OpenTheo

Hoping for the Fall of Roe with Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen

Life and Books and Everything — Clearly Reformed
00:00
00:00

Hoping for the Fall of Roe with Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen

May 10, 2022
Life and Books and Everything
Life and Books and EverythingClearly Reformed

After the unprecedented leak of the possible Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Kevin talks to Justin and Collin about the pro-life movement in America, how the church ministers well, and why political polarization is not always a bad thing. The triumvirate also talk about the books they're reading, and they try to keep the sports banter to a minimum.

Timestamps:

Intro and Sponsor 1: Crossway [0:00-1:41]

Life and Family Banter [1:42-10:43]

Roe v Wade Decision and Effects [10:44-47:02]

Sponsor 2: WTS Books [47:03-48:39]

What Books Are You Reading? [48:40-1:05:02]

Sports Banter [1:05:03-1:08:02]

Share

Transcript

[Music] Greetings and Salutations. This is Life and Books and Everything. Welcome back.
I'm Kevin DeYoung and I am joined today with Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen. My good friends, good to have you. Then back in the studio warming up the electric guitar, the Jim Bay,
we're a very simple band here.
I want to thank Crossway again, Gospel People, a Call for Evangelical
Integrity by Michael Reeves. It came out last month. I want to mention again this book.
I don't
know if we mentioned it before, but in a time where there's lots of conversation about Evangelical and the term can be poorly defined and some people ready to throw it overboard. Michael Reeves argues for a global, scriptural, historical perspective and urges Christians to return to the root of that term, which is of course the Evangel, the Gospel. I think many of our most of our listeners will be familiar with Michael Reeves and if you're not, you just can count on thoughtfulness, a real earnest, warm piety in what he writes.
Check out this
book and grateful for Crossway sponsoring the program. If you go to Crossway.org/plus, you can get 30% off you with your Crossway Plus account. That's a good deal.
All right.
Good to see you, brothers again. When I was at T4G, you guys were at T4G as well, I had a number of people come up and thank me for life and books and everything.
So that was
gratifying. Although several people in the midst of their general support and commendation made a point to say, I fast forward all of the sports banter. I'm just not interested.
I just didn't know we were missing the mark so egregiously. So we won't say anything about the spring game for whatever college football team or the start of the WNBA season. But perhaps just a little bit of life or family banter, Justin, what's going on in the JT household as we come to the end of the school year, roll into spring.
Any good updates for
us? Yeah, let me just mention first the penalty that the NCAA issued on Scott Frost with the show cause and go into great detail. Yeah. So first point is and welcome back, listeners.
Yeah. No, I think the most interesting thing for our family right
now is that we have a daughter, our oldest daughter, graduating from high school. So I think she has two weeks left of school.
So that's a milestone when you get to that point of your formal
schooling being done and our youngest will be entering kindergarten next year. So we have, we don't quite have the de-young spread but pretty close. So that's major life events.
Yeah, looking forward to summer, forward to a little bit of travel and vacation and being together as a family, especially thinking about the family unit kind of this is the last hurrah all being together with five kids. So got a couple surgeries planned for our kids. So that's never fun.
But so this will be a momentous year in the potato clan.
Good. Yeah, we also have a graduating senior, our oldest son.
And he's I think done pretty much. Now
he's he did his AP test and other exams and now they have like two extra weeks of doing nothing or something. If you're from the school, I didn't say that.
I'm sure they're working very hard.
You need to talk to the head of that school. I know who's in charge of this school.
And he's
you know, we won't do an episode on this, but the process of applying to colleges and making college decisions seems a lot different. And I guess that's I mean it should be 25 years since we did it. Because they have computers now, Kevin? Well, it just seems so much more complicated.
I don't
know how you guys did it. I got all the mailers from people and you know, you look at them and I kept a box of them and I wasn't going to go to 98% of them. And I picked five schools I wanted to visit.
We visited them and I applied to a few of them and got in and then narrowed it down to two
and then just told my parents, yeah, this is where I'm going. And I think, well, there's a lot, there's COVID, which has made visiting schools harder. It's also made a backlog that we found some of the schools were saying they had twice as many applicants as they've ever had before.
But it's the haves and the haves not. I think some schools we're going to find smaller aren't going to make it. And then the ones that are maybe like in the south, some of these state schools are just applications are through the roof.
And with Common App, you just, you know,
put your thing on the computer, hit it, pay 40 bucks, send it off to the other schools. I mean, I think my son applied to like 13 schools or something. So it was, we've been in the thick of that and that's been stressful.
But I think he knows where he's going. He's decided to go to NC State.
So there you go.
It's close by relatively a few hours and he's got a lot of friends there. He
wants to study. You guys, we probably wants to study agriculture.
He didn't grow up on a farm.
It was amazing. I know.
I love this. Yeah. So that's he's got the farmers is from being born in Iowa,
I think.
What does he want to do? You know, he wants to do the concentration on turf grass
management. Wow. That is so cool.
I don't know. Yeah. Maybe he can work on a ball field or a golf
course or or something.
Do you know that Nebraska got a new turf this year? Yeah. Tell us about that.
It's crazy.
This is it's this is totally unpaid, unprompted, unsolicited, commercial, but
you know, we went and looked at a bunch of Christian liberal arts schools and the ones that I wanted him to go look at and he didn't end up picking that those. But we went to Hillsdale. We went to Grove City.
We went to Covenant and I didn't take him to visit Geneva College, but I was just there
speaking and met with the president there. Anyways, for Christian parents out there, it's I'm not an expert, but I really liked all those schools. I would have felt good about sending my son to any of those Christian liberal arts schools and they're all quite different, but what they're what they're doing and where they're at.
So take that as a free bit of
commercial time from Kevin. Colin, what's going on in the Hanson household anymore babies? I thought I'm aware of. Okay.
Our little William at 10 months is the most pleasant young child we could ever have.
I thought he was William the conqueror. Well, conquering through charm.
So a con for the 21st as opposed to the 11th century, but for the new millennium. So that's that's delightful. And we're also living in the midst of what my wife would describe as Barristine bears too much baseball.
So we love the Barristine bears books around our house.
And my daughter will just bring a huge pile when I'm not reading the new Kevin DeYoung story Bible to my kids. I'm reading them Barristine bears.
Don't appreciate how the father comes
across and Barristine bears for the right. Yeah. Do you remember how to spell Barristine? You know, that's one of the Mandela effect.
That's true. That's true. I think I probably could if my
life depended on it.
But I mean, so we're, you know, we love going through those love the little
kind of helpful to reinforce certain values and of too much TV or too much grumbling or too much junk food. We're in the midst of too much baseball. I didn't quite understand what I was signing up for in first grade summer baseball until I realized that we had a baseball takes over your life.
Five
