Gospelbound, hosted by Collin Hansen for The Gospel Coalition, is a podcast for those searching for firm faith in an anxious age. Each week, Collin talks with insightful guests about books, ideas, and how to navigate life by the gospel of Jesus Christ in a post-Christian culture.
āDo any of us really want to be in the position where our retirement account grows in sync with the cancer ward?ā
Thatās the question posed by Robin John about tobacco, responsible for 100 million deaths in the last 100 years. Naturally all of us would say no, we donāt want to benefit from other people dying. Yet as Robin points out in his new book, The Good Investor: How Your Work Can Confront Injustice, Love Your Neighbor, and Bring Healing to the World, many of us do hold mutual funds that invest in tobacco companies. We just donāt know it. Come to think of it, how much do we know about any of our investments, especially in long-term retirement accounts?
Robin John is the cofounder and CEO of Eventide, an asset management firm dedicated to honoring God and investing in companies that create compelling value for the common good. His vision for Eventide's values-based investing shows how our work can benefit everyone and not just bolster the bottom line for a fortunate few. Iād go so far as to say our world can be a much better place if investorsāand employees of all kindsāwill learn from his example and prioritize what really matters now, and in eternity.
In This Episode
0:00 ā Joy, purpose, and Godās design for everyday work
1:49 ā Why The Good Investor is ultimately a book about joy
2:48 ā Growing up in Kerala, India, and immigrating to the U.S.
4:42 ā Community, individualism, and caring for the vulnerable
7:41 ā Returning to India and confronting workplace injustice
10:49 ā Rethinking success, profit, and the purpose of work
11:53 ā Why Christians must examine their investments
14:33 ā What does it mean to āroot forā a companyās success?
15:36 ā Discernment, gray areas, and biblical values in investing
18:07 ā Avoiding evil and actively pursuing the common good
19:43 ā Weaponry, conscience, and consistency at Eventide
20:13 ā The cautionary story of Bill Hwang and ill-gotten gain
23:19 ā The false divide between faith and work
25:07 ā How investing has changed since 2008
27:14 ā What ESG investing isāand where it diverges from Christianity
31:19 ā Mission alignment vs. values alignment
32:23 ā Encouragement for ordinary, faithful work
34:44 ā Legacy, goodness, and hearing āwell doneā
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At the end of the class on cultural apologetics I teach at Beeson Divinity School, I assign a group exercise. The students need to compose 10 questions and answers from a modern-day catechism. Historically catechisms have emerged during times of cultural transition and confrontationāsuch as our own, in the aftermath of Christendom and the Enlightenment, awaiting whatever develops in post-liberalism.
So catechisms are not merely a relic of our past but a vital resource for the present that prepares us for the future. Iām delighted with how The New City Catechism, especially our devotional, still serves readers. And Iām delighted by a new volume, The Gospel Way Catechism: 50 Truths that Take on the World, published by Harvest House and written by my friends Trevin Wax and Thomas West.
Tim Keller said, āWe need a counter-catechism that explains, refutes, and re-narrates the worldās catechisms to Christians.ā And whatās what Trevin and Thomas have done in The Gospel Way Catechism. Trevin is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board. Thomas is the pastor of Nashville First Baptist Church.
