Unabridged Interview: Norman Wirzba artwork

Unabridged Interview: Norman Wirzba

No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

June 5, 2026

This is our unabridged interview with Norman Wirzba. How does the pursuit of independence distort our understanding of the good life?
Speakers: Lee C. Camp, Annie F. Downs, Norman Wirzba
**Lee C. Camp** (0:02)
Hello, friends, Lee C. Camp here. You're listening to No Small Endeavor. This is our Unabridged Interview with Professor Norman Wirzba.
Norman is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian Theology at Duke University. I've known of Norman's work for many years, and I was excited to finally get to have an opportunity to sit down with him at some length. This episode is a little bit longer than our normal unabridged episodes, and we're pleased to get to share with you that full conversation here in this particular episode. We'd had Norman as a guest on one of our live shows that we did here recently up in Kansas City, up and out in Kansas City, but that didn't give us quite enough time to discuss all the things I wanted to discuss, and so grateful for this particular conversation. One of the things that you'll hear that's so, I think, helpful and especially provocative about Norman's work is that he grew up as a farm boy on a farm out in southern Alberta. There, he said, with the Rocky Mountains on his western horizon, which is a picturesque picture to imagine, and that in time, what he discovered out of his love of philosophy is a way to not merely incorporate his childhood experiences as being raised on a farm, but actually to enrich deeply both his agrarian vision and his philosophy by letting those two disciplines and practices inform one another. It's just a really rich conversation, provocative of a lot of thought, a lot of consideration, and some ways that we might see the beauty and the interdependence in our lives in very compelling, provocative, helpful ways.
Here's Norman Wirzba. Enjoy. Hello, friends. Lee C. Camp here. There is, as you may have noticed, no shortage of content in the world. Opinions, endless, outrage, plentiful.
Deep wisdom and thoughtful perspective, slightly harder to come by. That's part of why we created the NSC Notebook. It's our weekly email from the world of No Small Endeavor with reflections on a good life, behind the scenes insight into our interviews, and quotes that stuck with me long after those conversations ended. You'll also get a curated list of what I'm reading, watching and listening to books, movies, music, and other things I think are actually worth your time. It comes to your inbox every Tuesday, completely free. So if you'd like one less thing to doom scroll and one more thing to actually enjoy, sign up for the NSC Notebook at no small endeavor.com. Starting something new is hard and honestly can be terrifying. When we started No Small Endeavor, there were plenty of what ifs, what if no one listens, what if it doesn't work? But sometimes the thing worth doing is precisely the thing that requires you to take a leap. And if you're starting a business, Shopify helps make that leap a little less daunting. Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US, hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. And you can also get the word out if you have a marketing team behind you with e-mail and social media campaigns. If you get stuck, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24-7 customer support. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/nse.
Go to shopify.com/nse.
That's shopify.com/nse.

**Annie F. Downs** (3:39)
Hi friends, it's Annie F. Downs here and I am so beyond excited to share with you that I have a brand new TV show called I Gotta Ask that begins airing Thursday, May 28th on The Wonder Project, which you can find through your Amazon Prime Video app. You may have heard of The Wonder Project because they're the ones who brought you The House of David and I am so honored and honestly have zero chill that I get to partner with them to make this dream come true.
I love how Wonder Project is not only creating great original TV and movies that audiences can experience together, but also curating content via their subscription on Prime Video filled with meaningful stories.
The first two episodes of my talk show, I Gotta Ask premier on May 28th, followed by two episodes each on June 4th and June 11th.
Every episode, I sit down with a group of friends, some experts in their fields and some thought leaders, some just my real life people. And we talk about things like, why is dating so hard in 2026? Or how do I build a business? What do I do with fear and anxiety? And so many more questions that I just had to ask. I cannot wait to hear what you think. You can subscribe today at igottaask.com.

62 more minutes of transcript below

Feed this to your agent

Try it now — copy, paste, done:

curl -H "x-api-key: pt_demo" \
  https://spoken.md/transcripts/1000651996090

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and any agent that makes HTTP calls.

From $0.10 per transcript. No subscription. Credits never expire.

Using your own key:

curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/transcripts/1000771298922