A weekly podcast about building great relationships, cultivating wonder, and making things better for other people. Hosted by veteran community-builder Bart Campolo, Humanize Me features friendly, thoughtful conversations with a wide array of scientists, activists, artists and oddballs.
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An simple index of episodes can be found here.
Humanize Me is a production of Jux Media.
In this episode of Humanize Me, Bart Campolo and John Wright talk about two recent deconversions from Christianity and a recent article by Faith Hill in The Atlantic which looks at the trajectory of secular ‘churches’ like Sunday Assembly and analyzes their declining numbers.
Joshua Harris’s well-known 1997 Christian book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, shaped the relationships and sexual ethics of many of the young people who read it. In recent years, Harris has apologized for the impact of his book, which he now regards as largely negative. Earlier this summer, it emerged that Harris has separated from his wife and no longer considers himself a Christian.
Marty Sampson was a worship leader and singer-songwriter with Hillsong United, a band born at Hillsong church in Sydney that routinely topped the Christian charts worldwide. He recently wrote an Instagram post announcing the deconstruction of his faith.
Further reading
Secular churches rethink their sales pitch:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/secular-churches-rethink-their-sales-pitch/594109/
Joshua Harris separates from wife, leaves Christianity:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/29/joshua-harris-i-kissed-dating-goodbye-i-am-not-christian/1857934001/
Marty Sampson announces lost faith:
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/08/12/famed-christian-songwriter-renounces-religion-im-genuinely-losing-my-faith/
Gayle Jordan is the Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Recovering from Religion, which connects people with support on their journeys out of religious faith.
In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Gayle talks about her own deconversion story, the work of her organization, the helpline it operates, the common issues people face after losing or leaving faith, and encouraging people to get involved.
Recovering from Religion can be found at RecoveringfromReligion.org. The helpline is 844-368-2848. (Humanize Me trivia: Gayle’s daughter was our guest on Episode 315!)
In this episode, Bart Campolo talks about the most meaningful or humanizing episodes of other podcasts. It’s 20 minutes of thoughtful recommendations! Here are the individual episodes we recommend most highly. To hear why they’re recommended, listen to the episode! Enjoy.
Hidden Brain: Creating God and The Vegetable Lamb
RadioLab: From Tree to Shining Tree
WTF with Marc Maron: Irwin Winkler
The Daily: The Legacy of Rachel Held Evans
On Being: Rebecca Solnit and Alain de Botton
The Moth: Leaping Forward
Making Sense with Sam Harris: Conscious
This American Life: Tell Me I’m Fat
Song Exploder: St. Vincent – New York
TED Radio Hour: How We Love
Malcolm Gladwell: The Hug Heard Round the World
Not every family allows you to listen in on their personal conversations. But in this episode, Bart Campolo sits down with his son Roman where they talk about fathers and sons, Bart’s relationship with his dad Tony, competitiveness, choosing diplomacy over conflict, Bart’s self-identity as a guy who doesn’t put his best effort into succeeding, and the question of whether changing situations is easier than changing your resilience to them.
There’s a Part 2 to this conversation! Find it on Patreon.com/HumanizeMe.
Roman’s music can be found on Spotify and he’s worth following on Instagram too. Search for ‘Roman The Cartoon’ on both. For the conversation between Bart and his famous dad Tony, go to CampoloFilm.com!
This classic conversation with The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, is one of the most shared episodes we’ve ever done. Hemant talks with Bart Campolo about squeezing more life out of our awareness of death, and making the most of the precious opportunity we have in our moments of consciousness.
Hemant’s popular blog can be found at FriendlyAtheist.Patheos.com.
Want to change someone’s mind? David Fleischer, of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, has discovered more reliably than perhaps anybody else how to do it. As he puts it:
“We’re the first to reduce any form of prejudice in a measurable, long-lasting way with a relatively simple intervention: a 10 minute one-on-one conversation that we call deep canvassing.”
In this episode of Humanize Me, David joins Bart Campolo for a conversation about his background story, how he started experimenting with different ways to talk to the people who voted against them on California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in 2008, his view that progressive people especially have an “irrational confidence in rationality”, how human rapport, common ground and stories are the basis of changing minds, and how listening is at the heart of it all.
Mentioned in the podcast: This American Life episodes #555 and #584. Links here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/555/the-incredible-rarity-of-changing-your-mind
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/584/for-your-reconsideration
Part II of this conversation with David, recorded several weeks later, can be found in Episode 429.
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