For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

What happens when we stop treating the Bible as a sacred object and start paying attention to how we actually use it? In this conversation, theologian David Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and the ethics of reading scripture in a fractured world.

In this episode with Evan Rosa, Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and how readers shape the meaning and moral impact of the Bible.

Together they discuss the materiality of scripture, translation and betrayal, moral seriousness, scriptural reasoning across traditions, catastrophic love, and the ethical responsibility readers bear for how sacred texts are used.

Episode Highlights

“To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter of hubris.”

“The Bible doesn’t tell you to do anything. You as a reader decide what to do.”

“Violence is always an act of interpretation.”

“We never get to a place where everything is clean and everyone benefits.”

“We have to take responsibility for the violence we involve ourselves in.”

About David Dault

David Dault is a theologian, journalist, and media producer whose work explores religion, culture, ethics, and interpretation. He is Executive Producer and host of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, a nationally distributed public radio program. He teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Dault’s scholarship focuses on hermeneutics, religion and media, and the ethical implications of how sacred texts are interpreted and used in public life. His book The Accessorized Bible examines the material forms, cultural framing, and interpretive communities that shape how people encounter scripture. He holds degrees in theology and religious studies and frequently writes and lectures on religion, politics, and culture.

Helpful Links And Resources

The Accessorized Bible, by David Dault https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300153125/the-accessorized-bible/

Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith https://thingsnotseenradio.com

David Dault’s personal website https://www.daviddault.com/

Show Notes

The Accessorized Bible—material culture of scripture, design, marketing niches, and the ways the physical form of the Bible shapes how readers interpret and use it

Bible as object, medium, and cultural artifact; Marshall McLuhan and media theory—the form of a book shaping how ideas move between minds

Books as technologies of imagination and identity formation; reading as a kind of “magical” transfer of ideas from one mind into another

“To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter of hubris.” Interpretation requires caution, humility, and the recognition that texts exceed our control

Making the familiar strange again; recovering the power of scripture by refusing to domesticate it or assume we fully understand it

Franz Rosenzweig on preserving the alienness of sacred texts; debate with Martin Buber on translation and clarity

Translation as interpretation—translators inevitably carry values, ideologies, and cultural assumptions into the text

Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence; interpreters “misread” texts in order to wrestle with their influence and generate new meaning

Reading scripture in community; trust, vulnerability, and shared responsibility among interpreters

Scriptural reasoning—Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading shared stories (Noah, Abraham, Moses) together without claiming mastery over the text

Tikkun olam—Jewish ethical tradition of “repairing the world”; the world is wounded and humans participate in its healing

Repentance and Repair—Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg on moral accountability, restitution, and the work of restoring relationships

Violence embedded in interpretation; moral action always involves choices about attention, resources, and responsibility

The “flashlight” metaphor—moral attention illuminating one suffering person while another need temporarily falls into shadow

Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage—competing moral urgencies in the Gospels

“We never get to a place where everything is clean and everyone benefits.” Moral action always involves tragic limitation and competing responsibilities

Levinas and infinite responsibility; the ethical demand arising from the face of the person before us

Moral seriousness versus performative irony; resisting discourse driven by trolling, spectacle, and dopamine-driven outrage

A Bible Is A Book—dismantling the assumption that sacred texts themselves command moral action

Steve Martin’s The Jerk and the phone book illustration; a sniper randomly selecting a name and deciding someone should die

“The Bible doesn’t tell you what to do.” Readers decide what moral actions follow from a text

Reader responsibility; refusing the excuse “the Bible told me to,” recognizing moral agency belongs to interpreters

Scripture as “accessory to a crime”—sacred texts used as cover for violence, exclusion, or cruelty

The Bible as platform—modular text shaped by study notes, editorial commentary, illustrations, and devotional framing

Study Bibles, children’s Bibles, niche-market editions; publishing strategies shaping the interpretive experience

Platform logic—similar to Facebook or Twitter; users curate meaning from a shared medium

Proof-texting and selective quotation; constructing entire moral worlds from isolated passages

Hannah Arendt on responsibility; loving the world enough to accept responsibility for it

James Baldwin leaving Paris after the Little Rock crisis; refusing comfort while others bear injustice

“Someone should have been there with her.” Baldwin’s recognition that solidarity requires leaving safety and standing beside the vulnerable

Catastrophic love—risking institutions, traditions, and comfort for the sake of vulnerable bodies

