Discussions With Dad: Faith, Blood and the In-Between

About Discussions With Dad: Faith, Blood and the In-Between

Hosted by Tony Shaffer and Matthew Shaffer, a father and son having the conversations many families avoid. Tony, a lifelong Christian raised in a small rural town in Southern Colorado, brings a traditional, conservative perspective shaped by faith, service, and responsibility. Matthew, his gay son, is a writer, artist, and educator raised in Southern California who leans progressive, guided by creativity, lived experience, and empathy. Together, they explore faith, culture, politics, and family—modeling how love and mutual respect can hold space for disagreement. Theme Music by Bruce Martin

Publisher

Tony and Matthew Shaffer; Father and Son

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 Jan 2026

Latest episode

15 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

19 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Oct 2026

   Episode 19: What Are We Taking for Granted?

   Matthew and Tony bring unfinished conversations back to the kitchen table, exploring how everyday choices reveal the principles people live by. Through humor, religious conviction, family expectations, and the conditions attached to helping others, father and son consider what happens when applying a belief becomes personally inconvenient. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

2. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Episode 18: Who Is Responsible Before It’s Too Late?

   Matthew and Tony examine the gap between recognizing a problem and taking responsibility for it. Through current events, regional differences, and the promise of a jury of our peers, father and son explore how communities assign blame, assess fairness, and decide when someone should have stepped in. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

3. 

   16 Sept 2026

   Episode 17: What Happens When Tolerance Challenges Freedom?

   Matthew challenges Tony to define where protecting freedom ends and taking justice into your own hands begins. What starts with Tony’s warning that people may eventually “take action” expands into a larger debate over whether a tolerant society can protect beliefs that may themselves threaten the freedoms allowing them to exist. Father and son wrestle with religious liberty, Islam and Christianity, free speech, political violence, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the killing of a healthcare CEO, and the growing extremes on both the right and left. As Matthew repeatedly presses Tony on what it actually means to “fight back,” they confront the difference between self-defense and vigilantism—and whether democratic institutions, legal action, voting, and open conversation can still prevent political disagreement from becoming retaliation. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

4. 

   19 Aug 2026

   Episode 16: When Certainty Feels Safer Than Truth

   Matthew asks Tony why people would rather be certain and wrong than uncertain and still thinking. Beginning with their own convictions, father and son examine whether intelligence or common sense actually protects anyone from radicalization, why evidence becomes harder to accept when it challenges what we already believe, and why extremism is easier to recognize in people we oppose than among those who agree with us. Their conversation moves through faith, politics, religious conviction, radical ideology, and the complicated question of how beliefs should—or should not—shape life in a free society. They consider whether humility can keep conviction from becoming dangerous certainty, what happens when political or religious identity becomes tribal, and whether loving someone through an extreme belief leaves room for them to change. Ultimately, Matthew and Tony arrive at a simpler question beneath all the others: When did disagreement make us enemies—and why do we have to be enemies at all? Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

5. 

   5 Aug 2026

   Episode 15: The Boy You Thought I’d Be

   Matthew asks Tony when he first realized his son would not grow up to be like him—and what it meant to raise a boy who loved dance at a time when masculinity was more narrowly defined. They reflect on whether anyone questioned Tony’s parenting, how much parents should encourage rather than simply observe, and whether children today have greater freedom to become themselves—or face new pressure to define themselves too quickly. As political battles over parental rights, gender, and childhood continue across the country, father and son consider what has genuinely changed for boys, what acceptance requires from parents, and when Tony first recognized that America was changing too.  On a technical note, we’d like to apologize for the echo midway through this episode. We’ve isolated the problem and it should not be an issue on future episodes. Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

6. 

   23 Jul 2026

   Episode 14: When Certainty Gets in the Way

   Matthew and Tony examine what happens when confidence in institutions begins to erode. From environmental predictions and political messaging to scientific theories and religious conviction, they explore why people stop trusting experts, how personal experience shapes belief, and whether faith and skepticism can exist side by side. Along the way, they ask whether certainty helps us find truth—or sometimes keeps us from asking better questions. Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

7. 

   9 Jul 2026

   Episode 13: When Conviction Meets Family

   Matthew and Tony revisit one of the most defining conversations of their lives: Matthew's coming out. Sharing the same Christian faith but arriving at different understandings of what that faith required, father and son reflect on fear, identity, parenting, and the responsibility to keep listening when conviction and relationship collide. Rather than revisiting old arguments, they explore what helped them remain connected—and whether faith is ultimately measured by certainty, or by the way we choose to love one another. Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

8. 

   25 Jun 2026

   EPISODE 12: Growing Pains: When the Country Outgrows the Family Story

   Summary As America approaches its 250th birthday, Matthew and Tony ask what we are called to preserve, what we are being asked to outgrow, and how families, communities, and countries move through growing pains without losing each other. In this conversation, they wrestle with freedom, patriotism, the Constitution, generational fear, social media, AI, education, the trades, gun rights, mental health, family structure, and the weight of history. Along the way, the larger national questions become deeply personal: how do we honor what was good about the past while making room for those who were hurt by it? And how do we move forward when love, apology, repentance, and real change are all required? At its heart, this conversation is about inheritance—not only what we receive, but what we choose to repair, release, and carry forward. Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

9. 

   10 Jun 2026

   Episode 11: When Protection Become Control

   As Father's Day approaches, Matthew and Tony discuss what fathers leave behind for the next generation: not inheritance, but values. Along the way, they wrestle with questions about freedom, control, AI, community, and the future they'll leave behind, ultimately asking what it means to leave the world a little better than we found it. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

10. 

