“The Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together.”

American political life today is fractured and splintered, but many still yearn for unity. How can we find social cohesion amid sharply felt differences? Political scientist Yuval Levin wants to bring us back to our founding document: the American Constitution. After all, the Preamble identifies as its primary purposes to “form a more perfect union” and “establish justice.”

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Currie Chair in Public Policy. His latest book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. He’s founder of National Affairs, senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor of National Review, and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.

Levin joins Mark Labberton to discuss the US Constitution’s purpose in fostering social cohesion and unity; the malfunction of Congress to build coalitions across disagreement; the values of social order and social justice; the fragility of democracy; the difference between a contract and a covenant; and the American aspiration to live up to the covenantal relationship and mutual belonging implied in “We the people.”

About Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.

At AEI, Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish.

Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.

In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024).

He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Show Notes

• Get your copy of Yuval Levin’s American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again
• Yuval Levin’s background as a Jewish American and his childhood immigration to the United States from Israel.
• Yuval has “the kind of vision that sometimes immigrants have, which combines a really deep gratitude for this country with a sense of what's unique about it, and what's wonderfully strange about it.”
• Yuval’s religious practice at a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Washington, DC.
• How Torah has shaped Yuval Levin’s life and thought.
• Torah is Hebrew for “law.”
• Annual cycle of reading and immersing oneself in a text.
• “The American Constitution is not divine. It’s the work of a patchwork of compromises, it has a lot of problems, by no means do I think that it’s analogous to the Hebrew Bible.”
• Why write a book about the American Constitution?
• How to understand the constitution as a framework for social cohesion and unity.
• “Even in the private lives of a lot of Americans, I think the sense of isolation, of alienation, breakdown of social cohesion is very powerful in the lives of a lot of people.”
• Constitution is intended to unify, but it’s been used to divide.
• James Madison as a primary figure in Yuval’s new book.
• “Americans tend to approach politics by thinking of other Americans as the problem to be solved.”
• “In any free society, there are always going to be divisions.”
• James Madison in Federalist 10: “He just says, simply: As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he’s at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. The fact that we disagree is not a failure. It is a reality. And yet, that doesn’t mean that we can’t be unified.”
• Unity doesn’t mean thinking alike, it means acting together.
• “The Constitution compels us into building coalitions with precisely the people we disagree with.”
• Yuval Levin explains the premises behind his book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
• Social order versus social justice
• “There are, as a general matter, more or less two ways of thinking about the purpose of a free society like ours. There is a way of seeing it as intended to address the challenge of chaos and disorder, and there is a way of seeing it as intended to address the challenge of inequality and injustice.”
• “… the premise of human fallenness, which says that we begin unready for freedom. And we need to be formed and shaped to be capable of freedom.”
• “I think it’s worth our seeing the Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together, which has these two sides to it. And so it has a lot to offer us.”
• Social order as “patient to a fault” and “prejudicial toward white or elite culture.”
• Ideological extremism.
• “The most dangerous kinds of abuses of the weak happen at the hands of majorities. And therefore, democracy itself has to be constrained by principles of justice that are kept beyond the reach of majorities.”
• The question of “simple majority rule.”
• Populism.
• Two minority parties, rather than a majority party.
• Coalition building is just not being allowed to play out.
• Shared action versus shared ideas.
• Congress is about acting together when you don’t think alike.
• “Clearly there is something broken about Congress… Everybody agrees the institution is dysfunctional. I don't think everybody agrees about what function it isn't performing.”
• “Their job is actually to negotiate with the other party.”
• “I think that's fed a kind of attitude among a lot of prominent politicians in America that says, fighting for my constituents means yelling at the other party, and refusing to give ground, refusing to give an inch. That's actually not what fighting looks like in our kind of democracy. That's what losing looks like. Fighting looks like effectively bargaining and negotiating so as to achieve something of what your voters want or need.
• Partisanship, reactionary politics, and cynicism
• “I've come to think that cynicism about politics is actually very naive.”
• “The people you're dealing with are not cynical Machiavellians. They really believe they're doing good here, and there actually is room to have an argument.”
• How does justice operate in the political approach Yuval Levin advocates?
• The first two purposes of the Constitution: form a more perfect union, and establish justice.
• Who gets to decide what is just?
• Human equality and dignity as the premises for justice
• Why wasn’t slavery abolished in the Constitution itself?
• Native Americans and the abuse of human dignity
• Analogy: relating to our political or religious tradition as analogous to the child–parent relationship
• Seeking a mature relationship with our traditions
• Yuval Levin on the fragility of democracy: “Our democracy is often at risk.”
• Contract (an agreement that can be broken) vs. Covenant (a relationship of belonging)
• “’We the people of the United States.’ That “we” is an aspiration.”
• Yuval Levin’s perspective on the American Church, and how it contributes to the current social crisis
• American evangelicals coming to identify as an “embattled minority” or a “moral minority”
• Judging the success of a religious community by their influence as a political block
• “The particularly Madisonian logic of the Constitution is that everyone is a minority. … And that is not a position of weakness, necessarily, in this society. This is a society that is unusually solicitous of minorities. And when it's at its best, it is especially solicitous of minorities.”

