Gospelbound

In his latest book, Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t: The Beauty of Christian Theism (Baker Academic), Gavin Ortlund discusses the problem of evil and deconstructs arguments against Christianity, while also displaying the beauty of God.Gavin Ortlund joins Collin Hansen on Gospelbound to discuss our deepest intuitions, beauty, creation, love, and all kinds of other good stuff. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Proverbs 31 commends men who do justice—men of wisdom, self-control, and courage. In his new book, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character (Baker), Jon Tyson writes, “Men who use their energy like this, courageous men, wise men, self-controlled men, just men—these kinds of men are the need of the hour." Tyson’s book equips intentional fathers to help their sons reach their redemptive potential.In this episode of Gospelbound, Collin Hansen and Jon Tyson discuss fatherhood, risk, discipleship, and more.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week on Gospelbound, Collin Hansen is joined by Dave Harvey, president of Great Commission Collective, a church-planting ministry and author of the new book, The Plurality Principle: How to Build and Maintain a Thriving Church Leadership Team (Crossway, TGC). Dave brings more than 30 years of pastoral ministry to this conversation and gives wise counsel for pastors and other church leaders hoping to build thriving leadership teams. Dave argues that “the quality of your elder plurality determines the health of your church.”At TGC, we seek to help believers live a life that is bound to the gospel of Jesus. We do this through the articles, videos, and podcast shows we produce, and these resources are free because of our generous community of financial supporters. Would you consider becoming a TGC partner today, helping support the ongoing creation of this show and other gospel-centered content? To make a financial gift, you can visit tgc.org/give. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In his new book, Talking about Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Conversations (Zondervan Reflective), Isaac Adams argues that if we could just hold our beliefs—and also our tongues—loving across racial lines in the American church “could become one of the most powerful testimonies to a divided and dividing world.” Isaac joins Collin Hansen on Gospelbound to explain blocking, race as a “Velcro issue,” abortion, cultural preferences, and the mission of the church, among other topics. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In his new book, The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership (IVP), Tom Nelson observes a dripping irony. Though surrounded by many people, pastors are often intensely lonely and socially isolated. They work with the things of God but are tempted by the seduction of accomplishment at the expense of intimacy with God.Shepherd leaders, according to Nelson, are forged on the anvil of obscurity and refined in the crucible of visibility. They get into trouble when they attend more to the church than to their own soul, or when they get sucked into partisan politics and lose track of their disciple-making vision.Tom Nelson joins Collin Hansen on Gospelbound to discuss flourishing pastors, congregational expectations, friendship, failure, Dairy Queen, and much more.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to a special edition of Gospelbound and Let’s Talk! Join hosts Collin Hansen and Melissa Kruger as they discuss their favorite recent reads and the top 10 theology stories of 2021. They also preview the year ahead in 2022—and reveal a surprise for 2023. Thank you for listening and encouraging us in this work!09:20 Deconstruction14:52 Cultural and historical shape of evangelicalism scrutinized15:58 The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill25:31 Vaccines and Covid mandates31:32 Christian Nationalism and the U.S. Capitol storming39:15 2021 Gospelbound highlights39:35 What's Next for Our Culture with COVID: Andy Crouch40:30 How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us: Morty Schapiro and Saul Morson41:25 Why Americans Quit Church: Ryan Burge44:50 TGC Book Awards46:20 The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell49:25 How Christianity Transformed the World by Sharon James51:46 TGC 2022 Women's Conference54:23 TGC 2023 Conference Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What ails your church? Hopefully the answer doesn’t come too quickly! Hopefully your church is the picture of health, where everyone’s growing in love of God and love of neighbor. Or maybe your church has a discipleship disease. If so, then JT English can help with his new book, Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus, published by B&H. English serves as the lead pastor of Storyline Fellowship in Arvada, Colorado. Previously, JT served as a pastor at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, where he founded and directed The Village Church Institute, which is committed to theological education in the local church JT sees churches worried about being irrelevant, worried they’re asking too much of busy people. Many Christians seem to think the church has gotten too deep. But JT English couldn’t disagree more! As you might guess from his book title, he says most churches aren’t nearly deep enough. He writes: People are leaving not because we have given them too much but because we have given them far too little. They are leaving the church because we have not given them any reason to stay. We are treating the symptoms of the wrong disease. Deep discipleship is about giving people more Bible, not less; more theology, not less; more spiritual disciplines, not less; more gospel, not less; more Christ, not less. The good news is that deep discipleship does not require massive resources, a large congregation, or an enormous ministry staff. It starts with not apologizing when we ask Christians to make commitments. JT joins me now on Gospelbound to discuss Sunday school and small groups, travel baseball, active learning, and commissioning culture. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

