Anne Snyder:
Welcome back to The Whole Person Revolution, a podcast of Comment magazine. I’m your host and the editor of Comment, Anne Snyder. As we are currently travelling through a season that is better trying to understand the nature of violence as its varied forms today are disturbing our common life, we need to talk about something that, over the last decade at least, has become a much more familiar category in the cultural lexicon, and that something is trauma. I have the honour today of sharing with you a person whose familiarity with trauma and its long-term effects has an unusual outside-in character. Dr. Steve West served for 40 years in the US Air Force, beginning his career on active duty during the Vietnam era in 1974. He eventually became a chaplain in the Air Force, serving two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In 2008, Steve was awarded the Bronze Star, the citation of which is noteworthy. I’m just going to read a portion of it here: “Lieutenant Colonel Steven E. West distinguished himself in trauma ministry in Iraq, conducting 1707 critical visit hours for 2766 emergencies, including 1665 combat casualties. Chaplain West personally ministered to numerous victims of a mass casualty suicide bombing, including a young child who died in his arms. From September 10th, 2007 to March 18th, 2008, he provided comfort to Balad Air Base airmen in the face of great adversity. He administered 1930 counselling sessions by Meritorious Achievement as the wing chaplain, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, while supporting ground and air operations against the enemy at Balad Air Base in Iraq.
During this period, while exposed to more than 200 enemy rocket and mortar attacks, Chaplain West demonstrated impeccable faith and character, providing spiritual guidance to more than 17200 airmen spanning two air expeditionary force rotations at four air bases. Under his stewardship, the chapel team orchestrated the largest number of counselling sessions: 278 combat stress cases, 21 suicide interventions, 10 next-of-kin notifications, and a dignified, compassionate memorial service for three fallen American heroes.” It goes on. I’ll just conclude here. It says: “Of particular note, Chaplain West developed and led a revolutionary chapel ministry aimed at airmen serving at remote sites, directly supporting 1502 airmen assigned to duty at 61 forward operating bases. The exemplary leadership, personal endeavour, and devotion to duty displayed by Chaplain West in this responsible position reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.”
So this tells one story, a remarkable, important, very real and accurate story of the life Steve has lived and the many, many lives he has touched. But there is another story inside of this one, one that we in the next hour will have the privilege to hear. As Steve himself has written: “The greatest honour in my life was when I was awarded the Bronze Star. It also left a substantial scar that affects me to this day.” Steve has written a book describing that scar, titled The Bronze Scar: Understanding How PTSD Feels to Help Victims and Those Who Support Them. And he’s coming out with a new book in 60 days that follows this one, called Beyond the Scar: Healing the Wounds of Trauma. Steve, it’s such a privilege to have you join The Whole Person Revolution. Thank you and welcome.
Steve West:
I’m excited and honoured. Thank you so much.
Anne Snyder:
You have led a life of uncommonly devoted service to God, to country, to the vulnerable, to all those who’ve crossed your path at home and abroad. Did you have a particular annunciation moment that birthed this kind of others-oriented life?
Steve West:
I became a Christian very early in my life. I don’t think there was really an annunciation moment. It was more a process, but for whatever reason, God instills so many different things in us, and that’s why it’s so rich to be around other people is because everybody brings something beautiful. And one of the things that God did is he put in my heart that desire to love people. I just love people. I can’t be alone very much. I don’t like to go to restaurants when I’m not with my wife or family. If I’m travelling, I don’t eat in a restaurant by myself. I’ll get whatever it is and take it back to the hotel room so I can be there. It’s just one of those things, and I believe that it has a lot to do with that desire that God gives us to love your neighbour, to love other people.
And so the first thing on me is that I just want to love people, and however I can do that is what matters. My thing is that today, if being with you somehow I’m able to say or do something that touches your life, then it makes it worth it. And so even in the pain and things, all those things are worth it. So probably not a moment, but I would say God grabbed me early to say, “This is what your life was going to be.”
Anne Snyder:
Thanks, Steve. Could you please describe a bit of the life that preceded your PTSD diagnosis?
Steve West:
Yeah. I was pretty confident in what God had given me to do. And so I went as hard as I could to do everything I could to minister to other people. And it wasn’t even a thought. That’s not even in your head. It’s just what’s there. And so before this really bubbled up in my life and I was diagnosed with PTSD, I think one of the biggest things is that I always had a sense of well-being. Everything was going to work out. Even when it didn’t, I knew that it was God’s work and God’s plan. And so it’s just that almost happy-go-lucky kind of feeling that, “Hey, this may not be easy in the moment, but I know that God’s never left me, never forsaken me, He’s always carried me.”