at least five games a week. At least five nights a week. These are slow moving games with a lot of well, these are coach pitch at least.
So okay. So they're moving a little bit quicker. But
yeah, every day, I mean, it's funny.
I was just corresponding with my sister-in-law in Detroit and
they had my nephew had three baseball games on Mother's Day. And I thought, well, at least the good people of Birmingham, Alabama had the sensibility not to schedule any baseball. Mother's Day.
Yeah, we did. We did baseball for a while. And I love baseball, but I can't say I'm sad that we moved on to other sports.
They last a long time. Even you wait a long time for your kid to get up to
bat. There's a lot of Brian Regan in right field.
Good, good snow cone. Going to get great. Basically,
yeah, this is my most favorite.
Great. And Cherry, Cherry, also my favorite. There's a lot of like
spinning around, putting grass in your hat.
So maybe maybe your kids are Casey at the bat and are
in the thick of it. So far, we're manning down right field. Yeah.
That's a lot of poll hitters in
little. Casey's trick out. Well, yeah.
But my reputation was. Might be. Yeah,
I'd be patient.
Proceeded him. Yeah. That's the only person you can't judge him by just one at bat.
By the only person who recited that along with La Chil Silverstein for oral interpretation elementary school. No, no, you're not. Okay.
You're not. That was a fun one to memorize.
Okay.
Shout out to my grandmother. All right. Well, we've had 10 minutes of hitting the 30
second fast forward button, but good to have you back.
All right. So lots we could talk about,
but I'm just going to throw it to you. We'll see where the conversation goes.
I can direct us
and put some guardrails on. But of course, last week, the and it really is unprecedented. So use an overplayed word, but the Supreme Court leak of the row opinion that Justice Alito has written and has a five four majority and it's been confirmed that that's an authentic draft, not final, but authentic.
And that that five, well, I should say five three, I don't think is it been
clear what the Chief Justice is going to do. So of course, it's not final until it's final, but Justin, take us away. What thoughts on the row? Maybe, I mean, there's lots of people who can do the political punditry.
So we don't need to get deep into that aspect of it, but just on the
prospect of row being overturned, on the conversation that happens among Christians around it, on what we should think about it. How are you processing all this? I think the first thing to note is just going back to seeing it on my computer screen and reading that and almost feeling like on April 1st, when you see a prank and you know, the best pranks are plausible pranks and reading through it and wondering is this real? I mean, it just, we all knew that a decision would be coming one way or another, but to have no advance to warning and to start reading it, something that the three of us and so many others have longed to see the day when this barbaric and unjust law is overturned or ruling. It was really just a strange sensation to be reading through these arguments like this is not just the carrot that's always being dangled out in front of Christians and conservatives, but something that is now actually coming into reality.
It's still a little bit difficult to process that this will be our new world post row. And again, we've been talking about it for decades and longing for it and praying for it. So praise me to God, even though, as you noted with your caveat, Kevin, it's not 100% certain, but I think it seems quite likely that this is the direction the court will go in.
And I think it would just be such a relief
for the country, not that abortion will become illegal. And there are a lot of misunderstandings about what row is and what the implications will be for row. And I think that we all know what the implications are, that this kicks it back to the states and therefore the local angle, thinking statewide and more narrow than that becomes more paramount for Christians in terms of their voting and their finances and their involvement and even their prayer.
So
I think that in some ways, we've thought I can care about this issue and mainly think about it at the sort of national political level, but I think it's an encouragement for all of us as Christians just to be investing more locally. There's a wherever you live, probably unless you're in a very, very small rural area, there's a local pregnancy center that needs support, it needs volunteers, it needs encouragement, and we want to provide an alternative for women. So there's there'll be a lot of time to think through political implications and how Christians think about the politics of it, but certainly at the very least, this is a day for rejoicing to see something again so profoundly unjust to get overruled and not necessarily even to think about all the consequences of that politically, but just to celebrate that fact that something unjust is being now taken off of the record book.
Yeah, let's pray that it will be so that's a good opening word. And I have a number
of thoughts and colanders too, but before we kind of run down some of those, I just a prompts a question. Do you think to either of you think that with this going to the states and roughly, it's not quite a third, a third, a third, but in basic parameters, like a third of the states already have things in place to protect the rights of the unborn and third to protect abortion, access, and then a third or more are pretty open ended.
So as states sort this out, if Roe is overturned, do you envision any reconfiguring
of where people live? I kind of think people will say that and in economic factors will weigh will loom larger. Like right now, we have a new development coming in behind our house and at least the first half a dozen people that have moved in. We got two California plates, we got New York plates.
But any thought that people are going to say, well, not even maybe that I need to go someplace because I want an abortion, but just I don't want to be in one of these abortion restrictive states and will red state, blue states become even redder and bluer any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I hadn't quite thought about it that way, Kevin, but I've become a more thankful federalist, especially because of COVID. I think it's precisely the federalist structure of our government that allowed us to weather that storm easier than it might have been. Can you imagine if it was all across all 50 states? And not to mention within the states.
So really, so many of the decisions did not even come
necessarily to the state level, but also to the county's, you know, county was a major factor there. Our county health department, for example, is issuing a lot of directives based on that situation, but then down to school boards and down to administrations there. I mean, I am and I've said this a million times before, I am an old school conservative.
I am all about local government, local control. And so one of the things that we're going to see in this case is should these things follow through, things are going to be a, they are going to be wildly divergent across the country. And so I think what you're describing there, Kevin, is certainly true, but I think it's going to be a little bit more likely to be in the reverse, meaning it's one thing for say a wealthy liberal who supports abortion rights significantly, but is not planning to get one.
It's one thing for them to say, I'm leaving a red state that
doesn't allow anybody to get an abortion. It's another thing for somebody who is fervently pro life to live in Illinois or New York or California, which I would have to imagine are going to move toward complete full funding for abortions all the way through nine months. I mean, am I wrong on that? I don't want to say something that's foolish or unfair.
It just seems
I would imagine the response from the bluest states at the very least is going to be a dramatic increase. Again, yeah, in access, especially through financial means for that. Now, of course, the federal government is currently still banned from funding abortions through federal programs.
