“No one can help or hurt a child like a parent can.” Do you doubt this observation? Try finding a memoir that isn’t an extended meditation on the author’s parents. And if you’ve read the memoirs I have, you don’t want your children to grow up and write one. The story of growing up with two parents who loved you and loved the Lord doesn’t make for good drama. But it can help set you up for a lifetime of faithfully serving God and neighbors. Matt Chandler aims to help parents toward this goal in h...
Aug 11, 2020•32 min•Ep. 20
“Nothing we expected, yet everything we need.” That’s what Michael and Lauren McAfee suggest you’ll find when you read the Bible for yourself. That’s their charge to the millennial generation in their new book, Not What You Think: Why the Bible Might Be Nothing We Expected Yet Everything We Need , published by Zondervan. Michael and Lauren write this book to millennials, those born between 1980 and 1995. Believe it or not, this is the largest generation in American history: 78 million, or one in...
Jul 07, 2020•34 min•Ep. 19
I don’t know that any religious conversion is more unlikely than another. After all, we’re only born again because a perfect man who is God died on a cross and rose from the dead on the third day. That’s not a likely story. We’re all equally dead in our transgressions before Jesus saves us. But I know what Randy Newman means in his new book, Unlikely Converts: Improbable Stories of Faith and What They Teach Us About Evangelism [Read TGC's review ], published by Kregel. We all know someone who’d ...
Jun 30, 2020•34 min•Ep. 18
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re facing opposition far more intense than anything Christians in the United States have experienced in the last century. That’s the message from Luke Goodrich in his new book, Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious History in America , published by Multnomah. Goodrich, the leading religious-freedom attorney at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty , has fought and won in the Supreme Court. But he’s concerned that we’re not prepared for the c...
Jun 17, 2020•44 min•Ep. 17
Jerry Mitchell remembers what so many others want to forget. For more than three decades, he worked as an investigative reporter for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. During that time, his dogged reporting helped put four Klansmen in jail after they had eluded justice year after year for their heinous crimes in the 1960s. Mitchell tells this story of justice delayed and finally done in his new book, Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era...
Jun 16, 2020•30 min•Ep. 16
Everyone agrees that we’re drowning under a rising tide of atheism. Right? Actually that’s how author Alec Ryrie describes early 17th century Europe. We’re talking about the century following the Protestant Reformation, a century marked by wars of religion fought between Protestants and Catholics, and civil war in England. It’s the century that gave us these words: “What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” from the Westminster Shorter Catechism ....
Jun 09, 2020•34 min•Ep. 15
Tim Challies visited 25 different countries in his memorable year. And I think he may have even eaten McDonald’s in each of these countries. He attended worship services on every continent. He searched high and low for the artifacts that would help him tell the story of 2,000 years of Christian history. And he brings us along that journey in his new book, Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History , published by Zondervan. I loved following along on social media as he traveled n...
Jun 02, 2020•23 min•Ep. 14
I don’t know how exactly to describe Jamie Smith’s new book, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts , published by Brazos. I just know I recommend it. Smith himself describes the book as one last take at Christianity for someone tempted to leave the faith behind. Augustine is the guide—so ancient he’s strange, so common in his experiences that he feels contemporary. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University and author of many thought-provoking...
May 26, 2020•38 min•Ep. 13
“God is in the longest-lived, worst marriage in the history of the world.” That’s from Tim and Kathy Keller in their short new book, On Marriage , part of the How to Find God series with Penguin Books. They continue: “God is the lover and spouse of his people. But we have given him the marriage from hell.” But God has been faithful even when we were not. He sealed this union with us through Jesus Christ in his cross and resurrection. Tim and Kathy write, “Your marriage to him is the surest possi...
May 19, 2020•43 min•Ep. 12
We may not agree on much any longer. But this we seem to share in common: we don’t trust institutions. Just the drop in Americans’ confidence in organized religion should concern us: from 65 percent expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in organized religion 40 years ago down to 38 percent in 2018. Less trust in institutions means fewer close friends. We spend less time with others and feel more disconnected. Through online media we’ve never been exposed to so many competing v...
