In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer

Latest Episodes:

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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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.

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.

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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

The Psalms Don’t Ask You to Get Over It with Richard Bruxvoort Colligan Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

Richard Bruxvoort Colligan has spent years living with, studying, singing, and rewriting the Psalms.

What interests me is that he doesn’t turn them into easy answers.

We talk about his book Dangerous Songs, his experience with severe depression, the strange honesty of Psalm 88, grief, gun violence, joy, gratitude, and the human need to know we are not alone.

The Psalms have lasted because they tell the truth. Life can be heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time.
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LINKS

Dangerous Songs: The Psalms and a Gloriously Disrupted Life

https://www.worldmaking.net
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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

What Do We Do With the Past? Dr. Craig Yorke on Race, Memory and Medicine Aug 21, 2026

Show notes

Frank talks with Dr. Craig Yorke, author of Steep: A Black Neurosurgeon’s Journey, about growing up in Boston, the fierce expectations of his parents, Harvard and medical school, race and colorism, his years as a neurosurgeon, and the family and community that eventually gave his life another measure of success.

Craig describes his memoir as an attempt to understand whether the past incarcerates us or whether we can learn to see it with greater perspective. Their conversation is about achievement, but also about its price, the armor we inherit, and what it means to gradually put some of that armor down.
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LINKS

Steep: A Black Neurosurgeon's Journey

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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

The Religion of Whiteness with Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracey Aug 18, 2026

Show notes

Frank talks with sociologists Michael O. Emerson and Glenn Bracey II about their book The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith.

Their research asks why racial division remains so persistent within American Christianity. Their conclusion is unsettling: for many white practicing Christians, whiteness has taken on religious qualities of its own.

They discuss Christians of color and experiences of betrayal in multiracial churches, racial inequality, the legacy of American slavery, Christian nationalism, MAGA, opportunity hoarding, and the difference between Christianity being racialized and race itself becoming religionized.

The conversation ends with a harder question: Can this actually be changed?

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LINKS

https://www.villanova.edu/university/experts/expert-detail.html?expert=glenn.bracey

https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/michael-o-emerson
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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

David Dault on The Accessorized Bible Aug 07, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer talks with David Dault about his book The Accessorized Bible and the difference between treating the Bible as an object and living Scripture as a practice of responsibility and love.

The conversation explores faith, conversion, institutional corruption, moral seriousness, Pope Francis, Cornel West, and what Christianity looks like when vulnerable people become the center of the story.

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LINKS

The Accessorized Bible
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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

Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science Jul 31, 2026

Show notes

Frank Schaeffer welcomes David Blumenthal and James Morone to discuss their book Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science.

The conversation explores the Affordable Care Act, Operation Warp Speed, the COVID pandemic, political polarization, misinformation, and the role of presidential leadership during national crises.

Together they examine why America’s health care debates have become arguments about identity, community, science, and democracy itself.

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LINK

Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/person/david-blumenthal

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/person/james-morone

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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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