Conversing with Mark Labberton

“In October 1975, I was shot six times. And while I was on the hospital gurney, doctor told me I was going to die. I heard a very clear voice that spoke to me and said, you're not going to die. You're going to be a chaplain at San Quentin prison.” (Chaplain Earl Smith) Chaplain Earl Smith believes that ministry to the incarcerated is about so much more than rehabilitation. It’s about regeneration. Using the power of his own story of transformation from gang member to pastor, Chaplain Smith has maintained a faithful presence and witness for many decades of pastoral service to the incarcerated at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, and now to professional athletes (including the Golden State Warriors, San Francisco 49ers, and the San Francisco Giants). Today on the show Mark Labberton and Chaplain Earl Smith discuss the moral and spiritual factors of prison chaplaincy and ministry for those on death row; the meaning of freedom and education; how he ministered to the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood; the difference that positive mentoring and coaching makes in young people’s lives; and the transformative power of the gospel to go beyond rehabilitation to regeneration. About Earl Smith Born and reared in Stockton, California, the cycle of events in Earl’s life came to a head in 1975 when he was shot 6 times while living the life of a minor gangster. Although expected to die, Earl’s father’s faith, prayers, and love seemed to bring him through. The words of his father have motivated him, since that event, “you are a rebel, but you are God’s rebel, and God is going to use you to His glory.” In 1983, at the age of 27, Earl became the youngest person ever hired as a Protestant Chaplain by the California Department of Corrections. He is author of Death Row Chaplain: Unbelievable True Stories from America's Most Notorious Prison. Chaplain Smith currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Franklin Home, a Transition Living/Reentry Home for men and is the Team Pastor for the San Francisco 49ers’ and the Golden State Warriors. From 1998 to 2006 Chaplain Smith was the Chapel Leader for the San Francisco Giants. Chaplain Smith has ministered to teams playing in NFL Super Bowls, MLB World Series and NBA Championships. In 2000, Chaplain Smith was recognized as the National Correctional Chaplain of the Year. Chaplain Smith has appeared on numerous broadcasts, including HBO, CNN, The 700 Club, Trinity Broadcasting Network and The History Channel. Earl has been featured in Christianity Today, Ebony, Guidepost, Ministry Today, Newsweek, People’s Weekly, The African Americans and Time. Show Notes Get your copy of Death Row Chaplain: Unbelievable True Stories from America's Most Notorious Prison How Mark and Chaplain Smith met The value of education “I had to stop my education because of the execution schedule at San Quentin.” How Earl Smith got into prison chaplaincy “In October 1975, I was shot six times. And while I was on the hospital gurney, doctor told me I was going to die. I heard a very clear voice that spoke to me and said, you're not going to die. You're going to be a chaplain at San Quentin prison.” What San Quentin prison is like “We used to call San Quentin the Bastille by the Bay. The thing that really stood out for me was the fact that for 13 of the first 16 months I was there, the prison was locked down. The day I interviewed, two people were killed, so they stopped my interview twice. So I understood where I was. I understood the context of confinement. What I also went in there understanding was. It was not about rehabilitation. It was about regeneration.” “I believe that that's part of chaplaincy is not to allow the confines of the wall to dictate who you are.” A sense of liberty Fear and reality Earl Smith’s ministry to the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood How faith shaped a capacity to be free from fear for the sake of love Mass incarceration and the new Jim Crow The drug epidemic and its impact on mass incarceration “How can you help us prepare these guys to come home?” “Whether you're on condemned role, if you have a life without the possibility of parole, or life sentence, or whatever it is, my job is still to share the same gospel message.” “Present your body as a living sacrifice.” Pastoral care in the prison system Calling prisoners by their first names instead of their numbers “When you've done it onto the least of these, you've done it to me, so there's a value in your presence.” Chaplaincy to professional athletes “The states that have the largest prison systems are also the states that send the most professional athletes in the pro sports.” Golden State Warriors and San Francisco 49ers The difference that positive mentoring and coaching makes in young people’s lives “Every man wants someone to acknowledge there's something positive in what you're doing.” “They May Know Your Number, But God Knows Your Name” (Clifton Jansky, country western singer) God’s way of paying attention to us; “how vested God is in our pursuit of being fully human” (reference to Marilynne Robinson) Performance and identity (reference to Ben Houltberg) Jerry Rice, #80 and “who wore the number before you?” Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action “God is a relational God. … Sports is relational.” When did chaplaincy in sports become a thing? Pat Ritchie’s chaplaincy Understanding the value and difference chaplaincy makes Documentary and Film Adaptation: Death Row Chaplain “A story not of rehabilitation but regeneration” “That's really what the story is about. Some of my yesterday, some of my today. And what I believe to be my tomorrow.” Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