In This Episode
00:00 ā Whatās wrong with the world: deeper than ignorance or injustice
00:34 ā Collinās āmodern catechismā assignment and why catechisms return in transitions
01:03 ā Introducing The Gospel Way Catechism and Kellerās ācounter catechismā vision
01:36 ā Welcoming Trevin Wax and Thomas West
01:54 ā āCan Baptists write a catechism?ā and Baptist catechesis history
02:57 ā Influential catechisms: Keach, Spurgeon, Heidelberg, Luther, Calvin, Westminster
03:23 ā Most controversial truths today: sexuality and deeper āme-firstā narratives
04:51 ā āWhat has gone wrong?ā: ignorance, injustice, expressive individualism
07:14 ā Moving beyond whack-a-mole to the Bibleās deeper diagnosis
09:37 ā Western self-centeredness and sin as being ācurved in on ourselvesā
12:24 ā Writing process and Kellerās influence: every catechism is counter-catechesis
13:48 ā Origin story at The Kilns (C. S. Lewisās home) and testing in a London church
15:45 ā Objections: āwe donāt need thisā and why cultural frames change catechesis needs
20:18 ā Returning from London: seeing American wealth, waste, and politics differently
24:13 ā Why Leviticus gets a chapter: sacrifice, scapegoating, and modern idols
27:59 ā Catechesis and spiritual formation: tools, Word-centeredness, and Gen Z hunger
31:38 ā Encouragement from readers: cultural narratives filtered, doctrine re-centered
33:09 ā In 20 years: transhumanism, bioethics, reproductive tech, assisted dying
36:06 ā āWhat is human?ā and āWhat is truth?āānew iterations of old questions
36:39 ā Closing thanks and sign-off
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Here in Birmingham, Alabama, I often teach about the civil-rights movement as the most effective faith-based movement for social change in American history. We have a bitter heritage of violent segregation. But the same city produced the heroes of the struggle, the ordinary men and women (especially children) who stared down the police dogs and fire hoses in the march for their freedom.Ā
Justin Giboney honors such heroes as pastor Fred Shuttlesworth and commends their example for today in an informative, provocative book, Donāt Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Churchās Public Witness Leads Us Out of the Culture War, published by IVP. Justin is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign. The endorsement of this book by Bob Roberts calls Justin a āstrange mix of Tim Keller and Martin Luther King Jr. wrapped up in his own personality and voice.ā High praise!
In This Episode
00:00 ā Jesus, truth, and critiquing our own sideĀ
00:33 ā Birmingham, civil rights, and faith-based social changeĀ
01:00 ā Introducing Donāt Let Nobody Turn You AroundĀ
01:40 ā The burden behind writing the bookĀ
03:07 ā Family history and the Black church traditionĀ
04:05 ā Why Fred Shuttlesworth mattersĀ
05:14 ā āBiblicist and actionistā: faith and public courageĀ
06:05 ā Nonviolence, moral discipline, and leadershipĀ
07:11 ā Shuttlesworth and King: contrasts and complementsĀ
09:23 ā Why moral progress isnāt inevitableĀ
12:10 ā Moral imagination and Christian hopeĀ
15:57 ā What is the culture war? 18:44 ā Humility, self-critique, and redeemable opponentsĀ
21:29 ā Justice, moral order, and refusing false binariesĀ
22:51 ā King, the late 1960s, and the cost of a āthird wayāĀ
25:26 ā Militancy, frustration, and historical contextĀ
28:01 ā Why Christians canāt abandon characterĀ
31:12 ā Tyranny, violence, and ending debate by forceĀ
33:18 ā Advice for young activistsĀ
35:19 ā Frederick Douglass and critiquing your own movementĀ
38:37 ā Accountability, power, and political humilityĀ
43:36 ā Christian nationalism and historical amnesiaĀ
47:24 ā Final encouragement: civility, faithfulness, and hopeĀ
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Work is the meaning of life.
Got your attention?
Your identity is tied to what you do.
I bet I have it now.
So argues David Bahnsen in his book Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. Bahnsen is the founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm. Heās also the author of several books, including Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.
In This Episode
00:00 ā Why Christians shouldnāt pit work against family or church
01:10 ā Why Full Time Work and the Meaning of Life matters so deeply to Bahnsen
02:11 ā Losing his father and discovering purpose through work
03:56 ā The churchās discomfort with ambition and vocation
06:00 ā Identity, salvation, and what our work says about us
09:06 ā āWork is the meaning of life?ā A biblical case from Genesis
12:55 ā The crisis of men not working and its social consequences
16:12 ā How Reformed theology shapes Bahnsenās view of vocation
19:41 ā The influence of Tim Keller and Every Good Endeavor
23:14 ā Rejecting the zero-sum view of family vs. career
31:41 ā Productivity, early mornings, and modeling joyful work
36:10 ā Why in-person work still matters after COVID
44:39 ā Conviction, politics, and resisting tribal thinking
54:21 ā Overcoming resentment by telling the truth
Resources Mentioned
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Join Collin Hansen and Melissa Kruger for their annual discussion as they look back on the top theology stories of 2025 and look towards the year to come. They also share their favorite interviews and books from 2025, updates on personal projects, and what theyāre each looking forward to in life and ministry in 2026.
Resources Mentioned
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For many, apologetics is associated with arguments over rational, philosophical proofs. Itās a matter of the head instead of the heart, a debate over facts instead of feelings. But no matter what kind of apologetics you practice, youāre arguing according to a certain set of rules, in a particular language, attuned to what you expect to resonate in your time and place. In other words, itās always cultural, never purely timeless. And itās never purely rational.