During the last decade, one in 20 Americans has shifted from identifying with a religion to claiming “nothing in particular.” And this group is also the least likely of any position on religion to hold at least a bachelor’s degree.Those are just two of the many findings that jump from the page in Ryan Burge’s new book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, published by Fortress Press. Together with atheists and agnostics, sociologists categorize the “nothing in particular” group as “nones.”Today, as many Americans don’t affiliate with any church as belong to any major religious group. We’re talking about one of the largest religious trends, if not the largest, in the last 40 years. Burge’s book seeks to explain how these so-called nones grew from statistically irrelevant to around one-quarter of the entire American population.Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. And he’s also been a pastor in the same American Baptist Church for the last 13 years. So his work goes beyond the descriptive into the prescriptive. For example, he observes that among the nones, Christians should focus on this “nothing in particular” group, which is open to returning to religion.He joins me on Gospelbound to discuss the implications of his findings for evangelicals, for Black Protestants, for the mainline, and for politics. I’ll also ask him why so many Americans left the church between 1991 and 1996 and his best guess at the most significant cause behind this trend. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Our cause is sacred. How can we doubt it, when we know it has been consecrated by a holy baptism of fire and blood?”So said a North Carolina minister about the Confederacy in the aftermath of the South’s defeat at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. This arresting quote contributes to the title of James P. Byrd’s new book, A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War, published by Oxford. He writes, “This is a book about how Americans enlisted the Bible in the nation’s most bloody and arguably most biblically infused war.”Byrd is chair of the graduate department of religion and associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. And if you’re interested in this book you need to also pick up his book Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution.Just at the Battle of Antietam, four-times as many American soldiers as died as 80 years later on the beaches of Normandy in World War II. Twice as many Americans died that one horrible day outside Sharpsburg, Maryland, as in the War of 1812, Mexican War, and Spanish American War combined. Americans should have known from the Bible that civil wars are the worst wars, and even God’s chosen nations could self-destruct, Byrd argues. They may not have expected such a tragedy at the outset of the war. But by the end they had draped the whole conflict in Scripture, culminating with Father Abraham killed on Good Friday after setting the captives free. Byrd writes, “Americans were never in more disagreement over the Bible, and yet never more in agreement that the Bible proved the sacredness of war.”Byrd joins me on Gospelbound to discuss the jeremiad, Achan, Exodus, camp revivals, Frederick Douglass, and abolitionist views of inerrancy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Do I exist for God or does God exist for me?” That’s the question that I think animates Dean Inserra’s new book, Getting Over Yourself: Trading Believe-in-Yourself Religion for Christ-Centered Christianity, published by Moody. Or, maybe it’s this line: “We can’t make Christianity cooler.”He explains his argument this way: “The entire premise of this book is that spiritual victory and earthly victory are not synonymous.” He identifies a new kind of prosperity gospel that promises earthly success along with spiritual abundance. But he can find no such Christianity in the Bible.Dean serves as founding pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. And I thought this description explains what I appreciate about his book. Dean writes, “In a therapeutic society, the achievement of self-fulfillment with God’s apparent stamp of approval is the perfect recipe for Christians to desire the things of this world while still feeling as if they are close to Jesus and He is very pleased. It appeases our need to know God isn’t mad at us while giving us license to continue on making much of ourselves.”So what’s his alternative? Dean says, “I want to win people with a message that would still apply if my church was in a third world country, meeting in secret with nothing more than a single, shared Bible: the message of Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and ascended.”Dean joins me now on Gospelbound to discuss the divide between seminary classrooms and popular Christianity, Instagram as instigator in crisis counseling, and why he doesn’t think God wants us to be happy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.