Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t

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Collin Hansen: At some point in an unbeliever has probably challenged your faith on the so called problem of evil. If God’s so good and powerful, why doesn’t he put an end to all this pain and suffering? Well, Christians offer a variety of answers not all of them satisfying to skeptics, or even other Christians. But have you ever wondered about the alternative? Is there a more hopeful option? What do we gain by losing the possibility of a good God whose purpose is transcend our understanding will be gaining unlivable despair. That problem of evil then runs both directions. But one of my favorite defenders of the faith today is Gavin ortlund. He’s senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ohio, in Ohio in California. He’s also the author of many books, including finding the right hills to die on the case for theological triage. It was published in 2020. By crossway, and the gospel coalition. His latest book where he discusses the problem of evil is why God makes sense. In a world that doesn’t the beauty of Christian theism published by Baker academic in the same apologetic book, Gavin deconstructs arguments against Christianity while also displaying the beauty of God. Here’s an example from the book. It says this, The plain and resilient fact that we all must reckon with is simply this we live in an intricate and mysterious world and every possible explanation for that fact evokes wonder and amazement. There is no worldview available on the market that is entirely rational and explicable in terms of observable physical causes. If you don’t like God, you’re probably stuck with zillions of parallel worlds, for which you lack any conclusive evidence. Things are metaphysically interesting. Anyway, you slice them. Well, I described Gavin’s book as metaphysically interesting itself. And so Gavin joins me on gospel bound to discuss our deepest intuitions, beauty, creation, love, and all kinds of other good stuff, Gavin, thanks for joining me on gospel bound. Hey, thanks for having me. I feel like you’re long overdue, to make an appearance on gospel bound years of working together. And you’re simply one of the best people I see out there writing and speaking and and filming on this stuff. So why would this book Why do you say this book comes from your heart more than anything else you’ve ever written?

Gavin Ortlund
I think it’s because partly in the effort to help people who are deconstructing or struggling, and then partly having been through some of those kind of two mild seasons of that myself, just angst working through challenges. I know what that feels like. And I know the emotional implications. And that’s really what is at the heart of this book is saying, if the Gospels true, what does that mean for our deepest longings? What does that mean for the meaning of everything? And if it’s not true, what does that mean? And I’m just looking down the road. And it’s amazing how different naturalism is from the gospel, I would say they are infinitely different. They’re as different as can be with respect to the human heart and the longings of the human heart that touches everything, not just eternal life, it touches how you listen to music now, how you think about the nature of math now, how you think about the way you feel about your children. Now it touches literally everything. So I think that’s why it comes from such a deep place.

Collin Hansen
Now, why do you tell readers Gavyn that they can trust their deepest intuitions? I gotta say, I don’t think that’s the most common apologetic approach I see from reformed theologians. One of the things you write in here is what if we regard our disgust and morality and the intensity of our attraction to love and compassion as a clue, rather than an illusion? So, explain what you’re doing there apologetically. But also theologically.

Gavin Ortlund
Well, yeah, cuz it wouldn’t be all intuitions. It’d be what I’m speaking of specifically, there’s our moral intuitions, and then our aesthetic intuitions, our intuitions of beauty and transcendence. And I’m just talking about the way we experience music and the other arts. And then I think in that part, specifically, the way we experience good and evil, and this deep, instinctive sense within us that good and evil are really binding categories. Because, again, if you think if you look down the road with naturalism, it is horrifying. You know, everything that we feel about good and evil is an illusion. fobbed off on us by our evolutionary ancestry, and if you really think about that, it really is, it sort of vitiates our humanity, you know, it cuts to the core of what it means to be human being because we have this profound sense of morality in US called the conscience. And so that intuition, I think, is a powerful apologetic, and I think that’s profoundly biblical to make this appeal that the conscience testifies to the Creator.

