abridged episode with Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
1 hr 23 min
Unabridged interview: Iain McGilchrist (Part 2) Bonus
Show notes
This is Part 2 of our unabridged interview with Iain McGilchrist.
Modernity has helped us to use the world. We have reduced it to resources to extract, data to process, problems to solve. While it has made us powerful, it has also left the world feeling flat, and left us feeling eerily like machines ourselves.
Dr. Iain McGilchrist says this reduction is a habit of attention, and it has everything to do with the two hemispheres of the brain. One half grasps, isolates, and uses. The other holds things together, sees the whole, and senses what is alive. He argues that we've been handing the world over to the grasping side of the brain. A psychiatrist and neuroscientist who began as a literary scholar and once considered entering a monastery, Iain has spent 35 years studying how these two ways of attending shape the world we experience.
The good news is that our attention can change. From his eighteenth-century home on the Isle of Skye, he invites us to see the world anew. As something living, met in an encounter that leaves neither side unchanged.
This is part three of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Iain McGilchrist
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
1 hr 34 min
Unabridged interview: Iain McGilchrist (Part 1) Bonus
Show notes
This is Part 1 of our unabridged interview with Iain McGilchrist.
Modernity has helped us to use the world. We have reduced it to resources to extract, data to process, problems to solve. While it has made us powerful, it has also left the world feeling flat, and left us feeling eerily like machines ourselves.
Dr. Iain McGilchrist says this reduction is a habit of attention, and it has everything to do with the two hemispheres of the brain. One half grasps, isolates, and uses. The other holds things together, sees the whole, and senses what is alive. He argues that we've been handing the world over to the grasping side of the brain. A psychiatrist and neuroscientist who began as a literary scholar and once considered entering a monastery, Iain has spent 35 years studying how these two ways of attending shape the world we experience.
The good news is that our attention can change. From his eighteenth-century home on the Isle of Skye, he invites us to see the world anew. As something living, met in an encounter that leaves neither side unchanged.
This is part three of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Iain McGilchrist
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
56 min
The Subtext: Savannah Wants You To Love Brandon Flowers’ THRASHER As Much As She Does Bonus
Show notes
It's the day we've all (mostly Savannah's) been waiting for. This week, Lee and Savannah do a deep dive into Brandon Flowers’ THRASHER!
It's a record about belonging and nostalgia, and it was recorded live in Nashville by some of the greats. It's unexpectedly profound, and, in the end, Savannah just wants you to love this record as much as she does.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Jackson Browne's The Pretender
Sinners movie Dir. Ryan Coogler
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: https://nosmallendeavor.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
50 min
Iain McGilchrist: Why the World Feels Flat (The Ache, Pt. 3)
Show notes
Modernity has helped us to use the world. We have reduced it to resources to extract, data to process, problems to solve. While it has made us powerful, it has also left the world feeling flat, and left us feeling eerily like machines ourselves.
Dr. Iain McGilchrist says this reduction is a habit of attention, and it has everything to do with the two hemispheres of the brain. One half grasps, isolates, and uses. The other holds things together, sees the whole, and senses what is alive. He argues that we've been handing the world over to the grasping side of the brain. A psychiatrist and neuroscientist who began as a literary scholar and once considered entering a monastery, Iain has spent 35 years studying how these two ways of attending shape the world we experience.
The good news is that our attention can change. From his eighteenth-century home on the Isle of Skye, he invites us to see the world anew. As something living, met in an encounter that leaves neither side unchanged.
This is part three of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Iain McGilchrist
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
1 hr 16 min
Unabridged Interview: Alister McGrath Bonus
Show notes
This is our unabridged interview with Alister McGrath.
Science can explain the world in an incredibly helpful way, but scientific facts alone can't tell us what our lives are for. In a world shaped by modernity, it can be wildly tempting to chuck religion altogether. But with science alone, we end up in what Max Weber called the iron cage: a world fully explained, but emptied of meaning.
Dr. Alister McGrath grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, amidst conflict across political and religious lines. He became an aggressive Marxist atheist, convinced that religion caused violence and science had made it obsolete. Then, as a chemistry student at Oxford, he met brilliant scientists who believed in God. He then wrestled with the fact that he couldn't prove there wasn't a God. He now holds three Oxford doctorates, in molecular biophysics, theology, and intellectual history, and is Emeritus Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford.