Matthew 25 ethics; encountering Christ among the hungry, imprisoned, and marginalized

Moral seriousness as daily practice; imperfect responsibility, persistent solidarity, doing what one can today and beginning again tomorrow

#Bible

#ChristianBible

#BiblicalInterpretation

#TheologyPodcast

#ChristianEthics

#Hermeneutics

#Scripture

#FaithAndCulture

#DavidDault

Production Notes

This podcast featured David Dault

Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa

Hosted by Evan Rosa

Production Assistance by Noah Senthil

A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about

Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Today we’re bringing you an episode with Esau McCaulley, from the Lenten season of 2023. Esau sees Lent as a practice of collective generational wisdom, passed down through centuries of sacramental rhythms—but as a contemporary reality, Lent is a spiritual rebellion against mainstream American culture.

He construes Lent as a season of repentance and grace; he points out the justice practices of Lent; he walks through a Christian understanding of death, and the beautiful practice of stripping the altars on Maundy Thursday; and he’s emphatic about how it’s a guided season of pursuing the grace to find (or perhaps return) to yourself as God has called you to be.

In his classic text, Great Lent, Orthodox priest and theologian Alexander Schmemann calls this season one of “bright sadness”—an important paradox that represents both Christian realism and hope.

Lent is not about gloom, self-loathing, performative penitence, or despair. Instead it brings us face to face with our human condition, reminding us that we did not bring ourselves into being and someday we will die, sober about the reality and banality of evil, and sorrowful in a way that leads back to joy.

Esau McCaulley is The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College, a contributing writer for the New York Times, and is author of many books, including children’s books. Notables are Reading While Black, a theology of Lent, and his latest: How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South.

This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

About Esau McCaulley

Esau McCaulley is The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College, a contributing writer for the New York Times, and is author of many books, including children’s books. Notables are Reading While Black, a theology of Lent, and his latest: How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South. Learn more at https://esaumccaulley.com/.

Show Notes

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal — https://esaumccaulley.com/books/lent-book/

Commodifying our rebellion—the agency on offer is a thin, weakened agency.

Repentance, grace, and finding (or returning to) yourself

Examination of conscience

The Great Litany: “For our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty. Except our repentance, Lord.”

The beauty of Christianity

“Liturgical spirituality is not safe. God can jump out and get you at any moment in the service.”

“The great thing about the, the, the season of Blend in the liturgical calendar more broadly is it gives you a thousand different entry points into transformation.”

Lent is bookended by death. Black death, Coronavirus death, War death.

Jesus defeated death as our great enemy.

“Everybody that I know and I care about are gonna die. Everybody.”

“I, as a Christian, believe that because we're going to die. our lives are of infinite value and the decisions that we make and the kinds of people we become are the only testimony that we have and that I have chosen to, to, in light of my impending death, put my faith in the one who overcame death.”

Two realities: We’re going to die and Jesus defeated death.

Stripping of the Altars on Maundy Thursday.

Silent processional in black; Good Friday celebrates no eucharist.

“I'm, like, the one Pauline scholar who doesn't like to argue about justification all of the time.”

Good Friday’s closing prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion cross and death between your judgment and our souls.”

“You end Lent with: Something has to come between God’s judgement and our souls. And that thing is Jesus.”

“Lent is God loving you enough to tell you the truth about yourself, but not condemning you for it, but actually saying that you can be better than that.”

Production Notes

This podcast featured Esau McCaulley

Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa

Hosted by Evan Rosa

Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Luke Stringer, and Kaylen Yun.

A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about

Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Acknowledgements

This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of Blueprint 1543. For more information, visit http://blueprint1543.org/.