Production Credits

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

“All of our emotions are there for a good reason. They’re positive. They want to help. And a little anxiety is good. … All of society is saying, ‘Get rid of emotion. It's awful. It's evil.’ It's not true.”

In this episode, Mark welcomes Pete Docter, executive producer of Inside Out 2, and the Oscar-winning director of Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out. Pete joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1990 at twenty-one years old as its third animator, and is now Pixar’s chief creative officer.

Mark and Pete discuss the ins and outs of Inside Out 2, including its themes about emotion, psychology, adolescence, and the discovery and acceptance of who we are. Pete reflects on the power of music to convey unconscious meaning, alongside the subtle and sophisticated animation techniques used by Pixar today. We learn about the new emotion characters (including Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui), as well as those that almost made the cut. And Pete comments on the spiritual and moral dimensions that Inside Out 2 is able to explore.

About Pete Docter

Pete Docter is the Oscar-winning director of Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, and chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios. He most recently directed Disney and Pixar’s Oscar-winning feature film Soul with producer Dana Murray and co-director Kemp Powers, which is now streaming on Disney+.

Starting at Pixar in 1990 as the studio’s third animator, Docter collaborated on and helped develop the story and characters for Toy Story, Pixar’s first full-length animated feature film, for which he also was supervising animator. He served as a storyboard artist on A Bug’s Life and wrote initial story treatments for both Toy Story 2 and WALL•E. Aside from directing his three films, Docter also executive produced Monsters University and the Academy Award–winning Brave.

Docter’s interest in animation began at the age of eight, when he created his first flipbook. He studied character animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where he produced a variety of short films, one of which won a Student Academy Award. Those films have since been shown in animation festivals worldwide and are featured on the Pixar Short Films Collection, volume 2. Upon joining Pixar, he animated and directed several commercials, and has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature–winners Up and Inside Out and nominee Monsters, Inc., and Best Original Screenplay for Up, Inside Out and WALL•E. In 2010, Up also was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Show Notes

