Give and Take

Conversations at the Heart of the Matter

About the show

Someone once observed that if Howard Stern and Krista Tippett had a love child, it would be Scott Jones. Scott liked that.

At "Give and Take,” Scott Jones talks with artists, authors, theologians, and political pundits about the lens through which they experience life. With empathy, humor, and a deep knowledge of religion, current events, and pop culture, Scott engages his guests in a free-flowing conversation that's entertaining, unexpected, occasionally bizarre, and oftentimes enlightening. He likes people, and it shows.

Past interviewees include Mark Oppenheimer, Melissa Febos, David French, Miroslav Volf, Dan Savage, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rob Bell, and (yes) Krista Tippett.

Scott is the former host and producer of the popular Mockingcast podcast (https://themockingcast.fireside.fm) and an in-demand consultant on all things “pod.” He’s also the co-host, with Bill Borror, of New Persuasive Words (https://npw.fireside.fm). Scott is also a prolific writer, a frequent conference speaker, a PhD candidate in Theology, and an ordained minister.

Give and Take on social media

Episodes

  • Episode 128: Hitler's American Friends, with Bradley W. Hart

    September 28th, 2018  |  47 mins 19 secs

    My guest is Bradley W. Hart. Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided. Bradley W. Hart's "Hitler's American Friends" exposes the homegrown antagonists who sought to protect and promote Hitler, leave Europeans (and especially European Jews) to fend for themselves, and elevate the Nazi regime.

  •

    Episode 127: Nobody Hates Trump More Than Trump: An Intervention, with David Shields

    September 27th, 2018  |  53 mins 36 secs

    My guest is David Shields. His new book "Nobody Hates Trump More Than Trump: An Intervention," is perhaps the only genuinely original thing you have read yet about Donald Trump.

  •

    Episode 126: Weather Woman, with Cai Emmons

    September 21st, 2018  |  42 mins 2 secs

    My guest is Cai Emmons, her newest book "Weather Woman," is the story of meteorologist Bronwyn Artair who discovers she has the power to change the weather.

  •

    Episode 125: Faith in the Shadows, with Austin Fischer

    September 21st, 2018  |  51 mins 32 secs

    My guest is Austin Fischer. Too often, our honest questions about faith are met with cold confidence and easy answers. But false certitude doesn't result in strong faith—it results in disillusionment, or worse, in a dogmatic, overweening faith unable to see itself or its object clearly. Even as a pastor, Austin Fischer has experienced the shadows of doubt and disillusionment. In "Faith in the Shadows," he leans into perennial questions about Christianity with raw and fearless integrity.

  •

    Episode 124: The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, with David Quammen

    September 18th, 2018  |  51 mins 20 secs

    My guest is David Quammen. In his new book "The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life," this nonpareil science writer explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our understanding of evolution and life’s history, with powerful implications for human health and even our own human nature.

  • Episode 123: Eating NAFTA, with Alyshia Gálvez

    September 14th, 2018  |  47 mins 54 secs

    My guest is Alyshia Gálvez. In her gripping new book, "Eating NAFTA: Trade Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico", Alyshia Gálvez exposes how changes in policy following NAFTA have fundamentally altered one of the most basic elements of life in Mexico – sustenance. Mexicans are faced with a food system that favors food security over subsistence agriculture, development over sustainability, market participation over social welfare, and ideologies of self-care over public health. Trade agreements negotiated to improve lives have sometimes failed, resulting in unintended consequences for people’s everyday lives.

  •

    Episode 122: Idleness, with Brian O'Connor

    September 1st, 2018  |  52 mins 16 secs

    For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In "Idleness", the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom.

  •

    Episode 121: American Hate: Survivors Speak Out, with Arjun Sethi

    August 24th, 2018  |  47 mins 17 secs

    My guest is Arjun Sethi. In his new book American Hate: Survivors Speak Out, he chronicles the stories of individuals affected by hate. In a series of powerful, unfiltered testimonials, survivors tell their stories in their own words and describe how the bigoted rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration have intensified bullying, discrimination, and even violence toward them and their communities.

  •

    Episode 120: Talking Tariffs and International Trade, with Steven Wallace

    August 21st, 2018  |  50 mins 58 secs

    My guest is Steven Wallace.Steven Wallace is the founder and CEO of the Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company, the first company to sustain exports of premium chocolate manufactured entirely in Africa, and credited with producing the world's first single-origin chocolate bar in 1994. He shares his experience with tariffs and their impact on international trade and the world economy.

  • Episode 119: Learning To Speak God From Scratch, with Jonathan Merritt

    August 20th, 2018  |  48 mins 58 secs

    My guest is Jonathan Merritt. His newest book is "Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing--and How We Can Revive Them." As America rapidly becomes a pluralistic, postmodern society, many of us struggle to talk about faith. As America rapidly becomes a pluralistic, postmodern society, many of us struggle to talk about faith.

  •

    Episode 118: From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity, with Michele F. Margolis

    August 13th, 2018  |  53 mins 19 secs

    My guest is Michele Margolis. One of the most substantial divides in American politics is the “God gap.” Religious voters tend to identify with and support the Republican Party, while secular voters generally support the Democratic Party. Margolis' new book "From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity" challenges the conventional wisdom that suggests that religious differences between Republicans and Democrats have produced this gap, with voters sorting themselves into the party that best represents their religious views.

  •

    Episode 117: Redeeming Capitalism, with Kenneth J. Barnes

    August 10th, 2018  |  49 mins 47 secs

    My guest is Kenneth J. Barnes. His new book "Redeeming Capitalism" explores the history and workings of this sometimes-brutal economic system. He investigates the effects of postmodernism and unpacks biblical-theological teachings on work and wealth. Proposing virtuous choices as a way out of such pitfalls as the recent global financial crisis, Barnes envisions a more just and flourishing capitalism for the good of all.

  • Episode 116: Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, with Alan Noble

    August 9th, 2018  |  1 hr 6 mins

    My guest is Alan Noble. His new book "Disruptive Witness" casts a new vision for the evangelical imagination, calling us away from abstraction and cliché to a more faithful embodiment of the gospel for our day.

  •

    Episode 115: Jell-O Girls, with Allie Rowbottom

    August 8th, 2018  |  48 mins 46 secs

    My guest is Allie Rowbottom. Her debut book is "Jell-O Girls: A Family History." It's a memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its façade - told by the inheritor of their stories.

  •

    Episode 114: Believe Me: The Evangelical Road To Donald Trump, with John Fea

    August 6th, 2018  |  47 mins 19 secs

    My guest is John Fea. John is professor of American history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. His previous books include "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction", and he blogs regularly at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. His newest book "Believe Me: The Evangelical Road To Donald Trump" argues that the embrace of Donald Trump is the logical outcome of a long-standing evangelical approach to public life defined by the politics of fear, the pursuit of worldly power, and a nostalgic longing for an American past.

  • Episode 113: Friends Bearing Gifts, with Joseph Cicio

    August 3rd, 2018  |  1 hr 9 mins

    My guest is Joseph Cicio. Lauren Bacall, Bill Blass, Rose Marie Bravo, Carol Channing, Prince Charles, Brooke Hayward Duchin, Erté, Princess Grace, Audrey Hepburn, Lady Nancy “Slim” Keith, The Kissingers, Kenneth J. Lane, Eleanor Lambert, Dawn Mello, Robert Mondavi, Josie Natori, and Joan Rivers, are just a few of the great friends of Joseph Cicio. His first book, Friends* *Bearing Gifts is about these relationships and his memories through the beautiful objects they gave him.