the Proclaim & Defend Podcast

In this edition of the P&D podcast, I am interviewing Mark Lounsbrough, lately the chair of the Missions department at Faith Baptist College & Theological Seminary. He will tell you about his ministry and what he is doing now as we start the conversation. Mark's article is the lead article in our FrontLine edition with the theme, A Future for Israel . As it happens, his interview was the last one...

From 1973 until 2022, the fight over abortion has been about the courts—especially the Supreme Court.  Abortion opponents have argued that the decision should not be a federal court decision, but one for individual states to decide.  Well, with the Dobbs decision,  the pro-life people finally won.  The problem is that we were not prepared for victory. Since that time, state after state has enshrin...

With this podcast, we move to the May/June edition of FrontLine which had the theme, "A Future for Israel." The focus of the magazine is not on current events, but on biblical prophecy. The current situation in Israel is much on our mind these days. If you love God, you should love what he loves and these prophecies show that God loves Israel. Our first interview is with Ken Rathbun, the associate...

Not long ago I preached on the four lists in Proverbs 30:8-32. Tucked among those lists is Proverbs 30:20 which says, This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, And says, “I have done no wickedness.”   So, a fairly new believer asked me a simple question afterward. “Why is the Bible so hard on women?” I am glad she felt the freedom to ask the question. I would much rathe...

In the 1990s and into the early 2000’s the purity movement was all the rage among evangelicals. It was all about saving yourself for marriage. It spawned an industry—with rings, and other items being sold. Hundreds of books were written about it. If you have not noticed, that movement is dead. Josh Harris and others of its heroes have recanted the movement or the Christian faith altogether. Why? W...

We are talking about the March/April 2024 edition of FrontLine called "Salt and Light in Your City and State." Our guest today is pastor Taigen Joos, from Dover, New  Hampshire, where he pastors Heritage Baptist Church. The theme of the magazine speaks to the need to be an influence in our increasingly corrupt world. Pastor Joos gets to the heart of our influence by addressing the need to evangeli...

A false balance is an abomination to the Lord:  but a just weight is his delight. (Proverbs 11:1) With all the “big” sin issues in play in our culture and around the world, does cheating the scales rate that high on the scale of divine importance? According to Proverbs 11:1, it does. 3000 years have not changed this problem very much. Whether it is a finger on the scale or an inaccurate scale alto...

We are talking about the March/April 2024 edition of FrontLine called “Salt and Light in Your City and State.” Our host for this session is Gordon Dickson, who served as our Associate Editor for this edition of the magazine. The guest today is Virginia based evangelist Byron Foxx. Byron authored an article for FrontLine called “Four Ways God Judges Nations.” In the article, brother Foxx talks abou...

I have returned home after a crazy week of travel, conference activities, and more travel at the end. Living on an island always adds an extra wrinkle to my travel plans, but never extra convenience. Nonetheless, the 103rd meeting of the Foundations Baptist Fellowship International, held at Tri-City Baptist Church in Westminster, Colorado was well worth any of the inconveniences of travel we exper...

We are talking about the March/April 2024 edition of FrontLine called “Salt and Light in Your City and State.” Our host for this session is Gordon Dickson, who served as our Associate Editor for this edition of the magazine. The guest today is pastor Tom Alvis, from Powhatan, Virginia. Tom wrote an article for FrontLine called “Christian Influence in a Post-Christian Culture.” In the article, Tom...

Our episode today is a special edition of the podcast. Our long-time office manager, Malinda Duvall is retiring in a few weeks. Everyone on the board thinks very highly of her and the work she put in over the years for our organization. Malinda authored an article in our May/June 2024 edition of FrontLine called “Time to Land the Learjet.” She was reflecting on her time working for the FBFI. Norma...

In an article dated May 31 , published by Realclearreligion.com, Robb Brunansky said this about Christians and the dreaded month of June that comes every year. As Christians, we might easily look at June as a month where the darkness has overtaken the light, where godless people brazenly mock God by taking His rainbow and using it to celebrate what He describes as an abomination. But we do well to...