And a lot of those federal programs are what a lot of poor women would be using in this case, or the medical care that they'd be on. But I would have to imagine the major blue states are going to to throw significant financial resources directly from the taxpayers into funding abortions. And also probably an encouragement to cross borders as well.
So I would imagine if you're
Illinois, you're going to be setting up shop right down there on that Indiana border. And you're also going to mean Wisconsin maybe may or may not enact some restrictions. But especially in Indiana, wouldn't you guys think? And Kevin, that's your old territory.
Yeah. And I think there will be a real incentive for blue states politically, if row falls to want to signal to their constituents or at least their base voters. Hey, we're not going to take this lying down as they see it.
We're going to do something. And so
we're going to signal as loudly as we can. Some of it will be just tokens and some of it will be real significant.
But I think you're right. It will be funding. It will be access.
It will be,
you might see national or statewide abortion holidays. I mean, I don't think it's on, they would call it something else. But I mean, they would call it reproductive freedom day or abortion rights day.
You're going to see that now not to get too much in the political
punditry. But I think on either side, if people think this will be the galvanizing issue, come midterms, November is a long time away, politically, a long time away. And I think that economic factors almost always for most people right or wrong override other sorts of factors.
So
I don't do you guys disagree? I don't see this being an issue that changes the calculus that's already in place for the midterm elections. Do you? The only thing I'd say otherwise, I'm interested to get Justin's take on this, is that if you do have open season on state legislation, then that is going to dominate, especially if there are special sessions that are called. I know South Dakota, my old home state said that they'll call a special, a special special legislature will call Congress.
No, they'll call one immediately to ban abortion.
In that case, they'd be one of the states that I think would be definitely on the most conservative end of the spectrum when it comes to that. So you may have quite a massive summer story of all the different things that are being proposed.
And keep in mind, there wasn't a lot of coverage
or strategy or unity among the more conservative side on this topic of what would happen. Because I mean, a lot of people felt certainly like I did in 2016, about around that era before the election. It just felt like this was impossible.
And so it was kind of a unifying force for
Republicans. You could pass whatever you wanted, but it wouldn't go anywhere. It wouldn't happen.
So now you're going to have open season on all kinds of different legislation. And it's going to be different in Kentucky than it is in West Virginia than it is in Alabama, which it is in Mississippi. And journalistically, that's going to be a huge story.
And every one of them is going
to be nationalized. So if that happens, Kevin, that would be that would actually displace some of the economic concerns overall. And state legislature, a lot of people do not realize how much more conservative state legislatures have become, especially since President Obama's tenure.
Sorry, Justin, go ahead. No, I don't necessarily have anything to add on the horse race part of things. So going back to whether people be moving states, it is so expensive to move to another part of the country, unless your job is requiring you to move.
So I wonder if people
getting to retirement age, snowbirds who have a choice between two states, if that might be a factor. But I think my instincts are like Kevin, it's sort of thing people might say, but are you so exercised about it that you'll literally pick up and leave your job and leave your family and leave your community that go to move to another state? Probably not. It just seems as though the sort of the geographic sorting has been following a pretty clear trend for quite a bit of time, which is that higher educated liberals tend to be congregating in cities, and especially coastal cities.
And then people who are looking for more freedom, low taxes, there was a radical shift
prompted by COVID there. And so I could imagine that in the only way that makes it less expensive to move as if you're moving to a much less expensive place in that case. So I would more likely see it moving one direction blue to red, then I would see red to blue.
So here's just continuing with
this abortion discussion and we can circle back to you, Colin, or Justin, if you have your bullet points, but just three thoughts related to this whole discussion in Roe v. Wade. Number one, it's not time to do a victory lap for sure, and we don't know what's happening. But there is something to be said positively for 50 years of, some people will say who don't, who really don't want to see this change as if they're revealing some secret.
Do you know that people
have been working for 50 years to overturn? Yes, that's I think that's been very open. And certainly we can't, you know, just well, yay evangelicals. We know that evangelicals weren't the first ones to this, although some of that historiography is sometimes misguided.
But
certainly lots of Catholics and other religious people. But it does show, I think, the possibility but also the limitations of cultural change. By that, I mean, 50 years is a long time to be focused on something.
And it took, if it works, by God's grace, I mean, it's a jurisprudence issue. It takes
certain, I mean, elections have consequences, certain kind of judicial philosophy, because quite apart from the moral turpitude of abortion, virtually everyone agrees that Roe as a constitutional case was without any sort of legal founding or consistency. So I think it shows a 50 year, of course you didn't know it would take 50 year plan.
So that's good. The limitation, however, is
it is the sort of thing. Now there's many facets to it, but it's easier to look at, okay, here's a case to overturn.
There's a strict, there's a specific thing. And it's harder to, I hope that,
and I think this will be true, but I hope that those who see the good that will be if Roe is overturned keeps saying, well, there's much more to do to work on hearts and minds and care for people. And I think that will happen, but it shows the benefit and also the limitations of just, okay, there's one specific thing.
And I think when there's that sort of goal, it can, you know, by God's
grace in 50 years, you know, we shouldn't think that good things can't happen. I think there is a tendency among conservatives to just assume everything always gets worse and everyone is always against us. Nothing ever works.
And that's not helpful. A second thought, you know, I think
I mentioned to you guys, you know, on a text thread, this book, I just remembered it. Jeffrey Bell came out 10 years ago.
And so he's a conservative. And it's called the case for polarized politics.
And I don't know if you can write that title today.
And I certainly agree with all, you know,
there's lots of reasons to critique polarization in the church and political partisanship being more important to people than theological fidelity. All of those things are very real dangers. What I recall from the book in very general terms, though, you know, the subtitle is why America needs social conservatism.
And his basic argument was, okay, this is my Kevin DeYoung
10 years later. So apologies if I'm not getting it right. But okay, you have a polarized American politics.
And one of the main reasons is because you have social conservatism,
you know how you cannot, there's there's a few real easy ways to not have polarized politics. One is everyone agrees that abortion is wrong. The other is no viable political candidate or party ever really talks about that abortion is wrong.
So when you talk to Christian friends in
the UK and they'll say this just doesn't show up as a major issue, it doesn't divide clearly along political lines. And on the one hand, you can say, well, that must be nice. They don't have the same political polarization.
They don't have just two parties. And yet if the answer, if the
