Gospelbound

Andrew Wilson is one of the happiest guys I know. So it only makes sense that he would write a book called Happiness: What It Is, Where to Find It, and How to Make It Last Forever , published by Crossway. He’s the expert. I’m delighted when I see Andrew at a TGC conference, or a retreat for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. I look forward to every chance to spend time with him. He writes...

Different preachers get excited about different aspects of the sermon. Some collect and deploy excellent illustrations. Others just nail the application week after week. Others can really reach your heart.  What really fires me up are the connections between the Old and New Testaments, the way God’s plan of redemption unfolds in familiar and new ways from Genesis to Revelation. So you know I’d be...

Alister McGrath remembers life as an atheist back in the late 1960s. He believed only what could be proven to be true. And he judged religious believers for trusting in an irrational fantasy. Looking back, though, he can see an emotional basis for what he thought were purely rational conclusions. He didn’t want God to exist, because God would threaten his freedom. As an atheist he could do whateve...

Is there a fate worse than condemnation?  Yes, say Allen Guelzo and James Hankins in their new textbook, The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition: Volume II: The Modern and Contemporary West . Worse than everyone hating you is no one remembering you.   Right now for Western civilization, the former is leading to the latter. Having been widely condemned as oppressive, imperialist, colo...

You will find many books on the biblical and practical importance of the local church. I wrote one myself a few years ago with Jonathan Leeman called Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential . But few books can match the way Brad Edwards shows us the need for the church amid rampant anxiety, division, and individualism. Not only our churches but even whole societies would be transfor...

Tim Keller preached a series of sermons in the 1990s called “The Faces of Sin.” It did not go over well in New York. Angered by the liturgical confession of sin, one woman waited until after the sermon and yelled at Tim, “Neither I nor any of my children will ever confess to being sinners!”  Naturally, Tim’s wife, Kathy, decided these would make good sermons to turn into a book! That’s what we hav...

Western culture today largely lacks a sense of consecration, of setting apart the ordinary as holy. Yet somehow we still have a strong impulse toward desecration, of turning the holy into the ordinary. Why have we lost the taste of the good while developing a taste for the bad?  That’s a core question at the heart of Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrade...

Join Collin Hansen, Michael Graham, and Sarah Zylstra as they continue to look back on the top theology stories from the last 25 years. In part 1 , they counted down stories #10 to #6. Now in part 2, Graham and Zylstra walk with Hansen through his stories #5 down to #1. In This Episode: 00:00:00 – Why homosexuality became a presenting issue dividing the church 00:00:41 – Sarah Zylstra introduces t...

Join Collin Hansen, Michael Graham, and Sarah Zylstra as they look back on the top theology stories from the last 25 years. In part 1 of this two-part series, Graham and Zylstra walk with Hansen through his stories #10 down to #6. Since the year 2000, religion in America has changed dramatically. As recently as the 1990s, religion in America was what Tim Keller called “thick”: In general, many cle...

When we receive applications for fellows at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, we ask them to answer the question, “What one thing should Christians do right now to introduce their neighbors to Jesus?” It’s not that we think there’s only one answer. It’s that we want them to identify the top priority. Last year we were surprised when every applicant gave the same answer. They talked about...

“Do any of us really want to be in the position where our retirement account grows in sync with the cancer ward?” That’s 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 don’t want to benefit from other people dying. Yet as Robin points out in his new book, The Good Investor: How Your Work Can Confront In...

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 confrontation—such as our own, in the aftermath of Christendom and the Enlightenment, awaiting whatever develops in post-liberalis...

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.  Justin Gi...

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. He’s also the author of several books, including Crisis of Responsibility: Our...

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 they’re each looking forward to in life and ministry in 2026. Resources Mentioned Theo of Golden by Allen Levi Believe by Ross Douthat Superblo...

For many, apologetics is associated with arguments over rational, philosophical proofs. It’s 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, you’re 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, it’s always c...

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 don’t receive our bodies. We can remake our bodies. No doubt you’ve observed the rise of transgende...

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. W...

Imagine you could save your life through one simple, regular act. You wouldn’t always want to do it. Every week you’d 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 day’s agenda. But then when it came time to do it again, somehow you’d still struggle to do it. Ok....

When I see whiffle ball, and I hear the piano, I know we’re 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 don’t feel bad about keeping my children away from social media.  I wouldn’t have my job if not for social media. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve made and maintained many friends. I would miss s...

“Does it feel like you should be happy, you want to be happy, and you try to be happy, but somehow you can’t?”  What a simple, common, yet poignant question. It’s in the preface to the new book Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes’ 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...

Music and family have always been connected for me. My grandfather taught me the Christian faith largely through our Welsh heritage of signing. Shortly before he died, our family gathered around the piano as my mother played and we sang many of his favorites from the Methodist hymnal. Every night with my own family we open the hymnal and sing some of these famous Welsh hymns, including “Guide Me,...

In a special crossover episode of The Everyday Pastor and Gospelbound , Wesley Huff joins Lig, Matt, and Collin to discuss the role of apologetics in pastoral ministry. How can pastors excel in giving a compelling reason for the hope within us—and train others to do the same? Drawing from both academic expertise and personal experience, Huff offers various cautions and tips for everyday pastors an...

Summer is a time for reading. Work slows down a bit, at least for some. I’m not traveling as much to speak and teach. School’s out. I spend more time at the lake. In fact, I have probably spent more time reading on a couch next to a lake than any other place. I’ve read everything from history to fiction to theology on that couch that helps put my mind in the right place to relax then concentrate....

In this episode of Gospelbound , Collin Hansen looks back on the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the 2015 Obergefell decision. He explores why support for same-sex marriage is now declining and why transgender activism hasn't followed the same trajectory. Hansen also reflects on how the church responded to this cultural upheaval and why many ministries didn’t cav...