Finding Your Spine

Seth Gruber, founder of The White Rose Resistance and author of The 1916 Project and The Last Stand, argues that the modern evangelical habit of reducing the Christian’s public duty to evangelism is a recent departure. The dominion mandate given in Genesis and repeated after the flood still stands, he says, and the early church’s transformation of Roman culture shows what is possible when believer...

Aaron Burns, founder of Burns & Company, talks about his film Jimmy, which follows Jimmy Stewart from his Academy Award win through World War II service and the making of It’s a Wonderful Life. Burns discovered the story in a Guideposts article Stewart wrote decades ago and realized the actor’s real-life journey was as compelling as any role he played. Stewart came from a long line of veterans...

Michael Clary, Senior Pastor of Christ the King Church in Northern Kentucky and author of Loser Theology: Why Weak Men Will Not Inherit the Earth, argues that a popular strain of teaching conditions Christians to treat passivity as faithfulness. The cross was necessary, he says, but the crown was always the goal. Isolating the hours before the crucifixion and ignoring Jesus’ public authority, or P...

Jesse Boulden, Director of the ALERT Academy in Big Sandy, Texas, argues that courage is less a gift some men are born with than a capacity that has to be used. Scripture keeps telling people to be courageous, he says, and his own father’s hard years in the Navy made the point concrete. At ALERT, a gap-year program of discipleship, emergency training, and service, young men practice that muscle in...

Lathan Watts, vice president of public affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom, explains how ADF fights in court, in legislatures, and in public for the God-given right to live and speak the truth. He describes clients who never asked to become test cases, cases that can last years, and a public-affairs job that translates legal work so ordinary people can recognize when their rights are being cross...

Tim Goeglein, vice president of external and government relations at Focus on the Family, argues that faith and public life were never meant to be strangers. Drawing on years in the Bush White House, the Senate, and Washington advocacy, he says the American story repeatedly turns on the church: the Revolution, the fight against the slave trade, the Cold War, and the pro-life movement. He revisits...

Sam Rolofson, a serving Army officer and trainer of future leaders, talks about what happens when a fighting force tries to run on several incompatible moral systems at once. He traces the tension from equal-opportunity classrooms to Army values such as respect and dignity, which sound universal until leaders treat them as preferences instead of truths grounded in something higher. Vague language...

Pastor J. Chase Davis of The Well Church in Boulder, Colorado, discusses Offensive Christianity and why Christian men should stop treating manhood as a liability. He explains the book’s double meaning: the gospel will offend a dying world, and Christians are called to go on offense rather than hide in a bunker until Christ returns. Davis contrasts piety with pietism, arguing that a split between b...

Brett Craig, an award-winning advertising creative and chief creative officer of XX/XY Athletics, talks about standing up for women’s sports from inside an industry that rarely rewards that kind of candor. After years making Super Bowl work for major brands, he now helps lead the rare apparel company willing to say men do not belong in women’s competition. The conversation covers why so many execu...

Dr. Matthew Mehan, associate dean and associate professor of government at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., discusses The American Book of Fables and why stories still form citizens. A scholar of literature, rhetoric, and civic education, Mehan argues that arguments alone are not enough. People also need images that teach them to love courage, self-g...

Paul Brown, founder of Wasson Watch Co., shares the story of building a business that openly embodies Christian, conservative, and patriotic values. He explains how the company began in 2018 out of a desire to create high-quality automatic mechanical watches while refusing to remain silent on the cultural issues of the day. The conversation covers the long product-development process, the slow ear...

Aiden Buzzetti, president of the Bull Moose Project and the 1776 Project, discusses the difference between traditional think tanks and “action tanks” that move principles into real-world results. He explains how the Bull Moose Project began in the early Biden years as a way to sustain America First energy and why the organization draws its name from Theodore Roosevelt’s famous resilience after bei...

Social psychologist Dr. Jose Duarte, PhD joins the conversation to examine the widespread problem of invalid and ideologically driven research in academia, particularly in social psychology. He describes how institutions that claim to seek truth often publish false claims about politics, climate, misinformation, and human nature, eroding public connection to reality and shaping policy on taxpayer...