And so before this really started grabbing my life and taking control in so many ways, which is one thing that it absolutely does, is that you don’t have control of a lot of things in your own life, and that’s a helpless feeling and that’s hard, especially for a believer because we know we’re not helpless. And so I think that confidence was there, and that’s the way I looked at life in many ways, and God just gave me opportunities.
Anne Snyder:
When you were told that you might or did actually have PTSD in 2011, do you remember your initial reactions?
Steve West:
Oh, absolutely. I can’t forget it at all. I was at stress management at the Pentagon, where I was stationed at that time, and my wife and daughter had said, “This last deployment you’re different. Things are different.” And of course, I was the chaplain for the chairman and joint chiefs of staff, and there you don’t show weakness or what might be perceived as weakness. So I only went so that I could get my wife and daughter off my back, so to speak, so that I could say, “Hey, here’s my sheet of paper. I’m okay. It’s just because I’m in a really stressful job and you’ve got to go and go and go all the time.”
And so when I finally went and the first time that I went, he said, “Well, it will be three visits to diagnose you, whether you do or don’t. And so are you willing to accept that?” I said, “Okay, yeah, I guess if that’s what it’s going to take.” Now bear in mind, I hadn’t told my wife and daughter I was doing this at all. And so we went through, and having a background in counselling and therapy myself, I know what it’s like for people to be untruthful or to hold back. It hurts the process of trying to find healing. And so I said, “I’ll be honest,” and I was open and honest, transparent during that time, and when we got to the end of it, I’ll never forget. I said, “Well, I need to set up the next appointment.” And he said, “Yeah, when you walk out of here, just go to the desk and they’ll set you up one in a couple of weeks.”
And so I got up out of the chair and I flippantly said, “One down, two to go,” because in my mind, I’m going through the motions. And he said, “Oh, Steve. That’s not the way it’s going to work.” He said, “I have never diagnosed anyone until the third visit’s over. I’m diagnosing you today.”
Anne Snyder:
Oh, wow.
Steve West:
It’s that evident, that apparent. And I want you to know reality had not set in, but shock certainly did. And my world crashed in that moment, and there’s a moment that I remember, and my life has not been the same since then.
Anne Snyder:
If I were you in this scenario, having been on the other side of that counselling desk or floor or whatever sofa, to be on the receiving end of this, my own struggle with pride and, in some ways, knowing too much would complexify my ability to receive something so shocking. Was that true in the initial weeks and months of facing the reality that this was going to be actually a long journey, facing the reality of just one’s own humanity?
Steve West:
Yeah. That’s really at the core of a lot of this is that knowledge is freeing, but knowledge can also be binding. And so in this case, the first thing I’m thinking is, “No, he’s got to be wrong. This can’t be.” So denial was momentary. It hit me, “Oh no, no, no, this can’t be it.” And so because I knew, I had counselled so many people who have been diagnosed with PTSD, being in the military and dealing with war, so I knew what it looked like. I knew what the symptoms were. I knew what the DSM said as far as, “This is what happens, and if these things are true, you do have the disorder.”
And so I had to fight a lot of that in just saying, “Wait a minute, I help other people with PTSD.” And then immediately after I left out and was walking back to the office, some of the thoughts that were going on in my head and continued to go was, “Why, Lord? I trust You.” My ministry in war was some of the greatest ministry in the world. Let me tell you. You don’t have to ask people to come to worship when you’re in a warzone. It’s full. And it doesn’t matter how many times you hold a service, people are coming because they come to grips with what if. And so some of the knowledge that I had and some of the experiences that I had with helping other people and knowing that I’d helped them says on the idea of position, “Heal thyself.” No. And so that denial was a big part of that, and it’s because of the experience and knowledge I had helping people through trauma in their life.
Anne Snyder:
Yeah, that’s deep, Steve. It’s like the ultimate humbling process that surely it’s not just a moment.
Steve West:
Wow. Yeah, very much so. God’s still working with me on that.
Anne Snyder:
You talk in the book The Bronze Scar about the war within. Could you name what the core dynamic is between the enemies and the war within? Who are the opponents that you find yourself whiplashing between?
