The Understory

In late May 2026, more than a thousand people gathered for three days beneath the vaults of Washington National Cathedral for the first Understory Festival: a living experiment in Christian humanism, where argument and silence, music and lament, poetry and debate were honored as different ways of attending to reality, and of exploring this question of what might be struggling to be born today. This limited series gathers the festival’s main-stage talks and carries them to everyone who wasn’t in the room, as well as to everyone who was and wishes to return. Voice by voice, you’ll hear the thinkers, weavers, institution-builders, artists, and pastors who came together to ask: what is struggling to be born, what is a human being, and who is Christ for us today.