• Continuity and discontinuity in Inside Out 2
• Pete Docter comments on the main character/setting of Inside Out series: Riley and what’s going on inside her head.
• Some psychologists think there are 27 emotions
• Puberty and adolescence
• New emotions: Bringing Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui (Boredom) into the picture
• Anxiety as the new protagonist
• Changing body and outgrowing an old sweater
• Riley’s pimple: “That was something that Kelsey Mann, the director, was big on from the beginning. He would say, we were so used to seeing characters represented in this perfect, idealized way. And yet, when we look at the mirror, we realize, ‘Hey, I don't measure up to that.’ That was kind of the message of the film from the beginning—is learning to accept yourself. You know, the flaws and all, because that's so much of our civilization is measuring ourselves against others. And especially that period in time growing up, you're suddenly socially aware, and where you fit in or don't.”
• From family to friends as the dominant group
• “All of our emotions are there for a good reason. They're positive. They want to help. And a little anxiety is good. Lisa L'Amour, who was a consultant on the film, her big thing is like, all of society is saying, ‘Get rid of emotion. It's awful. It's evil.’ It's not true.”
• Researching the psychology of emotion for the film, and experimenting with various emotions as characters
• Anxiety as subtly controlling
• Schadenfreude almost made Inside Out and Inside Out 2 as a gag.
• Anxiety is not directly related to puberty.
• “Who are we? What are the things that make us who we are? Is it just our experiences, our beliefs, our actions that we take? And all of those start to get folded into the film.”
• “For me, the creative process is all about the nitty gritty details.”
• “So really that's just what I'm trying to do is for us in that room, as we're making it: Are we engaged? Are we emotional?”
• The complexity of guilt and shame
• Learning that sincerity—the truth of the character—is the key
• Special Effects work in Inside Out 2
• The subtle and sophisticated storytelling device of Riley’s eyes.
• How digital animation works today—more like a puppet than a drawing.
• Music as an unconscious communicator
• Dr. Paul Ekman: Emotions are largely under the hood.
• Soul (2020) and the philosophy of dualism as a Greek concept
• Embodied souls—a colliding, intertwined, inseparable reality
• Understanding the instrumentality of the brain
• The amazing amount of goodness that Pixar has injected into the world
• Pete Docter on working with Amy Poehler, Tony Hale, and Maya Hawke
• “Our emotions are really on our team.”
• Fear as a dominant emotion for the era we live in
• Joy vs Sadness or Joy vs Fear
• How Pete Docter’s faith informs his approach to Inside Out
• “One other little bit of research we did that I was shocked by is that there's apparently a part of your brain that lights up especially when you watch animation.”

“Reconciliation and reparations were never supposed to be two opposite things.” The Church is called to be a repairer of the breach. Drawing on the prophetic texts of Isaiah and Nehemiah, Brenda Salter McNeil joins Mark to discuss her latest book: Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities.

Together they reflect on the Church’s responsibility for social justice; the call to engage politics for the common good; the nature of systemic injustice and systemic change; empowerment and mutual investment in change; and the importance of moving closer to injustice in order to become a “repairer of the breach.”

Brenda Salter McNeil is a leader in the international movement for peace and reconciliation. She is an Associate Professor of reconciliation studies in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, where she also directs the Reconciliation Studies program. She also serves on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle, WA. She is the author of numerous books on Christianity, reconciliation, and racial justice. Follower her @RevDocBrenda.

AB

• Mark introduces Brenda Salter McNeil
• Learn more about Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities
• Isaiah 58 and “As If Worship”
• Isaiah 58:11-12—“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.
• Repair and reparations
• Brian Stevenson: “Real reparations would mean to repair what was actually broken.”
• “We want to see justice. We want to see change. … Reconciliation and reparations were never supposed to be two opposite things.”
• Why the Old Testament prophetic book of Nehemiah is relevant to the church in this political moment: “I wanted to use a narrative in scripture that showed us how do you actually organize people. That it's not just enough to preach about it on Sundays, there's a way that we've got to bring a diverse coalition of people together and show them that we can rebuild what is broken around us.”
• “How do we retain our identity and our dignity?”
• How asking the right questions can generate empathy and motivate action
• Nehemiah’s Prayer of Confession
• Honest confession, just telling the truth
• Brenda’s son Omari’s social post: “We are always left saddened but not shocked. This will happen again. Another black queen or king doing what should be considered a regular activity will be killed just because. Black people will express outrage while everyone else will continue on relatively unchanged. We'll exclaim, hashtag Black Lives Matter, and we will get countless comments about, What about all lives matter? I'm looking at you, white evangelical churches. The shock will wear off for the rest of the world and we'll be left to rebuild again by ourselves. This cycle is so ingrained in the Black American narrative that we have learned to quickly spring into actionable next steps because we've done this before and we will do it again. We've had no choice but to normalize the trauma and carry on. So to those who wonder, I have no hope that I or my future children will ever live in a world that is quote unquote equal or totally safe or fair, even though I will always fight for it. Sadly for me and so many others, I lost that dream as a little boy.”
• Our own humanity is being diminished in every act of injustice
• Is systemic change possible?
• Individualistic vs communal lenses
• The need to get proximate to injustice in order to become a repairer
• When does proximity help? What causes proximity to stick and create change?
• Empowerment and mutual investment
• The work of justice is ultimately God’s work
• Fannie Lou Hamer’s activism
• James Baldwin: “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”
• Doing what we say
• “We might not change everything, but in our little corner of the world, we can make a difference in that spot and people get to see a glimpse of the kingdom. And that's life changing.”