Steve West:
There are a number of core dynamics that I think you struggle with and first and foremost is trauma versus reality. At the heart of PTSD, there’s the struggle between your past experience and the present and what’s real. And so when you start finding yourself reliving traumatic events through different ways, through flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, so many things, it can start to blur the past and the present even to a place where I think the body and mind react as if the trauma is still occurring. And so that trauma versus reality, and then a big one with people is I would say that safety versus threat. When you have PTSD, there’s a heightened sense of threat and hypervigilance, and that’s even in safe environments. That’s when you’re there playing with your grandchildren, there’s that anxiety that’s there.
And that sense of well-being that I talked about before, that’s one of the things that gets taken away is because there’s anxiety in you all the time. I would explain to people, there is a level of anxiety that is there that I can feel every moment of the day that I’m just not relaxed, I’m not calm. And that eternal/internal war that’s going on, it revolves around the perception to stay constantly alert to protect yourself from dangers. And let me tell you, that’s a state that can be exhausting and, like I said, very anxiety-provoking. And then there are other things, but in that war within, I spoke about control. It’s control versus the idea of helplessness, that you’re powerless to get this thing out.
There’s so many things that we can do in life that we can get rid of symptoms, lots of illnesses. You do what the doctor tells you, you eat the right things, you take the right medicines, and things, it’s okay, but that internal war, I think it revolves around a perceived need to stay constantly alert. And so that control that you have may not be there. And then I will say one that people grapple with a lot is the idea of isolation, withdrawal versus connection. It’s hard to connect when you don’t think people understand you. And you know what makes that even harder? When you don’t understand yourself.
So you think if I don’t understand why I’m doing these things, having these negative things that are going on, just think of how hard it’s for the person that loves you to understand, and they want that connection too. And so there’s just so much, emotional versus the idea of numbing. That’s one of the things, you become numb to a point. I said in The Bronze Scar that one of the things that I lost, and I’ll tell you, it’s possibly the top of the list is I lost my sense of joy. That doesn’t mean I don’t have happiness in my life, it doesn’t mean people with PTSD are struggling with trauma that they’re not happy because I’m very happy. Man, life is good and I love it, but there’s a numbing that comes with it.
The idea of getting better, of healing, of recovering, of therapy, of medications, coping techniques, all these different things, what they’re meant to do is centre you. And so if you’re moving more to the centre, it means that that helps by taking some of the bad on the negative end away because these things help. But remember something, when you move to the centre, you don’t just lose one end. You’re numb to those negative things in a sense, but you’re also numb to the highest of highs. So in the moment, I can be very happy, but a sense of joy, it’s there, but it’s covered up. It’s numb.
Anne Snyder:
As you’re describing all that, I want to just zoom out a little to this current, say, cultural era we are in, which is complex and vast, and we live in a humongous country that is so diverse within itself. So I don’t want to make any overarching general statements, but as Comment, which supports this podcast or posts this podcast, has been exploring violence at different layers of our particular society, a little reference to what’s going on in the Middle East right now, but really more looking at the American context. And I think I said something in the intro editorial. I think I say a sentence, it’s like, “Everyone is walking around with untreated PTSD.”
And I said that to highlight just a general observation that whether we’re talking about college campuses or the realm of Twitter, or the way I see young people talking about needing to cut off “toxic relationships.” And I was, I guess, critiquing this, but more lamenting the fact that it seems like we all are walking around hot more than normal with very acute threat perception. Like we assume threat and radar for threat more than trusting an innocent trust or giving people the benefit of the doubt or just relaxing into that, I think, typically comes from a place of health where you’re open and curious.
And so when I wrote something like that, “Everyone is walking around with untreated PTSD,” to someone with your very lived experience, not only in war, but now actually with diagnosed PTSD, do you find a statement like that frankly offensive?
Steve West:
First of all, I don’t find it offensive at all. What’s offensive to me is having it to deal with inside of you. It’s not observations of other people because, yeah, that taps into, I guess, a broader societal impact of stressors that are prolonged in our lives by so many things. But the thing about it is this, and I’d like to make something clear here that I didn’t make in the first book, but this one will bring out, and that is I believe that just about everybody, you included, walk around with posttraumatic stress because, by the time you’re a teenager, there have been things that have stressed you to the point that they impact you.