Work shapes identity, community, and meaning—but how should faith show up in professional life? Sociologist Elaine Ecklund discusses religion in the workplace, drawing on research conducted with co-author Denise Daniels.
“I think our faith compels us to hope for and enact flourishing for everyone.”
In this episode with Evan Rosa, Ecklund reflects on vocation, gender, authenticity, and principled pluralism in modern workplaces. Together they discuss workplace identity, gender discrimination, calling across occupations, boundaries around work, religion’s public role, and pluralism in professional life.
Episode Highlights
“I think our faith compels us to hope for and enact flourishing for everyone.”
“People use their religion to bring justice to their workplaces.”
“They don’t want to pretend they’re someone different.”
“There are ways in which our faith traditions can put needed boundaries around our work.”
“I am being fully who I am and I am oriented toward the other.”
About Elaine Ecklund
Elaine Howard Ecklund is a sociologist of religion and professor at Rice University, where she directs the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance. Her research focuses on religion in public life, science and faith, and workplace culture. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, including Religion in a Changing Workplace and Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work (with Denise Daniels). Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and featured in major media outlets.
Helpful Links And Resources
Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work https://www.ivpress.com/working-for-better
Religion in a Changing Workplace https://academic.oup.com/book/58194
Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance https://boniuk.rice.edu/
Elaine Ecklund website https://elaineecklund.com
Show Notes
Religion and workplace life
Sociology of belief research background
Studying scientists and religion
Expanding research beyond science workplaces
Collaboration with Denise Daniels
Academic and practical faith-at-work books
Defining work as paid labor
Honoring caregiving and volunteer labor
“People don’t want to pretend they’re someone different.”
Bringing whole selves to work
Calling across occupational sectors
Workplace autonomy and meaning
“People use their religion to bring justice to their workplaces.”
Faith creating boundaries around work
Gender dynamics in workplaces
Story of hiding motherhood in academia
Fragmentation and identity performance
“There are ways in which our faith traditions can put needed boundaries around our work.”
Church gender expectations
Billy Graham rule implications
Work skills serving congregations
Living in pluralistic society
Principled pluralism explained
“I am being fully who I am and I am oriented toward the other.”
Embrace, dignity, and learning from difference
#FaithAndWork #ElaineEcklund #PrincipledPluralism #ReligionAndWorkplace #Vocation #GenderAndWork #HumanFlourishing
Production Notes
This podcast featured Elaine Ecklund
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Noah Senthil
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Can faith sustain courage and openness in a polarized democracy? Former Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich reflects on faith, fear, character, and public life amid deep political polarization and religious tension in America.
“There is a certain comfort in knowing you have somebody who’s always in your corner.”
In this conversation with Evan Rosa, Kasich reflects on personal faith shaped by tragedy, the search for purpose, and why character matters more than ideology in leadership. Together they discuss religious faith in American life, his experience running in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, voting on character over beliefs, firm political commitments, open-minded perspective taking, his vision of a life worth living, and before the end of this conversation, you’ll find out his favorite Metallica song.
Episode Highlights
“There is a certain comfort in knowing you have somebody who’s always in your corner.”
“You can be firm while at the same time looking at a point of view of somebody who’s diametrically opposed to you.”
“I look for character. I don’t look for what somebody thinks about the Book of Revelation.”
“Faith informs the way I think about things, but it doesn’t spell out what I’m going to do.”
“If you begin to work together to solve a problem locally, it can actually create friendship.”
About John Kasich
John Kasich is a former U.S. congressman, two-term governor of Ohio, and presidential candidate with more than four decades of experience in public service, media, and civic leadership. First elected to the Ohio State Senate at age 26, he later served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming governor in 2011. Kasich has authored six books exploring politics, faith, leadership, and civic responsibility, including his most recent, Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future. He is known for emphasizing character, dignity, and community-based solutions over ideological rigidity. Kasich frequently speaks on leadership, faith in public life, and democratic renewal, and continues to engage across political and cultural divides in pursuit of common purpose. Learn more and follow at https://johnkasich.com and https://twitter.com/JohnKasich
Show Notes
Growing up Catholic, altar service, early religious formation
Tragedy in 1987, parents killed by drunk driver
“Where do you stand vis-à-vis your eternal destiny?”
Faith as ongoing window of questioning, not certainty
God’s existence, care, and personal relationship
“Faith itself is a gift. God has to act first.”
Fear, loss, and the backstop of divine presence
“You’ve got the most powerful being in all of history kind of got your back.”
Faith shared as gift, not coercion or argument
Voting based on character, not doctrinal alignment
Scripture informing decisions, not dictating policy
Respect for the poor as moral baseline
Christian nationalism and the question of objective truth
Politics and faith distinct, neither hostile nor coercive
Singles win games, local action over grand crusades
Faith communities as clubhouses for moral action
Working locally dissolves partisan hostility
Life worth living as purpose, gifts, and contribution
Character, integrity, and not taking advantage of others
Freedom from fear, boxes, and rigid identities
Kindness versus niceness as moral distinction
Open-mindedness as antidote to boredom and fear
Campaigning as test of endurance, character, and empathy
“People wanted to know who you were more than your ideas.”
Pursuing convictions while staying rooted in faith communities
Production Notes
This podcast featured John Kasich
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Noah Senthil
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give
#FaithAndPolitics
#CharacterMatters
#PublicFaith
#CivicLife
#CommonGood
#JohnKasich

