In this episode, Tia Levings returns to talk about her new book I Belong to Me - a guide to healing and recovery after high-control religion and other controlling environments. Tia walks through what she calls the steps before the steps: the audacity, the centrality, the willingness to want something different before you're even ready to name what happened to you. We talk about why language can free you and trap you at the same time, how cult-hopping happens and why, what developmental stages get stolen in high-control systems, and how somatic and body-based modalities opened up healing that talk therapy alone couldn't reach. This is a grounded, honest conversation about what it looks like to start to become the protagonist of your own story.

Tia Levings is the New York Times Bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife, her memoir of escape from Christian Patriarchy and I Belong to Me: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery and Hope after Religious Trauma. She writes about the realities of religious trauma, evangelical patriarchy, and the Trad wife life, decoding the fundamentalist influences in our news and culture. Her work and quotes have appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, Newsweek, and the HuffingtonPost. She is an experienced interviewee, speaker, and podcast guest, and has appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series, Shiny Happy People. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, she is mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, hike, paint, and daydream. Find her on social media @TiaLevingsWriter.

Tia's Book:

I Belong to Me

Tia's Recommendation:

Heart the Lover

Everything in Color

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What do you do when the fire won't start - when life is full but God feels distant, when faith is intact but the soul is running on empty? In this conversation, I sit down with Tish Harrison Warren, who draws on her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands, to explore acedia, the ancient concept usually translated as sloth but better understood as a sadness that the good is difficult. We trace how the desert fathers and mothers were grappling with the same exhaustion and spiritual languishing that defines our moment and what their practices have to teach us about endurance, formation, and encounter with the living God.

Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of several books, including Liturgy of the Ordinary, which won Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night, which won Christianity Today’s 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year. She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for The New York Times, which focused on faith in public discourse and private life. She was also a columnist at Christianity Today. Her articles and essays have appeared in Comment Magazine, the The Point Magazine, Religion News Service, and elsewhere. She currently serves as the C.S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence for The Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three children.

Tish's Book:

What Grows in Weary Lands

Tish's Recommendation:

Liturgies of the Wild

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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In this episode, I sit down with Eric Clayton to explore the spirituality of Star Wars and why these stories still shape how we see ourselves and the world. We talk about the cave on Dagobah, the pull of the dark side, nonviolence, discernment, and how stories can become spaces where God meets us and forms us - if we’re paying attention. We get into holy indifference, the tension between action and waiting, and what it means to choose a different way in the middle of chaos. This conversation is about learning to notice what’s stirring in us and to embody a better story in our everyday lives.

Eric Clayton is an award-winning author and the deputy director for communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. His books include, Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness, My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars, and more. His writing has appeared in America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, US Catholic, among others, and he is a frequent contributor to Give Us This Day and IgnatianSpirituality.com. Eric lives outside of Baltimore, Maryland, with his family. Learn more at ericclaytonwrites.com.

Eric's Book:

My Life with the Jedi

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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In this episode, I talk with Scot McKnight and Adrienne Gibson about their new book Traumatized Church, and what it looks like to read Paul, and our congregations, through a trauma-informed lens. We explore what trauma actually is, how it lives in the body, and why so many people are being quietly re-traumatized in the very communities meant to heal them. The conversation moves between Paul's raw letter in 2 Corinthians and the practical work of building churches that are safe, full of mutuality, and honest about the pain in the room.

Scot McKnight (PhD, Nottingham) has been a Professor of New Testament for more than four decades. He is the author of more than ninety books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed as well as The King Jesus Gospel, A Fellowship of Differents, One.Life, The Blue Parakeet, Revelation for the Rest of Us, and Kingdom Conspiracy.

Adrienne Gibson is a licensed professional counselor (LPC), clinical supervisor for the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners (AZBBHE), and the owner of Valor Counseling. She has been licensed for over two decades, working with children, families, and adults, and has served as a clinical supervisor and clinical director for two large community based mental health agencies in Arizona and Oregon. She has master’s degrees in counseling and New Testament. She regularly speaks on the topic of trauma and healing and consults with denominations on implementing trauma-informed care practices.