antidote to political polarization is nobody stands up for the life of the unborn, then I'll take polarization. So part of the reason we have polarization is, you know, you can debate whether everyone is sincere in it, but it's just the fact that one political party has made it a plank in their platform and increasingly the other political party, as Justin's pointed out online, has moved away from safe, legal, and rare, the Clinton line to celebrating, I mean, to share your abortion story.
This is such a good, well, that that issue in itself doesn't account for
everything. And it's counterfactual to try to imagine, well, what if that wasn't the case, but it is the case. And as much as political polarization is a real danger and it is, I think we have to remember that one of the reasons we have it is because we can be thankful that not everyone has capitulated on abortion when in many places they might.
And then the third point,
and I'll see what you want to say, Colin, I don't know if you guys share my frustration in this, I think you do. But anytime this comes up, you know, abortion and it quickly, it gets thrown back. Well, you know, you evangelicals, your pro life until they're born.
And then you don't do anything.
And what we really need to do is if you're really consistently pro life, it's womb to tomb. And in fact, people wouldn't be having abortions if you didn't, if you did more to change the circumstances and structures that lead to abortion.
That argument gets very stale to me, not that there's nothing
to learn from it. But on two fronts, one, it's just simply not true that after birth, Christians don't do it, Christians by any measure give the most, they provide the most, they adopt the most. So it's just not true to say that Christians aren't the ones caring.
And then on the other end, that argument equates certain political programs or givens on the left as the only way that you genuinely care for people. And that's a debate that Christians can have, but the assumption is just so often you're not for this particular program, therefore you're not really doing anything to address the problem. So I find it at this moment where there's something perhaps very, very good to happen.
It's almost like
Christians can't ever take good news, need to somehow turn it back on. There's still something really bad that we need to self-flageulate for. And it's frustrating and I don't think it's accurate or it's helpful.
Colin, what do you say? You can hit on any of my three points or give
your own bullet points. Well, one thing, shout out to my pastor Isaac Adams this last Sunday and just prayed unequivocally with thanks for at least what we see in the draft, decision, as well as praying for the unborn. And I think a lot of times, it's kind of like what you said there, Kevin, about polarization.
It's about politics in general that there's a thought
that we need and we need less politics in the church. And I just don't think that's the case, meaning there are any number of ethical issues that are significantly important that God's word directly ideals with that we have to work out in society as individuals together as a society and even as a church together. And so we need, I think we need more discipleship on political issues in our churches.
Now, we need less of it that is framed in a dominantly partisan direction.
A lot of it, they just sort of handed down from a specific party on both sides there. But you're exactly right, Kevin, that part of the confusion here comes, it's almost like, it's almost like there was a sexual revolution, but then the people who responded to the sexual revolution were somehow the people who started the culture war.
And it's like, I mean,
I don't see how that's possible. I mean, the position of arguing for the life of the child is not the new position. The right to be able to abort the child is the new position.
So how is it that you have a problem of fighting? Why is it your fault for fighting back against something that's changed? And I know you can't boil all the politics the last 60 years down to that issue, but it's a significant factor. And I wrote about this in my piece for the Gospel Coalition of Roe is Dead. There were no pro-life parties in 1973.
Great. The Democrats were slightly
more pro-life than Republicans, which will be interesting now that people go back and look at the books of which states had bands and which states didn't. It'll be surprising for them to realize that a lot of more Catholic states had bands.
But that was a time when Catholics were
more aligned with each other on this topic, which they are not now any longer at an aggregate level. But there were no pro-life parties in 1973. There was no obvious pro-life candidates for president.
Now, you had people who were kind of trying to work this out, but the fact that we've
shifted from two pro-choice parties with pro-life minorities, somewhere of varying sizes within them, to at least one party that doesn't favor abortion on demand for any reason the entire time. I'll take that. I'm grateful for that.
Now, I'll stop short of saying this. I mean,
I do think Republicans are pro-life. Now, we'll see how much truth there is to them wanting to do this instead of being able to hide behind Roe all the time.
So I'll still wait and see exactly how
that works out. But I think it's positive at the legislature level. And I'm also really grateful if this is true that we finally got Republican justices who followed through after how many generations who failed us on that front.
And we can thank President Trump and Mitch McConnell
and others for that, for doing that, and the justices themselves, of course. But I mean, this is not an issue that I think church leaders can or should avoid. This is the most obvious candidate for an issue that we will look back Lord willing in future generations and believe was completely abhorrent, impossible, barbaric.
And I'm not in any ways trying to minimize the real
issues that lead women to make this terrible decision. I'm just saying, it's a terrible decision. And I don't think it's responsible for pastors to avoid talking about that.
So I just want to give
an appreciation to Isaac for praying about that. But then also we're the kind of church where our pastor is going to pray about a lot of different things and not only abortion and not only kind of quote unquote conservative partisan issues. So I'm grateful for that.
And I think I hope
a lot of churches did that this last Sunday. I think we included it. I mean, I included in our prayer and prayed that the draft opinion would be the final opinion.
And that row would be overturned
and prayed that we would continue to care for women in vulnerable positions and forgiveness for those who have had abortions and led others to have abortions, all of that. So, and I bet that's not abnormal. That was probably the norm across evangelical churches across this country.
And I know it can be loathe to think of a single issue voter and to
as soon as you elevate one issue, it's like you're saying none of the other issues matter. And none of us would say that. There really is no other.
I mean, it comes down, is that a life? Is that a
human person in the womb? The same genetic code that we all have this there's organically, biologically, what you're hearing and seeing, we're the same people were bigger than we were the same people we were at conception. And if that is a human person, then the human person is deserving of rights and deserving of life. And if we are killing those, they're as bad as other policies can be, whatever you think of them, are they legally giving the right to kill people and then sell innocent people? Not by a, you know, that shouldn't have happened.
This bad is that no,
legally. And then many people celebrating the fact that they did and they could and what a gift it is to humankind. I mean, when you really think about it, it is about as bad as something gets.
And so we should not apologize for being passionate about this issue and rejoicing if Roe is overturned and praying that the life of the unborn are protected in every way possible. As Scott Clusendorf uses a little technique in his training on pro-life issues called, he calls it trot out the toddler and as a defender to say like, what if it was toddlers that were being killed? I mean, can you imagine somebody saying, yeah, killing toddlers is an important issue, but it's not the only issue. That's not the only thing you should think about when voting.