Mortality, fragility, forgiveness, and peace. Journalist and author Stan Grant offers a genre-bending work of prayer, memory, and theology shaped by fatherhood, Aboriginal inheritance, masculinity, and mortality.
“I see this as a gift from God, a creator that allows us to find each other again.”
In this conversation with Evan Rosa, Grant reflects on his 2025 book, Murriyang: Song of Time—his philosophical and spiritual exploration of the human place in the world and faith as lived experience rather than abstraction. He looks closely at his father’s life in order to come to terms with his own, the meaning of fatherhood and how to understand and forgive our fathers, masculinity and vulnerability, Aboriginal history and identity, masculinity and vulnerability, forgiveness and sacrifice, prayer and poetry, and the whole human experience of time and eternity.
Episode Highlights
“We inherit our father’s cups.”
“We must forgive our fathers. It is the only way that we can forgive ourselves.”
“We cannot survive without each other.”
“Man is not made for history. History is made for man.”
“ … to confront the beauty of that mortality—my father’s final gift to me is his death.”
About Stan Grant
Stan Grant is an Australian journalist, author, and public intellectual of Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi, and Dharawal heritage. A former international correspondent and broadcaster, he has written widely on Indigenous identity, history, faith, and moral responsibility. Grant is the author of several acclaimed books, including Talking to My Country and Murriyang: Song of Time, which blends prayer, memoir, poetry, and theology. His work consistently resists abstraction in favor of embodied human experience, emphasizing forgiveness, attention, and the dignity of the human person. Grant has received national honors for journalism and cultural leadership and remains a leading voice in conversations about history, masculinity, faith, and what it means to live lives worthy of our shared humanity.
Helpful Links and Resources
Murriyang: Song of Time https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460763827/murriyang/
Talking to My Country https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460752210/talking-to-my-country/
Stan Grant official website https://www.stangrant.com.au
Show Notes
Fathers and sons; inherited burden, sacrifice, and responsibility
“We inherit our father’s cups”
Christ in Gethsemane as archetype of father-son suffering
Masculinity as physical burden, scars, toughness
“We must forgive our fathers. It is the only way that we can forgive ourselves and live in a world of forgiveness with the other.”
Yindyamarra: respect, gentleness, quietness, forgiveness
Improvisation and rehearsal; jazz as spiritual and artistic model
“I have never written a second draft.”
Second thought as artifice, hiding, dishonesty
Forgiveness of self before speaking; imperfection and risk
“If silence is violence, then we have redefined the very nature of violence itself.”
Giftedness of life; what is given and received
Gift exchange versus transaction in modern society
“We offer the gift of ourselves to each other.”
Murriyang as Psalter, prayer, song, contemplation of time and God
Reading slowly; opening anywhere; shelter from modern noise
“We cannot survive without each other.”
One-person performance; no script, immediacy, intimacy
Music, poetry, time, mortality woven together
Father’s body as history; sawmills, injuries, exhaustion
Childhood memory of bath; “the water is stained black with blood”
Mother’s touch; tenderness amid survival
Late-life renaissance; language recovery, teaching, honors
Murriyang (heaven) and Babiin (father) liturgical, prayerful, dialogical alternation throughout the text
St. Augustine: “What was God doing before he made time? He was making hell for the over-curious.”
Is God in time? Or out of time?
Speaking of eternity or timelessness still imputes the concept of time.
“ The imaginative space of time itself, it reaches to an horizon. But what is beyond the horizon? For modernity, of course, time is the big story. To be modern is to reinvent time. It's to be new. Modernity and technology is all about taming time.”
“Man is not made for history. History is made for man.”
Attention, affliction, abstraction, and the loss of human touch
“My father’s gift to me is his death.”
Mortality as meaning; resisting transhumanism
Time, modernity, instant life, collapsing space
Fragility, love, forgiveness, and beginning again
Ending where we began
#StanGrant
#Murriyang
#Fatherhood
#Masculinity
#Forgiveness
#TimeAndFaith
#HumanFlourishing
#Australia
Production Notes
This podcast featured Stan Grant
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Noah Senthil
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give