In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer

Latest Episodes:

What Do You Think Friendship Is? Meeting The Nightingales with Emil Wilson. Nov 06, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer welcomes artist and author Emil Wilson to discuss The Nightingales, his illustrated novel inspired by a remarkable act of friendship during the AIDS crisis.

In 1985, Emil's father opened his home to a dying coworker. Years later, Emil would volunteer with Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, helping men living with AIDS during one of the most difficult periods in American history.

Frank and Emil discuss the experiences that shaped the book, the art of illustrating memory, and the relationship between religious belief and acts of compassion.

They also explore the question at the heart of The Nightingales: What does it really mean to be a friend?

The Nightingales is the November selection for Frank's It Has to Be Read book club and his Book of the Year.
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LINKS
https://emilwilsonart.com/
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I have had the pleasure of talking to some of the leading authors, artists, activists, and change-makers of our time on this podcast, and I want to personally thank you for subscribing, listening, and sharing 100-plus episodes over 100,000 times.

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The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

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_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

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In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Ilan Stavans on Why America Keeps Wrestling With God Oct 30, 2026

Show notes

Why does religion continue to occupy such an important place in American life?

Frank Schaeffer talks with Ilan Stavans, Amherst College professor, publisher of Restless Books, and editor of A Nation Wrestles with God: American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands.

Drawing on centuries of American writing, Stavans explores the country's complicated relationship with religious belief, doubt, morality, and political power.

Frank and Ilan discuss the influence of evangelical Christianity on Donald Trump's presidency, the experience of growing up Jewish in Mexico, and the importance of approaching religious history without pretending its contradictions don't exist.

They also consider the changing role of education, the dangers of political and intellectual conformity, and whether younger generations might find new forms of spiritual and communal life.

It's a conversation about American history, but also about what comes next.
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A Nation Wrestles with God

Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Warren Throckmorton on Christian Nationalism, False History, and Political Power Oct 29, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer welcomes author and retired psychology professor Warren Throckmorton to discuss his book, The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijacked History.

Warren has spent years investigating the historical claims used to support the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Frank, who knew many of the people involved in the early Religious Right, brings his own experience to a conversation about how Christian nationalism developed and why it remains politically influential.

They discuss David Barton, the Seven Mountains movement, Donald Trump, the American founders, and the relationship between Christianity and religious liberty.

They also explore the shift within evangelical politics from an emphasis on personal character and morality toward the pursuit of political power.

The conversation considers the Christian roots of separating church and state, the danger of replacing history with political mythology, and the importance of defending democratic institutions.

Frank and Warren conclude by reflecting on their grandchildren and why they believe speaking honestly about these issues still matters.

The Christian Past That Wasn’t is also the October selection for Frank’s It Has to Be Read book club.

Listen to In Conversation with Frank Schaeffer wherever you get your podcasts.
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Stephen O’Connor on How Fascism Returns and Why We Look Away Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer talks with novelist Stephen O’Connor about We Want So Much to Be Ourselves, a novel exploring psychoanalysis, self-deception, and ordinary life during the rise of Nazi Germany.

Stephen began writing the book in 2016, before Donald Trump’s first election. As he researched Hitler’s rise to power, he began recognizing parallels with contemporary American politics.

Their conversation explores how ordinary people accommodate authoritarianism, how institutions surrender their principles, and why people often refuse to acknowledge dangers they can plainly see.

Stephen also discusses his mother’s experiences under Nazi occupation in France, his relationship with his psychoanalyst father, and his visit to Auschwitz.

At the heart of the conversation is a difficult question: How do we recognize fascism when it returns, especially when acknowledging it would require us to change the way we live?
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LINKS

We Want So Much to Be Ourselves
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Inside Stephen King’s Archives with Caroline Bicks Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

Caroline Bicks spent a year studying Stephen King’s personal archives, including early drafts of Carrie, The Shining, Salem’s Lot, Night Shift, and Pet Sematary. She was also able to do something rather extraordinary: bring what she found back to King and ask him about it.

We talk about what those manuscripts reveal about King’s writing process, his extraordinary attention to language, his childhood and life in Maine, his relationship with Tabitha King, and the fears and moral questions beneath his stories.

