@ Sea With Justin Mcroberts

I first met Christena Cleveland across the street from a conference where, later that day, she would speak on issues of race and the long road towards unity among Christians. Her presentation was 3 minutes long.What I left that conference with was’t just what I heard Dr. Cleveland present in her few minutes.. but I left eyes somewhat newly opened to a system/culture that was comfortable nodding towards that which was non-white or non-male, but far less interested in fully investing. I also left with an awareness of my complicity. Since then, I’ve paid attention to Dr. Clevelands work as an author, blogger speaker and culture creator. I’ve looked forward to this interview for quite a while..Which brings me to this somewhat unfortunate and somewhat comical production note: My 2 year old has developed an interest in all my electronics and had her way with the input controls just a few moments before I go Dr. Cleveland on the line. You’ll year my voice peak off and on throughout the conversation. That said.. Dr.

That songwriting is an art is widely understood. What can be messy or confusing is what becomes of any art, and particularly songwriting, when it becomes a job, a business or an industry. And then, what becomes of the people who identified as professional artists when the season changes and the industry evolves? Part of what makes Andrew Osenga a standout artist, aside from his clear capability as a songwriter, is the posture he lives in towards the making of music, the people who make music and the business of making music a job. He is an artist, through and through. I enjoyed my conversation with him and expect you will as well. Check it out: 

For a season, Aaron Niequist worked at a church called Willow Creek in the Chicago area; a church that functioned as a kind of flagship for mainline christian Chruch practice. He also served at Mars Hill in Grant Rapids Michigan, a church whose culture was often seen as a next step away from (if not a remedy for) the culture and practice of churches like Willow Creek. In my conversation with Aaron, I found someone who is sincerely and profoundly concerned with the actual formation of actual people. His concern as well as his expertise stem form having been in the mix and invested in these various expressions of faith through multiple seasons of change, Aaron is a husband, dad, a liturgist and a writer. His recent book “The Eternal Current” is the focus of our conversation and a helpful look at the practices that hold form and hold together a life and a culture. Check it out.

Welcome to Season 4! And what a way to kick it off! In the fall of 2018, I got to spend a few weeks on the road with Jen Hatmaker and Nichole Nordeman on their Moxie Matters tour. For 15 nights, I got to play songs and then watch  rooms full of women (and a few men), find a kind of home in the space Jen and Nichole provided as artist/storytellers.  Between stops in Texas, I sat down with Jen Hatmaker to talk about the origin of the tour and where she saw her work heading in the long run. Check it out. 

Take a brief tour through some of the key moments in conversations that defined Season 3 of the podcast. My guests: – Dominique Dubois Gillard   – Sandra McCracken   – Carlos Whittaker   – Jeremy Cowart   – Michael Mcbride   – Matt Shotwell   – Scott Erickson   – Jonathan Merritt   – Matt Mikalatos (a reflection on the death of John Chau)   – Jer Swigart (a look at the “border crisis”)  

On March 25, 2018, women, men and children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador began walking north toward the US border. As weeks passed, their numbers grew… and their story began to move toward the stoplight of major American News sources. Of course, the tint of that spotlight varied in shade depending on its source. For instance, the sitting administration warned of the potential threat this group of people posed should they reach San Diego; even suggesting at one point that there might be “unknown middle easterners” among the group… making it a kind of Trojan horse for a more recognizable international terror threat. On Sunday afternoon, Nov 25, what be are known as the “Migrant Caravan” finally began to the reach, and cross the southern border of the US, just north of Tijuana, Mexico. And as they reached the doorstep of America, the various and often opposing narratives surrounding them rose to a kind of peak volume. And, as is so often the case, .. somewhat quietly, under the buzz, dust and noise… t

Earlier this month, John Allen Chau was killed by members of one of the most isolated peoples on earth. According to his own journal, Chau was committed to sharing what he knew of Jesus with the Sentinelese people…  and even after being forcefully deterred several times prior, returned the island of North Sentinel on Nov 14, in some form of faith and hope that he would be received, along with his message. He wasn’t. This part of Chau’s story touches on and highlights themes that have moved their way close to the center several conversations on this podcast. Culture care What good religion looks like vs bad. And most pertinent to this moment… White supremacy, and particularly white supremacy as it relates to American Evangelicalism. It was because so many of these things seemed to collide in this story that I moved the podcast calendar around a bit to make room for this episode. My guest is Matt Mikalatos. Along with being a clever, thoughtful and oftentimes poignant author, he’s a fantastic guide in