The Salty, Light-Bearing Church We are talking about the March/April 2024 edition of FrontLine called "Salt and Light in Your City and State." Our host for this session is Gordon Dickson, who served as our Associate Editor for this edition of the magazine. The guest today is pastor Steve Thomas, from Flat Rock Michigan. Steve wrote an article for us called, "The Salty, Light-Bearing Church." The a...

In a May 28, 2024 article for Mere Orthodoxy , Matthew Loftus mourned the precipitous decline in church attendance among historic mainline denominations (read historically modernist denominations). Church attendance for mainline denominations has now dropped to 9% of the population. For the sake of clarity, historically mainline churches while not all theologically liberal, aligned themselves with...

Welcome to the Proclaim & Defend podcast. I'm Don Johnson. My duties on the podcast are light for the next few weeks as we have Gordon Dickson hosting the interviews. I will just provide introductions. Gordon was our Associate Editor for the Edition of FrontLine called, "Salt and Light in Your City and State." You've already heard from him about his part in the magazine. This time he interviews my...

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Probably the most quoted verse in Proverbs is 22:6. Over the years, the verse has held as a precious promise to parents that if they do everything right, their kids will turn out right. It has also been used as a guilty club to beat up parents who are feeling defeated over the choices of a rebellious child. Bo...

Welcome to the Proclaim & Defend podcast. In this edition we are talking to Gordon Dickson about the March/April issue of FrontLine with the theme “Salt & Light in Your City and State.” Gordon is the associate editor for FrontLine this time and is also recently retired from a long pastoral ministry in Findlay, Ohio. We talk about the magazine and his ministry. We published an interview with Gordon...

By 2015 or so, it seemed like the Christian School movement in the US was close to death. For thirty years, many church-based schools strangled their mother institutions. Some church-based schools thrived but only with very careful control of enrollment. Homeschooling overtook Christian Schools as the Christian Education of choice, but that left many students behind. Some Christian parents returne...

Welcome to the Proclaim & Defend podcast. Our topic today is an article from the January/February issue of FrontLine which had the theme, "Redeeming the Culture?" This interview concludes our series for this issue of the magazine. Our guest today is pastor David deBruyn of Johannesburg, South Africa. He wrote an article called "Multiculturalism and the Local Church." David addresses some confusion...

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31) I have been preaching a series through the Book of Proverbs recently, and I finally got to the subject of social drinking. Proverbs has a lot to say on the subject. The language is clear. I tried so carefully to be faithful to the text and our past and present historical context. But none of...

Welcome to the Proclaim & Defend podcast. Our topic today is an article from the January/February issue of FrontLine which had the theme, "Redeeming the Culture?" Our guest today is pastor Ryan Martin from Columbiaville, Michigan. He wrote an article called "All Things to All Men." He is talking about the concept of "contextualization," something of a buzz-word in some circles. What Ryan is addres...

In this political season, we've heard about something called "Christian Nationalism." It's a term used by those on the left to demonize everyone on the right, while many Christians are mystified by these charges. After all, they are Christians, they love their nation, and what is wrong with that? Well, our guest today helps us understand what this is all about. He also helps us put the ideas into...

Proverbs 27:10, 17 says, Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend, nor go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.  As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. I would like to spend a few minutes unpacking the lessons and implications of these verses. They are so important as I see generation...

Our podcast continues with discussion of articles in the January/February edition of FrontLine which had the theme, "Redeeming the Culture?" The article we are discussing today is called, "The Church and Cultural Engagement" with author Michael Carlyle. He is the Scripture engagement manager for Bibles International. We are all aware how our culture is swiftly departing from old senses of morality...

Today we are departing from our usual practice so we can promote an article from a yet to be published edition of FrontLine. I am interviewing the author of the article, Gordon Dickson, who also served as the Associate Editor for the upcoming edition. The theme for this upcoming issue is "Salt & Light in Your City." Gordon wrote two articles for the magazine, the first one reflecting the theme and...