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Conversing with Mark Labberton

Conversing with Mark Labberton offers transformative encounters with leaders and creators shaping our world. Each episode explores the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, providing listeners with valuable insights and practical wisdom for living faithfully in a complex world.
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Now displaying: September, 2024

As president and ambassador of Fuller Theological Seminary, Mark Labberton takes the occasion of his travels to speak with a broad spectrum of leaders on issues at the heart of the seminary's mission.

Sep 24, 2024

“I’m here because you’re here.”

Berkeley, California is known for being the home to the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. It was and is the site of many protests, drawing vocal minorities to Sproul Plaza and People’s Park for demonstrations, activism, and public assembly. So it’s come to symbolize what it means to speak out and be heard. But what does it mean to minister to an energized public square?

In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton thinks back to his time ministering in Berkeley, CA. First Presbyterian Church remains a close neighbor to the University of California, Berkeley campus. He describes an approach to public engagement marked by generous listening, a desire to know the individuals so moved to protest and speak out, and offer faithful presence to a community dedicated to protest and activism.

About Conversing Shorts

“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”

About Mark Labberton

Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.

Show Notes

  • Berkeley, CA
  • People’s Park
  • Sproul Plaza (site of famous Free Speech Protests of the 1960s)
  • How to intensify their thirst?
  • “What I really wanted was a conversation.”
  • “Listening to God, which is what the life of Christian worship actually is.”
  • “Living a life of listening, which is central to all Christian discipleship.”
  • “I’m here because you’re here.”
  • “I wish there had been a lineup of protesters outside first press asking, ‘How dare you?’… why are we not gathering protestors?”
  • “I was wanting to so authentically speak and preach and live the gospel, that we would be the peculiar people that would cause people to say, ‘Why are you so peculiar?’—not just in that sense of church oddness, but in that deeper sense of why are you the peculiar people of unexplained mercy, unexplained forgiveness, unexplained passion for justice, unexplained sensitivity to individuals, and to societal, social, and systemic needs.”

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Sep 17, 2024

“Wisdom is not just about knowledge. Wisdom adds to knowledge with discernment, with understanding, with a moral sense of what’s right and wrong.”

We live in a time of overflowing and interweaving crises. A global pandemic exacerbates a mental health crisis caused social media technology. The upheaval of American electoral politics caused by an erosion (or breakdown?) of social and relational trust. The rise of nationalism, the proliferation of war, and longing for justice in the realms of gender and race.

Underneath it all appears to be a crisis of knowledge and its convergence around skepticism of science, a culture of suspicion, and confusion about basic factual information, let alone right and wrong.

We need wisdom. Badly. But in times of crisis and chaos, where are we to turn for wisdom?

In this episode Mark Labberton is joined by longtime friend Francis Collins, physician, researcher, and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Known for his leadership in mapping the human genome, his public service at the NIH spanned three presidencies and culminated with overseeing the national response to Covid-19 pandemic.

The author of many books, including his bestselling The Language of God, Collins’s new book is *The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust,* a reflection on the crisis of truth, science, faith, and trust, and how the exhausted middle might chart a path toward a better future.

About Francis Collins

Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, is the former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As the longest serving director of NIH—spanning twelve years and three presidencies—he oversaw the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, from basic to clinical research.

Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993 to 2008.

Collins's research laboratory has discovered a number of important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease, a familial endocrine cancer syndrome, and most recently, genes for type 2 diabetes, and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare condition that causes premature aging.

Collins received a BS in chemistry from the University of Virginia, a PhD in physical chemistry from Yale University, and an MD with honours from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to the NIH in 1993, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2007 and the National Medal of Science in 2009.