Collin Hansen
Is that some of the contrast you try to identify in the book in the moral visions between the older atheists like Friedrich Nietzsche, and the newer atheists like Sam Harris, because it seems like that’s something that perspective is something Nietzsche would have understood and embraced and said, yeah, get on with it. Whereas the newer atheists want to, I don’t know may explain what they’re what they’re trying to do, because it seems that they’re trying to make a case that you can still be moral without God, which is different, I think what we’ve seen in the past and yet, clearly, I mean, I guess maybe explained in part why it doesn’t work. But what’s the move? Why did atheists kind of change their change their tune on this?

Gavin Ortlund
It does seem like there’s this difference between what I call the older atheist and the newer atheists in the book I chronicle Nietzsche and then also John Paul Sartre, from a little different angle, and then also the character Yvonne in Dostoyevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov as three representative examples of this kind of more 19th century or early 20th century ethos of atheism. And it is, from my vantage point, more rigorous and more consistent, because they’re, they’re looking down the road, you know, they’re seeing the sense of utter devastation that occurs with the loss of God, because it does mean the loss of an objective morality, that is a morality that’s not dependent upon human thought that exists independently of us that we discover rather than create, you know, and Sartre is talking about morality, as this is like art, he calls it, you know, it’s just something you build. And they see the implications of that, I have more respect for that mentality, the New Atheists, some of them, many of them, like Sam Harris, for example. It feels like it’s a bait and switch, because they want to retain so many of these values that are difficult to substantiate in a naturalistic worldview, like a humanitarian causes, you know, like, there’s one point in SAM Harris’s book, the moral landscape where he’s talking about, he’s having his reader do a thought experiment about imagine the best possible life. And he’s saying, oh, you know, you give lots to charity. You’re building hospitals around the world, all of these kinds of things, philanthropy and this kind of thing.

Gavin Ortlund
And I remember thinking, why do you think that? Why would you include that as the best life? Those are particular values? And I don’t think he’s got a sort of ontological basis for those values. I think he kind of smuggled them in the back door, but I don’t think they actually play out on atheism. And so a lot of what I’m trying to do in that chapter of the book on morality is just make that argument that you really don’t have any sort of solid foundation for an objective morality on atheism. Do you think it could simply be a historical explanation? In other words, the older atheists are arguing before Hitler, and the others are arguing after Hitler, and after Stalin? And after Mao, all the incredible killings of atheists, who did seem to take these views to their logical conclusion, in many ways, that there’s nothing more than power. And the and then I mean, and sublimated all of these other considerations, especially of beauty, to just raw power and control. Could it just be that the way the moral landscape has shifted? Post World War Two? Yeah, that’s a fascinating point. i I’m sure that’s a huge factor. Yeah. Because you can’t look at the 20th century and see it, you know, more bloody than the previous 19 combined. And you think of the experiment of atheism, in the Soviet Union, you know, and just how that that’s one of the things I talk about in the book is the bloodiest chapter in all of human history was also totally secular, with under Stalin and others before him. So yeah, that seems like that would certainly have to be a factor, right? People can’t look back at that, and deny that the horror of that.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, there was a kind of secular humanitarianism as seen in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. That emerged from that conflict, and sort of at the at the dawn of the Cold War, to try to, to try to create a universal morality that was not explicitly Christian, but was owing everything to Christianity in ways that obviously Nietzche would have seen, but also in ways that I think this is why Dostoyevsky’s which is one of the greatest prophets of the both biblical times because he could see this coming in revolutionary Russia, which is why he puts all of these atheistic views in Ivan’s character in that book, I love that part of your book. But this is actually it’s a Dostoevsky theme as well here. But let’s go back to something you just you alluded to earlier. But what makes beauty a compelling apologetic appeal? Maybe? Would you say especially now, or? Or always? Or how would you explain that?