Now, I want to be very clear here, and that is almost … And I would 99.9% say everyone that is an adult has posttraumatic stress that they still deal with in some way or another. It may only be that it changes your outlook on something or you understand more how somebody else feels, so many things. But here’s the important thing, and that is that while most people walk around with posttraumatic stress, and it’s the different degrees it can impact you sometime. The difference is, is that most people don’t walk around with posttraumatic stress disorder, diagnosed or undiagnosed. They don’t meet the criteria. It doesn’t negatively impact their life every day, and that’s the difference.
If you’re being impacted by past trauma every day, and it’s affecting you in negative ways every time you open your eyes, that in some way, even if it’s just made you more cynical and untrusting, check to see, go talk to somebody about that stress because getting help from PTSD first involves awareness. You have to be aware that it’s impacting your life negatively, and then understanding what needs to be done. And so I don’t have any problem with the idea that that’s the way people feel. And here’s one of the big reasons is that people feel that way because they feel stressors from trauma themselves. They just don’t realize it.
So by some, people with PTSD might find the comparison diminishing, I don’t think that’s the way that we ought to look at it, and I don’t even feel that way because I can tell you this, I get a lot more positive from people who are thankful, “Oh, you’re so transparent,” or say, “I’m so sorry,” because you can’t help. If somebody tells you I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, then one of the first things, because you’re a loving person in your heart. I know, without even knowing you any better, is going to be, “I’m so sorry,” and maybe you pray for them. I have more people pray for me these days than I’ve ever had in my life. I pray for myself more today than I ever did in my life. So, no, I don’t see it that way. Now, I’m sure there are some people who do.
Anne Snyder:
Back to the various dynamics of this internal war, internal dialogue of PTSD, have you found it to change in force over time or even change in nature over time, or do you simply get more familiar with the signs, with the disturb, with the fears and anxieties, and develop more effective coping mechanisms?
Steve West:
The answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes. Let me say that the internal dialogue of people with PTSD can absolutely change over time, and that’s because of a number of things. My internal dialogue is constantly still changing, and I think, for the most part, for the better as it goes along. And there are just things that you don’t have to be very informed to know. One of the key factors is your support systems. Strong support from family and friends and community, and very importantly church, because that includes the spiritual or the religious support. They provide positive affirmations. And from that, I think that your internal perspectives begin to reshape the internal dialogue.
Knowing you are not alone can help people feel more supported and understood, and that can positively influence their self-talk, because believe me, that’s one of the negative things. That internal dialogue is what stirs you. And part of that is because you have intrusive thoughts. There are thoughts that you don’t want to have in your mind and you can’t get them out of it in the moment. And so I think it’s important that people who are struggling with trauma are self-aware, and that they educate themselves. As you learn more about PTSD and you understand more of its impacts, then you will start recognizing and challenging those negative dialogues.
So the two things to me, more important than anything else as far as the education is awareness and understanding. They’re critical. And of course, I have coping strategies. If I’m having a hard time, if the anxiety, I feel it inside, and it’s pronounced, then I’ll do things like put on my headphones and close my eyes and drown it out with music. Music has a way of taking my mind off of other things, and of course for me, other people, it’s different things, but it’s contemporary Christian music because it’s uplifting. And so it tells me, “God is with you, you’re not by yourself. I’m walking with you.”
I tell you, “Footprints in the sand” is a mantra to me. It is a, “This is how it works. God is carrying me, especially when I can’t see Him doing it. My family is carrying me, especially when I don’t realize that they’re even doing it.” So having coping strategies … I’m also a science fiction nut. And so I love today that so much of TV and streaming is on sci-fi things. I just went to see the second part of Dune, and it was like, “Yes.” And so when I’m in those things, they take over, and so people can find all kinds of things that help it take over. If you’ve got your spouse and you can engage with them, not about what’s going on, but maybe, but just, they have a calming effect. And I think that long-term, if you consistently manage and support your trauma impact on you, then it’ll have a big impact.
But let me say, therapy and treatment is absolutely where it is. If you’re not talking to someone that knows what they’re talking about and trying to seek help from someone outside your help, outside yourself, you will lose. I can’t do this alone, and I can’t do this alone, but God helps me by that. It’s important, I think, to remember that change in the inside and the dialogue you have about yourself, it’s a deep involved process, and it varies from every person. You deal with your stressors. I’m assuming a lot of things here, but you deal with your stressors in different ways than I do. And what works for me is not always going to work for you. Music may not be the thing at all. Though, looking at those headphones, I say, “Yes, she knows what it’s about.”