About Brenda Salter McNeil

Brenda Salter McNeil is a teacher, preacher, and leader in the international movement for peace and reconciliation. Her mission is to inspire, equip and empower emerging Christian leaders to be practitioners of reconciliation in their various spheres of influence. She is an Associate Professor of reconciliation studies in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, where she also directs the Reconciliation Studies program. She also serves on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle, WA. Dr. Brenda is recognized internationally as one of the foremost leaders of reconciliation and was featured as one of the 50 most influential women to watch by Christianity Today. She is the author of Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race (2008), The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change (2005), coauthored with Rick Richardson, *Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now,* and her latest book, Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities.

Anne Snyder joins Mark to discuss the need for deeper listening in the work of genuine encounter and exchange in public life. They reflect on the contributions of public theology to contemporary life, the values of Christian humanism, and the mission and vision of Comment magazine. They also announce an exciting new partnership between Conversing and Comment.

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment magazine, which is a core publication of Cardus, a think tank devoted to renewing North American social architecture, rooted in two thousand years of Christian social thought. Visit https://comment.org/ for more information.

For years, Anne has been engaged in concerns for the social architecture of the world. That is, the way that our practices of social engagement, life, conversation, discussion, debate, and difference can all be held in the right kind of ways for the sake of the thriving of people, individuals, communities, and our nation at large.

Anne also oversees our Comment’s partner project, Breaking Ground, and is the host of The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-editor of Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (2022).

Uli Chi and Mark discuss Uli's new book, "The Wise Leader," and how wisdom manifests in various contexts, from leadership roles to everyday life.

Uli Chi has spent his life practicing leadership in the intersection of for-profit and nonprofit businesses, the theological academy, and the local church. Uli serves as board chair of the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health System, vice chair and senior fellow at the De Pree Center, and a fellow at the Center for Faithful Business at Seattle Pacific University; he is also faculty for Regent College’s MA in leadership, theology, and society.

Shirley Mullen talks about the work of intentional engagement in our polarized contexts and advocates for actively bridging divides in our society.

Shirley Mullen is president emerita of Houghton College, where she served for 15 years, and author of Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Future.

W. Thomas Boyce discusses new research on sensitivity and resilience in childhood development and talks about how learning to see our children well helps them flourish and thrive.

W. Thomas Boyce is a pediatrician, professor emeritus of pediatrics and psychiatry at UC San Francisco, and author of The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive.

Liz Jacobsen shares about teaching theater to high schoolers and about the power of art and storytelling to transform us.

Liz Jacobsen is a theater teacher, currently teaching at Stadium High School in Tacoma, Washington.

Jennifer Wiseman shares about the journey of her finding a career in science, the interactions and connections between science and faith, and the upcoming solar eclipse.

Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist, author, and speaker, and she is director emeritus of the program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Michael Wear talks about the state of politics in the United States and the ways our faith is interwoven with public life.

Michael Wear is founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life.

Esau McCaulley, discussing his new memoir, reflects on the way we tell Black stories and how we make sense of our narratives for the glory of God.