Gavin Ortlund
I have the feeling that and my books taking a little different approach to apologetics, but not a radically different approach, I’m still drawing from all these old arguments are basically drunk from classical arguments, but then putting them in a narrative frame, trying to say, you know, so like, the moral argument becomes the drama of the story. And the argument from design becomes the meaning of the story. And Christ, the argument from Christ becomes the hope of the story and that kind of thing. I’m saying, but I’m drawing from these older arguments, but a little different of the way of the approaches that I do think beauty seems to be especially needed right now. That’s just an intuition I have that’s not based on any sociological findings, but I just have the feeling there’s so much despair right now.

Gavin Ortlund
And also the feeling that people are weary of culture wars, and the more absolutes type claims and subtlety and winsomeness is important in the way we kind of roll things out not being overconfident, not being brash. So I’m taking a little different approach. And I Yes, I think beauty is a powerful appeal. In the book, I talk about three aspects of our world that that seem to convey a kind of transcendent, meaning, music, math and love. And the argument from music would be within the family of aesthetic arguments that appeal to beauty. And I went into these very skeptical, I’m not, you know, I kind of have an allergic reaction against triumphalist ik ways of presenting the faith. So I thought, you know, I want to be as modest as possible. But as what I use them as, as abductive, arguments or inferences to the best explanation, I really was surprised at how solid they are.

Gavin Ortlund
And what convinced me is, all of the secular philosophers of music and philosophers of math, are getting to a point where they’re bumping into the fundamental mysteriousness, of the subject matter, because music has this ability to convey meaning in this transcendent way that everyone’s wondering, how does it do this? And so, you know, I won’t walk through the whole argument right now. But suffice to say, Yeah, beauty is incredibly powerful at at both an emotional level and also at an intellectual level.

Collin Hansen
Everybody’s favorite undergraduate, does deskey quote, out of context, Beauty will save the world. That that was just a very interesting aspect of the book. I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense, intuitively, and truly, what is the alternative to, you know, to God’s goodness, and God’s design there. Now, you’ve written so many things, and in recent years has been quite a productive stretch, and look forward to what you have to come. But one of the things you’ve written a lot about is creation. And I gotta say, this is not an area where I excel, but what do I need to know about current apologetics related to creation?

Gavin Ortlund
One thing is, with respect to the design argument, teleological argument, the focus tends to be more upon the physical constants of the universe, so as to bypass biological design altogether, simply because it allows you to skate around the whole question of, of evolution. So that really is where kind of the cutting edge is there. So create, because you know, previously there were, there’s all the battles about evolution, intelligent design versus evolution. And so that’s, that plays into the design argument. So a lot of apologists today it because it’s not that you necessarily can’t make the argument there, I think you can make a powerful design argument from biology, whether you believe in evolution or not, I think that’s a powerful argument. But just you don’t even need to because the physical constants of the universe are so powerful a testimony already to have a universe where evolution could happen, itself is already a miracle. That’s that’s one sort of fact to think about out there.

Gavin Ortlund
Beyond that, I would just say that the general approach I take is when I’m doing apologetics, I try not to get too specific about the different categories at the front end, because my concern is to present the Christian faith to someone I would like for someone to accept Christ, you know, and then from that point, then we’re going to have conversations about reference the other book, all the issues of theological triage, you know, we get to the second and third rank doctrines down the line first, I just want them to say, to understand God is the Creator here’s what sin is. Here’s who Christ is. Here’s how you need to respond to Christ.

Gavin Ortlund
I want kinda want to Start there. So I don’t actually get into the intricacies of creation at the apologetics mode except for the kind of classical claims that the Christian faith has made like creation from nothing, which are very relevant in the current moment, because you’ve got a lot of people who, for whom that, once again, is kind of a radical new idea. So and that creation is contingent, and that there’s one God is necessary. Everything else is contingent, that that’s, again, a classical Christian sort of instinct, as very relevant to the current moment. And again, I think there’s a lot of beauty to offer people, but I, I leave the, the more feisty creation stuff for if the person asks about it, or once we’ve gotten down the road a little bit, and I’ve already had the chance to make the gospel very plain to them. That’s just my own approach.

