{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Attention, Agency, and Power, with David French","description":"In a country splitting apart over so much, three words point toward a better way to live: attention, agency, and power. David French returns to Conversing to take up all three. A New York Times opinion writer since January 2023, French writes from a conservative theological background about law, culture, religion, and armed conflict, and has found himself writing directly into the middle of divided hostilities. French comments on how attention, agency, and power took shape in him, and how each gets distorted by partisan fundamentalisms (on both the right and left) built to shut conversation down rather than open it up. He and Mark discuss the courage required to seek out the strongest version of an opposing view, the ways we extend ourselves grace we deny to everyone else,  the spiritual danger of believing you must hold power before you can do any good, and the Civil Rights Movement\u2019s commitment to \u201creconciliation over victory\u201d as a promising model for Christian public life today. Episode Highlights \u201cOne of the things that was so damaging \u2026 was that humility was often seen as inconsistent with conviction.\u201d \u201cA lot of life is \u2026 embracing agency and \u2026 becoming more and more aware of the tidal forces that brought us to a particular point.\u201d \u201cCuriosity and openness requires courage because you\u2019re told what to think about everybody, and if you \u2026 question that, you can be thrown out of your tribe. You can lose your community.\u201d \u201cWe must pursue justice, but when we think we have to have power to pursue justice, then we\u2019re on the road to perdition.\u201d About David French David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times writing on law, faith, and politics. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he spent much of his career as a constitutional litigator and once led the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He grew up in the Churches of Christ in Kentucky, studied at Lipscomb University\u2014where he now teaches\u2014and served in Iraq as a US Army judge advocate, earning a Bronze Star. With Russell Moore and Curtis Chang, he created The After Party, a curriculum for Christian political engagement. His most recent book is Divided We Fall. Helpful Links and Resources David French\u2019s New York Times column, where he writes on law, faith, and politics: https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/david-french David French on X: https:\/\/x.com\/DavidAFrench The After Party, the Redeeming Babel curriculum for Christian political engagement French made with Russell Moore and Curtis Chang: https:\/\/redeemingbabel.org\/the-after-party\/free-course Divided We Fall: America\u2019s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, French\u2019s book on American polarization: https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9781250836731\/dividedwefall Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, a study of American individualism: https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book\/9780520254190\/habits-of-the-heart-with-a-new-preface Show Notes Three words to guide public life: attention, agency, power A born contrarian shaped by a fundamentalism: \u201ccollectively contrarian\u201d yet \u201cindividually very conformist\u201d Harvard Law exposed how \u201ccontingent and place-based my own beliefs are\u201d; experiencing a pull toward \u201cthe story behind the story\u201d Attention as discipline\u2014seeking \u201cthe best expression of opposing views,\u201d never the other side\u2019s worst Partisans slander rather than engage: \u201clanguage designed to shut off conversation, not to invite it\u201d Reading the Bible cover to cover in sixth grade, arriving at the lesson that \u201cwe\u2019re way too dogmatic about stuff\u201d How to embody a faith that can hold conviction and humility side by side Agency according to Gandalf: \u201cIt\u2019s not up to us to determine the times in which we live,\u201d only how we respond Curiosity requires courage, since dissent threatens loss of community Power\u2019s real peril\u2014\u201cthe spiritually corrupting power of power\u201d and fooling yourself into virtue The undermining of justice by seeking to hold and maintain power; examples in Rosa Parks and Jim Crow segregation \/ Jesus and the Roman Empire Christian nationalism as \u201cfor the nation to be good, Christians must rule\u201d Restoring the Civil Rights Movement\u2019s commitment to the way of Jesus: reconciliation, not victory #DavidFrench #Conversing #FaithAndPolitics #ChristianNationalism #Attention #Agency #Power #Curiosity #CivilRights ","author_name":"Conversing with Mark Labberton","author_url":"https:\/\/comment.org\/shows\/conversing\/","html":"