I think that even those of us who are pro-life don't always fully face the horror of what we're talking about. We are talking about killing a person, a human being, an innocent defenseless child that just so happens that being in the womb somehow magically makes it different than killing a newborn. But functionally, there's no difference between the two.
And so I think if
there was a movement in our country to kill everybody under the age of two, I think that would how is this even a debate? But that's the reality. We believe that this is killing an innocent life. Yeah.
Anything to ask, come on. Yeah, go ahead, Justin.
Just one more thought on the consistency issue, because that's going to be thrown back in our face all of the time.
And I think it's just worth thinking through how to respond to that,
is that true? Are we inconsistent? And I think one question to ask is, if I was 100% consistent on your definition, would you change your mind? Would you think differently about abortion? Would you think differently about me? And I think a lot of times it's a smoke screen that somebody throws up. But I was also helped years ago by Scott Clusander saying, "Okay, maybe I'm inconsistent. Doesn't mean I'm wrong about the life of the unborn, or that that should be illegal." So maybe I'm inconsistent, but I still can be right and inconsistent on one of those two.
And
then as you were pointing out, Kevin, functionally, by and large, pro-life Christians are not inconsistent with whether you're talking about crisis pregnancy or supporting mothers. We might not support governmental intervention to the same degree, but Christians and pro-life Christians and conservative Christians are on the ground helping and starting adoption agencies and adopt more frequently and support mothers. And yet, there's more that we can do.
We shouldn't bristle against that. We should be moving towards women
in need and children who need placement and adoptions. Yeah.
Philosophically,
this distinction has been lost on everyone, but it was very important in the history, development of natural law and political theory, the difference between positive rights and negative rights. They get called different things. But there's a difference between somebody saying, "Education is a human right," or "health care is a human right." That means somebody has to do something for you.
Okay, people can make that case. But a negative right is,
"You cannot do something to me." So it's much different to say, "We are advocating that this person has a right to live. You should not kill this person." Okay.
Well, then are you providing them meals? Are you providing them health care? That's a different kind of right. And at least the tradition leading to the founding of our country distinguished between those kind of rights, which goes back to Puffendorf and all of these natural law theorists. And so often, because rights is a very Americans don't want to be against rights generally that gets thrown out there, but they're very different kinds of rights.
And I think to your point, Justin, of course, we want to think about how we can care for one another better. But if you were to be an at-risk mom, a single mother, where could you most immediately find a group of people who would want to help you? I think it would be in a church. Of course, the church is going to make mistakes and the church is going to get all those important things.
But really, just to look right now, Afghan refugee resettlements. I don't have
hard numbers, but I just have to imagine where that's happening is overwhelmingly in churches or maybe more broadly in religious groups and religious communities. Like our church is sponsoring an Afghan family and providing house and housing and all of these things for people.
Churches do this kind of stuff all the time and care for people all the time. And so I don't think we... The instinct to want to be humble and acknowledge our failures is good, but not when the failures are exaggerated or they're the sort of failures that are endemic to just human finitude and limitations rather than what's actually happening. So if the standard is, what are you doing compared to everything you could be doing or what are you doing compared to what other sorts of people are doing? Those are two very different comparisons.
Anything to add
before we move on from this, Colin? Quick thought on this one. I don't know if you guys read that. That really amazing ringer essay from Jonathan Charts.
Does my son know you about the church?
And I was thinking about that lately with all this time I'm spending with all these other baseball families. And you get to know people and really love and appreciate people. Become fast friends just by spending time with them, which I think is the point.
But then Jonathan points out that that's all well and good until you're dying of cancer and you need somebody to help watch your wife and your child grow up for the next 15 years. Then who are you going to call? It's not going to be your baseball friends. It's going to need to be a church.
And I think that can be something that's missed even in people who are missing,
even Christians who are missing, church be able to do these other things. And so when you talk about Afghan refugees or you talk about a woman in need, one of the reason why you think of a church is not only because hopefully we're living out Christ's commands, but also because it's one of the only social institutions that's left that actually provides and brings people together in these ways. You can find government agencies to a lot of different things, a lot of different social clubs.
When it comes down to people who are going to be good to help each other just for the
sake of doing that, you're going to depend on churches just the way always depended on churches to do that kind of thing. And why government's never going to be a replacement for that. And so if the effect of all of this is that there's more debate about abortion, there are more churches that are stepping up in different environments to handle different circumstances because it's a more pressing issue upon them as a result of this than bring it on.
Let's be that example following Christ. And I have, I've got my disagree, I've got my discouragements about the church in a lot of different ways, but to your point, Kevin, I think this is something we can do. And I don't find many people who would disagree across the spectrum on what to do.
And maybe that is different from previous generations.
I'm not sure, but I can only speak for this generation. And I'm pretty sure I can find many churches that wouldn't be willing to help.
However we can.
Good word. Let's finish by doing books, the life and books and everything.
We love books.
I want to mention here, we have a second sponsor for today. The Westminster Bookstore, all of us have benefited from going to their website and they often have, they work really hard to have the best deals out there and to really think about the books that they're putting out there.
So this is a not-for-profit ministry of Westminster Theological Seminary, dedicated
serving the church with biblically faithful, theologically robust, pastor-relevant books from kids all the way up through pastors. So if you want commentaries, if you're a new believer, youngparentswtsbooks.com, WTSbooks.com, as a special offer for LBE listeners, you can get 50% off the newly released biggest story, Bible story book, book of stories about the Bible story book. So visit.
Unofficial title. Yeah. Who titled that thing? Nobody.
The publisher and the author. Nobody on here is responsible for that. WTSbooks.com/biggest story in the discount will automatically apply at checkout.
So thankful for them. I know crossways
worked with them and a lot of books and they really do a great job of putting good stuff out there at the best prices that they possibly can. So books, what books are you men reading right now? I started last year.
This has been helpful. I am keeping this little journal and I write down
when I finish a book. Otherwise, I forget.
Is it called Goodreads.com? No, I use little nice cool.
Leather little books. I'm an old soul when it comes to that.