Collin Hansen
Well, I’m going to ask you about three more different areas. And then I’ll ask a couple questions just of how you wrestle with these things. But another area described as having a you describe actually love as a problem. You say love is a problem that must be accounted for in a naturalistic worldview? What makes a love love a problem? In that worldview?

Gavin Ortlund
Yes, I think this is the section of the book where I start off quoting, Frozen II.

Collin Hansen
Just so everybody gets a sense of the depth. Yeah.

Gavin Ortlund
I like to lead off with my academic credentials, you know. So, you know, and I’ve, I seen the movie many times, I do have a six year old daughter, actually, as of today, she’s seven. But all right, yeah. So you know, this, this when you have young kids this kind of stuff around the house, you know, but I actually loved the music. And this is one song that is very poignant. I mean, some of these children’s movies, they actually have some deep themes. And, you know, that movie does explore this, these interesting themes of permanence, you know, what is it that is actually permanent? And there’s this feeling of this the changing seasons?

Gavin Ortlund
But then there’s the question kind of what is permanent in the midst of that? And there’s just the scene where Olaf is about to melt away, and he says, I thought of something permanent, and other crutches what is that? And he says, Love. Now I remember when I watched that scene that related to many other times in my life, I’ve thought about this, that that actually is really interesting, philosophical question. Is love permanent? We hear that theme over and over in the arts in music, you know, how many songs expressed this feeling of I love you forever? And and it really is a question that that’s all you need to then get into the philosophy of it. And then once you’re into that, you know, again, as you look down the road, on naturalism, you don’t have to look very far before you start to realize, Oh, love doesn’t have the same intuitive, transcendent significance that I thought because, once again, it becomes an illusion. It’s a survival tactic. We feel loved because it helps it helped our ancestors survive.

Collin Hansen
And then evolutionary adaptation.

Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, yeah. And there’s nothing more to it than that. So that, and that’s, again, it’s a very much a diminishing worldview. To me, it’s very much a reducing worldview in terms of these, you know, what is it that even makes life worth living? I think all of us have this intuitive sense that love really matters, the way we feel about our families, really matters. And it’s, there’s more to it than that. And naturalism cuts that to the core. And so then I just propose, look at the look at Christian theism as an alternative. And I make the case that both intellectually, but also existentially, this is just a better alternative, and a division of love. And that worldview is enchanting to the extreme love is at the core of reality between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Love is more real than time and space itself, love generated the world. Love will, will last forever in a literal sense. And so I’m just trying to help the reader feel that what’s at stake there, and how different these are.

Collin Hansen
Let’s cover justice, then as well. How does our intuition for justice make the case for God? I’m thinking here about a really provocative comment in your book, on the difference millions of years from now between Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa.

Gavin Ortlund
This is another one of those look down the road thought experiments where we have a sense that moral accomplishment matters. We have a sense in our hearts that, you know, this is why and I’m drawing attention to the movies that we watch. And by extension, the stories we tell in other forums as well, and how they all have the same basic plotline, you know, it’s always good and evil, and almost always good wins in the end. And so it raises that question of why is that that plot line So in the human heart that we just instinctively tell stories like that over and over. And Tolkien has his answer, he says this is because we’re made in the image of God. And he sees that capacity is a huge part of what it means to be made in the image of God. And then again, you know, it sounds like a broken record here.