For McGrath, faith became a reason to value science even more. This is part two of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Alister McGrath
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
48 min
The Subtext: Aslan is a Woman…Should You Care? Bonus
Show notes
Meryl Streep is the voice of Aslan in Greta Gerwig's Narnia adaptation. Is this a threat to Christian orthodoxy or another culture-war distraction?
This week on The Subtext, Savannah and Lee discuss the casting controversy and dive into bigger questions about gender and how we imagine God. From C.S. Lewis' POV to feminine depictions of God in Scripture and church history, they explore what Christian humility, artistic freedom, and a more faithful public witness might look like.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
NARNIA: THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW | Official Trailer
Hillbilly Thomists on No Small Endeavor
“Why You Should Care That Aslan is a Woman” by Liel Leibovitz
Priestesses in the Church? by C.S. Lewis
The Incomprehensibility of God and the Image of God Male and Female by Elizabeth A. Johnson
William Paul Young on No Small Endeavor
The Shack by William Paul Young
Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth R. Miller
The Crucifixion of the Warrior God by Gregory A. Boyd
Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence by Gregory A. Boyd
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: https://nosmallendeavor.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
51 min
Alister McGrath: Science and Faith Were Never at War (The Ache, Pt. 2)
Show notes
Science can explain the world in an incredibly helpful way, but scientific facts alone can't tell us what our lives are for. In a world shaped by modernity, it can be wildly tempting to chuck religion altogether. But with science alone, we end up in what Max Weber called the iron cage: a world fully explained, but emptied of meaning.
Dr. Alister McGrath grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, amidst conflict across political and religious lines. He became an aggressive Marxist atheist, convinced that religion caused violence and science had made it obsolete. Then, as a chemistry student at Oxford, he met brilliant scientists who believed in God. He then wrestled with the fact that he couldn't prove there wasn't a God. He now holds three Oxford doctorates, in molecular biophysics, theology, and intellectual history, and is Emeritus Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford.
For McGrath, faith became a reason to value science even more. This is part two of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Alister McGrath
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
1 hr 23 min
Unabridged Interview: Belle Tindall-Riley Bonus
Show notes
This is our unabridged interview with Belle Tindall-Riley.
Institutional religion is off the menu for many these days. But walk to the edge of the Glastonbury music festival, and you'll find a packed field people waiting an hour in line to buy crystals, get tarot readings, and have a sound bath from a healer with singing bowls. Our religious impulses didn’t go away. They just got transferred.
It seems, consumerism and individualism are so deeply ingrained that we now pay for membership in whatever community we subscribe to. We buy their trinkets, their supplements, and their merch as symbols of our belonging.
Dr. Belle Tindall-Riley takes the ache underneath all of that seriously. A biblical scholar who spent four years of her doctorate on a single passage, and who grew up in rural Wales lying to her classmates about going to church, she reads each practice like manifesting, tarot, crystals, WitchTok for the true longing beneath it. She examines the limits of a spirituality that always tells you you're doing just fine. You'll come away asking questions of your own spirituality: does it ever tell me no?
This is part one of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series, recorded around the world from Oxford to the Isle of Skye, about the human ache that secularism can't explain and the new spiritualities that may not be able to fill it.
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Belle Tindall-Riley
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
36 min
The Subtext: The Separation of Church & Business Bonus
Show notes
Is a $4,500 networking trip to Mar-a-Lago okay if it's for the kingdom? This week on The Subtext, Lee and Savannah unpack problematic Christian wealth seminars promising financial success for “kingdom impact." They explore the power of proximity, the dangers of “kingdom washing,” and what the early church might have to say about business, debt, and the pursuit of influence. Is Christian language transforming business, or simply baptizing capitalism?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Come see Ira Glass on No Small Endeavor Live at the Symphony!
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
The Gospel of High Yields: Inside Tim Tebow’s Favorite Wealth Seminar
Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: https://nosmallendeavor.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
51 min
Belle Tindall-Riley: Spiritual but Not Religious (The Ache, Pt. 1)
Show notes
Institutional religion is off the menu for many these days. But walk to the edge of the Glastonbury music festival, and you'll find a packed field people waiting an hour in line to buy crystals, get tarot readings, and have a sound bath from a healer with singing bowls. Our religious impulses didn’t go away. They just got transferred.
