About the series
Polyphonic is an eight-part narrative series on the tangled history of Christian mission and empire. Historians, missiologists, practitioners, and everyday voices trace the legacies we inherited, and ask what mission looks like after empire.
It is built to be heard in order. Each episode hands something to the next, and the argument only fully lands once you have walked the whole run. Start at episode one.
Episode guide
- 01
Donut Shop Conversations
19 min · 6 Jul 2026Imer meets Ted Esler at a local donut shop to set the table: real voices, real tensions, and the grey area between hero worship and horror stories.
- 02
Man Has Dominated Man to His Harm
37 min · 13 Jul 2026Mark Charles, Brian Stanley, and Harvey Kwiyani trace the entanglement of church and empire, the Doctrine of Discovery, and the shadow the word mission has carried.
- 03
Mixed Blessings
37 min · 20 Jul 2026Culture is not a museum piece. When the gospel crosses borders, what gets honored, what gets lost, and what gets created in between?
- 04
Different Amalgams
39 min · 27 Jul 2026From a Puerto Rican Day Parade in Orlando to youth culture across the world: identity in an age of algorithms and migration.
- 05
And These Must Harmonize
38 min · 3 Aug 2026On going without centering ourselves, helping without performing, and building through mutuality rather than one direction.
- 06
Anti-Babylon Ethos
48 min · 10 Aug 2026Through a candid conversation with a former student: how do we name the past honestly without losing the gospel itself?
- 07
Practical Splinters
46 min · 17 Aug 2026Who leads, who funds, and what happens when good intentions create dependency.
- 08
Sinking Down
40 min · 24 Aug 2026The finale returns to a musician’s instinct: adaptation, improvisation, and the courage to keep playing when the harmony is not settled.