We need to recover apologetics as a matter of the heart and hands as well as the head. We need to recover apologetics as a project for the whole church and not just for those who enjoy arguing. What we call cultural apologetics is not a new academic discipline. Itās a means to reconnect the church to the best biblical and historical resources for presenting and defending the faith āonce for all delivered to the saintsā (Jude 3).Ā
Thatās the vision behind a new book, The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics, which I edited for Zondervan Reflective and The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. Iām joined now by two of the contributors, both fellows for The Keller Center. Josh Chatraw is the Billy Graham chair for evangelism and cultural engagement here at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. Visiting us here at Beeson this week is Christopher Watkin, associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
āāā
In This Episode
02:00 ā Apologetics as Cultural: Head, Heart, and Hands
03:00 ā Biblical Models for Cultural Apologetics
05:10 ā Retrieval: Learning from Church History
09:16 ā Augustine, Rome, and Biblical Critical Theory
13:00 ā Diagonal Thinking, Third-Way Debates, and Politics
16:00 ā Confrontational vs. Winsome Apologetics
20:00 ā How Jesus Engaged Different People
26:00 ā Apologetics for the Whole Church and for Pastors
34:00 ā Retrieval Models: Pascal, Montaigne, and Modern Idols
41:00 ā Audience Q&A: Out-Narrating, Doubt, Catholicism, Facts vs. Heart Issues
51:46 ā Closing Reflections
Resources Mentioned
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If gender is constructed, it can be deconstructed. Think about it: if we built it, we can tear it down. Now you know why some activists have been so determined to convince us that gender is something we assign, rather than something we receive. If we assign it, then we can reassign it as we wish. We donāt receive our bodies. We can remake our bodies.
No doubt youāve observed the rise of transgender theory in Western culture. Itās the denial that the sexed body reveals and determines the gendered self. Thatās the helpful summary we find in the excellent new book The Body God Gives: A Biblical Response to Transgender Theory, written by Robert Smith.Ā
Smith is an ordained Anglican minister and lecturer in theology, ethics, and music ministry at Sydney Missionary and Bible College in Australia. Heās written two previous books on gender and identity. This new book by Lexham (now Baker) gives you a little bit of everything. He breaks down the arguments of gender theorists. He guides readers on a whoās who of philosophers who built the intellectual foundations of the secular West: Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Wittgenstein, Freud, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault.Ā
And he concludes with biblical argumentation to show us nobody is born in the wrong body. He writes, āGodās desire for my gender is revealed by the design of my body.ā I appreciate the way he harmonizes the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation: āOur present task is to work with the grain of creation toward the goal of new creation.ā
Rob joins me on Gospelbound to talk transgender theory, how it spread, why itās peaked, and where evangelicals need to go next.Ā
Ā
In This Episode
02:00 ā Introducing Rob Smith & The Body God Gives
04:30 ā The Transgender Tipping Point
06:21 ā Butler, Foucault, and Gender Theory
11:21 ā Queer Theory vs. Trans Theory
16:50 ā Signs of Peak Transgender Influence
21:47 ā Sex, Gender, and Stereotypes
29:00 ā Church Culture and Gender Expectations
30:24 ā Children, Puberty, and Medical Debate
33:30 ā Technology, Identity, and Disembodiment
39:38 ā Genesis 1ā2 and Embodied Identity
46:37 ā Marriage, Singleness, and Biblical Continuity
51:16 ā Pastoring Those with Gender Dysphoria
56:00 ā Violence, Fear, and Identity Conflicts
01:00:00 ā Expressive Individualism and the Modern Self
Resources Mentioned
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In this commentary, I reflect on my recent trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, and the broader implications of living in the post-Christendom West. Walking the ancient streets and talking to seasoned church leaders I pondered two major factors that contribute to secularism, and how Protestantism has become a victim of its own success. Yet some European countries and U.S. regions buck the secular trend. Why? Considering the story of secularismāand resilient Christianityāhelps us pass down a robust, durable faith to the next generation.Ā
āāā
In This Episode
04:00 ā Faith and decadence on Copenhagenās streets
08:00 ā From opt-out to opt-in belief
12:00 ā Americaās exception and slow convergence
18:00 ā Faith thrives under tension
23:00 ā The problem with establishment
30:00 ā Reform, burnout, and secular substitutes
36:00 ā Postwar humanism and its cracks
45:00 ā Reality intrudes on secular optimism
49:00 ā Three pressures on secularism and gospel hope
Ā
Resources Mentioned
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Imagine you could save your life through one simple, regular act. You wouldnāt always want to do it. Every week youād come up with multiple excuses. The night before would often be a struggle. Same with the morning before. Every time you finish you feel refreshed, energized, eager to undertake that dayās agenda. But then when it came time to do it again, somehow youād still struggle to do it.