“Things had radically changed. … They had not only changed my mindset, but they had saved my life.” In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton opens up about a period of darkness and despair, when as a younger man he considered ending his life. But when he was invited to share Thanksgiving dinner with a local couple, his eyes were opened to a concrete hope, friendship, and joy—all embodied in the simple feast of a community potluck. Every year since, Mark calls these friends on Thanksgiving Day, in gratitude for and celebration of the hospitality, generosity, beauty, friendship, and hope he encountered that day. Here Mark reflects on the emotional and psychological difficulties he was going through, the meaning and beauty of friendship, how every dish of a Thanksgiving dinner is an act of hope and community, and how hospitality and generosity can uplift every member of a community. If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or considering suicide, there is help available now. Simply call or text 988 to speak with someone right away, share what you’re going through, and get the support you need. About Conversing Shorts “In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.” About Mark Labberton Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing. Show Notes A story about Thanksgiving Day many years ago, during Mark Labberton’s master of divinity degree at Fuller Seminary “… not just overwhelmed, but really undone” “ … the possibility of ending my life …” Every Thanksgiving dish as an act of hope and community Beauty of friendship A magnificent extravaganza Sharing not just food but hope “Things had radically changed. And that in fact they had, they had not only changed my mindset, but they had saved my life.” “For me, Thanksgiving Day holds this deep and pensive awareness that Thanksgiving doesn't always come easy, that often it's a difficult act, that it involves things that are sometimes impossible for certain people to carry. And at the same time, it's possible for other people to carry them in our place, which is what these friends did for me that day.” If you’re feeling despair, seek professional help. Call or text 988 for an immediate response with a counsellor. Seek community. “Whether you're in darkness or in light, whether your heart feels full of gratitude or whether it may not, I just hope that you'll be aware that God is with you, that you are not alone, that there are people that want to support you and help you, and that there are people that know you who would welcome you into a circle of celebration and gratitude today.” Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

“We’ve just created a hereditary aristocracy in this society, and it has created a populist backlash.” (David Brooks, from the episode) There’s a growing chasm that divides the affluent and non-affluent in American society, and it’s perhaps most pronounced in higher education. The elite meritocracy suggests that we should reward individual ability, ambition, and accomplishment. But what is “merit” anyway? What is “ability”? And how do they factor in our idea of “a successful life”? In this episode Mark Labberton welcomes David Brooks (columnist, New York Times) for a conversation about elite meritocracy in higher education. Together they discuss the meaning of merit, ability, success, and their roles in a good human life; hereditary aristocracy and the populist backlash; power and overemphasis on intelligence; the importance of curiosity for growing and becoming a better person; the value of cognitive ability over character and other skills; the centrality of desire in human life; moral formation and the gospel according to Ted Lasso; ambition versus aspiration; and the impact of meritocracy on the political life and policy. About David Brooks David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. His latest book is How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. He is also the author of The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, and founder of Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Show Notes “How the Ivy League Broke America” (via The Atlantic) “The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.” Money and the elite meritocracy “Every nation has a social ideal. And for the first half of the twentieth century, and the last half of the nineteenth century, our social ideal was the well-bred man.” (e.g., Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush) “Rich people rigged the system.” “Now, if you come from a family in the top 1 percent, your odds of going to an Ivy League school are seventy-seven times higher than if you come from a poor family. And a lot of schools around the country have more students in the top 1 percent than the bottom 60 percent.” “We now have this chasm between the children of the affluent and the children of the non-affluent.” Shocking stats: “By eighth grade, children of the affluent are four grade levels higher than children of the non-affluent. People who grew up in college-educated homes live eight years longer than people in high-school-educated homes, they’re five times less likely to die of opioid addiction, they’re twenty-two times less likely to have children out of wedlock, they’re two and a half times less likely to say they have no close friends.” “We’ve just created a hereditary aristocracy in this society, and it has created a populist backlash.” Too much power What is “merit”? How do you define “merit”? Who has “ability”? IQ is not a good indicator of merit. “Our meritocracy measures people by how well they do in school. The definition of intelligence is academic ability.” “What’s the correlation between getting good grades in school and doing well in life? The correlation is basically zero.” “We measure people by how they do in one setting, which is the classroom. And then we use that to declare how prepared they are for another setting, which is the workplace.” “Augustine said, we're primarily not thinking creatures, we're primarily desiring creatures.” Leon Kass (University of Chicago): “What defines a person is the ruling passion of their soul.” “We become what we love.” Predominant emotion of fear Curiosity, the love of learning, and getting better every day “You’re plenty smart. You’re just not curious.” Tina Turner’s memoir, discovering her voice and self-respect. “What matters is being a grower, the ability to keep growing.” “Getting old takes guts.” (David Brooks’s eighty-nine-year-old father) A sense of purpose The drive for the future, to be bold Henry Delacroix and the genius of America to drive for boldness, hard work, growth, and energy Moral materialism Vincent van Gogh said, “I’m in it with all my heart.” Paul Cézanne and Émile