In her landmark book “Caring For Words in a Culture of Lies” Marylin McEntyre writes… “If language is to retain its power to nourish and sustain our common life, we have to care for it in something like the way good farmers care for the life of the soil, knowing nothing worth eating can be grown in soil that has been used up, fertilized or exposed too many toxic chemicals.” — There may not be a cultural sphere in greater need of that kind of word-care than that of American Christianity. My guest is author, journalist and cultural critic Jonathan Merritt. His most recent book is entitled “Learning to Speak God From Scratch” and is, in my reading of it, a courageous and wise effort to care for the words that shape contemporary religious life. In my conversation with him, we dig into his recent book, its history and a few other pieces of the soil beneath out feet. Check it out.

This is part two of my interview with visual artist and storyteller Scott Erickson. If you haven’t had the chance to check out part one, it’s not necessary to hear it first .. but… it might be helpful.. and it’s a great conversation. The second half of our conversation turns more specifically to the role of art in personal life and well as communal and religious life. We also dig a bit into the difficult of spoken language vs the freedom of visual expression and look, as best as we can into the future. Check it out…

My guest on this episode is long-time friend and co-creator Scott Erickson. He and I created and released the book “Prayer: 40 Days of Practice” a few years ago and his partnership has been not only enjoyable but enriching and transformative. Scott’s work as a visual artist and storyteller comes from and carves out what I consider a vital and sincerely unique place in American Religious culture. Unique to such a degree that I’ve divided this interview into two parts, of which this is part one… I intend to give you the opportunity to be challenged, inspired and moved by an artist whose work I consider right for this shared moment in our history. Check it out.

Jan 1 2018 was a landmark day for marijuana legalization in CA. For many, the moment was another stumbling misstep towards even more compromised societal norms. For others, including my guest, it was a hard-fought-for moment emblematic of a culture coming to its senses and embracing a kind of inevitable tide. Either way, It was a divisive moment, charged with the energy that often comes from social, economic and interpersonal difference. It was a moment I decided this podcast needed to enter into. My guest, Matt Shotwell, has been in the weed business for over a decade and was featured on Discovery Channel’s reality show “Weed Country.” He’s also a son to his parents, brother to his siblings, an adoptive parent to a piranha named Brittany,  a person of faith and a long-time friend of mine. So, I’m inviting you into a conversation about a real-life cultural shift. I’m inviting you into a conversation with someone whose world you may not be at all familiar with or comfortable. I’m also inviting you into a conve

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. – Amos 8:11 You may have noticed a bit of a lag between episodes of this podcast. If you’ll allow… that lag as been rather intentional. I’ve not known what to say, what to this shared cultural moment of ours… I didn’t honestly know if it was even my place to say or add anything. I don’t want to just be making noises. Even if they’re pleasant noises. So, I spent some time doing the thing I’m learning is the key to not only a good/great podcast, but a well -lived life: I listened. My guest on this episode is Michael McBride. And just as he did in Season 1 of the @ Sea podcast. He offers an invitation, a challenge and a wisdom that not only clarifies my place in the world around me, but also the path before me, through that world, as a culture maker. I hope and expect this conversation may do the same for you. Check it out.

You may have heard the rumor or legend or sorts that certain cultures throughout history have been at least suspicious or cautious about photography in fear that something of the soul was captured in the process. The other side of that coin is that, to many purveyors of the arts, a great portrait actually has to do just that. I came across Jeremy Cowart’s work in the weeks and months after a horrific earthquake nearly flattened Port Au Prince, Haiti in January of 2010. With the project, entitled “Voices of Haiti,” Jeremy captured the collision of and tension between ruin and resolve, hope and despair,.. all of which to say, his work captured, set against the backdrop of a devastating natural disaster, a very human picture. His work since then has continued to range from photo shoots with some of the most recognizable names in entertainment to the development of a hotel that will, when it comes to life, will revolutionize the way we stay somewhere when we’re not home. Check it out….

