The Good Life

Cultural Marxism and the Liberal Arts Cure

My guest today is Dr. Scott Masson, a professor of literature at Tyndale University in Toronto. We talk about the origins and growth of cultural Marxism in North America, how ancient and medieval writers approached literature, and the importance of the liberal arts in fortifying our children against cultural corrosion.

Dr. Masson is a gifted lecturer and publishes his lectures freely on Youtube. You can find his channel here. 

His excellent lecture on cultural Marxism can be found here. 

His Paideia Today podcast can be found here. 

How to Defeat Communism in Your Spare Time with C.R. Wiley

Today I welcome Chris Wiley back to the Good Life podcast. We met in person and discussed the book he is working on, tentatively titled, How To Defeat Communism in Your Spare Time. We discuss the origins of totalitarianism and how it morphed into the bizarre form it now takes in seemingly free countries. We conclude with what everyday people can do to escape the heavy chains of twenty-first-century politics. 

40 Years on the Front Line of Africa- Peter Hammond

Today I interview Dr. Peter Hammond, the president of Frontline Fellowship. Frontline is a mission organization taking the gospel throughout Africa and Europe. Peter was born and raised in Rhodesia and later moved to South Africa where he has worked for the last forty years. He has amazing stories to tell, including his first mission trip when he traveled into Communist territory, how God orchestrated a secret church service that lasted thirteen hours, and what happened when he led a march in South Africa against abortion and was called in to meet Nelson Mandella. 

Frontline Fellowship

Books by Peter

• Frontline - Behind Enemy Lines for Christ
• Victorious Christians Who Changed the World
• A Christian History of Africa

 

”I See That Hand” - A History of the Altar Call

For hundreds of years, Evangelical worship services have ended with an altar call - the pastor asks people to bow their heads and close their eyes while musicians play softly, and he pleads with them to make a decision for Christ. But that is a recent innovation in worship. For centuries churches ended worship with the communion meal, or a simple hymn and prayer/benediction. What changed? That's the story we talk about today.

My guest is Jason Cherry, a fellow elder at Trinity Reformed Church and author of the book, The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call. We talk about what conversion meant prior to the First and Second Great Awakenings, and how those events and the ministers involved changed the culture. But we also talk about what conversion, repentance, and faith should look like, as well as the means God has given: discipleship, preaching, the sacraments, and prayer. 

The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis

When we read C. S. Lewis, we think of Mere Christianity or The Chronicles of Narnia. But how did he become the man who would write beautifully about so many disparate topics? Dr. Jason Baxter joins me today in a stimulating discussion on how C. S. Lewis was intellectually and spiritually formed. Dr. Baxter's book, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis, is a short, well-crafted work that introduces us to many thinkers whose influence prepared one of the greatest Christian minds of the twentieth century. If you choose to purchase the book, please do so from his website, https://www.jasonmbaxter.com/. He will sign all books purchased through his site. 

 

Books:

• The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis
• An Introduction to Christian Mysticism
• A Beginner's Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

The Piety of Uriah

We normally think of piety as only applying to our spiritual lives, i.e. reading our Bibles, prayer, etc. But for the ancients, piety was a matter of fulfilling responsibilities to others, a way of discharging debts owed to our authorities and those who have gone before us. In today's podcast, I talk about how Uriah the Hittite is portrayed as an excellent example of piety, even greater than King David in his older years. 

Life Among the Puritans with Timon Cline

Timon Cline is a lawyer and historian in New Jersey who specializes in the history of Puritan New England. We've heard a lot about the religious life of the time, but we don't know nearly so much about their laws and society. Today we talk about misconceptions of Puritanism, their influences, and how they were closer in many ways to Medieval society than we imagine. 

Timon Cline's essays

• Three Cheers for Cultural Christianity
• Religion is Downstream from Technology, p. 1
• John Cotton, Protestant Integralist
• Is Nationalism Natural?

Practicing Patriotism Like the Men of Jabesh

Can you honor your country when the leaders are wicked? The last story in I Samuel gives us some clues as to how to honor the memory of those who formerly were righteous but turned away.  

A Word for Sticking With an Institution

There have been several institutional victories recently for conservatives: the Supreme Court, the PCA, and the CRC all have made good choices in the last few weeks, some quite unexpected. Part of the reason this is so unexpected is that Americans have a tendency to leave institutions rather than remaining within and fighting and working to change course. In this podcast, I talk about our history of "flying away" and some principles to consider when we face to choice of whether to leave or stay in a faltering organization. 

Looking at History with Dr. Miles Smith

Miles is a history professor at Hillsdale College. Originally from North Carolina, he now resides in Michigan. He has written for First Things, The American Conservative, Ad Fontes Journal, and American Reformer. In this episode, we talk about how history is an expanding subject, how to distinguish real history from conspiracy theories, the difference between preaching Scripture and teaching history, what makes someone a good history teacher, and why people should read less Flannery O'Connor and more George Washington Cable. 

Articles by Miles

• Conservativism, If You Can Keep It
• Would That It Were 'Christian Nationalism'
• Evangelicals and Whig History
• Be For the City: 19th Century Evangelicals and Urban Theonomy
• The Bible and the Nation