Spring 2025 Season Preview

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Collin Hansen
Welcome to gospel bound, a podcast from the gospel Coalition for those searching for resolute hope in an anxious age, I’m your host, Colin Hanson, and each week I’m joined by insightful guests to talk about their written work and how the gospel applies to all of life together, we keep looking until we see God working. Wherever you’re listening. Welcome. I’m glad you’re here for today’s conversation. We have an overall orientation on on gospel bound that we we see God working as we keep looking for him all all over the world, and we have a an openness and a receptiveness to knowing that he’s doing far more than we can ever ask or or imagine in our world, in our world today. And we also have a sense that when we’re rooted in the timeless truth of Scripture, that we have hope for any different time

Kendra Dahl
with the new season of gospel bound in the works, I wanted to give our listeners a preview of the guests and topics we can expect this spring. So I’m Kendra Dahl, and I work for the gospel coalition, and I’m joined today by Colin Hanson, Vice President of content and editor in chief for TGC, and host of the TGC podcast gospel bound. Thanks for joining me. Collin.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, glad to be here. Good to talk to you, Kendra.

Kendra Dahl
Well, start us out for someone who might be just jumping into gospel bound for the first time, and with this new season, give us the big picture. What? What can listeners expect on an episode of gospel bound?

Collin Hansen
Well, as very simply, Kendra, we’re usually talking with book authors, not always, but books are usually a main point of conversation, and so people are hearing a little bit of my perspective when I’m introducing an author and introducing a book, and my questions, but typically we’re hearing directly from these people who have devoted a lot of time and a lot of thoughtfulness to to working through different ideas and yield really fascinating insights from them. But the the books are also just a jumping off point for us, being able to talk about a lot of interesting different things that are happening in our world today and past, present and even the future. But we have an overall orientation on on gospel bound that we we see God working as we keep looking for him all, all over the world, and we have a an openness and a receptiveness to knowing that he’s doing far more than we can ever ask or or imagine in our world, in our world today. And we also have a sense that when we’re rooted in the timeless truth of Scripture, that we have hope for any different time. So that’s a little bit of the vision behind it. And then also the basics of what are people going to get? Well, usually, Kendra, the most, most of the feedback I get is, wow, you just added a lot of money to my Amazon card, Amazon build. That’s usually what I hear from people.

Kendra Dahl
That’s great. Well, you’ve got a great lineup of guests planned for this spring season. So starting with Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist who’s joined you on gospel bound before, right? So what’s unique about this conversation you’re gonna have?

Collin Hansen
Well, you know, I’ve known Ross for a number of years. I think the first long form interview we did was in person together in in 2016 I remember, remember so much about that interview Kendra. People can still find it there. But we were talking about Pope Francis, which he’s written a lot about with concern. We’re talking about now President Trump, who, you know that was right before that election back then and but in the end, I said, what keeps you up at night? And he said, smartphones and my girls. And that was a long time before Jonathan height and other guests, who’s been on or gene twang, another guest that we’ve had on gospel bound writing about these things, but I remember that, but this time, it’s a pretty fascinating development. Ross, he actually bristled a little bit when I called his book believe why everyone should be religious. I called it evangelistic book. He kind of pushed back on that, and certainly an apologetic text. But New York Times columnist who is Catholic writing an apologetic slash evangelistic book with a Protestant publisher, Zondervan, that’s pretty interesting. So that’s how we’re going to kick off. The season should be, should be fascinating.

Kendra Dahl
Yeah, I’m excited for that. Well, next up you’ve got a brand new guest on gospel bound New York Times, Best Selling Author of The Shallows, and a consistent voice in media criticism, Nicholas Carr. Tell us about that.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, so I don’t know car at all, so I’m looking forward to this interview. I was familiar with his work. I mean, the shallows was one of the earliest works of media criticism, and as you know, Kendra, that’s a pretty consistent theme for us. My having worked as a journalist now for gosh, a little over a little over 20 years, it’s been a pretty dramatic change in terms of. Media during that time, so we’re always looking on some of those changes. And so you know, related interview will. We’ll talk to Nicholas Carr about his new book, super bloom, fascinating title. But then later on, we’ll come back, we’ll talk to our own colleagues, Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa, for a book that they they had done. It’s an homage to Neil Postman, amusing ourselves to death. It’s called scrolling ourselves to death. I wrote the chapter in that book on how the Internet has changed preaching, but broadly speaking, it’s a work of media criticism that will hopefully help people just like Brett McCracken work the wisdom pyramid has done. It’s not just about being negative about things. It’s about helping orient ourselves toward the good, a good media diet, and what we can be looking for in this culture. So couple different ways we’re looking at that, but I’m eager to talk with with car about Super bloom.