Esau McCalley is assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and the author of Reading While Black and How Far to the Promised Land, among other works.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto shares about her work leading Christians for Social Action, the organization’s commitment to cultivating faithful engagement with issues of justice, and her experience as a Japanese American woman in leadership.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto is executive director of Christians for Social Action.

Tim Alberta takes a deep dive into the contemporary state of American Evangelicalism in a time of extremism.

Tim Alberta is a journalist, author, and staff writer for The Atlantic.

Caleb Maskell discusses the beginnings of Vineyard USA, which is celebrating its 50th year, and the hopeful future ahead.

Caleb Maskell is the associate national director of theology and education for Vineyard USA.

Pamela Ebstyne King discusses her research and work on the topic of thriving, as well as her new podcast, With & For.

Pamela Ebstyne King is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science and executive director of the Thrive Center for Human Development.

Andrew Hanauer describes the work of bridging the deep divides in American politics, the church, and faith communities more broadly.

Andrew Hanauer is the president and CEO of the One America Movement.

We invite you to take a brief listener survey at fuller.edu/survey in order to help the Conversing team guide the future of the show.

Stephen Newby reflects on the ability of Gospel music to invite all people in and what that means for today’s world and church.

Stephen Michael Newby is the inaugural holder of The Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and also serves as Professor of Music and Ambassador for The Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University.

Jemar Tisby reflects on Tom Skinner’s impactful speech “Racism and World Evangelism,” delivered at the 1970 Urbana Missions Conference, and considers the ways it resonates with the reality of the American church today.

Tom Skinner’s speech can be listened to here.

Jemar Tisby is the author of The Color of Compromise, How to Fight Racism, and, most recently, How to Fight Racism: Young Reader’s Edition.

Luann Pannell discusses mental health and training in law enforcement and shares about her two decades of work with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Luann Pannell is a Fuller alum, CEO of Exceptional Edge Consulting, and was director of police training and education at the LAPD for 18 years.

Ben McBride talks with Mark about his new book, Troubling the Water: The Urgent Work of Radical Belonging, which outlines his journey and work in the “kill zone” in Oakland, CA.

Ben McBride is a visionary leader of radical belonging. The co-founder of the Empower Initiative, a capacity-building firm devoted to empowering organizations and communities, he is a leading expert in fostering belonging and public safety reform.

Chris Henry talks about the importance of rhythm in the church year and about leadership in a post-pandemic world.

Chris Henry is senior pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

David Brenner describes the mission of the organization AI and Faith, which works to direct artificial intelligence research and technology towards human flourishing, with an eye towards ethics and a grounding in multiple faith traditions.

This is the fourth in a series on artificial intelligence, based in part on the work of AI and Faith, an organization which seeks to engage the world in the moral and ethical issues around artificial intelligence. Learn more at AIandfaith.org.

David Brenner is the board chair of AI and Faith.

Phil Chen talks about the development of AI and the ethics of sourcing material for large language models like ChatGPT.

This is the third in a series on artificial intelligence, based in part on the work of AI and Faith, an organization which seeks to engage the world in the moral and ethical issues around artificial intelligence. Learn more at AIandfaith.org.

Phil Chen is an investor, a serial entrepreneur, and a senior advisor at Race Capital.

Guy Kawasaki discusses some of the possible positive impacts of artificial intelligence for creativity, productivity, and society at large.

This is the second in a series on artificial intelligence, based in part on the work of AI and Faith, an organization which seeks to engage the world in the moral and ethical issues around artificial intelligence. Learn more at AIandfaith.org.

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast.

Mark Graves discusses the intersections of AI, technology, ethics, faith, and philosophy.

This is the first in a series on artificial intelligence, based in part on the work of AI and Faith, an organization which seeks to engage the world in the moral and ethical issues around artificial intelligence. Learn more at AIandfaith.org.

Mark Graves is a research fellow and director at AI and Faith and is a research associate professor of psychology at Fuller Seminary.