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 views, and yet somehow we’ve never been so ignorant of what others believe. The old men who used to volunteer with the Lion’s Club now sit home alone at night watching Fox News.Yuval Levin argues that we thrive inside institutions where we develop relationships of commitment, obligation, and responsibility. And he sees a particularly important role for churches. He writes this in his new book, A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream, published by Basic Books: “A recovery of the ethic of community also stands the best chance of beginning in the kinds of communities that first form out of common religious convictions.”Levin is the founder and editor of National Affairs and has written for many prominent publications. I previously interviewed him on his excellent book The Fractured Republic. He joins me on Gospelbound to discuss a wide range of topics: how populism combines with identity politics to resist restraint, the lure of cynicism and outsider politics, our pervasive culture war, the culture of celebrity as the enemy of integrity, and much more. This episode of Gospelbound is sponsored by Southeastern Seminary, equipping today’s ministry leaders with the Word of God, a philosophical foundation, and care for the lost through their Masters program in Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Ph.D. in Public Theology. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 lure of relevancy is strong in any clique, but when it comes with a gag order on truth it isn’t worth it.”The book compiles letters written by Holmes to her first-born son, Wynn. She frames the book theologically by the already/not yet. You see that perspective in her hopes for Wynn. She writes: Though this life will sometimes make him feel less than human, he is more than a conqueror through his Savior. Against all odds, we want to raise an optimist. Someone who knows that he might receive the worst that this world has to offer and still believes the best. Someone who cultivates glorious respites from the cruelty of the world by the grace of God. Holmes contributes to The Gospel Coalition among other publications. She teaches Latin and humanities in a classical Christian school in Jackson, Mississippi. And she joins me now on Gospelbound to discuss all the easy topics from politics to race to police brutality to abortion and everything else you’re not supposed to bring up in polite company. This episode of Gospelbound is sponsored by Southeastern Seminary, equipping today’s ministry leaders with the Word of God, a philosophical foundation, and care for the lost through their Masters program in Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Ph.D. in Public Theology. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 argues that we’ve focused so much on winning souls that we’ve neglected to keep them. Just look at the attrition rates for people who grew up in the church but drifted away. He advocates for a priority, then, on pastoral care against models of pastoral ministry as activity manager, CEO, or unlicensed therapist.Nevertheless, he recognizes that many pastors lack spiritual depth and awareness to take up the challenge of pastoral care. We try to give ourselves, but we quickly run low on our own resources of empathy.He writes: “No matter how compassionate and empathetic a pastor is, there’s just no way he can come up with what it takes to feed the sheep of Christ effectively, much less tend to their spiritual heartaches, bruises, and injuries.”Senkbeil joins me on Gospelbound to discuss how he learned these lessons the hard way, why Christian living is more caught than taught, and what he’s seen as the biggest change in pastoral ministry over the last half-century. This episode of Gospelbound is sponsored by Southeastern Seminary, equipping today’s ministry leaders with the Word of God, a philosophical foundation, and care for the lost through their Masters program in Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Ph.D. in Public Theology. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 lives in the Boston area.Her book takes on several of the most controversial issues of our time. Her story encourages Christians in holiness and obedience, and challenges those who do not yet believe to trust in Christ. She writes that, “A crucial ministry of same-sex-attracted Christians is to point to the validity of God’s word over our deep feelings.” And that’s why I so appreciate this book, not only for readers who can identify with her particular story. It challenges the rest of us to follow Christ, even when we don’t feel like it.Gilson joins me on Gospelbound to discuss when she changed her mind about Christianity being stupid and cruel, how she found acceptance and joy in Christian community, and her views on campus evangelism today. This episode of Gospelbound is sponsored by Southeastern Seminary, equipping today’s ministry leaders with the Word of God, a philosophical foundation, and care for the lost through their Masters program in Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Ph.D. in Public Theology. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 God’s thunderclap call for all of us to repent and realign our lives with the infinite worth of Christ.”John Piper is the founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and the chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He is also a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. The ebook and audiobook for Coronavirus and Christ are available for free at desiringgod.org, and you can also purchase the book, published by Crossway, on Amazon.John Piper joins me on Gospelbound to discuss what God is doing in the coronavirus, how we can persevere in prayer for an end to this pandemic, and why the health-and-wealth gospel must be exposed as impotent and dangerous. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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), and an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy, and religion. He is senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science and Christianity. You may also know him from his debates with noted atheists Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Singer.In this book he points out how the coronavirus exposes our vulnerability, when we expend so much energy pretending that we are immortal. And yet the relationship between creator and creation is disordered. All is not well. Perhaps this epidemic will make it impossible to avoid the fact that we will all die.What, then, can Christians say to an anxious world? Can we solve this problem? Lennox doesn’t go that far. He writes that “a Christian is not so much a person who has solved the problem of pain, suffering and the coronavirus, but one who has come to love and trust a God who has himself suffered.”Lennox joins me on Gospelbound to discuss the God who wears the crown and why we can love and trust him. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 ideological. The problem is the compromised identity of the church itself and the compromised message of the gospel.”Sittser joins me on Gospelbound to explain how this “Third Way” in the early church attracted attention not for being loud and obnoxious, but by being different. We’ll also discuss why millennials drift away from the church, how to change a church culture of entertainment, the high price of fighting for power and privilege, and more. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 reads The Devil in the White City and also Dead Wake among other titles. If you're looking for an engrossing read during the coronavirus quarantine, I recommend this book.You'll be engrossed in the life and death struggle of a nation and its dynamic leader in their confrontation with Nazi tyranny. I read the book before the world stopped spinning, but recent events gave me a new perspective on the timeliness of this work and it even made me wonder about the role of religion or lack thereof in this and in that previous crisis. So that’s why we've invited Erik Larson to speak on Gospelbound. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 written previous books, including Disappearing Church. And he is the senior leader of Red Church in Melbourne, Australia. Many listeners of Gospelbound may know Mark as the cohost with John Mark Comer of the podcast This Cultural Moment.I appreciate Sayer’s view that we’re just not going to be smart or savvy or rich enough to meet the challenges of our post-Christian culture. So much is working against us in this world.He writes:The whole of contemporary Western culture—from the structure of our malls and cities, to the very fabric of the internet and social media platforms—are ideologies that shape us toward a vision not rooted in the eternal, but in the unlimited freedom and pleasure of the individual. But Sayers doesn’t just see challenges. He also sees opportunities. We talk about both in this episode of Gospelbound. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.

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 Street Journal, and The New York Times. He observes that Romans saw worship of the crucified Jesus as scandalous, obscene, and grotesque. And yet this same Roman Empire would eventually come to worship Jesus as God. Holland writes:The relationship of Christianity to the world that gave birth to it is, then, paradoxical. The faith is at once the most enduring legacy of classical antiquity, and the index of its utter transformation.In our own day Holland finds pervasive Christian influence everywhere he looks in the West. The self-evident truths of the American Declaration of Independence—that all men are created equal and endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—are not remotely self-evident to a student of antiquity or other world religions. But that’s the genius of this Christian revolution, Holland argues. He writes, “The surest way to promote Christian teachings as universal was to portray them as deriving from anything other than Christianity."Holland joins me on Gospelbound to discuss why Christianity is the most difficult legacy of the ancient world to write about, and why this Christian revolution is the greatest story ever told. This episode of Gospelbound is brought to you by Southeastern Seminary. In a disenchanted world looking to themselves for answers, Southeastern’s three-year Doctor of Ministry in Faith and Culture plants graduates at the intersection of theology, culture, and church to bring the world a better story—the gospel. Learn more at sebts.edu.