In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer

Jonathan Tepper on Grief, Addiction, Empathy, and Growing Up Missionary

May 22, 2026

Jonathan Tepper joins Frank Schaeffer to discuss his memoir Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction.The conversation explores growing up in Madrid during the AIDS crisis, missionary life among heroin addicts, the loss of Jonathan’s younger brother, literature, homeschooling, faith, suffering, and the role empathy plays in shaping human life.Frank and Jonathan also reflect on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, prayer, grief, and the troubling loss of compassion inside modern American evangelical ...

Exploring A Writing Marriage with Lori Carlson-Hijuelos

May 15, 2026

I haven’t been this struck or fallen in love this fast with a book in my life. I started reading it to my wife and couldn’t stop.I don’t usually react to books this way. I picked this one up, got a few pages in, and went upstairs to get my wife so I could read it to her. I thought I’d read a page or two. I ended up reading fifty or sixty pages out loud before we had to get on with the day. I’ve never done that before with any book connected to this podcast.So that’s really why I was so excite...

Tia Levings on "I Belong to Me" and the Long Work of Healing Religious Trauma

May 12, 2026

I talked with Tia Levings about what it’s like to come out of a world that shaped you completely and what happens after you leave; not just the belief system, but the habits, the fears, the voice in your head that doesn’t feel like yours.Her new book, I Belong to Me, is really about that part. Not just what happened to her, but how you put yourself back together after.We talked about complicity. About how you can’t just blame the system forever. At some point you have to look at yourself and ...