Show Notes

  • Get your copy of The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust
  • “The crisis behind the crisis. It’s the crisis of culture. It’s the crisis of mind and heart. It’s the crisis of society. It’s the crisis of faith.”
  • Collins occupying various roles through this book: professor, advocate, mentor, philosopher, coach, scientist, pathologist, and perhaps most saliently, cultural diagnostician.
  • Being on the road to wisdom
  • Helping those in the exhausted middle, to offer ways to do something to address cultural crises
  • Collins summarizes the arc of the book
  • TRUTH: “There is such a thing as objective truth. But it is not necessarily very popular in many circumstances.”
  • “Facts—*established facts—*are now sometimes called into question because somebody doesn’t like the fact.”
  • Jonathan Rauch on the “Constitution of Knowledge”
  • “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. He doesn’t say the counter that lies will imprison you, but you might have to think about that.”
  • Science as a pathway to the truth
  • Anecdotes vs. empirical science
  • “We have to bring faith into this conversation if we’re trying to shape a future that it gives you a chance to tap into all the wisdom that's there.”
  • TRUST: “I found in my own experience, some of the information that turned out to be most life-changing came from a source that I never would have considered as part of my reliable circle of buddies, but I needed to hear it.”
  • “Wisdom is not just about knowledge. Wisdom adds to knowledge with discernment, with understanding, with a moral sense of what’s right and wrong.”
  • “Our society is in trouble.”
  • Where will the solution come from? No politicians, not media, but only us.
  • Empowering people to be part of the solution
  • “Love is your calling. Anger and fear are not your calling.”
  • “Listen to understand.”
  • Don’t distribute information unless you’re sure it’s true.
  • Build bridges with neighbours and within communities.
  • Braver Angels Website
  • “If you put information in front of people that’s well established, they’ll make rational decisions. And I assume that’s what science is all about.”
  • Collins’s experience leading the charge to develop Covid-19 vaccines, and then managing the resistance to vaccines
  • “People of faith in many instances were the most likely to fall into the category of not trusting what science had to say.”
  • The cultural crisis beneath the medical crisis of Covid vaccine skepticism
  • Collins reflects on public health responses to Covid-19 (school closures, mask mandates, etc.)
  • Systemic breakdown caused by fear, anxiety, distrust, and suspicion
  • Collins comments on Anthony Fauci’s public service throughout Covid-19
  • Discrediting and redefining science, subverting faith
  • Postmodernism and the erasure of objectivity and reason in science
  • “Nothing is true except our perspective.”
  • Francis Collins’s perspectives on the Christian church
  • Christians’ ungrounded fear that this is a war
  • Tim Alberta’s book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
  • “Seeing through a glass darkly.” (1 Cor 13)
  • A book of hope and whole human experience
  • “There are profound reasons for each of us to engage. This is an argument about not standing aside. It’s crucial to see that what we are fighting for is great and glorious, and worth every bit of the effort from each of us. Truth, science, faith, and trust are not just sources of relief from a painful period in our country’s life. They represent the grandest achievements and insights of human civilization. They literally hold down the promise of a better life for every person on this planet in material terms, in spiritual terms, and in social and cultural terms. To take up this challenge is therefore not an act one of exhaustion or desperation. But one arising from the hopeful pursuit of the promise of greater flourishing of our entire humandom.”

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Sep 10, 2024

Is perfection possible? And if so, is it worth the cost to your mental and spiritual health?

The quest for perfection haunts many people: students, athletes, employees, parents—and the children of those parents!

While this quest is often framed as the pursuit of excellence, virtue, and success, perfectionism often results in various maladaptive behaviours—such as procrastination, people-pleasing, relational stress, and mental illnesses, including anxiety and depression disorders.

In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes Dr. Kenneth Wang, Professor of Psychology at Fuller School of Psychology, to talk about the psychological and spiritual dynamics of perfectionism.

Together, they explore the connections between perfectionism and a range of personal and mental health issues, such as depression, achievement, religiosity, racial identity, and self-esteem. They reflect on the cultural obsession with perfection; the severe psychological and social burdens of trying to be perfect; the toxicity of comparison to others; the meaning of being “good enough”; and the spiritual impact of encouraging perfection in education, career, relationships, and personal life.

