On this episode of the podcast, I talk with Professor Nancy Pearcey about her new book, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. It’s a rich conversation that draws on a wealth of social scientific and historical research about masculinity. Among the topics we discuss:

• The diagnosis of "toxic masculinity" and when the diagnosis itself becomes an attack on men
• The cultural perception of what it means to be a "good man" vs. a "real man"
• The significant divergence of research findings when it comes to committed Christian men and nominal Christian men
• Historical roots of the masculine crisis in industrialization and social Darwinism
• The significance of the rise of "alpha male" influencers like Andrew Tate
• Counsel for families, parents, and pastors in addressing the crisis of masculinity

Get the book, The Toxic War on Masculinity: https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-War-Masculinity-Christianity-Reconciles/dp/0801075734

More on Professor Pearcey: Nancy Pearcey's latest book is The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Her earlier books include Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners: How Now Shall We Live (coauthored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) and Total Truth. Her books have been translated into 20 languages. She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. A former agnostic, Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth. She has been quoted in The New Yorker and Newsweek, highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today, and hailed in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."

On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Dr. Abigail Favale about her book The Genesis of Gender. It’s a conversation that seeks clarity about contested questions including feminism, womanhood, and gender identity. Among the topics we discuss:

• Dr. Favale's story of her journey from conservative evangelicalism to gender studies scholar to Catholic convert
• What it might mean to be a "feminist" and the distinctive characteristics of the four "waves" of feminism
• A clear definition of what it means to be a woman
• What it might mean to disagree with the gender paradigm while also caring for persons who have adopted it
• Wrestling with the contemporary issue of pronoun use
• What Dr. Favale would say to young women in contemporary society

Get the book: https://ignatius.com/the-genesis-of-gender-ggp/

Follow Dr. Favale: https://abigailfavale.wixsite.com/home

On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Dr. Fellipe do Vale about his book Gender as Love. Gender is a topic of ever-increasing complexity, and that complexity requires a guide who can take us into the weeds with conviction and compassion. Among the topics we discuss:

• What it means to pursue a non-reductive account of gender, that takes the body seriously as well as the ways we live socially and culturally.
• Why it is attractive but also problematic to see gender purely as a social construct
• Why solidarity and justice requires some sort of gender essentialism
• How the category of love can help organize the way that we think about identity, gender, and social goods
• Whether disability is an adequate category for dealing with difficulties in gender
• On what it might mean to move towards "friendship" with our bodies in the midst of the forces of sin and death

Get the book: https://bakeracademic.com/p/Gender-as-Love-Fellipe-do-Vale/516474

More on Dr. Fellipe do Vale: https://www.redeemer.ca/resound/god-at-the-centre/

On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Kaitlyn Schiess about her book The Ballot and The Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used And Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here. Among the topics we discuss:

• Distinguishing between better and worse ways of reading ourselves into the biblical story
• Uniquely American habits of reading the nation into the biblical story, taking every promise or command as directed towards national life.
• Worries about the wide range of political perspectives that are credited to the Bible
• What we might learn from comparing presidents' speeches at the National Prayer breakfast
• What it means to cite Scripture in a diverse, religiously pluralistic society
• The faithful use of politics in the pulpit and in public life

Get the book: https://bakerbookhouse.com/products/492154

Follow Kaitlyn Schiess: https://kaitlynschiess.com/ 

On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, about his newly released book on Gratitude: Why Giving Thanks is the Key to Our Well Being. Among the topics we discuss:

• What it means to say that giving thanks is the key to our well being
• The relationship between the spontaneity of "feeling thankful" and the intentional practice of "cultivating gratitude"
• How we might learn from others in our lives or biblical characters as an "apprenticeship" of gratitude
• The difference between the biblical virtue of gratitude and gratitude as "self-improvement"
• Gratitude in the Reformed tradition and other streams
• Counsel for those who struggle to be grateful and where we might start.

Get the book: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/gratitude/414400

On this episode of the podcast I talk with Dr. Ingrid Faro, an Old Testament scholar and the author of a new book on evil in the Bible, Demystifying Evil: A Biblical and Personal Exploration. Among the topics we discuss:

• Why it is important to not separate Bible study from life but to do biblical reflection together with our deepest questions.
• Some of the most significant discoveries about the way that Scripture talks about evil, including one group of words that appears with the word "evil" about 2/3 of the time.
• Questions from my students: why even include the tree in the garden? And why let the serpent roam free? Doesn't this set up humans to fail?
• Counsel on how to name evil in the world and in other humans while also remembering the dignity of our fellow image bearers.
• How we can take responsibility for the evil we've suffered without becoming defined by it. 
• In a world that regularly exposes us to global injustice and atrocity, how do we keep from being overwhelmed?

Get the book: https://www.ivpress.com/demystifying-evil

On this episode of the podcast, I’m joined by commentator and NYT columnist David French, to talk about politics and his recent book Divided We Fall. We talk partisan polarization, public witness, and I even ask him to give some predictions for the election cycle ahead. Among the questions we discuss:

• David's journey to becoming "a man without a party" and whether this marginalizes him on both sides or gives him a unique opportunity
• The shifting discourse from "the other side is wrong" to "the other side is evil"
• The possibility of the breakup of the American republic ("Calexit" and "Texit")
• Postures that are necessary to weather the upcoming election cycle
• How to discern "dangerous ideas" and to engage in public witness with compassion and conviction

Get the book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250201973/dividedwefall

Included music on this episode: "People Are People Too" from the Ruralists album "Trying." Find lyrics and more here: https://www.fullyruralized.com/  

On this episode of the podcast, I talk with an art historian, Dr. Katie Kresser, about how art can train our imaginations to look at our neighbors and the world with dignity and love. She is a writer I follow closely, and her book, Bezalel's Body is the most thought-provoking book I’ve read in the last year! I was thrilled to have the chance to ask her some questions about it. Among the topics we discuss:

• "When God died, art was born." How the Christian story - of the death and resurrection of God the Son - made art possible 
• How art can train the imagination to look at the world in the right way, recognizing dignity and not reducing others to ourselves.
• The consequences when we neglect to disciple our imaginations, and some of the unintended results of the Reformation turn from the visual towards the verbal.
• The burden of living in the contemporary "society of the spectacle," where we feel that we must make ourselves.
• What makes something art, what makes for "good art," and how to build bridges between artists and the church.

• “Our destiny is the product of the real work we do amid the secret life of the universe with God’s providential help. We are too foolish to see it. But love sees it.” (201)

Get the book: https://wipfandstock.com/9781532645648/bezalels-body/

Included music on this episode is "Murmur" from the Ruralists album "Trying." Find lyrics and more here: https://www.fullyruralized.com/