Gavin Ortlund
But you look down the road on a naturalistic worldview, and you realize that’s an illusion, too. And so, essentially, moral accomplishment won’t matter, because it, you know, it can matter in the short term. But ultimately, if you just wait long enough, no biological life will be around. So all moral accomplishment, and the memory or consequence of all moral accomplishment will ultimately flatten out. In the end, it has only a finite good. And in a theistic worldview, it opens up the categories, and enables you to see moral accomplishment is actually having an impact that goes beyond this life. And I think there’s something in the human heart that that longs for that and recognizes that. I don’t think someone needs to be a Christian to have the longing for that. I was just thinking yesterday, as I was doing apologetics about the movie Gladiator, which already has come up 22 years ago, which is mind boggling to me. But, you know, is one example of where the longing for the afterlife is just all throughout the movie, you know, it’s this recurrent theme. And you just have to ask, and where does that longing come from? And again, looking down the road on naturalism. It really has a pretty bleak prospect with respect to justice. All right,

Collin Hansen
Gavin, I’m going to get over my skis here. I’m speculating on something that I’m just working out in real time. So as I’m thinking with you on that answer, I’m wondering, is it a human intuition? Or is it an intuition of justice that has been shaped specifically by the influence of Christianity, and more broadly, Judaism as well? Over the last couple 1000? Well, more than that time? reason I ask is because I was recently reading a book about about the Vikings and their mythologies, which and of course study back in seminary, Ancient Near Eastern mythologies. Look at the Romans, the Greeks, is there a sense that good and evil are in contrast, in those situations, or that good prevails? It seems like there’s much more chaos, and the gods are not expected to be moral. They’re not expected to be good.

Collin Hansen
They’re, they tend to be mixed bags there. So I don’t think it diminishes your argument at all. And maybe you’re still right, you probably are. I’m just trying to process this saying, is that something people have always thought because I’m just not sure that non Jewish non Christian mythologies actually do have those expectations, but put me in my place?

Gavin Ortlund
Well, let me give a general answer here, because I don’t have enough historical knowledge to be able to kind of pinpoint exactly where the Vikings are here. And you know that Yeah. But But what I would say is that, I think my sense is a moral instinct of some kind is universal, throughout human cultures. You know, CS Lewis has these passages where he says, you know, the way courage is understood, can differ from one culture to another, but no culture praises cowardice.

Collin Hansen
That’s a good that’s a good way to put it is.

Gavin Ortlund
So there’s a bandwidth here of everybody’s got a moral instinct, even the Vikings have some things that they’re saying they’re not there are right and wrong,

Collin Hansen
…that they command and that they don’t command, absolutely.

Gavin Ortlund
But then the particular understanding and shaping of that conscience. I mean, this is where Tom Holland and so many others have done such helpful work and seeing the powerful influence of the Christian tradition upon the shaping of that. So I, I want to fully emphasize that the importance of that insight, but I think the argument still works, because the argument is simply saying, objective morality, not necessarily a Christian ethic of compassion,

Collin Hansen
I think I think that makes sense. And I think both of them work, both of them can work apologetically, in complementary ways, that there is a moral intuition, but the specific kind of storytelling, intuition of justice with good prevailing is a Judeo Christian sense that has been that has been universalized, essentially, across much of the world. I think part of what I’m trying to get at as well is that the sense of time that we take for granted now is very much a Jewish Christian concept. And Islam adopts some of that as well, of course, coming later, but it’s not necessarily the same as what Hindus or Buddhists or others would hold in terms of their views of time and progress. And so, I think what I was trying to get at is that the storytelling we have is probably more Christian and Jewish, that we probably are willing to acknowledge even in Frozen II.

Collin Hansen
Alright, I want to get to a couple of personal questions here. So when I teach apologetics at beast in Divinity School, my final project as I asked these Students to Write a sermon that incorporates the hardest objection to Christianity. So I’m going to ask you, Gavin, what is the most compelling and challenging, challenging criticism of Christianity that you have read or watched or even debated over. And this could be either just an idea that you see a lot of places or it could be a person, a particular writer, past or present, who you find like, ooh, those are the best arguments I see against what I’m trying to do in this book.

Gavin Ortlund
I’m going to go back to Dostoevsky who himself is a believer, and yet I think gave the best argument of the unbeliever as a believer which is really interesting. But his his the the articulations of the problem of evil in his novels, by particularly I’m thinking of Yvonne Karamazov are so heart rending, and so gripping and so dreadful, you almost have this sense of boys, this what Dostoevsky believes, you know, because it’s so it’s articulated with so much poignant feeling, and he focuses on the suffering of children in those speeches. And his own son, Dostoevsky, his own son, who was three years old, died while he’s writing that book.