I don't, my books.
When it comes to that or when it comes to everything? Everything, except I'm doing a podcast, I guess. But yes, I don't read book.
I tried the Kindle thing. I just could not do it.
I read hard books.
I underlined them. I write it down on a piece of paper here.
So what books have you guys been reading? Give us however many you can do in three minutes.
All right. I can go just Matthew Cottonetti, the right, the Hundred Year War for American conservatism. That is a page turner.
Yeah, for you. I know it's very well written. It's an
erotival history.
It pulls together a lot of things. It goes back to, rather than saying,
let's go back to Buckley. Let's go back to the 1920s and it's well written.
It's not technical,
but it's interesting. Even if you wouldn't call yourself a political conservative, I think it's interesting to try to map the last hundred years of going from Calvin Coolidge to Donald J. Trump. So fascinating history and maybe a quarter of the way through it.
Are you guys both reading it? Yeah, I'm about half of the way through it. There's so many, it explains, whenever you read books like that, you just realize all of these things always have lots of infighting and there's so many strands and they're broader than you think. You see individual people's gifts come out.
More than half of the book is
Buckley, who had many really strong qualities and had to repudiate earlier views and got some things really wrong, especially on race early on. But his charm, his charisma, his wealth, all of that, which held together this very diverse movement in these strands. So yeah, I'm about halfway through and it's really well written.
It makes me want to say, when is Colin or someone's
going to do the last hundred year history of, I don't know, reformed evangelicalism and all of its glories and messes, but I'm taking away from your time. But Colin, did you answer Justin's question? Are you reading it? Not yet. I'm waiting for you.
I've got it. I know exactly
where it is in my office, but I'm waiting for you to get through it. Well, I don't think I heard good things about it.
And I the publisher kindly sent me a copy of it. Oh, wow. You are really
in the know, I didn't.
Ben Sasserot, a review and national review that was good. That's what I read
and that's what I asked the publisher for a copy. Oh, nice.
Okay. So you asked the publisher.
Oh, yeah.
Okay. Let's not, you know, too high in my, you had to ask the publisher. They
kindly sent me one upon request.
I don't see what the problem is here. No, good for you. I bought
it on Amazon.
I'm feeling out 30 bucks now. All right. So the second one is sticking with kind of
conservative history, Watergate, a new history by Garrett Graf.
Garrett is kind of a younger guy,
at least he looks like our age or younger. So I still consider that really young, really younger younger younger younger younger younger younger younger younger younger. He did the oral history called the plane in the sky on 9/11, which if you haven't got a hold of that, that's really worth, I would recommend listening to it on Audible because they have a lot of different actors, which I did your recommendation.
A good recommendation. Oh, absolutely echoed,
echoed for everybody out there. So you kind of think what, you know, 50 years later, what do we, why do we need anything new on Watergate? But he's uncovered, I think some new things and put things together in a really interesting way.
So I'm listening to that as well. The Tender Bar,
a memoir by J.R. Bo Ringer. I'm not sure if I'm saying that exactly correctly, but Pulitzer Prize winning author writing memoir growing up in New York and he's very gifted.
He ended up, I think
Andre Agassi read the Tender Bar when he was finishing up his tennis career and said, what would it be like to have my own story told through the eyes of a Pulitzer Prize winning author? So that's good. And then last on a more spiritual level, I'm preaching this coming Sunday, which is relatively rare event for me, but I'm going to preach on the Lord's Prayer. And so I am reading Kevin DeYoung's book on the Lord's Prayer and Wesley Hills got a little book on the Lord's Prayer.
So those are really appreciating both of those and kind of priming the pump before
preaching the Word. Thanks for writing that, Kevin. Yeah, thank you.
Okay, I'm going to, I can't remember which books I've mentioned before,
but if I can't remember, you probably can't remember. Just mention some common themes here. Donald J. Divine, the Enduring Tension, Capitalism and the Moral Order.
So that was,
that was good. A meandering, I would say, defense of capitalism. David McCullough, I mentioned before, just finished the Wright Brothers book, but his book, The American Spirit, Who We Are and What We Stand For is a collection of mostly commencement addresses and other occasions.
Maybe I mentioned that. I just always enjoy reading him. So I have, this was an interesting
one.
Harry Emerson Fosdick selected sermons. Oh boy. Yeah.
And I read, I power skimmed, I should
say his autobiography and read some of his biography. So I just finished writing an article for RTS's online journal. RTS is going to do a journal dedicated to Fosdick.
This was my suggestion,
so you can blame me, because the 100 year anniversary of his sermon is coming up in two weeks, the Shall the Fundamentalist Win. So I thought, I asked Blair Smith and John Meether, that'd be interesting to reflect on liberalism. Where was it? Where is it on Fosdick? So I wrote a, I don't know, 2000 word article on Fosdick and on that sermon.
Is it titled The Fosdick Flop?
Yes, that, what that is, I should do that. Another track and field reference, appreciate that. Okay, what I've read a bunch of covenant theology books for my class, I won't mention that.
Oh,
Steven B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ. So this is a book from 1980. And a lot of you, I bet hardly anyone has read it, but you've read people who are very influenced by it.
So
Grudem, a lot of the CBMW folks were very influenced, I think, by Steven Clark's book. It's been republished last year. It's like 750 pages.
So he's now in his 80s, he's Catholic, can't really tell
other than he's a Christian commitment in the book. But it's, it's, it's like half going through the text, typical, complimentary and take on text, but very readable. And then the second half is through social science and does some history.
So that was a big book. And I was surprised. I
thought, I've heard of this and I haven't read it before.
It was very good. Matthew,
you had a big, I've always heard about it, but just assumed it's, you know, all paperback book back. No, it was a real big book.
Matthew, Tennessee, visible hand, a wealth of nations,
a wealth of notions on the miracle of the market. So there's a Wall Street Journal, works with the editorial page and another book on capitalism. And then finally, Dale Alquist, the story of the family, GK Chesterton, and the only state that creates and loves its own citizens, which is a line from Chesterton.
So Alquist is really one of the world's experts on Chesterton.
And this is a book pulling together Chesterton. Sometimes it's little quotes, he's so quotable.
And at other times it's parts of essays. So it's not just a compendium of little sentences. It's sections from essays and books on the family and divided into family and education, family and birth control, family and economics.
And it was really fascinating.
Don't agree with everything Chesterton says, but he's so fun to read and very insightful and very prescient in many of the things that he's writing about. So some of my hobby reading right now has been on the family in that book edited by Alquist, but basically Chesterton on the family just came out and was really good.
Colin, take us home. What have you been reading obscure Russian books of
poetry? No doubt. Saving that for the fall.
Okay. So hey, my my Tricia, my wife, Red, and I didn't,
but she read Gentleman in Moscow. And loved it.
Loved it. Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. Have you read,
I got her for her birthday, his book on the Lincoln Highway. Did you read it? Did read it? Didn't love it as much, but it's on my list of one I just read.
I don't, I mean, it is a,