    23 May 2026

    Episode 10: What Holds Us Together?

    Sorry listeners! We're two days late in posting our podcast this week. Dad is on a motorcycle in D.C. and I'm on the island of Maui, without further delay here is episode ten! After conversations about disagreement, identity, and division, Matthew and Tony turn toward the deeper question of what still binds people together. Through family, faith, citizenship, and shared responsibility, they examine where personal accountability ends and collective care begins. In a time when disagreement can feel like betrayal, they ask whether love, character, and common humanity are still enough to keep us connected. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

11. 

    7 May 2026

    Episode 9: When Belief Becomes Identity

    When belief moves beyond ideas and becomes identity, disagreement can feel less like a difference of opinion and more like a personal threat. Matthew and Tony explore what happens when faith, politics, and values become so intertwined with who we are that questioning them feels like rejection of the self. Drawing from their ongoing conversations about responsibility, masculinity, and language, they wrestle with the tension between conviction and humility—asking whether it’s still possible to stay curious, compassionate, and connected when beliefs feel non-negotiable. As the lines between personal identity and ideology blur, the conversation turns toward a deeper question: how do we remain in relationship with one another when changing our minds can feel like losing ourselves? Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

12. 

    23 Apr 2026

    Episode 8: When Trust Breaks Down

    Trust is harder to sustain in a world shaped by competing headlines, social media, and constant outrage. Matthew and Tony explore what happens when institutions lose credibility, lived experience clashes with media narratives, and people begin assuming bad motives before good intentions. As truth becomes harder to define, the conversation turns toward exhaustion, generational frustration, and whether trust can be rebuilt once it starts to fracture. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

13. 

    8 Apr 2026

    Episode 7: When the World Changed Faster Than Our Language

    Language is shifting faster than ever—shaped by social media, generational change, and evolving ideas of identity. In this conversation, Matthew and Tony wrestle with what happens when words no longer mean the same thing to everyone. They explore the growing tension around language—why some Americans believe certain words should be restricted, while others are seen as reshaping or misusing language altogether. Where is the line between truth and kindness? And in a world where getting it wrong can feel costly, what do we owe each other as we try to understand? Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

14. 

    26 Mar 2026

    Episode 6: What Makes a Man?

    We’ve spent time exploring belief, disagreement, and what we owe each other—but this time, we bring it back to something more personal. As a father and son, we ask: when have we felt most proud of each other? How has emotional restraint shaped us across generations? And beyond politics, religion, or identity—what actually makes a good man? This conversation attempts to step away from ideology and into lived experience, exploring masculinity, vulnerability, and the legacy we carry—and choose to change.

15. 

    11 Mar 2026

    Episode 5: As Americans, What Do We Owe Each Other?

    “If freedom means we can live differently, what do we still owe each other as Americans?” We’ve explored why conversations matter, how belief shapes facts, why disagreement now feels like rejection, and how freedom means many different things. If freedom gives us the right to live differently from one another, the real question becomes: what do we still owe each other as citizens? In this episode, we look at the social contract of living in a shared country. Is empathy enough? Where does responsibility begin? And how do people who see the world differently still build a society together? Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

16. 

    26 Feb 2026

    Episode 4: What Is Freedom?

    In Episodes 1–3, we explored why conversations matter, how belief shapes facts, and why disagreement now feels like rejection. This week, we take on a word both sides claim: freedom. Is it autonomy or protection? Agency or responsibility? Dad introduces the tension between Godly freedom and earthly freedom, raising the question of whether moral conviction should ever be legislated onto someone who doesn’t share that belief—and what happens when government itself refuses to follow Supreme Court rulings. As always, this isn’t a debate stage but a table: a conservative Christian father and his gay son continuing the conversation across difference, asking not just what freedom permits, but what it requires. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin

17. 

    12 Feb 2026

    Episode 3: When Disagreement Didn’t Feel Like Rejection

    From Episodes 1 and 2, we’ve explored how disagreement becomes dangerous when facts and beliefs are filtered through fear, lived experience, and identity. What used to be healthy debate has increasingly turned into personal confrontation. In today’s episode, our entry point is empathy—not as pity or a buzzword, but as the ability to stay curious about someone else’s reality, even when their beliefs frustrate us. And during Black History Month, we also acknowledge that empathy is shaped by what we don’t fully understand about each other’s history, experience, and power—especially as the right and left often interpret the world through very different fears and frameworks. What if empathy is the missing bridge between disagreement and rejection—and what if the loss of it is exactly why we’ve stopped being able to sit at the same table? Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin

18. 

    29 Jan 2026

    Episode 2: What We Learned Before We Knew What We Believed

    In this episode, we unpack how facts don’t exist in a vacuum—they’re filtered through faith, culture, fear, and lived experience. Acknowledging what we don’t fully understand about the fears and realities of the BIPOC communities, we explore how those unseen experiences shape perspective—both theirs and ours. From algorithms that reinforce division to the loss of gathering across difference, we ask when belief gives facts meaning, when it replaces them, and why we’ve stopped sitting at tables with people who think differently. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin

19. 

    15 Jan 2026

    Episode 1: Conversations: Why They Matter to Us

    In their first episode, Tony Shaffer, a conservative Christian father and his gay son, Matthew Shaffer—an artist and educator—begin an honest dialogue about faith, belief, and the hypocrisy they’ve witnessed in media, politics, and leadership. Grounded in lived experience and creative practice, the conversation reflects on why hard conversations are essential to sustaining community—and why continuing the conversation matters more than walking away. Theme Music Composed by Bruce Martin.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.