Gavin Ortlund
So you have this feeling of he’s not a unsympathetic, you know, he, he’s not the kind of person who can’t understand this point of view, is my sense. But ultimately, the whole plot of the book undermines Avants perspective, and the hero is the believer. Alyosha. So I find kind of stemming from that, I would say the problem of evil and its many manifestations is not to be dismissed lightly. It’s a real challenge. And as you said earlier, it’s a challenge for us all. But it’s, you know, it’s it’s not a light and easy thing to shrug off. If there’s any encouragement I have for Christians seeking to do apologetics in relation to that it’s just a caution not to be a tribalistic and denouncing that or giving a too quick and easy answer.

Collin Hansen
Well, and of course, what is Dostoyevsky’s response it is, comes in the Grand Inquisitor scene. It comes from Jesus on the witness stand. And it comes from before the accuser the accuser being the church. Ironically, in that setup, it comes with the kiss, the kiss of kindness and peace and love from the Savior. And so, oddly enough, as I was reading your book, and as far as I know, Gavin, we did not compare notes on the sermon that I deliver. I gave it in, in Copenhagen. Last fall, and then I delivered also in class is for my own come fulfilling my assignment. What I do is I take that scene from Dostoevsky. I juxtapose it with Le weasels, loss of faith from night, which you also do in your book. And then I take it from there.

Collin Hansen
Where I end up is then I go to Isaiah 53. In the end, and essentially, I think that’s the Jesus from the Grand Inquisitor that that Dostoevsky is channeling is the one who suffers for love, without a response, essentially, and I and I leave it there that no matter what we might say, if anybody understands the suffering of the innocent child, how could it not be our Father, Son, Spirit, whatever that and the response is one of understanding sympathetic love, a love that will never fail. Which is then I go back into your argument there of of what other hope do you have of a love that will never end? A love for God for His this, this new heavens in this new earth? Your loved ones? This is your only hope. So anyway, I just thought it was amazing. I was reading your book a little bit for Christmas. And I thought I don’t think Gavin and I have compared notes. But it was amazing. Yeah. So great minds think alike. Okay, cool. If we don’t say so ourselves. All right, one last. One last personal question, Gavin. I mean, we started off with this being a very personal project. Has anything ever shaken your faith before?

Gavin Ortlund
Well, I think I reference this at least obliquely, kind of in the book and I’ve talked a lot about it in different interviews. I’ve had two seasons of what I call angst I use the word angst because it really the word when you see doubts that’s connotes something a little more intellectual and, and full throated. This was just more just kind of this this sense of worry and kind of, you know, one was in college one was more recent, where before writing this book, were just kind of working through things you know, anyone listening to this who’s ever been mistreated in a church context or disillusioned in a church context, knows those feelings can be very powerful. When you’re in a setting, when then you’re kind of asking Wait a second, you know, it’s like if one person lets you down, and then you’re wondering about the other person, that kind of feeling where you’re kind of questioning, like, have I been duped in any way and those kinds of questions, and it never rose so high as to create would go into the category of what I call doubts, but that angst.

Gavin Ortlund
And apologetics has been such a resource for me, I’ve just, you know, going back to these arguments. And as I do it in my own way, in this book, seeing the implications of each side has been to me kind of like when you’re walking up a steep staircase, and you’ve got a handrail on the side, you can grab a hold of just steady yourself. That’s just how apologetics has functioned for me. Not that it makes me believe, but it’s almost the sense of nourishment and strength in the process of when you’re working through things. Because at the end of the day, God makes so much sense. You know, it looks like our world started, it looks like our world is well ordered and designed and put together, it looks like and then you think about our own human experience and what you’d what I’d have to swallow if I didn’t believe in God. And I just think it’s helpful to see that and see the force of these arguments. And that’s just helped me so much. So my hope for my book is anybody else is going through something like that. And I anticipate actually, right now, I feel like probably a lot of people are that it could be a help to them like that, and help them think through the implications, but also just help them see what a powerful, and what a happy explanation God is for the world we live in.

