The Future of College, with Matthew J. Smith
Conversing with Mark Labberton
Release Date: 05/05/2026
Spiritual Formation at Global Scale, with Gary Haugen and Kevin Jenkins
Conversing with Mark Labberton
How can a Christian humanitarian organization keep Christ at the center of its mission while working in the world’s most difficult places, with thousands of staff spread across dozens of countries and cultures? Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, and Kevin Jenkins, former president and CEO of World Vision International, both understand their organizations to be foundationally Christian. But even in ministries where you would expect spiritual formation to be at the center, it takes work to help large global teams live up to their mission. Speaking with Mark...
info_outline
Permanent Questions: Celebrating Ten Years of Conversing, with David Brooks
Conversing with Mark Labberton
What if the deepest problems in American life were pre-political? It’s often said that “culture is upstream from politics”—meaning that what we see in political news, speeches, ads, debates, and elections is symptomatic of a deeper cause. The conflicts, troubles, injustices, and sufferings that many people experience as political are more likely rooted in moral and spiritual crises. This week’s episode marks ten years of Conversing, which launched on October 8, 2016. To celebrate, Mark Labberton is joined by David Brooks, a staff writer at The Atlantic and presidential fellow...
info_outline
A Ukrainian Pastor on Faith, Hope, and the Terror of War, with Fyodor Raichynets
Conversing with Mark Labberton
War has wracked Ukraine for 1,678 days—outlasting both World Wars. In this conversation with Mark Labberton, Fyodor Raichynets—a theologian at Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, pastor of a church in Bucha, and a military chaplain serving on the front lines in Kyiv—explains what it is like to be under near-constant drone and ballistic attack and how that has affected his faith, memory, and experience of time. War has reshaped the way he loves, forgives, and serves; it has induced a fear even to hope. Together, they discuss trauma as a national condition and the temptation...
info_outline
Attention, Agency, and Power, with David French
Conversing with Mark Labberton
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...
info_outline
Reclaiming Civic Agency, with Michael Wear
Conversing with Mark Labberton
Underneath all the political polarization, rage-baiting, punditry, and aggression, there is a crisis of civic agency. American citizens feel politically disempowered and undermined. And the effect, over time, will be that we lose our ability to self-govern. What is needed is a path between belligerence and withdrawal. In this episode, Michael Wear (Center for Christianity and Public Life, author of The Spirit of Our Politics) joins Mark Labberton to discuss provocation and political effectiveness; the value of gentleness in public life; concrete signs of hope in local political action; the...
info_outline
Loud Justice, with Sharon Cohn Wu
Conversing with Mark Labberton
“It is not just that God has a heart for justice,” says Sharon Cohn Wu (International Justice Mission), “it is that it is inextricably his character and cannot be otherwise, and that it is so perfectly married with mercy and grace that we somehow survive.” Sharon Cohn Wu has served for more than twenty years with IJM, where she is now regional president of North America. A lawyer (JD, Harvard Law), she has spent her career calling for “loud justice”—that is, visible, swift, community-wide accountability—using the criminal justice system and political will to help IJM achieve...
info_outline
Win or Lose, Run for Something, with Jeanelle Austin
Conversing with Mark Labberton
In February 2026, Jeanelle Austin filed for Minnesota Senate District 62. She started canvassing her district during a polar vortex, and persisted through triple-digit summer heat. And in August she lost in the Democratic Primary. In this episode, she sits down with Mark Labberton to reflect on what this experience has taught her about power, democracy, and what citizenship and neighbor-love means in the South Minneapolis neighborhood where she grew up. The executive director of Rise & Remember—the nonprofit that preserves the memorial at George Floyd Square—Austin followed a...
info_outline
Women, Misogyny, and the Bible, with Beth Moore
Conversing with Mark Labberton
Growing up, Beth Moore was taught that 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 were the whole of what scripture had to say about women: submissive and silent. The founder of Living Proof Ministries and one of the most widely read Bible teachers in America, Moore objects to a hermeneutic limited to those passages. In this episode, Mark Labberton revisits his 2018 conversation with Beth Moore, recorded in the months following her viral open letter, “A Letter to My Brothers.” Almost 10 years later, debates over women in leadership and whether women are free to use their full gifts in the full...