Zola, L’Oeuvre Yo-Yo Ma, cello, elite performance, and passionate humanity: “I’m a people person.” “Look at these creatures. They’re amazing!” Ordinary people in ordinary circumstances “Social intelligence” is not really intelligence—it’s an emotional capacity. Individuals and teams “What makes a good team? It’s not the IQ of the individuals. It’s the ability to take turns while talking. It's the ability to volley ideas and to feed into a common funnel of thought.” Project Based Learning Most Likely to Succeed (documentary, High Tech High) The Hour Between Dog and Wolf John Coates Self-awareness and adeptness reading your own body Emotional agility “The mind is built for motion. That what we do in life, we don’t solve problems, we navigate complex terrains.” “We’re all pilgrims. And we’re all searching for the journey that will transform us. And so it’s, the mind is not this computer designed to solve problems. The mind has helped us navigate through a space. And if we do it well, then we become transformed.” Applying meritocracy to the 2024 election “If you segregate your society on IQ, You're inherently segregating on elitist grounds.” “The rebellion that is Donald Trump.” Jesus’s form of selection—“When Jesus was selecting his twelve, he didn’t give them all a bunch of standardized tests. … He saw that each person was made in the image of God.” “And to me, what (frankly) the Christian world offers us is a re centring of the human person.” Controlling the passions of your heart Christian humanism Ecce Homo Rene Girard and mimetic desire Ambition vs. Aspiration The gospel of Ted Lasso and David Brooks’s favorite definition of moral formation: “My goal is to make these fellas better versions of themselves on and off the field.” *Still Evangelical* (essay by Mark Labberton) “Am I yet evangelical?” Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Our increasingly reactionary political environment doesn’t lend itself to nuanced, patient understanding of events like the 2024 re-election of Donald Trump. What historical and philosophical resources can help us gain insight and wisdom? How can we successfully know and encounter each other in such a divided society? In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes David Brooks (columnist, New York Times) for reflections about the 2024 General Election, the state of American politics, and how we got here. Together they discuss the multi-generational class divide; sources of alienation and distrust; how loss of faith and meaning influences political life; intellectual virtues of courage, firmness, humility, and flexibility; what it means to be a Republican in exile; the capacity for self-awareness and self-critique; and much more. About David Brooks David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. His latest book is How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023). He is also the author of The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, and founder of Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Show Notes A spiritual or emotional crisis we’re working out in American politics Should we blame inflation and economic factors? (Biden’s Covid-19 overstimulation) Class divide is a generational thing High-school-educated voters are increasingly alienated from the Democratic Party Alienation and distrust is a multi-decade process Loss of Faith, Loss of Meaning, and the “Death of God” An exiled Republican “Confessions of a Republican Exile” (via The Atlantic): ”A longtime conservative, alienated by Trumpism, tries to come to terms with life on the moderate edge of the Democratic Party.” “I’m a Whig.” (”Abraham Lincoln was a Whig.”) Edmund Burke and epistemological modesty—”don’t revolutionize something you don’t understand.” You should operate on society in the way you operate on your father, with care. Alexander Hamilton Whig tradition is unrepresented in contemporary American politics How David Brooks waffles between Democrat and Republican Isaiah Berlin: “At the rightward edge of the leftward tendency.” “The capacity for self-critique Matt Yglesias Humble, introspective, and “how did we get so out of touch?” Racism and sexism are not what’s driving Trump voters “In my opinion, Donald Trump is wrong answer to the right question.” Mark Noll and America’s use of the Bible: un-self-aware and un-self-critical Why is there more capacity for self-critique on the Democratic Jonathan Rauch and “Epistemic Regime”: includes media, universities, scientific research, review process, etc. “There’s still a core of people who believe ‘if the evidence says x, you should say y.’” “The greatest victory in the history of the world.” Intellectual Virtues: Courage, Firmness, Flexibility “Reality is constantly going to surprise you.” 1980s Republicanism was more intellectually sophisticated Conservative book publishing *Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change* by Jonah Goldberg How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks “The Stacking Stereotype” “A redistribution of respect” (away from large swaths of America and to elites) “The flow of status and respect in this country has gone to people with elite credentials.” “… almost no Trump supporters.” “If you tell 51% of the country ‘Your voices don’t matter,’ people are going to get upset.” America changing beneath us High level of spiritual and moral authority and low level of intellectual confidence The moral teaching of the New Testament “People are unitary wholes.” “I became a Christian around 2013.” “Jesus was more a badass revolutionary than an Oxford don.” C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Christianity “What it’s like to be in the claustrophobic mind of a narcissist.” Aggression: a joyless way to see the faith What is needed? “I was a 50-year-old atheist.” Chris Wiman (My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer): materialistic categories couldn’t explain the world “If they made me pope of the evangelicals, which is a job that makes me shudder…” “Be not afraid.” “The world just loves a human being that’s trying to act like Jesus.” David Brooks’s teaching at Yale The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist by Dorothy Day Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.