Collin Hansen
My wife and I were just talking this last weekend about our how much we love sports. And we were talking about how one of the dangers of somebody who’s a fervent fan of a team is that when they’re watching the game, they think everything that happens good or bad is because of their side. Their player did this they’re playing like the only side that apparently has agency is their team, their coaches, their players even think about the other team. And it made me think of what you’re saying here about apologetics that when you’re a Christian, you’re in a Christian context, sometimes you become very focused on the problems of your team, the problems of with your faith, the problem the arguments against what you believe. But you don’t necessarily think about alternatives.

Collin Hansen
What do I have to believe if I drop this? And so it’s easy to leave, but hard to find a new home. And so I think if we can encourage people to doubt in contexts where that doubt can be met with compassion and answers, and help from other Christians, it ultimately make their faith stronger, as opposed to a context where they’ll just think, Oh, I’m the only person thinking about these problems. I’m the only one who realizes them and so I have to leave. So I would commend to anybody listening and maybe you know somebody in your life go and check out Gavin wetlands book wide, God makes sense in a world that doesn’t. The beauty of Christian theism, it’s new from Baker academic real quick here, Gavin final three: How do you find calm in the storm?

Gavin Ortlund
I love coming home to play with my kids, they’re up there waiting for me at the door with Nerf guns most days. Ready to take that down? You know, and and whatever, whatever the newspapers are saying. And whatever other stress there may be, to play with a four year old boy who does no inhibition in his laughter to hug a six year old now seven year old girl and so forth. There’s this sort of comfort and refuge in loving my kids and investing in them.

Collin Hansen
I love that second question. Where do you find good news today?

Gavin Ortlund
I often am deeply encouraged when I think about just ordinary Christians remaining faithful at their posts. You know, I think about a guy that just came back on our elder Council right now who, you know, been through a lot of different things in his life, but he’s retained his joy. He’s retained his focus upon the Lord. He’s not a famous Christian. But he’s a faithful Christian. And I am often encouraged at remembering God is sustaining his people in all kinds of ways that we can’t see because they’ll never make the newspaper. But he’s growing his kingdom. And that’s, you know, that’s how the Kingdom often grows is kind of in the margins and away from human pride and human visibility. And just knowing that God is doing that, and when you see the evidences of that, it’s often just a helpful counterbalance to where we often are interpreting the world through social media and through the news, and we just see certain things more through those windows. And so remembering that’s not the whole story. That helps me a lot.

Collin Hansen
Amen. Last question: What’s the last great book you’ve read?

Gavin Ortlund
The one that just popped into my mind and I you can help me pronounce his last name is Glen Scrivener. Am I saying that? Yeah, Scrivener. Scrivener, okay. Yeah. He, he, he wrote a book that you as kind of a more popular level expression of Tom Holland’s argument that we referenced, it’s basically just saying, you know, we value things like justice and compassion and so forth, to a large degree from the influence of the history of Christianity. And it was really well done. And it was very accessible and easy to read lots of lots of pop culture references shorter. It’s forthcoming, so people could look out for that, but he was asking me to write a blurb and I was honored to do that, but it was just an excellent book. That’s the first one that just popped into my mind.

Collin Hansen
I wrote an endorsement for that one as well. Glenn, if you’re out there listening, future guests on gospel bound to be ready. My guest this week has been than Gavin ortlund Check out his book why God makes sense in a world that doesn’t the beauty of Christian theism, Gavin, thanks so much for joining me on gospel bound.

Gavin Ortlund
Hey, thanks for having me, Collin.