Gospelbound

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re facing opposition far more intense than anything Christians in the United States have experienced in the last century. That’s the message from Luke Goodrich in his new book, Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious History in America , published by Multnomah. Goodrich, the leading religious-freedom attorney at the Becket Fund for Religious Lib...

Jerry Mitchell remembers what so many others want to forget. For more than three decades, he worked as an investigative reporter for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. During that time, his dogged reporting helped put four Klansmen in jail after they had eluded justice year after year for their heinous crimes in the 1960s. Mitchell tells this story of justice delayed and finally done in h...

Everyone agrees that we’re drowning under a rising tide of atheism. Right? Actually that’s how author Alec Ryrie describes early 17th century Europe. We’re talking about the century following the Protestant Reformation, a century marked by wars of religion fought between Protestants and Catholics, and civil war in England. It’s the century that gave us these words: “What is the chief end of man? M...

Tim Challies visited 25 different countries in his memorable year. And I think he may have even eaten McDonald’s in each of these countries. He attended worship services on every continent. He searched high and low for the artifacts that would help him tell the story of 2,000 years of Christian history. And he brings us along that journey in his new book, Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through...

I don’t know how exactly to describe Jamie Smith’s new book, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts , published by Brazos. I just know I recommend it. Smith himself describes the book as one last take at Christianity for someone tempted to leave the faith behind. Augustine is the guide—so ancient he’s strange, so common in his experiences that he feels cont...

“God is in the longest-lived, worst marriage in the history of the world.” That’s from Tim and Kathy Keller in their short new book, On Marriage , part of the How to Find God series with Penguin Books. They continue: “God is the lover and spouse of his people. But we have given him the marriage from hell.” But God has been faithful even when we were not. He sealed this union with us through Jesus...

We may not agree on much any longer. But this we seem to share in common: we don’t trust institutions. Just the drop in Americans’ confidence in organized religion should concern us: from 65 percent expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in organized religion 40 years ago down to 38 percent in 2018. Less trust in institutions means fewer close friends. We spend less time with oth...

Jasmine Holmes has been called everything from a cultural Marxist to an Uncle Tom. And other derogatory names I can’t repeat on this podcast. Thus is the fate of anyone who seeks to transcend our cultural, religious, political, and ethnic tribes. She lays out a gospel-centered, transcendent agenda in her timely new book, Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope , published by Int...

Harold Senkbeil has the secret of sustainable pastoral work: “You need to realize that you’ve got nothing to give to others that you yourself did not receive.” That’s his main message in a new book called The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart [read  TGC’s review ], published by Lexham Press. Senkbeil is an executive director of DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care, and a vete...

Whether Rachel Gilson is a hero or villain depends on your perspective. Her remarkable story doesn’t leave much room in between. “When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero—brave and strong—denying it makes you a villain.” So Gilson writes in a new book,  Born Again This Way: Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Comes Next , published by The Good B...

How likely are you to contract the coronavirus? To die of it? Or at least to know someone who does? Even if you knew those odds, such knowledge would bring little comfort. In these uncertain times you need something more solid that you can trust. You need a foundation you can stand on. In this pandemic, God is inviting us to build our lives on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. God is good, and...

It’s the tale of two crowns: the so-called coronavirus that looks like a crown under the microscope and Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Can God be good when thousands around the world get sick and die from something they cannot even see? Where is he, and what is he doing? John Lennox poses these and other good questions in a new book, Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? , publish...

The church will always face external threats. The gospel will always incite opposition. What if our biggest problem, then, isn’t hostility from the world but instead compromise inside the church? Gerald Sittser marshals that argument in his new book, Resilient Faith: How the Early Christian ‘Third Way’ Changed the World , published by Brazos. Sittser is professor of theology at Whitworth Universit...

If Erik Larson writes the book, I read the book. It's one of my simple rules of life. All the more so when he writes about one of the most dramatic periods of history, the so called London blitz of 1940 and 1941 when Great Britain withstood aerial bombardment by Nazi Germany. Larson's latest book is The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz , published b...

It turns out that rock bottom isn’t the worst place to be. When you have nowhere else to turn, you realize we need renewal. Mark Sayers has not written another book on the challenges that face the church in the West, though few would be better suited to do so. He’s written instead a handbook for not only surviving but even thriving in our secular age. Sayers is the author of Reappearing Church: Th...

Now here’s a good question: “How was it that a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanished empire came to exercise such a transformative and enduring influence on the world?” That we take for granted this enduring influence is the main point of Tom Holland’s new book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World , published by Basic Books. Holland is an awar...

I don’t know what vision the term “decadence” conjures up for you. Some advertising campaign years ago implanted an association for me with chocolate cake. But Ross Douthat sees a rich and powerful society no longer going anywhere in particular. We’re stuck with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline. He writes: “For the first time since 1491, we ha...

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. Coming Tuesday, March 3. Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition.  Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institu...