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Podcast: The decline of moral community and the rise of public corruption

Podcast: The decline of moral community and the rise of public corruption

Why don’t liberals seem to care about moral behavior and the moral communities that support it? Why don’t conservatives seem to care about rampant public corruption at the heart of our political system? If we care about doing the right thing, can’t we care about both? There is perhaps nowhere in our civic debate where the conversation has grown so calcified as the one about morality.

We’ve long since stopped any form of real communication, instead hurling accusations at each other across what seems to be an impossible – and ever-widening – divide. But if you take a fresh look at the best case each side makes, they each have a real argument, in fact we think each sees an “asteroid” coming our way – with the problem getting bigger over time and the longer we ignore it. And until we cross the partisan divide and realize that team effort can solve both problems – as we would behave if they were real asteroids, we must deflect to protect life on earth, we’re stuck in a do-loop of failure to communicate.


Guests on this episode of Village SquareCast are Lucy Morgan, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Dr. Bill Shiell, President of Northern Seminary and former pastor at First Baptist Church.

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The Supreme Court’s recent decision in September 2025 to stay a lower court’s order in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem marks a significant development in the ongoing debate over the balance between immigration enforcement and constitutional protections. The decision temporarily lifted a district court’s restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the Los Angeles area, allowing agents to resume certain enforcement practices while litigation continues. Although the decision does not resolve the underlying constitutional issues, it does have significant implications for immigration policy, law enforcement authority, and civil liberties.

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For the Sake of Our Humanity: Humane Theology and America’s Crisis of Civility

The American experiment has been sustained not by flawless execution of its founding ideals but by the moral imagination of people who refused to surrender hope. From abolitionists to suffragists to the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement, generations have insisted that the Republic live up to its creed. Yet today that hope feels imperiled. Coarsened public discourse, the normalization of cruelty in policy, and the corrosion of democratic trust signal more than political dysfunction—they expose a crisis of meaning.

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