Daniel Darling is an award-winning writer, bestselling author of fifteen books, pastor and Christian leader who regularly appears on and contributes to national news and media outlets. He currently serves as the Director of The Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Assistant Professor of Faith and Culture at Texas Baptist College.Daniel hosts the weekly podcast, The Way Home, featuring conversations with key Christian leaders on church, community and culture. He also speaks at churches and conferences around the country.Prior to his leadership of the Land Center, Darling served as the Senior Vice President for Communications of the National Religious Broadcasters. He also has served the Southern Baptist Convention as the Vice President of Communications at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He has also pastored churches in Illinois and Tennessee.Daniel's newest book is Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loved (Zondervan, 2023). In this book, Daniel explores practical ways we can follow the Bible's commend to "strive actively for peace" even in a painfully divided church, county, and world.Guest Links:Website (https://danieldarling.com/)SubstackFacebook (@danieldarling)Twitter/X (@dandarling)Instagram (@_dandarling)

In this episode, I talk with my friend and colleague Shane Claiborne about his passion for gun violence prevention, his faith journey, and his work as founder of The Simple Way and leader of Red Letter Christians, a movement of folks who are committed to living "as if Jesus meant the things he said." Shane is a champion for grace which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war. Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence. Shane also works closely with RAWtools, a gun violence prevention organization with a mission to disarm hearts, forge peace, and cultivate justice.Shane’s books include Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence (2019), and his newest book, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person (released February 2023).In our discussion, Shane helpfully shares where and how he finds hope and encouragement in the work of gun violence prevention. Listeners will find this an uplifting and refreshing treatment of gun violence from a lens of faith-filled hope.Guest Links:http://www.shaneclaiborne.com/https://www.redletterchristians.org/https://rawtools.org/https://thesimpleway.org/If you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at www.markbeckwith.net, where you can listen to more episodes (and read episode transcripts), read my blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines. This episode of the Reconciliation Roundtable podcast was edited, mixed, and produced by Luke Overstreet.

In this episode, I had a chance to talk to Dr. Gilford (Gil) T. Monrose, who is based in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He is doing amazing work serving humanity, building bridges, and working on gun violence prevention. Our conversation touches on how his faith anchors him and, when gun violence met Pastor Monrose "at the front door" of his church, how his faith compelled him to respond out of love for his neighbors.A proud native of the United States Virgin Islands, Pastor Gil relocated to New York in 1999 to pursue studies at Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary. Pastor Gil always had a passion to serve the church, especially young people. He has served as the pastor of the now-historic Mt. Zion Church of God 7th Day church in East Flatbush, Brooklyn New York, since his ordination in 2005.As the Director of Faith-Based and Clergy Initiatives in the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President and as Founding President of the 67th Precinct Clergy Council, Pastor Monrose successfully brings together faith leaders and clergy of diverse traditions to improve Brooklyn’s communities, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.Guest Links:https://linktr.ee/pastormonrosehttps://www.facebook.com/pastormonrose/https://www.instagram.com/pastormonrose/https://twitter.com/pastormonroseIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at www.markbeckwith.net, where you can listen to more episodes (and read episode transcripts), read my blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines. This episode of the Reconciliation Roundtable podcast was edited, mixed, and produced by Luke Overstreet.

In this week's episode, guest and friend John Wood Jr. joins me to discuss his "unorthodox path to Christianity" involving a beautiful journey of the heart facilitated by lessons he learned from his parents, by performing music, meeting the woman who would become his wife, and encountering Christ in others. John also shares about his pathway to working as the National Ambassador at Braver Angels, America's largest bipartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to the work of political depolarization, which you will remember as the same organization co-founded by David Blankenhorn (Episode 2), to overcome tensions, foster understanding, and help people find common ground.John is a public intellectual, speaking, writing and organizing Americans around issues of civil society, depolarization and the practical application of moral philosophy. John writes an opinion column at USA Today, was a nominee for congress in California's 43rd district in the 2014 election cycle, and served as 2nd Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. John is a highly regarded public speaker on matters of racial and political reconciliation. He is a member of the Progress Network, an initiative of the New America Foundation dedicated to foster civilizational progress through thought leadership across a wide spectrum of views, a field builder with New Pluralists, a collaborative of organizations dedicated to civic bridge-building and racial justice, and an advisor with the American Project: an initiative of the Pepperdine School of Public Policy dedicated to restoring the communitarian roots of conservatism. John also hosts the "Uniting America with John Wood Jr." podcast.Guest Linkshttps://linktr.ee/johnwoodjrIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at www.markbeckwith.net, where you can listen to more episodes (and read episode transcripts), read my blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines. This episode of the Reconciliation Roundtable podcast was edited, mixed, and produced by Luke Overstreet.

This week I had the chance to talk with a friend of mine, David Blankenhorn, about his passion for building bridges of understanding and helping people find common ground. You’ll learn about his journey from growing up in Mississippi to the inspiration behind an initiative he co-founded and leads called Braver Angels, a grassroots movement to restore civic trust that seeks to bring Americans together to bridge the growing partisan divide. David served as host of the Braver Angels Convention, held July 5-8, 2023 in Gettsyburg, Pa., where nearly 500 Braver Angels members along with 200 representatives from partner organizations met to launch a national movement to depolarize America. David is the author of In Search of Braver Angels: Getting Along Together in Troubled Times (2022) and has authored or co-edited 14 books.Guest Website/Social Media: https://braverangels.org/https://twitter.com/blankenhorn3Thank You For Listening:If you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at www.markbeckwith.net, where you can listen to more episodes (and read episode transcripts), read my blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines (Morehouse Publishing, 2022). This episode of the Reconciliation Roundtable podcast was edited, mixed, and produced by Luke Overstreet.

Welcome to the first episode of Reconciliation Roundtable, a new podcast where we discuss building bridges of understanding across religious and political difference.This week I had the chance to talk with a friend and collaborator, Reverend Rob Schenck, about his path to God and what he calls his journey of "three conversions," from childhood Jewish roots to Christianity, from a pure faith to a highly politicized one, and from a radical role in the religious right to an epiphany that caused him to return to the simple Gospel that first drew him to Christianity.You'll learn about the transformations that led Rob on his remarkable journey from the epicenter of the religious right to becoming the reluctant subject of an Emmy-award-winning documentary to his rise as a highly regarded public theologian known for his open and accessible style. To hear more of Rob's story and journey of transformation, you can read his memoir Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love (Harper Collins, 2018).Guest Website/Social Media: www.revrobschenck.comhttps://www.facebook.com/RevRobSchenck/If you enjoy this podcast and would like to find more content like this, please visit my website at www.markbeckwith.net, where you can listen to more episodes, read my blog, and sign up to get weekly reflections in your inbox. I also explore the themes of this podcast further in my book, Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines (Morehouse Publishing, 2022).This episode of the Reconciliation Roundtable podcast was edited, mixed, and produced by Luke Overstreet. Full episode text transcripts can be accessed at https://www.markbeckwith.net/podcast