In Conversation…

A conversation about play, attention, and why being fully present with children is some of the most important work we do.

I’ve spent a lifetime raising children and helping raise grandchildren. In this conversation with Christopher Mannino, I found myself recognizing ideas I’ve learned not from books, but from years of showing up. This is about play, imagination, and why presence — not performance — is what children remember.

Drawing on decades of humanitarian work, Sharon reflects on accountability, choice, faith, and why good intentions alone are not enough. We talk about suffering not as an abstract problem, but as something that asks something of us in our communities, our institutions, and our daily lives.

Novelist TJ Poortinga joins me to talk about Electric Orange, a darkly comic, theologically sharp warning written from inside evangelical culture. We unpack Christian nationalism, masculinity, media rage, and why secular America keeps misreading religious power.

Filmmaker Petra Costa and producer Alessandra Orofino join Frank Schaeffer to explore how evangelical movements fused with authoritarian politics in Brazil—and why the same forces are reshaping democracy in the United States.