“The Truth is Worth it.” – NY Times’ Elizabeth Dias

When we sat down to plan For the Love of Finding the Truth, one of the first names that came to mind was Elizabeth Dias of The New York Times. And for good reason—Elizabeth is one of our best thinkers right now, giving us context for what’s going on at the intersection of politics and religion in America, all the while searching for underrepresented voices that need to be amplified. A decade ago, Elizabeth started her career at Time, sitting down with heavy-hitters like Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama while also covering social and ideological shifting sands, like the way the Latino community is changing the face of evangelical churches and our culture’s collective response to Trayvon Martin’s death. Elizabeth and Jen talk about the way American Christians are trying to reconcile their decisions at the ballot box with their faith, and why it’s so important to ask hard questions, even if you don’t like the answers you get in return. Elizabeth reminds us even when we get uncomfortable and dig for answers beneath the surface, the truth is always worth it.

Elle.com’s R. Eric Thomas: Truth is Funnier Than Fiction

“It’s funny ‘cause it’s true!” said Tina Fey on 30 Rock. As in all things, Tina is 100% correct. In our 2nd episode of For the Love of Finding the Truth, Elle.com humor writer R. Eric Thomas and Jen explore humor as a truth-telling device and how we can use comedy to face some of the greatest ideological battles of our time. Eric has a daily column called “Eric Reads the News” where he breaks down the biggest headlines as only a satirist, brunch enthusiast, and Beyoncé Fan Club President can do (and be careful where you read anything Eric writes—he’ll likely inspire uncontrollable snorts, much like you’ll hear from Jen during the episode). Eric’s first stab at observational humor took place at church while he and his brother made hilarious notes about the people there (to which Eric was sure they’d go to hell for). This humor later turned into imaginative scenarios Eric would post on Facebook for his friends (i.e. when he saw a group photo of President Obama, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, Eric declared them “an all-male cast of Sex and the City”), which ultimately got the attention of Elle.com and launched his daily column. Eric’s journey is defined by confronting his own painful and hilarious truths as he’s overcome stereotypes, reckoned his Christianity with being gay, and discovered some surprisingly deep things about himself when he joined a gay softball league—all of which he talks about in his upcoming book Here For It. As Eric says: “The oppressors do not get to define the way I walk through the world and hold my head up. I get to define that.” As Eric would also say—honey, yes.

Left & Right Can Be Friends: Searching for Truth with Pantsuit Politics’ Beth & Sarah

In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, can you handle the truth? We think you can, and we’re excited to start a new series that dives into the murky world of truth-telling in our culture today: For the Love of Finding the Truth! Skewing the truth is nothing new—bias exists everywhere—but in the pre-social media era, it was a smidge easier to parse through what was real and what wasn’t. With the massive growth of online communities, there are more ways to get information than ever before—and more organizations looking to feed the information they want us to have (#fakenews). Kicking off the series are two women dedicated to sifting through the mountains of information hurled at us each day and understanding it from differing perspectives. Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers (who go by “Sarah from the left” and “Beth from the right”) stand a few feet from each other on the political spectrum, but are still actually good friends. And they’re leading the way on how to have grace-filled political conversations, which they do each week on their highly acclaimed podcast Pantsuit Politics. Lucky for us, they wrote a whole book called I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening) about another topic we discuss: relationship is always more important than being right. Plus, Sarah and Beth answer some burning political questions like: how does the Electoral College work and why is everyone in a twist about it? Gerrymandering—why should I care? And what’s gonna happen in 2020?? The Pantsuit ladies break it all down and give us thoughtful explanations and opinions, showing us how truth can be revealed through knowledge wherever you stand.