What faith can sound and feel like across decades of friendship, hard times, hope, and openness toward those with whom we differ.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Friday, October 30, 2026 — Actor, activist and author Ashley Judd and Dan Scott, affectionately known as Brother Dan, an ordained Anglican priest, author and spiritual director, are launching A Table Prepared, a new podcast rooted in their shared Appalachian heritage and mountain faith traditions. Christian and ecumenical in spirit, their conversations welcome listeners of different faiths, questions, and convictions.
Drawing on a lifelong friendship, Judd and Scott invite listeners into the deep conversations, laughter, and Appalachian spiritual music they’ve shared privately for decades. Together, they explore what faith looks like in practice when life is difficult, answers aren’t clear, and deeply held beliefs are contested in family and public life. Theirs is a faith spacious enough for both/and: grief and gratitude, anger and tenderness, hope and an unflinching awareness of suffering.
In the first episode, Judd and Scott reflect on Ashley’s late mother, country music legend Naomi Judd, who loved Brother Dan as a brother. Their conversation offers a personal look at Naomi’s place in their lives, holding together the intimacy of loving someone and the mystery of what we can never fully know about another person.
Throughout the series, personal stories, scripture, and mountain music open conversations about forgiveness and compassion, boundaries and political feuding, and our responsibilities to one another. Compassion and forgiveness, in their view, can—and must—coexist with holding people and systems of abuse and power accountable. They ask how we can remain rooted in our convictions and open to being changed; cherish a tradition and confront the harm within it; love one another and maintain necessary boundaries.
The podcast takes its name from Psalm 23: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” For Judd and Scott, the passage speaks to making room, with mercy, for difficult conversations. Hospitality and discernment belong together; welcoming another’s humanity leaves room for naming harm and seeking accountability.
“Brother Dan made room for my fury as a teenager longing for safety and a living faith within my Christian tradition, even as I saw abuse, inconsistencies, and inequality,” said Judd. “His calm, tender, attuned, serious and devout presence reached beyond doctrine somehow, and I sensed he embodied what I was trying to feel into a merciful gospel. I asked him to baptize me in our charismatic Pentecostal church while I was still livid with the church—and could but only trust that somehow, there was a god behind & beyond the God of my and society’s misunderstanding, with whom I could build a safe life. My longing and my anger were both welcome. We’ve been wading through deep waters together ever since, laughing, singing, and celebrating our Appalachian roots for more than 40 years.”
“I’ve spent much of my life helping people wrestle with questions of faith, and I’ve learned that some of the most important conversations begin when we’re willing to admit what we don’t know,” said Scott. “Ashley and I have never been afraid to ask each other difficult questions. We wanted to invite others into that conversation.”
Produced by Situation Room Studios, A Table Prepared is expected to premiere in November on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Judd and Scott are also planning a live podcast taping in Washington, D.C., in December. Additional details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Laugh, sing, feel, think, reflect, and pray with us.
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About Ashley Judd
Ashley Judd is an acclaimed actor, global feminist humanitarian, survivor leader, and New York Times bestselling author. In 2010, she earned a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Her paper, "Gender Violence: Law & Social Justice," received the Dean's Scholar honor at Harvard Law School. She is a Senior Fellow at the Women & Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School, where she leads a reading group on male entitlement to female bodies, and systems of female obligation, entitled Prostitution and Pornography.
For more than two decades, Judd has persevered to advance human dignity and freedom from violence, particularly for women, girls, and marginalized communities. Since 2004, she has collaborated with grassroots organizations, NGOs, multilateral institutions, and governments around the world, listening to those so often neglected, to promote healing, access to care, safety, equality, and justice.
Judd was named one of TIME's Persons of the Year for her role as a silence-breaker and change-maker in the #MeToo movement.
Judd's devotion to liberation was shaped by relationships and interdisciplinary learning. As an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky, she was deeply influenced by a cohort of women scholars across anthropology, art history, theology, and gender studies who modeled rigorous inquiry, collaboration, and the lived experience that intellectual discipline, gentleness, and profound caring can, and must, coexist.
A survivor of child and adult complex trauma and deprivation, Ashley has been in recovery since 2006. In 2022, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention recognized her with their Life Saver honor.
About Pastor Dan Scott
Priest | Scholar | Author - Dan Scott was born in Southern West Virginia in 1953. As the son of foreign missionaries, from his mid-teens, he lived in various places throughout South and Central America. After his marriage to Trish, he lived in Montreal, Quebec until 1983. In 1984, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where, except for a ten-year period in Phoenix, Arizona, they have lived since. He and Trish have two daughters and six grandchildren.
Dan has a Masters in Humanities from California State, a Masters in Psychology from Ottawa University, and a Doctor of Ministry from Lipscomb University. He is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed The Emerging American Church and has pastored two Evangelical megachurches. He is an ordained Anglican priest and now works part time as a spiritual director for a mental health facility in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
About Situation Room Studios
Situation Room Studios produces award-winning podcasts that top the charts in every major market around the world. It convenes news-making conversations with leading global figures from Boris Johnson and Marco Rubio to Nobel Laureates and preeminent personalities. Hosts of its programs come from National Public Radio, CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal. Studios has created shows for clients including major multi-national firms, government agencies, celebrities and top journalists. It is a division of Global Situation Room® (GSR), Inc., an elite full-service public relations firm with offices in Washington, DC and Madrid, Spain.
Media Contact
Kasey Henderson
Vice President, Global Situation Room
kasey@globalsitroom.com | 909-908-2808
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