Story Wars and the Search for Truth with Pastor James A. White
The Allender Center Podcast
The Allender Center
4.7 • 648 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do we live faithfully in a world where stories no longer seem to anchor us to a shared reality?
Returning to the Allender Center Podcast, Pastor James A. White joins Dan and Rachael to wrestle with the confusion, distortion that shape our cultural moments, both past and present.
Together, they explore the idea of "story wars"—the deeply human tendency to create narratives that help us survive, but can also estrange us from truth, one another, and the heart of God.
At the center of the conversation is the resurrection story itself: a story so disruptive and improbable that even Jesus' closest companions struggled to believe it.
And yet, the resurrection is precisely what recalibrates reality. Not because it erases suffering or uncertainty, but because it offers a new way of seeing: that even in places marked by grief, confusion, fear, or loss, hope and transformation are still possible.
This conversation invites us to examine the stories shaping us personally and collectively, and to ask difficult but necessary questions about truth, power, fear, belonging, and hope.
About the Allender Center Podcast:
For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.
At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you've been doing some personal work, maybe through journaling, therapy, reading, or even listening to this podcast, and yet still feel like there's something missing, you're not alone. |
| 0:14.5 | Our stories were never meant to be engaged in isolation. |
| 0:18.6 | That's why participating in a story workshop with the Allender Center can be such a |
| 0:23.2 | powerful next step. I'm Rachel Clinton Chen, and I want to personally invite you to this unique |
| 0:29.0 | in-person experience in Seattle. Over the course of three and a half days, you'll receive live |
| 0:34.8 | teaching from Dan Allender, Wendell Moss, and myself, and other Allender Center instructors. |
| 0:41.5 | But what makes this workshop truly transformative is the time you'll spend in a story group, |
| 0:47.3 | a small, intimate setting, led by a trained facilitator who will walk with you as you engage a part of your story with care and courage. |
| 0:56.0 | It's a space marked by compassion, reflection, and healing, a space where deep change becomes |
| 1:02.4 | possible. If you're feeling called to take your storywork further and to do it in community, |
| 1:08.6 | this might be the next step you've been looking for. |
| 1:11.9 | Learn more and register now at the Allandercenter.org slash workshops. |
| 1:17.7 | We would love to have you with us. Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast. |
| 1:41.8 | I'm Dr. Dan Allender. |
| 1:43.4 | And I'm Rachel Clinton Chen. We're |
| 1:45.4 | fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world. And restoration for the heart. |
| 1:51.9 | Thank you for joining us. Let's get this conversation started. Rachel, we've talked often about the reality that both of us are crazy. |
| 2:10.1 | Is that a fair beginning? |
| 2:12.0 | Oh, I thought you usually talk about how you're the French meter of normalcy, |
| 2:16.2 | but yes, I'm glad to hear you owning that we might be a little unstable. |
| 2:20.8 | Nonetheless, we both know that this is an era that feels mad, crazy, sort of dark, etc. |
| 2:28.9 | And we need people who provide us with some linkage to reality and to goodness and truth and beauty. |
... |
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