Keith Smith grew up on Montford Street in Pacoima — in the San Fernando Valley — during one of the most culturally distinct decades in American history.

His grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman who helped build what became the first African-American suburb in the United States. His grandmother was a Southern hospitality-giver who always cooked enough for company. His neighborhood was multigenerational, tight-knit, and quietly remarkable.

His mom taught Michael Jackson the robot.

And then, when Keith was 12 years old, a murder on his street divided his childhood into before and after.

The Magic of Montford Street: A Love Letter to the Valley in the '80s is Keith's memoir — his origin story, told before he writes the theological books that are coming next. It's a book about a community that formed him, a magic that was stolen, and what it means to grieve something good.

In this conversation, Asher and Keith talk about:

• What made Pacoima one of the most unique Black communities in America — and how it got that way
• The '80s as a bridge generation: still outside until the streetlights came on, but also Atari 2600
• How the Cosby Show gave Keith the first screen representation of the life he actually lived
• The crack epidemic and the War on Drugs — what it looked like from a kid's perspective on the street
• The LAPD battering ram, two blocks from his house, deployed against the wrong family
• How Rodney King was beaten just down the road in Pacoima — and why it wasn't surprising to the people who lived there
• What his grandmother's storytelling and hospitality built in him that he still carries as a pastor
• Why he believes you have to start with your origin story before you can say anything else

This is a rich, warm, personal conversation about memory, community, loss — and the people who form us.

Read the full blog post and show notes here and learn more about the Unfeigned Christianity Membership program at asherwitmer.com/member. Find Keith's book, writings, and soundtracks at www.keithnsmith.com.

00:00 Introduction to Keith Smith and His Journey
05:05 From California to Ohio
08:16 The Impact of Community and Neighborhood
11:14 Processing Trauma and Change
13:59 Nostalgia for the 80s: A Unique Era
16:41 The Day the Magic Ended
19:52 Celebrity Culture in the Valley
22:39 The Influence of Family and Community
25:40 Reflections on Race and Neighborhood Dynamics
35:27 The Legacy of Redlining and Community Building
38:09 Pacoima: The First African-American Suburb
41:02 The Impact of the Drug Epidemic
48:40 Community Responses to Change
55:35 The Evolution of Pacoima Today

Karen Swallow Prior spent 21 years teaching English at Liberty University. She has a PhD in English literature, has taught at a Southern Baptist seminary, and has written extensively about evangelicalism — as an insider who both loves the movement and refuses to look away from its problems.

Her book The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Create a Culture in Crisis asks a question that should unsettle all of us: how much of what we've been taught is "biblical Christianity" is actually just Victorian-era cultural assumptions with a Bible verse attached?

In this conversation, Asher and Karen talk about:

• What a "social imaginary" is — and why every community has one, whether they know it or not
• How the evangelical emphasis on conversion as a dramatic, singular event produced a generation of people who checked a box and never grew
• Why sentimentality — emotion elevated beyond the reality behind it — leaves us spiritually immature and ill-equipped to walk with people in real suffering
• Where our theology of gender roles actually came from (hint: the Industrial Revolution, not Genesis)
• How Victorian self-improvement culture quietly replaced sanctification in the evangelical imagination
• Whether authors and speakers are just monetizing people's desire to improve themselves — and what the honest answer to that looks like
• Why reading great literature actually makes us better at loving our neighbors
• And why Karen — despite everything she's seen and named — is still evangelical

This is a thoughtful, generous, and genuinely challenging conversation. Karen doesn't throw the tradition out. She loves it enough to examine it. And that's the kind of faith worth having.

Read the full blog post and show notes here and learn more about the Unfeigned Christianity Membership program at asherwitmer.com/member. Find Karen's book, writing, and Substack at karenswallowprior.com.

02:08 Understanding the Evangelical Imagination
04:06 The Crisis of Evangelicalism
07:12 Understanding Conversion and Discipleship
09:51 Cultural Influences on Evangelicalism
12:42 The Role of Victorian Sensibilities
15:15 Unpacking Metaphors and Imaginaries
18:14 The Impact of Conversion Stories
21:01 Disentangling Culture from Faith
32:00 The Dangers of Emotionalism in Faith
34:32 Self-Improvement vs. Sanctification
38:56 Navigating the Industrialization of Self-Improvement
41:02 The Power of Literature in Empathy
46:00 Staying True to Evangelical Roots

By now you've likely heard about what's been coming out around Bethel Church in Redding, California — Sean Bowles, the cover-up, the repentance service, Bill Johnson's public comments. Mike Winger and others have done significant work exposing the timeline and the failure of leadership.

I'm not here to re-litigate all of that.

I'm here to talk about the one thing I haven't heard anyone name — and the thing that stood out most when I watched Bill Johnson's portion of the repentance service.

Bill Johnson is a people pleaser. And people pleasing is not a neutral personality trait. It is an emotionally unhealthy state. And when you pair it with the kind of authority Bill Johnson holds — and the theological frameworks around apostleship and honor that discourage confrontation — it becomes genuinely dangerous.

In this solo episode, I walk through Bill Johnson's comments carefully and try to name what's being revealed. Not as a takedown. Not as a theological victory lap. But as a mirror — because the same emotional unhealth that let a leader like Bill Johnson look the other way while a predator operated under his platform is the same unhealth that shows up, quieter and less publicized, in every church community and every one of us.

The episode also covers:

• Why "I didn't want to believe it" is a warning sign, not an excuse
• The crucial difference between mercy and people pleasing
• What Biblical confession and repentance actually require
• How the NAR theology of apostleship and honor creates conditions for cover-up
• What sweeping, non-specific apologies do and don't accomplish
• And the honest question Asher sits with at the end: what do I do when someone points something out to me?

This episode will challenge you. But it's not meant to give you something to say about Bill Johnson. It's meant to give you something to do about yourself.

02:30 — What this episode is and isn't
06:00 — Background on the Bethel/Shawn Bolz situation
12:00 — Who else has covered this well (Mike Winger, Ruslan KD, Remnant Radio, etc.)
18:00 — Walking through Bill Johnson's comments from the repentance service
26:00 — "He didn't want to believe it" — why that's telling
33:00 — This isn't about gifting. Something else is going on.
38:00 — People pleasing vs. genuine care for wholeness
44:00 — What mercy actually requires (and what Jesus actually did)
50:00 — The theology of apostleship and honor in NAR
56:00 — Sweeping apologies and what they reveal
1:02:00 — The question we all need to sit with