In this follow-up interview, Pastor Jake Dell continues the conversation by sharing how he is revitalizing First Congregational Church of Woodbury, Connecticut, growing the congregation through bold, historic Christian preaching. He explains Operation Reconquista, the movement to reclaim mainline Protestant churches that have drifted into progressive theology. Dell makes the case that Christians h...

Pastor Jake Dell shares his personal journey from the Episcopal Church to his current role at First Congregational Church of Woodbury, Connecticut. He explains the progressive theological drift he witnessed in mainline denominations, the pressure to signal conformity on cultural issues, and the events that led him to resign in 2024.  Dell recounts his early call to ministry, experiences at Yale, t...

Dr. Mark Christian shares his remarkable journey from a devout Muslim upbringing in Cairo, Egypt, to surviving a horrific assassination attempt. He describes the early seeds of doubt that took root during a period of intense personal study, the painful confrontation with his father after seeking answers to deep inconsistencies in the faith, and the decade of family estrangement that followed. The...

Dr. Chase Spears sits down with Dr. Herbert Riedel, former community college president and author of Silenced, to discuss the pressures of maintaining moral and intellectual integrity in today’s higher education environment. Riedel shares his experience leading institutions, confronting institutional conformity, and the personal and professional costs of resisting woke ideology. They explore how c...

Dr. Chase Spears welcomes Ron Freeman — former NFL player for the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, All-American at Pittsburg State University, Chaplain for the Royals and Chiefs, and current football coach at Maranatha Christian Academy. Ron shares his powerful journey from a non-church background to a transforming encounter with Christ at age 25, including the moment God spoke to him about b...

Dr. Chase Spears welcomes Josiah Lippincott back to Finding Your Spine for a candid follow-up discussion on how the two first connected. Lippincott recounts his viral 2021 Twitter exchange with a general over COVID policies and rising military suicides, which thrust him into the national spotlight. The conversation dives deep into institutional decay within the military — from “Mil Twitter” activi...

Dr. Chase Spears welcomes Marine veteran and scholar Josiah Lippincott to discuss courage, intellectual independence, and the need to challenge institutional orthodoxies. Lippincott shares his journey from questioning U.S. presence in Okinawa to pursuing a PhD at Hillsdale College while openly critiquing leftist dominance in academia and moralistic foreign policy. The conversation explores the pro...

Dr. Chase Spears sits down with Navy Chaplain Jonathan Shour to discuss his courageous stand against the military’s COVID vaccine mandate. Shour shares the intense pressure he faced during chaplain training, the personal toll on his family—including months of technical homelessness while his wife was pregnant—and the moral challenges within the Chaplain Corps. They explore the film Duty to Disobey...

In this episode of Finding Your Spine, Dr. Chase Spears welcomes public school teacher William Loggans, author of Quiet Courage in the Classroom. William shares how he placed an inspirational poster featuring Charlie Kirk in his classroom — only to face swift backlash from administrators who demanded its removal. What followed was a battle over First Amendment rights, district investigations, unio...

In this episode of Finding Your Spine, Dr. Chase Spears is joined by Eric Teetsel, Fellow at the Center for Renewing America and Chronicles magazine. They discuss the vital role of Christians in public life and how faith should inform policy without becoming partisan idolatry.  Eric shares his journey from a military family background to nearly two decades at the intersection of faith, policy, and...

In this episode of Finding Your Spine, Dr. Chase Spears sits down with David Goodwin, co-author of Battle for the American Mind and a leader in the classical Christian education movement.  They explore how education shapes the soul and why the West has shifted from a Christian paideia to a modern servile one. David shares his journey from homeschooling and military service to embracing classical C...

Dr. Chase Spears chats with Kristian Garic, a Marine veteran, ex-sheriff's deputy, and New Orleans radio veteran, about standing firm amid cultural pressures. Kristian recounts his Army brat upbringing, Marine service, law enforcement stint, and radio rise—from sports coverage and Saints Super Bowl sideline reporting to facing pandemic-era censorship in corporate media. He details pushback on...