Anne Snyder:
Music is pivotal. When we met, you were so grateful, so audibly, vividly grateful for a fairly new gift in your life, which was a dog. Can you describe that a little bit? I remember you were so animated. I still remember your countenance flooding with what I perceive to be joy, or at the very least, gratitude and delight at the very unique ways. This creature is almost supernaturally sensitive to your wavelengths walking with PTSD. Can you describe that a little bit?
Steve West:
Yeah, you haven’t seen some of my manuscript, have you?
Anne Snyder:
I have not, no.
Steve West:
Because toward the end, one of the chapters in the book is Mighty Max.
Anne Snyder:
Mighty Max, that’s the name. I remember that.
Steve West:
That it’s Max, and he is right outside this door right here. If I say it too much, he’ll want in here because he doesn’t get more than a few feet away from me. One year ago this week …
Anne Snyder:
Wow.
Steve West:
… he came into my life. And I want to tell you something. If I’d have known what that would’ve done, I’d have done it 13 years ago. I’d probably done it 20 years ago because a service dog reacts to your pheromones. That’s how they’re trained, so they pick up on it. So if he was in here right now, as I’m getting a little more animated and passionate, he would be putting himself across my lap so that I would have to pay attention to him. And so nothing outside of the Lord, and believe me, this is a Lord thing because it takes three to five years for a veteran to be able to get one in most cases. One, they have to train for a year and maybe even 15 months. And so I put myself on some of the list after so long of my therapist, and then my psychiatrist and I are talking about, “Well, you love animals. Have you tried this?” And said, “No, my lifestyle just won’t work for that.”
But my gosh, I’ll make room for him in every way possible. He was … I don’t even know how to put it. He takes away so much. I don’t feel a sense of anxiety all day, every day anymore. I have anxiety, but the medications did a lot, and I didn’t want the medications, but they did a lot, but there are three kinds of dog. An emotional support dog, there are therapy dogs that go and help things, and then there’s the specialty of a support dog. And Max is my PTSD support dog. And I tell you, I’m a happier person. It’s hard to say because I think I’m pretty happy. Life is good. God has blessed me with so many things that these other things are just parts of life, and maybe they’re a lot. And yes, they affect my life, and they will always affect me to a point.
The idea of healing is not the idea of curing. Nobody said you’re going to be cured. You can be. I haven’t been cured. I’m like Paul in the sense, only probably in the sense, but just that, “Hey, you never take this thorn away.” Well, it keeps me humble, but I would say to people that are animal people, find one that you can share your love with, that will give of yourself. The great thing about a support dog, if they’re trained, is that they bond to you. If he’s walking around, I walk out of the room, that’s where he goes. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
If I leave the house, he always, when I come back 20 minutes later or six hours later, if there’s a reason I’m not taking him with me, which is rare, he is laying right there when I pull up in my truck, and I can see him through the glass laying looking out the door. That’s love. So that’s what does more than anything, love, love of your family, the love of your church, the love of your friends, and in my case, the love of my Max.
Anne Snyder:
Well, speaking of love, I run a magazine that we’re trying to speak into an atmosphere that is flooded with a lot of spiritual and emotional psychic violence. Exploring this theme in its various layers the last few months has been humbling and sometimes disturbing to just see over and over again in a wide variety of contexts in people’s lives that seeking to embody perfect love, this side of heaven and self-sacrificial serving others, walking alongside them, accompanying them at their lowest moments is itself sometimes, it’s not like a strawberries-and-cream journey. It’s not without its own wounds. Like we have someone who wrote about trying to keep a very open home, he and his wife and family, and then that openness and hospitality became vulnerable to a horrific predatorial situation, and an abuser that stole so much from them.
And another case of how, when you’re trying to accompany someone through one of their lowest moments, it doesn’t come with a how-to manual, or when you’re trying to honour someone saying their story, you can wind up instrumentalizing them. And so a variety of all these aspects of living in this complicated, fallen world. And in your book, the previous, your first, The Bronze Scar, I was just moved by how you painted the cost of love in a violent world and, of course, now the scars you’ve had to bear since. And I’m just wondering if you think, I think I know the answer to this, but I just thought I would ask you anyways, is it ever possible to avoid incurring the scars of what it is to try to love as Christ loved in this world?