May 12, 2020•32 min•Ep. 11
Jasmine Holmes has been called everything from a cultural Marxist to an Uncle Tom. And other derogatory names I can’t repeat on this podcast. Thus is the fate of anyone who seeks to transcend our cultural, religious, political, and ethnic tribes. She lays out a gospel-centered, transcendent agenda in her timely new book, Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope , published by InterVarsity Press. If I had to select a representative quote from the book, it might be this one: “The...
May 05, 2020•37 min•Ep. 10
Harold Senkbeil has the secret of sustainable pastoral work: “You need to realize that you’ve got nothing to give to others that you yourself did not receive.” That’s his main message in a new book called The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart [read TGC’s review ], published by Lexham Press. Senkbeil is an executive director of DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care, and a veteran of nearly 50 years in parish ministry, seminary teaching, and parachurch leadership. Senkbeil arg...
Apr 28, 2020•30 min•Ep. 9
Whether Rachel Gilson is a hero or villain depends on your perspective. Her remarkable story doesn’t leave much room in between. “When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero—brave and strong—denying it makes you a villain.” So Gilson writes in a new book, Born Again This Way: Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Comes Next , published by The Good Book Company. Gilson serves on the leadership team of theological development and culture with Cru and...
Apr 21, 2020•44 min•Ep. 8
How likely are you to contract the coronavirus? To die of it? Or at least to know someone who does? Even if you knew those odds, such knowledge would bring little comfort. In these uncertain times you need something more solid that you can trust. You need a foundation you can stand on. In this pandemic, God is inviting us to build our lives on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. God is good, and he is in control. In a new book, Coronavirus and Christ , John Piper writes, “The coronavirus is Go...
Apr 08, 2020•46 min•Ep. 7
It’s the tale of two crowns: the so-called coronavirus that looks like a crown under the microscope and Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Can God be good when thousands around the world get sick and die from something they cannot even see? Where is he, and what is he doing? John Lennox poses these and other good questions in a new book, Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? , published by The Good Book Company. John Lennox is professor of mathematics at Oxford University (emeritus)...
Apr 02, 2020•39 min•Ep. 6
The church will always face external threats. The gospel will always incite opposition. What if our biggest problem, then, isn’t hostility from the world but instead compromise inside the church? Gerald Sittser marshals that argument in his new book, Resilient Faith: How the Early Christian ‘Third Way’ Changed the World , published by Brazos. Sittser is professor of theology at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. He writes: “The problem we currently face is not primarily political or id...
Mar 31, 2020•35 min•Ep. 5
If Erik Larson writes the book, I read the book. It's one of my simple rules of life. All the more so when he writes about one of the most dramatic periods of history, the so called London blitz of 1940 and 1941 when Great Britain withstood aerial bombardment by Nazi Germany. Larson's latest book is The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz , published by Crown. Larson is also the number one New York Times bestselling author of two of my most memorable...
Mar 21, 2020•27 min•Ep. 4
It turns out that rock bottom isn’t the worst place to be. When you have nowhere else to turn, you realize we need renewal. Mark Sayers has not written another book on the challenges that face the church in the West, though few would be better suited to do so. He’s written instead a handbook for not only surviving but even thriving in our secular age. Sayers is the author of Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture , published by Moody. Sayers has writte...
Mar 17, 2020•35 min•Ep. 3
Now here’s a good question: “How was it that a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanished empire came to exercise such a transformative and enduring influence on the world?” That we take for granted this enduring influence is the main point of Tom Holland’s new book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World , published by Basic Books. Holland is an award-winning historian of the ancient world and regular contributor to the Times of London, The Wall St...
Mar 10, 2020•42 min•Ep. 2
I don’t know what vision the term “decadence” conjures up for you. Some advertising campaign years ago implanted an association for me with chocolate cake. But Ross Douthat sees a rich and powerful society no longer going anywhere in particular. We’re stuck with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline. He writes: “For the first time since 1491, we have found the distances too vast and the technology too limited to take us to somewhere genuinely und...
Mar 03, 2020•39 min•Ep. 1
Gospelbound, hosted by Collin Hansen for The Gospel Coalition, is a podcast for those searching for firm faith in an anxious age. Each week, Collin talks with insightful guests about books, ideas, and how to navigate life by the gospel of Jesus Christ in a post-Christian culture. Coming Tuesday, March 3.
Feb 20, 2020•2 min