Scot & Adrienne's Book:

Traumatized Church

Scot's Recommendation:

Complicity in the Holocaust

Adrienne's Recommendation:

The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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We’re living in a fractured world, pulled in a thousand directions, unsure what it actually means to live a good life. In this episode, I talk with Alan Noble about virtue, telos, and how prudence, justice, courage, temperance, faith, hope, and love reorient us toward a life that is whole, grounded, and shaped by the way of Jesus. We explore decision-making, suffering, agency, and hope - and what it looks like to actually embody these virtues in everyday life.

Dr. O. Alan Noble is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, and author of four books, including: To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living, and You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World. Dr. Noble has published articles at The Atlantic, The Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity Today. He lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and three children.

Alan's Book:

To Live Well

Alan's Recommendation:

The Quest for Community

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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What do you do when the world refuses to become what you know it should be? In this conversation, Steven Garber introduces the concept of "the proximate" - learning to make peace with what is nearly, but not yet, true - in our marriages, our work for justice, and our longing for God's kingdom to come. Drawing on Tolkien, Augustine, the Clapham Society, and the surprising cry of a postmodern novelist, Steven helps us understand the difference between hope and optimism, what it means to carry our wounds into the world as healers, and why the question of what it means to be human may be the most urgent question of our age. His new book is Hints of Hope.

Steven Garber has been teacher of many people in many places for many years, a professor for undergraduates, graduates, and people at work in the world. The founder of the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture, he now serves as the Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good for the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Senior Advisor for the Economics of Mutuality and Senior Fellow for the Institute for Marketplace Transformation; and for several years was the Professor of Marketplace Theology at Regent College, Vancouver BC. The author of several books, his most recent are Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate, Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, and The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work. With his wife Meg, they are the parents of children and grandchildren, and have long lived in Virginia among family, friends and flowers. A native of the mountain valleys of Colorado and California, a geography of people and place which is still a deep home to him.

Steven's Book:

Hints of Hope

Steven's Recommendations:

A Christmas Carol

Les Miserables

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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I sit down with Andrew Root to talk about his new book Baal and the Gods of More and the ways fertility idols still shape how we think about growth in the church. We explore how the drive for more - more people, more influence, more momentum - can pull us away from the way of Jesus, even when we think we’re being faithful. This conversation moves from Elijah to Mary and reframes growth as being formed into Christ, not building something bigger.

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He writes and researches in the areas of theology, ministry, culture, and younger generations and is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the six-volume Ministry in a Secular Age set. Root is also the coauthor (with Kenda Creasy Dean) of The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry. He serves as staff theologian at Youthfront, is a frequent speaker, and cohosts the Ministry in a Secular Age podcast.

Andy's Book:

Baal and the Gods of More

Andy's Recommendation:

The Logic of the Spirit

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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In this episode, I talk with Jason VanRuler about why we keep missing each other in conversation and what’s actually going on beneath the surface. We explore the five communication types - peacemaker, advocate, thinker, harbor, and spark - and how our upbringing, attachment styles, and even shame shape the way we speak and listen. Jason offers a practical way forward: growing in self-awareness, understanding the person in front of you, and shifting from trying to win or convince to actually connecting.

​​Jason VanRuler, MA, CSAT, is a psychotherapist, author, and nationally recognized speaker specializing in communication, attachment, and relationships. He’s the author of Discovering Your Communication Type and Get Past Your Past and founder of a thriving private practice. Known for blending insight, story, and strategy, Jason leads workshops, retreats, and intensives that explore the patterns shaping how we connect, lead, and thrive. His work creates space for clarity, growth, and lasting change. He lives with his wife and three children and enjoys travel, cycling, and fly fishing.

Jason's Book:

Discovering Your Communication Type

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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