it's an interesting book with what did you not like it? Slow. Oh, slow. Well, it is well.
Like traveling to Nebraska. Yeah. No, traveling to Nebraska, you can go 85.
That's fast.
It's one of the, it's one of those classic books that has all these different threads that only kind of come together. Right.
It's told from multiple perspectives over a 10 day period.
Yeah. I did the audiobook version of it.
But, um, so I'm, um, you know, when I used to work at
Christian today, we'd get all these letters from for Philip Yancy. I was not a Philip Yancy reader. That read his memoir, where the light fell and wow, that was eye opening.
That was a page turner.
I was really wanting to know about somebody about that age, that period of, of life, of what it was like to grow up as one of those kind of boomer Christians, fundamentalists in the deep south, and wow, that was horrifying, sad, strange. So what happened to him was horrifying? Yeah.
Well,
in his, in his brother, his dad, I mean, dad, Opolio, when he was, um, did you say in some way he never, I mean, he's never gotten over it. Well, I mean, I think that's very, I mean, the memoir explains. I just, if you're a Philip Yancy fan, go ahead.
Because dad, that only died Opolio, but refused
to take the vaccine because he was kind of into faith healing. Well, it was in his 20s, right? Yeah, early 20s. I can't remember what the vaccine part of it, but part of the story was that he was in an iron lung and essentially had no quality of life.
And they decided to go off
the iron lung so that he could, you know, I think it was planning to be a missionary, all sort of stuff, his mother then, you know, so he goes off the iron lung and they pray and they kind of celebrate and then he dies. I mean, it's just, it is just sad. But what's so interesting is that for, for us who are in the Gen X to elder millennial category, it's just, it's, we didn't grow up, understand it.
We did not grow up with that sort of, Opolio was not a part of our lives as a, as
a one clear example of that. And I don't, none of us had that kind of exposure to fundamentalism, our exposure is to the mainline. And so it just, and not the south, but the Midwest.
So fascinating as a memoir, just taking me into a really different world, educationally and otherwise, and it is, it is a page turner as well. Now it was a recommendation for my friend, Victor, who had been reading through it. My summer reading, I've set up.
So I decided
we should do an episode at some point of book that everybody assumes that you've read, but you haven't. That would be an interesting topic. So two of them has to be a few episodes.
So for me, two books that I need to read, especially for my apologetics, lecturing and stuff like that. I've never read the resurrection of the son of God by anti-write or Jesus and the eyewitnesses, the gospels I witnessed testimony by Richard Baucom. So it feels like I reference them all the time, or I read people who reference them all the time.
So I'm actually reading them now.
Also got in there for summer reading, Jonathan Linebaugh's the word of the cross reading Paul, in part because Linebaugh's leaving Cambridge to come teach at Biesen, where I serve, starting in the fall. And then there he's got, Justin's got it right there.
All right, so we're excited for him
to join. And then I also, I assume you guys have either seen this or read it. I mean, I think maybe Kevin, you referenced it, but the new Zwingley book by Bruce Gordon, Zwingley God's Armed to Prophet.
I'm just going to be a sucker for Reformation era biographies, and especially Bruce Gordon.
I love his Calvin books. And I don't know much about Zwingley, or really about the Swiss Reformation at all pre-Calvin.
So that's, I mean, it's not really a page turner at this point, but I'm guessing
he's going to pick up, I hope, Kevin? No, I mean, yeah, it's an academic book. Just cross reference podcast. Al Moller, Thinking in Public, did a nice conversation with Bruce Gordon on Zwingley.
And yeah, I mean, of course, I've heard of Zwingley forever. And,
you know, but really, at least from our perspective, you tend to learn a few paragraphs about Zwingley, and then Calvin Luther, and boy, he had an interesting life. Well, that's what I'm getting at.
You see
him through the eyes of Luther as his opponent, as a contemporary. He depends on Luther, and then as his opponent with Marburg. Marburg.
And then, and then you Calvin is sort of just kind of takes
over and dominates the Swiss Reformation. But yeah, I mean, those first generation reformers just remarkable. And the last one, this is this is the obligatory a Colin book in here.
It is John Madison's
worst place than hell, how the Civil War battle of Fredericksburg changed the nation. That is a page charner. This is a good historical kid.
Well, yeah, I have at least one child who wouldn't mind
it. But just finished, it's a bunch of mini biographies of people who kind of leading up to their lives were changed by the Battle of Fredericksburg. And so it just got done with an abolitionist chaplain from a famous Boston family, and all kind of his experience of processing this as a Christian crusade, essentially.
And then next going into one of the author's specialties,
which is Louisa May Alcott. And so it's just so it's, I mean, I love the period, obviously, but it's a good thing when you're in your wheelhouse and you're reading something you don't need something new, or that's written so compellingly that you're just really having a fun time with it. So I'm really enjoying a worst place and Madison is a former Pulitzer prize, his story, I think on Louisa May Alcott, if I remember correctly.
But so that's my summer reading list coming up.
All right, gentlemen, wonderful to be with you. Colin, I'll have to see you.
I don't know when,
I mean, I'll talk to you, but if we don't have a podcast, I'll be in Birmingham, coming to Birmingham, for Presbyterian's come near and far. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna take over that baptist enclave for a few days in June. So hope to see you there in your fair city, maybe catch a Barron's game.
Actually, well, there's no time for anything. Well, or just go across the street and watch the USFL. Oh, yeah.
Exclusive home of the USFL this season. I saw a game on last night and there seemed
to be fans numbering in the dozens. You need to, you need to watch the Saturday Night Games, which is when the Birmingham stallions play.
Okay. That's when people turn out. But considering
every single game in the entire league is in Birmingham, we can't go to all of them, Kevin.
Well, let me just book in this fabulous podcast by ending now with sports banter. So this summer, here's what I'm so excited about. I bought these tickets, like the first hour they came out and I'm taking my two oldest sons to Eugene, Oregon, Hayward Field, and seeing the Track and Field World Championships.
Nice. Okay. Can I get it? I hear the ooze and awws.
I love it. This is, this is the first time
that the Track and Field World Championships have ever been in the United States. They were supposed to be last year, everything got pushed back for COVID.
They're at University of Oregon
in the Mecca of sports running. I've actually, Oregon's one of like three or four states I've never been to. Sorry, Oregonians or however you say it.
I know you're not to say Oregon.
I did have a friend in seminary who he was, he would get on me if I said Oregon and he said, it's not Oregon. I said, okay, well, I'm not from there.
He said, well, you should know. And I said,
well, how do you pronounce that bridge in Michigan that connects the upper and lower? Is it the Mackinac? Is it? Yeah, exactly. Well, you got him, Kevin.
No, I sure did. Now I've lived at Tell
the Tale. So I'm excited for that.
I am a sucker. I could watch Track Meats all day.
They're so exciting.
People running in circles. This is the guy who said baseball was boring
earlier. Yeah.
Well, there's, there's not enough running. Well, it lasts longer. That's the, yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's maybe we'll have a summer catch up podcast at some point.
So good
to be with you, men. Blessings and thank you to everyone for sticking with us all the way through the end. Until next time, glorify God.
Enjoy him forever and read a good book.
[inaudible]
(buzzing)