Kendra Dahl
Well, tell us about your next guest. I think maybe you guys know each other. This guy named Kevin de Young, yeah.

Collin Hansen
So it’s great. I mean, a lot of people, when they when they come up to me and talk about gospel bound, they usually say, I love listening to you on gospel bound and with your friends Justin Taylor and Kevin DeYoung on life and books and everything. So that’s a podcast that I started with Kevin back in 2020 and he’s now taken it to new heights. And I get to go on there a few times every year with Justin and talk about all sorts of different things, like our Festivus grievances at the end of the year, and you look at some positive stuff too, so But Kevin will be coming on gospel bound for the first time, which I’m really excited about. And there’s a lot that we’ll talk with Kevin about, hopefully not too much about sports, especially because his Michigan State Spartans just wax the floor with my Northwestern Wildcats, which is what we often talk about on LBE. But hope we’ll be talking more about his book, daily doctrine, as well as his his work, the biggest story, the book, the videos, the curriculum, my family just loves that stuff, and built off Kevin’s kind of biblical and systematic theology teaching through the scriptures. And so hopefully we’ll get to talk to him a good bit about that. But Kevin’s been a dear friend of mine going back to boy, maybe like 2008 perhaps something like that, I think was when we first met. So I’ll be wonderful to talk to Kevin on gospel bound.

Kendra Dahl
That’s awesome. Well, I’m excited for each of these conversations and and, you know, one of the things I love about gospel bound is this diverse array of topics that you cover. You know, we’ve mentioned politics, media criticism, theology, but what about visual arts? Will this be the first time you ventured into that topic? And we’re

Collin Hansen
Gonna have Russ Ramsey back talking about his his new book, working through the visual arts. And, you know, Kendra, there are some things that come more naturally to me, talking about sports, talking about media, talking about history. I love art museums, and I have pretty much no idea what I’m talking about.

Kendra Dahl
When it comes to this, it’s probably worst thing you can do is admit the problem.

Collin Hansen
I guess so. But you know, I’ve been to so many my family and I were just at the Met last fall in New York, and I, I’m just taking it all in. I love this. But Russ Ramsey is, is sort of like my my docent who guides us through. What I love is he looks at the personalities behind the art. He also, he just looks at the history behind it, and opens up these windows. So we’re eager to hear about some, you know, some, some paintings that are very familiar, some painters who are familiar, but learning about their stories and learning about especially different ways that faith affected their work. So eager to have Russ Ramsey back on gospel bound.

Kendra Dahl
That’s great. Well, also history, that’s a topic that you love to cover often so and one you’ll continue to explore in 2025 tell us about that.

Collin Hansen
Oh boy. So long list of folks on this topic again, I try to talk about some of the things that, you know, I’m not really great when it comes to science. We’ve had some guests, you know. And even even last season talking about science, visual arts history tends to be my my sweet spot. So we’ll have a wider range here. Nadia Williams will continue our theme of especially of female historians who have made major changes in their lives as adults. Nadia has a PhD from Princeton, but left the academy to be teaching her homeschooling her two kids. So I know her husband, Daniel K Williams, who we’ve had on previously as a guest, that might be the first husband, wife duo in the history of gospel bound. I’m not sure. Anyway she’s she’s going to talk about the classical pre Christian world and its views toward motherhood, family, things like that, with. Is really instrumental in a lot of the other challenges that we talk about with fertility rates and just how mothers are valued or devalued in our culture, and the role that Christianity plays in that. So we’re talking to Nadia Williams about that. I’m really excited about this, one of the most popular episodes of all time with gospel bound. No surprise is Molly Worthen from the University of North Carolina, talking about her conversion. We’ll have Molly back this season to conclude the year, and she’ll be talking about a new book related to kind of the role of of charisma and and charismatic leaders through American history, including religion. So that’s actually a book I haven’t read yet, but knowing Molly, it’s going to be fascinating, and we’ll generate some good questions there. Walter Strickland, I know a friend of yours is as well as mine. A council member at TGC will be looking at his new history swing low of the African American church. If you grew up in predominantly white churches, you probably don’t have a lot of familiarity with that history or went through predominantly white institutions, so people will probably learn a lot from that. And then one that has a personal connection to me, an instrumental year in my life in ministry was with Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Kayla Morel, who works there closely with the pastor, Mark Devers, written a history of that church and as a book that I very eagerly devoured and will be fascinating, not only for me, but I’m sure, for for listeners, as they learn about the history of a pretty fascinating church today, but it’s been fascinating for all of us, many years of history.