Ok. I donāt know what comes to mind for you. Maybe the gym. Maybe a quiet time of Bible reading and prayer. Maybe a call or meeting with a family member or friend. But Iām talking about church and a new book by Rebecca McLaughlin, How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life, published by Crossway and TGC.
Rebecca is widely known to Gospelbound viewers and listeners as author of several of the most encouraging and successful books in TGC history, including Confronting Christianity, The Secular Creed, and Jesus through the Eyes of Women. Sheās also a fellow with The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. She returns to Gospelbound to discuss the life-changing research on what makes church good for your health.
In This Episode
04:30 ā What Makes Church Unique
08:00 ā How many modern moral values come directly from ChristianityĀ
16:00 ā Real Benefits, Real Belief
23:00 ā The Church as Family
30:00 ā Sharing Faith in a Skeptical World
45:00 ā Healing from Church Hurt
48:00 ā A Practical Vision for BelieversĀ
GuestĀ Resources
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When I see whiffle ball, and I hear the piano, I know weāre probably doing ok as a family. And when I turn on the news and see what Meta has been programming AI to engage in sensual conversations with children, I donāt feel bad about keeping my children away from social media.Ā
I wouldnāt have my job if not for social media. Iāve learned a lot. Iāve made and maintained many friends. I would miss social media. But Iām glad I had a childhood without it. Just a computer with internet contributed to enough problems.Ā
If we as parents could see what our children see on social media, we wouldnāt hesitate to keep them away. Thatās why Clare Morell calls for a tech exit: āno smartphones, social media, tablets, or video games during childhood.ā
Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of its Technology and Human Flourishing Project. You met her husband earlier this year on Gospelbound as Caleb Morell wrote about the history of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.
In her book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, Clare says weāve reached a tipping point in the fight against letting smartphones take over childhood. The key is preserving something better, something more valuable: the chance for our children to contribute to their family and community, to enjoy the bonds of families and the boundaries of neighborhoods. Clare writes, āIt turns out that screens cost children more than just their time; they also cause them to lose their appetite for things of the real world.ā
Ā
In This Episode
00:00 ā Why kids need a ātech exitā in the age of AI chatbots
02:52 ā Addictive by design: dopamine, algorithms, and broken parental controls
08:42 ā Christian hope and human flourishing: forming persons, not consumers
15:20 ā The five-step family plan for smartphone-free childhood
22:52 ā Policy momentum: bans, age restrictions, and global lessons
32:33 ā Practical guidance for families, churches, and schools
45:24 ā Parents as models: rhythms, phone boxes, and screen-free community
Mentioned Resources
Ā
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Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate Today
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āDoes it feel like you should be happy, you want to be happy, and you try to be happy, but somehow you canāt?āĀ
What a simple, common, yet poignant question. Itās in the preface to the new book Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastesā Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness, written by Bobby Jamieson. He is the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge and previously served on the pastoral staff of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.
This is a book about happiness that explains youāre probably looking for it in all the wrong places. Jamieson brings us into the world of Ecclesiastes and its enigmatic author, Qohelet, the world of hevel, or absurdity. His inspired words help us see our biggest problem with life is death. The epitome of pride is believing we can overcome it. Weāll never be happy until we surrender in humility to its inevitability.Ā
Jamieson guides us through three stories that guide on a life well lived: the contentment of limits, the joys of resonance, and happiness you canāt lose in this world because it comes from another. He helps us see, āHappiness is not striving for gain from life but receiving life itself as a gift.ā
In This Episode
00:00 ā Introducing Everything Is Never Enough
05:30 ā Who is the Preacher of Ecclesiastes?
07:00 ā Vanity, absurdity, and the search for meaning
13:30 ā Modern thinkers on money, time, and ambition
22:00 ā How Ecclesiastes shaped Jamiesonās life and ministry
35:00 ā Preaching Ecclesiastes and pointing to Christ
Mentioned Resources
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