info_outline
The Human Heart, with David Anderson
Conversing with Mark Labberton
Our hearts are restless, says Saint Augustine, until they find their rest in God. The biological science and the spiritual metaphor are in agreement here. Over the course of billions of beats, our hearts never stop to rest. Your magnificent heart exchanges or pumps your entire blood volume, just over a gallon, every single minute. (Athlete hearts can pump up to 10 gallons per minute!) In this episode, Mark Labberton discusses matters of the heart with his close friend Dr. David Anderson, a cardiologist of four decades who trained at Johns Hopkins and helped launch one of the first...
info_outline
The God of the Unfinished, with Walter Brueggemann
Conversing with Mark Labberton
The Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann said, is an old text that simply refuses to stay old. “It reads like it was written yesterday.” For him, God offers no artificial closure, but is active in the meantime, and at peace with the “unfinished.” Walter Brueggemann died on June 5, 2025, at the age of ninety-two, and his own influence is unfinished. This episode is from the Conversing archives: a conversation Mark Labberton hosted with Brueggemann at Fuller Seminary for the 2015 Fuller Forum “Justice, Grace, and Law in the Mission of God.” Brueggemann was an Old Testament scholar for...
info_outlineHigher education is in upheaval, and a wave of "micro colleges" is reimagining undergraduate formation. Matthew Smith, co-founder and president of Hildegard College in Costa Mesa, California, joins Mark Labberton to talk about a tiny school marrying the Great Books to redemptive entrepreneurship.
"We need young adults who are coming out of college who are failure resilient."
In this episode, Smith reflects on the demographic cliff, the limits of professionalized majors, and why eighteen-year-olds need formation before a career. Together they discuss higher ed innovation, redemptive entrepreneurship, beauty as a public good, and what employers really want.
Episode Highlights
"We need young adults who are coming out of college who are failure resilient."
"Most of these schools are endeavoring at least to promise a fruitful career … leaving behind what most 18 to 23 year olds actually need."
"I would warn people away from universities that cannot clearly answer the question, what will all students learn at your school?"
"First you need to seek what's true and good, what's worthy of being loved. Then you need to be formed into the kind of person that loves it. And then finally, the natural outlet of that is creation."
"If there's a problem, they figure it out. They're not just asking their computers what the answer is."
About Matthew Smith
Matthew J. Smith is the founding president of Hildegard College, a Christian liberal arts micro college in Costa Mesa, California. He holds a PhD in Literature from USC, and taught for fifteen years at Azusa Pacific University before founding Hildegard College. His scholarship covers Shakespeare, John Milton, John Donne, and George Herbert; he has authored or edited four books on early modern literature and religion, and is working on a new book on beauty.
Helpful Links and Resources
Hildegard College https://www.hildegard.college Praxis on Redemptive Entrepreneurship https://www.praxis.co/redemptive-entrepreneurship St. John's College https://www.sjc.edu Literature and Religious Experience, by Matthew J. Smith https://www.amazon.com/Literature-Religious-Experience-Beyond-Unbelief/dp/1350193917
Show Notes
- Higher ed in flux
- "It's the economy that's driving disruptive innovation in higher education right now."
- The demographic cliff and small private colleges
- Job readiness vs. personal transformation
- "Leaving behind what 18 to 23 year olds actually need … becoming wise and faithful adults."
- From English professor to college founder
- Discovering micro colleges through classical K–12 schooling
- Trivium, quadrivium, democratic liberal education
- Visiting startup colleges in 2018; tuition often $10K–$15K
- "A shared vision of the end of learning"
- Hildegard's founding: liberal arts plus entrepreneurial arts
- Hildegard of Bingen, polymath patron
- Borrowing redemptive entrepreneurship from Praxis
- Beauty as antidote to weaponized truth and goodness
- Foundations of Thought + Entrepreneur Lab
- Real campaigns, real ventures—not test answers
- Field trips: Portland and El Salvador
- "We need young adults … who are failure resilient."
- Limits of pure classicism at St. John's, Thomas Aquinas
- "I loved my college, but I wish they would've taught us how to do something."
- Startup speed: idea Thursday, launching next Thursday
- "What will all students learn at your school?"
- Why Smith stopped believing in the English major
- Employers want teachability and adaptability
- "First you need to seek … then to be formed … then creation."
- Intellectual confidence and humility together
#HigherEducation #ClassicalEducation #LiberalArts #MicroCollege #ChristianHigherEd #RedemptiveEntrepreneurship #GreatBooks #HildegardCollege
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.