Podcast from 2023
Christmas Replay 2023: Leadership and Character
In this Christmas replay, we discuss several opposing pairs of virtues and vices that shape our Christian character. If you’re considering how you can grow in godliness and holiness this coming year, here are some timeless biblical concepts to consider. Would you help support the work of the Ezra Institute before the year ends? Click…
Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?
There is a certain type of attitude or personality that creeps up this time of year that tries to suppress the joy of other believers in celebrating the birth of Christ. It alleges that Christmas was originally pagan, and that we are participating in idolatry. In today’s episode we discuss how there is good evidence that this is not the case, and that even if it were, the kingdom of God overcomes all opposition, and that all holidays ultimately belong to Christ.
Trans Identities and the Givenness of the World
We live in an age where we are told to define and live our own truth, including the most fundamental truths about our human identity. Over against such self-determination, Scripture gives us a vision for life based on the identity of God as the transcendent Creator, of human beings as image-bearing creatures, and the fundamental givenness of the world.
Interest Rates, ESG, and Godly Investments w/ Jonathan Wellum
Jonathan Wellum joins us once more on the podcast to reflect on the economic year 2023, and to discuss ESG, ethical investing, and the worldview difference between a godly and ungodly approach to economics.
Thinking Christianly about International Law w/ Dan Ogden
Ezra Institute Fellow Dan Ogden makes his podcast debut to discuss the difference between international law, which is based on common consent, and supranational law, a coercive and unaccountable system. He explains some of the strategic and economic benefits of a globally connected world, as well as the complications that arise from it, and how to think in a principled, Christian way about a tangled and high-stakes context.
Electioneering and Demoralization
We interact with a classic interview with Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB agent who defected from the USSR in the 1980s. He explains the strategy of cultural infiltration that has been active since the 1950s, and the work of demoralization that has been accomplished in the West. As we approach election seasons in the USA, Canada and Britain, we must be diligent to also pursue personal sanctification and not compromise on principles for the sake of temporary fixes.
Christian Nationalism, Christian Pietism, or Christian Culture w/ Andrew Sandlin
Ezra Institute Fellow Andrew Sandlin joins us to discuss the strange bedfellows of Marxism and Nationalism that have been keeping company lately, as well as antisemitism and the recent rise of nationalism of several stripes, including Christian nationalism, and how a reformational perspective guards against the excesses and reactionism of both progressive and conservative ideologies that are not based in Christ Jesus.
Veterans Day, Protests, and Christ’s Armistice
As governments and law enforcement deal with planned demonstrations for this upcoming Remembrance Day, Joe Boot considers the Islamic worldview commitments that are fundamentally at odds with Christian religious worldview commitments, and discuss the true and lasting peace that was accomplished through the cross of Christ. All month of November, save on the family advent…
Our Present Culture of Death
On this Reformation Day, Tobias Riemenschneider joins us from Germany to discuss the West’s death-loving culture, expressed in the horror of abortion. He explains how the wide-scale support for state-sponsored abortion is upstream from so many other forms of murder, euthanasia, the harm that it causes to women, and the folly of referring to abortion as a human right.
Racism, Christianity, and Antisemitism
Race is an unbiblical concept, and there are two main expressions of it in the West: constructivist critical race theory, and primordial nationalism. The Christian must reject both.
Wimpy, Weak and Woke w/ John Cooper
John Cooper of the rock band Skillet returns to the podcast to discuss his forthcoming book, Wimpy, Weak and Woke. He explains how a spirit of entitlement and victimhood has pervaded Western society, with its philosophical roots in Hegel, the tragedy of Christians abandoning the truth of the Bible to capitulate to postmodern and politically correct assumptions, and offers a solution that begins at home, but grows outward to express the Kingdom of God in every area of life and society.
Israel, Islam, and the Kingdom of God
In the wake of the recent attack on Israel by Hamas, and the Israeli response, we consider the religious roots of anti-Semitism and conflict with Israel. We also discuss the eschatological goal of Islam to conquer the earth, and the difference between a reformational approach and the historic doctrinal assumptions and commitments towards Israel from dispensational theology.