Altars and Ashes Podcast

When should Christians support a war? The 1689 Baptist Confession permits rulers to wage war on “just and necessary occasions.” In this episode, B.D. Fleming, Austin Tucker, and Robbie Stringer examine what those words require as we discuss Iran, America’s relationship with Israel, and who should fight…and decide. In this episode: * The sword under God: The authority and responsibility of civil ru...

The modern world cannot decide whether man is a god or an animal. One minute, you’re an accident of biology. The next, you’re sovereign enough to define reality itself. Scripture gives a different answer: man is neither god nor beast. He is made in God’s image, crowned with glory, and commissioned to rule under his Maker. But the serpent’s promise still beats in the human chest: “Ye shall be as go...

Everybody submits to an authority. Some trust the experts. Others trust their feelings, their traditions, or whatever the crowd decided this morning. Even the man who says, “I think for myself,” has placed somebody on the throne. The question is which authority gets your knee. Join B.D. Fleming, Austin Tucker, and Robbie Stringer as we examine the authority beneath every worldview. We tackle auton...

Everybody has a worldview. The question is whether yours bows before Christ or an idol. In the opening episode of our new short series, Foundations of Christian Worldview, Austin Tucker, B.D. Fleming, and Robbie Stringer examine the basic framework through which every person understands God, man, truth, goodness, and the purpose of life. No one approaches reality neutrally. Every man trusts an aut...

It is possible to agree with every argument we have made this season and still never build anything. You can talk about Christian education, strong households, economic cooperation, and living near faithful believers. You can read the book, listen to the podcast, and nod along. Five years later, your life may look exactly the same. In the final episode of Season 4, we turn from vision to action. W...

Central Thesis A Christian borough is not successfully built when Christians merely live near each other. It becomes durable when households can worship together, work together, trade together, sacrifice together, reproduce their culture, and hand something tangible to the next generation. And underneath all of that is Christian hope: We plant because Christ reigns. Opening: Welcome back to the Al...

Every civilization has a culture. The question is whether that culture will be formed intentionally or inherited accidentally. A Christian community cannot be built simply by putting Christians in the same neighborhood. Strong communities require more than proximity—and even more than shared doctrine. They require shared loves, habits, expectations, traditions, and a common vision for what life un...

King Alfred didn’t save England by winning one decisive battle. He saved it by building something that could survive the next battle and the next generation. Faced with Viking invasion and civilizational collapse, Alfred stopped thinking merely like a soldier and started thinking like a builder. His network of fortified towns ( burhs ) connected households, churches, markets, roads, law, and defen...

A household may be the headquarters, but the church is the fortress. Christian households cannot remain isolated forever. They need a center strong enough to unite them, protect them, form them, and carry their work beyond a single generation. A borough without a healthy church at its core is ultimately just a neighborhood filled with people who share similar preferences. In this episode of Altars...

You cannot build something faithful if you refuse to protect it. Christian homes, churches, and communities need more than good intentions. They need clear standards that hold and wise discernment that protects. Walls establish what we believe, what we value, and who we are. Gates determine what, and whom, we allow to shape our households, influence our children, teach our churches, and enter the...

Christians will not rebuild the world while neglecting the place where worship, work, discipleship, and future faithfulness are first formed: the home. Modern culture treats the household as little more than a place to sleep, consume, stream, and recover before returning to “real life.” Scripture presents something far greater. The household is a God-ordained institution of worship, government, ed...

Every man is building something. Every habit is a stone. Every choice is mortar. Every household is being shaped toward one kingdom or another. The question is not whether we will build. The question is what our hands are helping to raise . In this episode of Altars & Ashes , we move from the doctrine of dominion to its practical architecture. What does Christ’s Kingship look like inside the home?...

The modern world insists that neutrality is possible: neutral schools, neutral government, neutral media, neutral law, and neutral public spaces. But neutrality does not exist. Every institution rests upon a vision of truth, authority, justice, and the good life. Every school disciples. Every law teaches. Every society serves a god. The only question is which god will sit at the center. In this ep...

What does it actually mean to belong to a local church? In this special episode of Altars & Ashes , Austin Tucker, Robbie Stringer, and former co-host Bryan Furlong discuss the biblical importance of church membership. They explore why membership is more than placing your name on a church roll, how it creates real accountability and responsibility, and why Christians are not meant to live disconne...

Before Christians can build again, we must understand what happened to the world we inherited. In this episode of Altars & Ashes , we perform an autopsy on the West. Christendom did not vanish by accident. It was surrendered through a long assault on ideas, institutions, households, churches, and law. The collapse was not merely political. It was spiritual. It was cultural. It was institutional. W...

For generations, Christians could rely on cultural momentum, borrowed capital, and institutions that still retained traces of a Christian worldview. Those days are gone. We now find ourselves in a world increasingly hostile to Christian conviction, Christian families, and Christian institutions. The question before us is no longer whether Christians should build. The question is whether we will bu...

In this casual conversation, we talk about why eschatology is not just a chart at the back of a study Bible. What we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present. A negative view of history often produces retreat, fear, and short-term thinking. But a positive eschatology teaches us to labor with confidence, build with generations in mind, and believe that Christ is reigning now—and H...

Welcome back to the Altars & Ashes Podcast . In this episode, we begin a new season and find ourselves between major projects, so we take up one of the biggest questions pressing on our age: artificial intelligence . AI is no longer science fiction. It is in our homes, our phones, our schools, our workplaces, our churches, and our children’s pockets. Like every tool, it carries both promise and pe...

Dust & Glory Media is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In this episode, we come to a close on Season 3 of the podcast, and we also conclude our series walking through the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. We closed out this journey by discussing some of the most weighty realities a Christian can fac...

In this episode of Altars & Ashes Podcast , we continue through the 1689 London Baptist Confession, focusing on the communion of saints, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper (Chapters 27–30). Today, we answer a foundational question: What does life together in Christ actually look like? Scripture teaches that Christians are not isolated individuals, but a people united to Christ and therefore united to...

The Covenant of Marriage, The Life of the Church Episode 036- On Chapters Chapter 25-26 of the 1689 Confession (Of Marriage and Of the Church) Our culture has spent the last fifty years dismantling the two most foundational institutions God ever built: marriage and the church. Marriage has been redefined, delayed, and discarded. What God established as a covenant has been reduced to a contract, a...

In this episode of Altars & Ashes Podcast , we continue through the 1689 London Baptist Confession , focusing on lawful oaths and vows and the civil magistrate (Chapters 23 & 24). We address two often-overlooked areas of the Christian life: How seriously should we take our words? And how should we relate to governing authority? Scripture is clear, our words are not casual. When we speak, we speak...

In this episode of Altars & Ashes Podcast , we continue through the 1689 London Baptist Confession, focusing on Christian liberty and the worship God requires (Chapters 21 & 22). We answer two critical questions: What does it actually mean to be free? And how does a free people worship God rightly? Christian liberty is not the freedom to live however we want, it is freedom from sin, condemnation,...

In this episode of Altars & Ashes Podcast, we continue through the 1689 London Baptist Confession, focusing on the relationship between the Law of God and the Gospel of grace (Chapters 19 & 20). We answer a foundational question: What does God require, and how does God save? The Law reveals God’s standard, exposes sin, and directs the believer’s life, but it cannot save. The Gospel reveals Christ,...

In this episode of Altars & Ashes Podcast , we continue working through the 1689 London Baptist Confession , focusing on good works and the perseverance of the saints. If salvation is by grace alone, what kind of life does that grace produce, and does it last? We walk through how good works are not the root of salvation, but the fruit of it, and why true faith always results in a life that can be...