It seems, consumerism and individualism are so deeply ingrained that we now pay for membership in whatever community we subscribe to. We buy their trinkets, their supplements, and their merch as symbols of our belonging.
Dr. Belle Tindall-Riley takes the ache underneath all of that seriously. A biblical scholar who spent four years of her doctorate on a single passage, and who grew up in rural Wales lying to her classmates about going to church, she reads each practice like manifesting, tarot, crystals, WitchTok for the true longing beneath it. She examines the limits of a spirituality that always tells you you're doing just fine. You'll come away asking questions of your own spirituality: does it ever tell me no?
This is part one of The Ache: The Longing Modernity Couldn't Cure, a three-part No Small Endeavor series, recorded around the world from Oxford to the Isle of Skye, about the human ache that secularism can't explain and the new spiritualities that may not be able to fill it.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Belle Tindall-Riley
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc funder DOI 501100011730) through grant https://doi.org/10.54224/35684. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
1 hr 20 min
Unabridged Interview: Kristin Kobes Du Mez Bonus
Show notes
This is our unabridged interview with Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
That "Live, Laugh, Love" sign at Target isn't just decor. It's a theological statement, and it has a 150-year history most of us have never heard.
Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the New York Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, argues that American Christian women have been formed more by the gift aisle than by the seminary. In her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, she traces a 19th-century promise, that submission and a positive attitude will be rewarded with blessing, as it merges with the secular philosophy of positive thinking and spreads through Christian romance novels, radio, home decor, and multi-level marketing. Lee and Kristin explore why doubt came to be treated as sin, and how a theology championed by a suffragist ended up demanding women's submission to men.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
•
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
•
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
•
Weekly reflections on a good life
•
Access to live show videos
•
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
56 min
The Subtext: Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, and Vanity Politics
Show notes
This week on The Subtext: Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, free speech, and the billionaire power behind the music business. Lee and Savannah unpack the controversy, looking to Dolly Parton as a guide.
What happens when public outrage becomes a purity test? Is it all just “vanity politics,” or what are we actually doing about the things we say we care about?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Olivia Fox Cabane (on the science of charisma) on Armchair Expert
The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane
Christ in the Rubble by Munther Isaac
Munther Isaac on No Small Endeavor
Dr. Queenie Johnson’s Analysis on what she calls “Vanity Politics”
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
50 min
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: The Secret History of White Christian Women
Show notes
That "Live, Laugh, Love" sign at Target isn't just decor. It's a theological statement, and it has a 150-year history most of us have never heard.
Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the New York Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, argues that American Christian women have been formed more by the gift aisle than by the seminary. In her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, she traces a 19th-century promise, that submission and a positive attitude will be rewarded with blessing, as it merges with the secular philosophy of positive thinking and spreads through Christian romance novels, radio, home decor, and multi-level marketing. Lee and Kristin explore why doubt came to be treated as sin, and how a theology championed by a suffragist ended up demanding women's submission to men.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1 hr 7 min
Unabridged Interview: Annie F. Downs Bonus
Show notes
This is our unabridged interview with Annie F. Downs.
What's holding you back from your dreams? Annie F. Downs wants to help you diagnose and respond to that question. She says often what’s holding you back is rooted in something that was either stolen, killed, or destroyed.
In this conversation, the New York Times bestselling author and Lee talk about her new book, Don't Let That Hold You Back.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Annie F. Downs
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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45 min
The Subtext: How to Leave Your Church - Ask Us Anything 2 Bonus
Show notes
It’s the first birthday of The Subtext! Savannah and Lee celebrate with an “Ask Us Everything” episode, answering listener questions about Bible translations, music, patriotism, how to leave your church community, and more.
Thank you to everyone who made year one of The Subtext special. We love you! Send your AMA questions anytime to us @thesubtextshow on Instagram or to info@nosmallendeavor.com
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Join us for No Small Endeavor Live November 22 - The Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Méditation from the opera Thaïs by Jules Massenet
Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber
Down There by the Train by Tom Waits
A Change is Going to Come by Sam Cooke
Little Girl Blue by Nina Simone
Kim Stanley Robinson on No Small Endeavor
Consumerist corner: Stanley cup, Apple AirTag, Exfoliating Lip Balm
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: https://nosmallendeavor.com/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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51 min
Annie F. Downs: What’s Holding You Back?