Steve West:
No, we don’t love perfectly. We are loved perfectly. And because of that, there will be. If our relationships with people that we love only included the Pollyanna, we wouldn’t appreciate that love. It wouldn’t mean anything to us. It’s just like if we didn’t have rain and stormy days like we’re going to have around here soon, then having that sunshine and beautiful springtime, it wouldn’t mean very much to us. And so I believe with all my heart, God is so smart, if that’s a way to say it. We know God is very smart, but He knew that, and He knows that we need to struggle, and that loving people doesn’t always mean that it’s going to be hunky-dory. Love is not love if it doesn’t have a cost to it. It’s just relationship. So making it through the hard times makes you appreciate what you have.
One thing I would say is that I don’t know anyone in this world, seriously, this is not just preaching, this is serious, I don’t know anybody who’s blessed more than I am. I look at my life and I say, “Lord, the things I’ve experienced, the people you have put in my life,” in the military, lots of people come into your life. You’re moving. I moved my wife 23 times before we came to Birmingham and retired, and she’s still with me.
Anne Snyder:
I was about to say, “Bless her.”
Steve West:
Yeah, “Bless her” is right in a lot of ways. We won’t get into all those, but in a lot of ways. But to follow Christ means that there is going to be suffering. But the thing to remember is that we’re not suffering by ourselves. We suffer with the people we love, and we go through … If we didn’t, then we wouldn’t feel the amount of love that we have for people because we wouldn’t know what it was like for them to have this happen today to them, or them be down because of this today, or you needing them because you are. Need is something we don’t talk about a lot, but it’s a big factor that is not a negative. It’s a positive.
And so we need each other. We need that love. No, I would not paint this world in a negative sense as far as love is concerned and as far as dealing with things you have in your life, whether you’re the one that is or that person that you love is.
Anne Snyder:
How, in a nutshell, has walking with, navigating, bearing PTSD since 2011, how has that daily walk and battle changed the way that you see, see our world, see other people, see and understand God?
Steve West:
In a lot of ways. One of the things that I rejoice in, the traumas that have happened in my life, is that God has used those times, just like you will for any person, especially any Christian, to help somebody else. I told you at the beginning that I love people. And so the way that that’s manifested is my being able to provide some help. I had no idea that into my 60s I would write a book. Oh my gosh, God gave me, even now, a new chapter in my life because so many people respond, and it’s like, “I can’t believe this.” And so the things that have happened to me in my life are what really bring it more to a positive, blessed living.
We don’t have to have everything go our way for things to be good. Matter of fact, we teach that to our children very early, “We do love you, but,” and it’s always that “but” that’s the problem, “you can’t do this,” or “No, you can’t have this.” God says that to us. It may be our pain that he says, “I’ll be with you in it and I’ll give you people to walk with you, but I’m not taking it away completely,” because healing happens at different levels. Some people break a bone, and after a while of what they have to go through, they never think about it again, really. It doesn’t affect them. They don’t feel it. It’s fine. Some people, there’ll always be a pain there, a reminder of what happened.
And so the sense of normal is absolutely the new normal because trauma, pain, suffering, hurt, change us, but it doesn’t always have to be for the worse. I would say that I’m typical in that I’ve gone through a number of things in my life, but the positive so far outweighs that, my gosh. I love the new songs and music these days, praise-oriented, these things, but there’s some of the old things that we ought not get rid of, and here’s one of them: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” And if we do, we’ll see what God’s done. I’m so blessed.
Anne Snyder:
Thank you, Steve. Thank you so much for the embodied grace and grace with a limp, we could say.
Steve West:
I like that. I might use that. Is that okay?
Anne Snyder:
Go for it. Thanks for listening to The Whole Person Revolution, a podcast of Comment magazine. We exist to foster imagination for a thriving society, and our product line is blossoming. We publish a beautiful print magazine four times a year that tries to peer into timely societal questions lurking just behind our everyday consciousness. We publish an additional slew of online essays and personality-flavoured columns like Matthew Milliner’s Material Mysticism, Greg Thompson’s The Welcome Table, and Alan Jacobs’ Snakes and Ladders. And we are building an exciting new podcast network with The Whole Person Revolution joined by Zealots at the Gate, a conversation about religion and democracy with Shadi Hamid and Matthew Kaemingk. All of this is animated by a rich Christian humanist tradition that we feel well poised to pick up and apply to our times.
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