About Kenneth Wang

Kenneth Wang is Professor of Psychology at Fuller School of Psychology. He’s an experienced therapist, and has conducted extensive research that spans the psychology of religion, to mindful meditation, to coping with trauma, mental health and race, moral character and virtue formation, diversity, and cross-cultural adjustment. His expertise is in the psychological study of perfectionism in familial, educational, religious contexts—looking at the phenomenon across a variety of cultures. Visit Dr. Kenneth Wang’s website to take an online assessment for perfectionism and consider guidance and coaching from Dr. Wang.

Show Notes

  • Societal perfectionism and the lure of the perfect through technology
  • Comparing perfectionism in Asia vs America
  • Comparing ourselves to others
  • “Editing for the perfect shot”
  • “There’s no time to relax or rest.”
  • “One thing that's underlying challenges of perfectionism is that we compare ourselves with others and we feel like we're not good enough.”
  • Rank-ordered report cards in Taiwan
  • The psychological weight of pressure to perform
  • Competition and perfectionism
  • The elusive search for contentment
  • The difference between performance and perfectionism
  • Perfectionism’s two core dimensions: (1) striving to meet very high standards of excellence / (2) discrepancy or evaluative concerns—being truly bothered by any amount of imperfections
  • “Extreme perfectionists can’t tolerate any imperfection.”
  • Shame, rumination, and anxiety
  • Kenneth guides Mark through a live perfectionism evaluation
  • “Is your best good enough?”
  • “Adaptive perfectionism”
  • “I did the best I could” vs “I’m sure I always could have done better.”
  • Cross-cultural dimensions of perfectionism: wanting to fit in, the exhaustion of trying to get things right, and language apprehensiveness
  • Timidity and fear to make a mistake
  • Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and perfectionism
  • The view of oneself: performance achievement mentality, seeking validation, unstable self-worth
  • Perfectionists magnify imperfections
  • Inner critic
  • Kenneth Wang’s recovery as a perfectionism
  • Can perfectionists forgive themselves for displeasing others?
  • How to deal with the emotions that come along with perfectionist catastrophizing
  • Training mental muscles to become more resilient to negative emotions
  • How to “sit with emotions”
  • Japanese Kintsugi practices and the visibility of a history of brokenness: gold paint that highlights brokenness and imperfect repair
  • Theological reflections on perfection: “Only God is perfect.”
  • How does Christianity speak into perfectionism with grace and truth?
  • “I am the vine, you are the branches.”
  • Shame and giving up on our illusions of perfection
  • Coping with inadequacy
  • Allowing God to lead us into the broad place instead of the narrow place
  • Fuller Theological Seminary’s “Imperfect Culture Lab”

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Sep 3, 2024

The news media offers a steady drip of audacity, nerve, and offence—something for each end of the political spectrum and every corner of the public square.

But when we integrate audacity with a humble confidence, it can lead to powerful acts of love and justice.

The gospel makes an audacious claim about God’s grace. It makes an audacious demand that we love our neighbours in humility. And that combination of audacity and humility keeps us seeking to engage in real conversations about ultimate things—despite our differences, despite resentments, despite all the reasons to give up on building something together.

In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton reflects on the meaning of audacity, humility, and courage when the church engages in public life.

About Conversing Shorts

“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”

About Mark Labberton

Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.

Show Notes

  • What is audacity?
  • Virtuous audacity, e.g., The Audacity of Hope (like Barack Obama)
  • Injurious audacity, e.g., preposterous, foolish, offensive, distorting, railroading, steamrolling, shutting down, closing off
  • But an additional form of audacity “has led to the humblest and most sacrificial forms of human service and love and compassion and mercy and justice.”
  • Imagine a crowd of Berkeley, CA, protesters lined up before you, demanding: “How dare you?”
  • Audacity and courage
  • “It actually helped galvanize in my own voice—in my heart, in my lungs, in my mind—a sense of what I hope was humble confidence in proclaiming a gospel that I did and do believe is true.”
  • “How do we actually engage in real conversation about ultimate things?”
  • Adopting a stance of “we are all in this together”
  • “How dare we believe and speak in God’s name?”
  • “Indeed how dare I, and then also how dare I not if this is actually true?!”
  • Integrating humility, confidence, courage

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

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