The Civil Conversations Project (CCP)
Season 1 (2011)
The first season of The Civil Conversations Project was created in the wake of the vitriolic 2010 election season and the Tucson shootings in early 2011. Krista Tippett drew out seven voices of wisdom, poetry, and practicality exploring these questions: How do we speak the questions we don't know how to ask each other? Can we find ways to bridge gulfs between us about politics, morality, and life itself? Can we do that even while we continue to disagree, passionately? How is technology playing into all this, and how can we shape it?
The resulting radio shows and podcasts included:
» "Words That Shimmer" with poet Elizabeth Alexander
» "Sidling Up to Difference" with philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah
» "Listening Beyond Life and Choice" with abortion rights activist Frances Kissling
» "Restoring Political Civility" with evangelical educator Richard Mouw
» "Civility, History, and Hope" with civil rights veteran Vincent Harding
» "Alive Enough? Reflecting on Our Technology" with MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle
» "The Vitality of the Struggle" with naturalist and writer Terry Tempest Williams
Season 2 (2012)
The second season of The Civil Conversations Project was created in the fall of 2012. In another divisive election season, this series of public dialogues has modeled politically counter-cultural relationships at work. Krista Tippett and her guests took on dynamics that epitomize present chasms in American civil life: budgetary and economic crisis, social values clashes around abortion and same-sex marriage, and politically-engaged Christian action. These conversations reframe and transcend tired debates. They collect diverse wisdom on the state of American democracy and civil society in divided times.
The resulting radio shows and podcasts included:
» "The Future of Marriage" with David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch
» "Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue" with David Gushee and Frances Kissling
» "The Next Christians" with Jim Daly and Gabe Lyons
» "Political Bridge People" with Sen. Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin
About the Project
The Civil Conversations Project is a public forum providing ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces. Each season, Krista Tippett engages thought leaders who are modeling new kinds of conversation and relationships across important differences. These dialogues are interactive events spanning the media landscape: on the radio, via podcast, and online through social media and live streaming.
Project-related Shows
Two Christian leaders are working to restore Christian engagement in the world. Gabe Lyons and Jim Daly discuss how they who are reshaping their part in common life, and the common good. This often surprising conversation addresses subjects like gay marriage, abortion, and the strident reputation that Christian evangelicals have earned in the past decade.
The Civil Conversations Project (CCP)
October 16, 2012 Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn came to the gay marriage debate from two, predictable opposing sides — but with an equal desire to strengthen marriage. They're pursuing another way to talk about this difficult issue, and others, with civility and honesty.
October 4, 2012 No issue is more intractable than abortion. Or is it? Most Americans fall somewhere between the absolute poles of “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” A Christian ethicist who advocates a "consistent ethic of life" and an abortion-rights activist reveal what they admire in the other side and discuss what’s really at stake in this debate.
October 25, 2012 A veteran Republican senator and Democratic economist are political bridge people who've brought differing approaches and shared love of country to generations of economic policy. In this tense political moment, they offer straight talk and wise perspective — and won’t let partisan gridlock have the last word.
September 20, 2012 Gabe Lyons and Jim Daly are two Christian leaders who are reshaping their part in common life, and the common good — something much bigger than politics. This often surprising conversation addresses subjects like gay marriage, abortion, and the strident reputation that Christian evangelicals have earned in the past decade.
July 28, 2011
Poetry is something many of us seem to be hungry for these days. We're hungry for fresh ways to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, for language that would elevate and embolden rather than demean and alienate. Elizabeth Alexander shares her sense of what poetry works in us — and in our children — and why it may become more relevant, not less so, in hard and complicated times.
August 4, 2011
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah is a Ghanaian-British-American whose parents' marriage helped inspire the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. He's studied ethics in a world of strangers and how unimaginable social change happens. We explore his erudite yet down-to-earth take on disarming moral hostilities in America now.
August 11, 2011
Frances Kissling is known for her longtime activism on the abortion issue but has devoted her energy more in recent years to real relationship and new conversations across that bitter divide. She's learned, she's written, about the courage to be vulnerable in front of those with whom we passionately disagree.
August 18, 2011
Evangelical leader Richard Mouw challenges his fellow conservative Christians to civility in public discourse. He offers historical as well as spiritual perspective on American Evangelicals' navigation of disagreement, fear, and truth.
August 25, 2011
Civil rights veteran Vincent Harding has a long lens of wisdom on contemporary divisions and confusions. He says America is still a developing nation when it comes to democratic encounter across real difference. But he finds hope in the young people he's been bringing into creative contact with civil rights elders for decades. They are his answer to the question that drives him: "Is America possible?"
September 1, 2011
Sherry Turkle directs the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Her book, Alone Together, created a catchword for anxiety about the alienating potential of technology. But that's not really her message. We explore the real challenge she poses — that we can and must lead examined lives with our digital objects — actively shaping technology to human purposes.
February 3, 2011
Naturalist Terry Tempest Williams sheds light on the American West as a crucible of American divides and possibilities. And she offers up notions of neighborliness, sacred rage, and beauty as a matter of survival.