Caroline’s new book is Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King. I went into it as someone who had never read a Stephen King novel. I came out thinking I’d read one of the best books about writing I’ve encountered.
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LINKS

https://carolinebicks.com

Monsters in the Archives
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Shadi Hamid: Can Religion Save Democracy? Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

Shadi Hamid joins Frank to discuss Can Religion Save Democracy?, the book he co-authored with Christian theologian Matthew Kaemingk.

Their friendship doesn’t depend on pretending their religious differences don’t exist. They disagree about some of the biggest questions a person can ask.

That becomes the starting point for a larger conversation about democracy.

Frank and Shadi talk about humility, certainty, forgiveness, political idolatry, cancel culture, and the possibility of treating disagreement as something democracy must learn to live with rather than eliminate.
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Can Religion Save Democracy?
Baker Publishing
Bookshop
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Jennifer Breheny Wallace on Being Seen, Being Needed, and Mattering Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

Jennifer Breheny Wallace joins me to talk about her book Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose.

We talk about her father and the way he made people feel seen, what she has learned from raising three children, why achievement alone isn’t enough, and what happens when the roles that once gave us meaning begin to disappear.

We also talk about technology and AI and a question that is becoming harder to avoid: What happens to us when human beings begin to feel replaceable?

This is really a conversation about something much simpler. We need each other. We need to know that we matter to other people, and that they matter to us.
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LINKS
Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose

https://www.jenniferbwallace.com/
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Daisy Fancourt: How Art Can Change Our Health and Our Lives Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer talks with Professor Daisy Fancourt, author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives, about something many artists, parents, teachers, and grandparents have understood intuitively for years: art matters to our health.

Daisy Fancourt has spent years studying how music, painting, literature, dance, theater, storytelling, and everyday creativity affect our minds and bodies.

Daisy and Frank discuss the science connecting arts engagement with anxiety, depression, loneliness, cognition, aging, dementia, and physical health. They also talk about what happens when children grow up with creativity, why the arts are so easily dismissed in education and public policy, and what health systems are beginning to learn about arts on prescription.

Frank also shares the story of a teacher who used Mozart to reach him when he was a severely dyslexic child struggling to read, and why Daisy Fancourt’s research speaks so directly to his own life as an artist, father, and grandfather.

Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt is the September selection for the It Has to Be Read Book Club.

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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

April Reynolds on The Shape of Dreams, Grief, and Community Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Frank talks with novelist and creative writing professor April Reynolds about her novel The Shape of Dreams, set in East Harlem during the crack and AIDS epidemics of the 1980s.

They discuss the changing experience of publishing and reading books, April’s childhood in South Dallas, the role of the Black church, the loss that helped shape the novel, and the difficult experience of writing about a mother whose young son has been murdered.

The conversation eventually turns toward the present and what stories can teach us about neighbors, immigrants, community, democracy, and the things we still have in common.
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LINKS

https://www.instagram.com/theshapeofdreamsbook/
The Shape of Dreams
https://bookshop.org/a/99692/9780593316863
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Gretchen Sisson: Adoption, Reproductive Justice, and Supporting Families Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

Gretchen Sisson, author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, joins me for a conversation about what adoption looks like when we begin with the experiences of mothers who relinquished their children.

Many of the women Gretchen interviewed wanted to parent. Poverty, unstable housing, lack of child care, and other pressures often made that choice feel impossible.

We talk about reproductive autonomy, abortion, religion, family values, the history of forced adoption, the economics of private adoption, and the danger of treating human beings as commodities. We also look ahead to reproductive technology and ask a question that is becoming harder to avoid: who will have the power to decide which families are supported and which are not?

At the center of the conversation is a simple idea. If someone wants to raise their child, perhaps our first response should be to help them do it.
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LINKS
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood
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Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said.
Thanks!

Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth.
Subscribe to It Has to Be Said.

The Gospel of Zip will be released in print and on Amazon Kindle, and as a full video on YouTube and Substack that you can watch or listen to for free.

Support the show

_____
In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of The Gospel of Zip.

Learn more at https://www.thegospelofzip.com/
Follow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube.

In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

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