More From Life and Books and Everything

Seven Principles for Cultivating a Christian Posture toward the World
Seven Principles for Cultivating a Christian Posture toward the World
Life and Books and Everything
May 13, 2022
Important lessons to learn as we deal with negativity and hostility In this episode of Life and Books and Everything, Kevin reads from the article he
The Heart of the Cross with Phil Ryken
The Heart of the Cross with Phil Ryken
Life and Books and Everything
May 17, 2022
Kevin welcomes Phil Ryken, President at Wheaton College, to the podcast to talk about “The Heart of the Cross,” a newly reissued book comprised of ser
The Good News of Limited Atonement
The Good News of Limited Atonement
Life and Books and Everything
May 19, 2022
The doctrine of particular redemption is worth defining and defending because it gets to the heart of the gospel. In this episode of Life and Books an
Lessons From Mainline Decline
Lessons From Mainline Decline
Life and Books and Everything
May 4, 2022
Relevant Christianity doesn’t stay relevant for long. In this episode of Life and Books and Everything, Kevin reads from the article he wrote for WORL
Daily Worship, Creation Days, and Feisty Presbyterians with Jonathan Gibson
Daily Worship, Creation Days, and Feisty Presbyterians with Jonathan Gibson
Life and Books and Everything
April 26, 2022
In this freewheeling conversation, Kevin talks to Jonny Gibson about his life, his books, and some of everything. Gibson, an Old Testament professor a
John Witherspoon on Justification and Regeneration with Peter Lillback
John Witherspoon on Justification and Regeneration with Peter Lillback
Life and Books and Everything
April 18, 2022
In this bonus episode, Kevin talks with historian and WTS president, Peter Lillback, about the life and ministry of John Witherspoon. In particular, t
More From "Life and Books and Everything"

More on OpenTheo

God Didn’t Do Anything to Earn Being God, So How Did He Become So Judgmental?
God Didn’t Do Anything to Earn Being God, So How Did He Become So Judgmental?
#STRask
May 15, 2025
Questions about how God became so judgmental if he didn’t do anything to become God, and how we can think the flood really happened if no definition o
Pastoral Theology with Jonathan Master
Pastoral Theology with Jonathan Master
Life and Books and Everything
April 21, 2025
First published in 1877, Thomas Murphy’s Pastoral Theology: The Pastor in the Various Duties of His Office is one of the absolute best books of its ki
Why Do Some Churches Say You Need to Keep the Mosaic Law?
Why Do Some Churches Say You Need to Keep the Mosaic Law?
#STRask
May 5, 2025
Questions about why some churches say you need to keep the Mosaic Law and the gospel of Christ to be saved, and whether or not it’s inappropriate for
Can You Really Say Evil Is Just a Privation of Good?
Can You Really Say Evil Is Just a Privation of Good?
#STRask
April 21, 2025
Questions about whether one can legitimately say evil is a privation of good, how the Bible can say sin and death entered the world at the fall if ang
Can Historians Prove that Jesus Rose from the Dead? Licona vs. Ehrman
Can Historians Prove that Jesus Rose from the Dead? Licona vs. Ehrman
Risen Jesus
May 7, 2025
In this episode, Dr. Mike Licona and Dr. Bart Ehrman face off for the second time on whether historians can prove the resurrection. Dr. Ehrman says no
How Is Prophecy About the Messiah Recognized?
How Is Prophecy About the Messiah Recognized?
#STRask
May 19, 2025
Questions about how to recognize prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament and whether or not Paul is just making Scripture say what he wants
Are Works the Evidence or the Energizer of Faith?
Are Works the Evidence or the Energizer of Faith?
#STRask
June 30, 2025
Questions about whether faith is the evidence or the energizer of faith, and biblical support for the idea that good works are inevitable and always d
Is Morality Determined by Society?
Is Morality Determined by Society?
#STRask
June 26, 2025
Questions about how to respond to someone who says morality is determined by society, whether our evolutionary biology causes us to think it’s objecti
Is It Problematic for a DJ to Play Songs That Are Contrary to His Christian Values?
Is It Problematic for a DJ to Play Songs That Are Contrary to His Christian Values?
#STRask
July 10, 2025
Questions about whether it’s problematic for a DJ on a secular radio station to play songs with lyrics that are contrary to his Christian values, and
Michael Egnor and Denyse O'Leary: The Immortal Mind
Michael Egnor and Denyse O'Leary: The Immortal Mind
Knight & Rose Show
May 31, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. Michael Egnor and Denyse O'Leary about their new book "The Immortal Mind". They discuss how scientific ev
Is It Wrong to Feel Satisfaction at the Thought of Some Atheists Being Humbled Before Christ?
Is It Wrong to Feel Satisfaction at the Thought of Some Atheists Being Humbled Before Christ?
#STRask
June 9, 2025
Questions about whether it’s wrong to feel a sense of satisfaction at the thought of some atheists being humbled before Christ when their time comes,
Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
#STRask
April 28, 2025
Questions about whether the fact that some people go through intense difficulties and suffering indicates that God hates some and favors others, and w
Bodily Resurrection vs Consensual Realities: A Licona Craffert Debate
Bodily Resurrection vs Consensual Realities: A Licona Craffert Debate
Risen Jesus
June 25, 2025
In today’s episode, Dr. Mike Licona debates Dr. Pieter Craffert at the University of Johannesburg. While Dr. Licona provides a positive case for the b
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
#STRask
July 14, 2025
Questions about how to respond to the concern that no one wrote about Jesus during his lifetime, why scholars say Jesus was born in AD 5–6 rather than
What Are the Top Five Things to Consider Before Joining a Church?
What Are the Top Five Things to Consider Before Joining a Church?
#STRask
July 3, 2025
Questions about the top five things to consider before joining a church when coming out of the NAR movement, and thoughts regarding a church putting o