The question “What do you do?” or “What do you do for a living?” it’s not so much a question about work as it is a way to figure out who someone is; a question of identity. And that relationship between who I am and what I do can be tricky,… even confusing. Too closely tying my identity to my work can lead towards a dehumanized, utilitarian view of my own humanity… while drawing a thick black line between who I am and what I do can lead to a kind of dysphoria … Carlos Whittaker has developed apps, written and performed songs, led an online weight loss program, taught courses on the proper use of Instagram as well as having written two books, including his most recent work “Kill The Spider.” As I think you’ll hear in my conversation with Carlos, his process and evolution has been one in which he relentlessly pursues a sense of his place in the world at the cost of safe career steps and even, at times, at the cost of safe religious conclusions. All the while, he invites his readers and listeners to join him alo

The ways we move into and out of one another’s lives… the modality of relationship, is a matter of art. In fact, I resonate with Seth Godin’s definition of art as anything that facilitates human connection… including, in my own iteration of the definition, a relationship with one’s self. For nearly two decades Sandra McCracken has been making music that not only facilitates human connection, but has done so with a particularly thoughtful attentiveness. In our conversation, we consider whether or not it is that connection that makes art sacred… rather than a particular setting or use. Check it out.

Welcome to episode 1 of season 3 of the @ Sea Podcast. My guest is Dominique DuBois Gilliard. Dominique is the director of racial righteousness and reconciliation for the Love Mercy Do Justice Initiative of Evangelical Covenant Church. He is also the author of Rethinking Incarceration, which is the focus of my conversation with him. We pick up as I’m finishing setup (full disclosure: we were both late to the interview site and I had to start before I was completely ready. Regardless, from the outset and throughout this unedited conversation, we cover some vital and rarely trod ground in the areas of race, justice and a redemptive view of both political and religious power. Check it out.

in 1981, in Yorkshire, England, Peter William Sutcliffe was convicted of the murder of 13 women over a span of about 5 years. Police were criticized for there slowness of the investigation, the pace of which which appeared to pick up only after one of Suttcliffe’s victims turn out *not* to be a prostitute. Among those leveling criticism was Julie Bindel, who is my guest on this episode of the podcast. A teenager at the time, Julie took part in a series of protests, including one in which the public suggestion was made my that, instead of women staying off the streets for their own defense, as was suggested by the police, men should stay off the streets in order to ensure the safety of women. That kind of insightful and poignant expression continues to mark Julie Bindel’s work as a journalist and as a political activist. She is also the author of two books, “Straight Expectations” and, more recently, “The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Myth of Sex Work.” This episode was recorded during a live @ Sea E

I’m going go out on a limb and suggest that almost every music listener, even more casual fans, has been privy a conversation revolving around the idea of “selling out.” A conversation focused on what is happening or might happen to a band who is suddenly faced with the seemingly intractable dilemma…  of making money. A conversation often highlighted by expressions and declarations of how much we liked their early work and how so and so might dig this band now, but doesn’t really get what they’re actually about. For an artists on the other side of that conversation, what once were joyful and highly motivating dreams of doing what she loves and paying for her life are now thoughts weighed down by the possibility that many of those who helped her get there might leave… because she’d made it. Art, like charity or justice work, has an odd public relationship with money. For many onlookers, the moment a creator turns even slightly one way or another towards a paycheck, the whole of their work is thrown into questi

Artists and critics have a famously contentious relationship. It can seem, at least, that the discipline of critiquing stands at odds  to the discipline of creating it. Yet, I can’t think of really any professional artist who doesn’t hold some very pointed opinions about the work they consume (as well as their own. And I’ve yet to meet a professional critic whose attention to an art form didn’t at least begin in a sincere admiration for… if not love for… that same art form. My guest on this episode is poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib. In our brief conversation, I think you’ll find a vision of art, pop culture, industry and creativity in which there aren’t hard lines between diagnosis or analysis and a long, loving gaze and what human hands have made. Our conversation actually begins with him reflecting on a grammy moment in which Adele used time during her acceptance speech to suggest that Beyonce was perhaps, more deserving of the award. Check it out.

Some of my guests make national news. They win Grammys or national book awards. But this will never be a podcast about what’s most popular or what’s trending, per se. My interest is in connecting you with great culture makers, because I believe what they do deepens and enriches our lives. My guest on this episode is Civil Rights professor and cultural curator Dr. Todd Allen. Since 2002, Dr. Todd has not only taught in the classroom on the history of the Civil Rights movement, but has led a bus tour to many of the sites vital to that movement. In doing so, he connects dots that might otherwise live in desperate parts of his guests hearts and minds. I caught up with him briefly in Pittsburgh, PA and I think our short conversation might help us connect some of those same dots. Check it out.