Kendra Dahl
Yeah, that’s great. Well, who am I missing? Who are some other guests here excited about this season?

Collin Hansen
Well, you know, people often ask me, Kendra, how do you choose the people who come on the show? And generally speaking, if I’m interested in the subject, then probably that’ll be, it’ll catch on with other people. So there’s always some personal connections in here. Paul putz is one of the only academics I know who focuses on sports. So we’re going to be looking at the sort of academic look at at sports through a Christian lens over the course of of a, you know, 150 years or so. I’m sure we’ll be talking about some contemporary issues there as well. Matt Smithers, my long time friend, our managing editor for many years at the gospel coalition. He’s going to come on and talk about his new book, Tim Keller, on the Christian life. I’ve learned a ton from Matt about Tim from this new book, and Matt used some of my work on Tim before, so being able to talk about Tim will be really fascinating. And then finally, we’ll I’ve got, you know, I mentioned earlier a chapter I have in Ivan and Brett’s book, scrolling ourselves to death. I also have a short book. Oh, it’s just odd for me to say this. I have a short book on the problem of evil, something light, something something light, the problem of evil in the example of the Holocaust. So I think, I think somebody is going to be interviewing me about that.

Kendra Dahl
I don’t know. I’m sure she’s pretty great.

Collin Hansen
So somebody who has extensive knowledge to bring to bear on this subject matter, to challenge my viewpoints.

Collin Hansen
That will be a fun conversation. But yeah, it’s where is God in a world with so much evil? Is the title of that book, and eager to talk about it with you. So that’s brief overview what the season looks like.

Kendra Dahl
Yeah, I think there are a few we even missed. There’s a some personal connections to TGC, like Brian chapel. Oh, right. He’s scheduled later in the season. What will you talk to him about?

Collin Hansen
That’s right. Okay, so, yeah, I forgot about a few of them. It’s a long season. It’s a big season. So we’ve got, we got Brian chapel, the moderator of the PCA. Brian has been a leader at TGC for for a long time. He’s talking about the multi generational church, basically his perspective on how it’s hard to work across the generations. So you’ve got Brian there. We also have Ian Harbor, is a writer that a lot of people are not familiar with. What’s his first book, but they will be familiar with him writing one of the most well read articles in recent years about deacons with the gospel collection about deconstruction. So I was proud to endorse that book from Ian, and we’ll talk about a phenomenon that’s familiar to any, to many of us, deconstructing the faith. And then Matt mccullo is kind of like a I don’t know he and I just will sit down forever and talk about history and about fiction and literature and southern culture and whatnot. So Matt is publishing his second book with TGC, the one his first one was, remember death, about how we live for today by thinking about, you know, the. Future. And then this next one he has coming out with TGC, and crossway is about thinking about heaven. And so we’ve we’ve cut, we’ve touched on that theme before at TGC, but really eager to talk to to Ian and to Brian and to Matt. So I guess Kendra, in the end, I just, I love this podcast because it keeps me on my toes, keeps me up with my reading, keeps me learning all sorts of different stuff, and hopefully that’s why other people enjoy it, too.

Kendra Dahl
Yes, absolutely. I know I’m super excited for this new season, and I know I can count on gospel bound to have insightful guests, to have rich conversations about books, about ideas about how to navigate life in this post Christian reality. So thank you, Colin, for your service to us, your listeners with gospel bound. Thanks Kendra, looking forward to it, and be sure to catch the first episode of the new season with Ross Douthat releasing February 11. Thanks for listening to gospel bound.

Collin Hansen
Thanks for listening to this episode of gospel bound for more interviews and to sign up for my newsletter, head over to tgc.org/gospel bound. Rate and review gospel bound on your favorite podcast platform so others can join the conversation until next time remember when we’re bound to the Gospel we abound in hope.