Show notes
What's holding you back from your dreams? Annie F. Downs wants to help you diagnose and respond to that question. She says often what’s holding you back is rooted in something that was either stolen, killed, or destroyed.
In this conversation, the New York Times bestselling author and Lee talk about her new book, Don't Let That Hold You Back.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Annie F. Downs
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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58 min
Unabridged Interview: Marisa Franco Bonus
Show notes
This is our unabridged interview with Marisa Franco.
Attachment theory is trendy right now, and the goal is often the coveted title of "securely attached." If you’re that, then you're always calm, never spiraling, never needing anyone to hold your feelings for you. Psychologist Marisa Franco built her career studying attachment, but when she started to look at the parts of her that weren’t so secure, she began to “approach these parts of myself that I struggle with as these parts are perfect, too.”
Franco is a psychologist and assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland and the author of the New York Times bestseller Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends. Her new book, Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment, argues that real security starts on the inside, in how you treat your own feelings, not in how well you manage everyone else's.
Key Ideas
Reassurance Can Backfire — Telling someone they're wonderful can leave them feeling more alone, not less, because it collides with what they already believe about themselves.
Confront Your Own Feelings Before You Hand Them to Someone Else — The healthiest response to hurt starts with naming it privately, not making another person immediately responsible for it.
Worth and Behavior Aren't the Same Measurement — You can do something genuinely unhealthy and still hold full value as a person; collapsing the two makes change harder, not easier.
Shame Rarely Produces Lasting Change — People who change out of shame usually just trade one form of self-punishment for another, since the underlying pain never got addressed.
Memories Are Predictions, Not Fixed Records — Revisiting a painful memory and offering yourself the care you needed at the time can change how that memory is stored and how much power it still holds.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Marisa Franco
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
48 min
The Subtext: Gen Z’s Speaking Problem, Revisiting Nate Bargatze, Meta’s Child Safety Settlement Bonus
Show notes
Turns out, Gen Z is talking less, scrolling more, and forgetting how to be human.
This week, Savannah and Lee unpack the surprising decline in everyday conversation and why talking to strangers actually matters. Then a listener’s question prompts them to revisit Nate Bargatze drama. Does calling in vs. calling out work with public figures?
And things get spicy when they dive into Meta’s $17 billion child-safety settlement, social media addiction, kids and algorithms, free speech, government regulation, and the complicated question of who gets to shape us online.
Tell us what you think! DM us on Instagram @thesubtextshow
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Gen Zs like me are speaking 451 words fewer every day – and I know why by Esme Gordon Craig
Heather Holleman on No Small Endeavor
Jemar Tisby on No Small Endeavor
James Lawson on No Small Endeavor
Free Speech Part 1 - The Subtext
Free Speech Part 2 - The Subtext
The Social Reckoning Trailer
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
-
51 min
Marisa Franco: Why Secure-ish Beats Perfectly Secure
Show notes
Attachment theory is trendy right now, and the goal is often the coveted title of "securely attached." If you’re that, then you're always calm, never spiraling, never needing anyone to hold your feelings for you. Psychologist Marisa Franco built her career studying attachment, but when she started to look at the parts of her that weren’t so secure, she began to “approach these parts of myself that I struggle with as these parts are perfect, too.”
Franco is a psychologist and assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland and the author of the New York Times bestseller Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends. Her new book, Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment, argues that real security starts on the inside, in how you treat your own feelings, not in how well you manage everyone else's.
Key Ideas
Reassurance Can Backfire — Telling someone they're wonderful can leave them feeling more alone, not less, because it collides with what they already believe about themselves.
Confront Your Own Feelings Before You Hand Them to Someone Else — The healthiest response to hurt starts with naming it privately, not making another person immediately responsible for it.
Worth and Behavior Aren't the Same Measurement — You can do something genuinely unhealthy and still hold full value as a person; collapsing the two makes change harder, not easier.
Shame Rarely Produces Lasting Change — People who change out of shame usually just trade one form of self-punishment for another, since the underlying pain never got addressed.
Memories Are Predictions, Not Fixed Records — Revisiting a painful memory and offering yourself the care you needed at the time can change how that memory is stored and how much power it still holds.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Marisa Franco
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville: https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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