Thinking Christian: Clear Theology for a Confusing World

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LifeAudio
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Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ. Find more from James at https://www.thinkingchristian.org/.

  1. 1d ago

    Augustine's Two Cities: Veronica Ogle | Faith & Politics #3

    Veronica Roberts Ogle teaches at Villanova and wrote Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God. She joins James Spencer for the third episode in the faith and politics series. She begins with why the book exists. Rome was sacked in 410, the first breach of the city's walls in centuries, and Romans wanted to know whether Christianity had cost them the protection of the old gods — while Christians, riding the high of a converted emperor, were asking why their God hadn't defended them either. Augustine's answer took thirteen years and twenty-two books. Ogle explains the two cities as loves rather than places: one formed by God's love carried as far as contempt of self, the other by self-love carried as far as contempt of God. She unpacks what "contempt of self" does and doesn't mean, and pushes back on reading the ordo amoris as a ranked list — everything is loved in God, not after God. The conversation turns to what this means for political life: why no political community has an eschatological end, why Augustine is no optimist about politics, and why he thought a judge should see himself as the woman caught in adultery. Chapters: 00:00 Introductions, and finding Augustine 04:01 The sack of Rome and why City of God got written 09:19 Nations can be healthier or sicker — but not transformed 13:54 Two cities, two loves 17:06 What "contempt of self" actually means  17:38 Ordered loves: not a ranked list 22:18 Political community and the peace it can reach 28:11 Is the church the same as the city of God? 34:41 What political participation actually is 38:39 Two kinds of father, two kinds of household 43:32 Augustine's letters to Christian judges 45:42 The loaf of bread: need and proximity 48:34 Compassion at a distance, and what we can actually do 53:25 Where to start reading Augustine   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  2. 5d ago

    David Koyzis on Divided Loyalties | Faith & Politics #2

    David Koyzis returns to the show for the second episode in the faith and politics series. He's a member of Global Scholars Canada and the author of Political Visions and Illusions, We Answer to Another, and Citizenship Without Illusions — and he spent his first thirty years in the Chicago area before moving to Canada, which gives him an unusual vantage on American national feeling. Koyzis starts with divided loyalties: we belong to families, congregations, workplaces, and nations, and none of those communities exhausts who we are. The political community isn't higher than the others. From there the conversation turns to what makes American identity different — the pledge, the anthem, the flag in the sanctuary — and why "Canadian first" is a phrase that would get you laughed at. James raises Robert Bellah on American civil religion. Both men admit to a season of refusing to sing the national anthem, and neither holds that position now. They also discuss why hope is not optimism, why presidents get credited with powers they've never had, and gratitude as the alternative to a posture of constant complaint — the subject of Koyzis's forthcoming book on the Heidelberg Catechism. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome back 01:55 Divided loyalties, and what none of them can define 03:48 "First allegiance" isn't a pie chart 06:01 Living the whole day before the face of God 09:40 What's different about American identity 14:20 The pledge, the anthem, and inculcating a nation 16:05 Bellah on American civil religion 19:31 Pride, and the hope it starts to cultivate 21:07 Hope is not optimism 21:38 Why we expect presidents to save us 24:53 Flags in the sanctuary 29:08 The Heidelberg Catechism project 33:48 Public life is wider than politics 34:57 Toward a politics of gratitude 36:20 Deuteronomy 8 and forgetting the source 40:03 Inconspicuous patterns, and what we take for granted 43:10 Formation first, politics second 46:10 Advice for an election season Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  3. Sep 15

    Politics Is Bigger Than Voting | Faith & Politics #1

    The first episode in a series on faith and politics running through the midterms. James Spencer and Ashish Varma set the terms before the guests arrive. Ashish starts with the word itself: polis, the city — the shared life of a community, of which party politics is only a narrow slice. That opens the question the series will keep returning to. Paul had no power to abolish slavery, but he could tell Philemon that Onesimus was returning as a brother, and in doing so redraw a line the empire had drawn elsewhere. That is political work, done without any political agency in the sense we usually mean. James argues that voting is a voluntary right rather than a sacred duty, and explains why he doesn't always exercise it. Ashish tells the story of asking a pastor why the people who filled the building for ESL classes on Tuesday were absent on Sunday. Both land on 1 Corinthians 7: you don't have to change your situation to serve God where you are. Guests across the series include Kevin Flatt, Veronica Ogle, William Cavanaugh, Vincent Bacote, and others. Chapters: 00:00 Why this series, and what it won't do 03:06 What students expect from a political theology class 04:37 Polis: the city, and what "political" actually covers 06:00 Is the gospel political? 08:26 Paul's constraints, and ours  09:51 Political agency without political power 11:35 "The poor you will always have with you" 13:25 Nested authority: everything under God's 16:13 Philemon, Onesimus, and redrawing the line 17:43 Reimagining: children, packaging, and a can of Coke 21:06 Voting as a right, not a sacred duty 25:24 Pro-life advocacy and the children who age out 28:16 A church on the boundary lines of Chicago 32:02 1 Corinthians 7: serve where you're called 36:22 New eyes, new ears 37:39 Who's coming on the series Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  4. Sep 10

    Liberalism Isn't Cruciform. Neither is Conservatism.

    A Billy Graham Center survey of Gen Z reported that nearly half of respondents agreed that Christian support for Trump has made them less likely to attend church. The survey offers no follow-up on why — whether the objection is to a candidate, to partisanship generally, or to something deeper about how the church understands its own order. James Spencer and Ashish Varma take the finding as a starting point rather than a conclusion. The conversation reaches back to Constantine and the first council called by an emperor, to Augustine's two cities and the early church's refusal of military service, and to the medieval contest between papacy and throne — arguing that the entanglement of theology and politics is old news, not a recent American invention. From there: why neither conservatism nor liberalism has room for Christ at its center, why "care for the poor" collapses so quickly into a debate about welfare, what the three people at a Wednesday night prayer meeting say about arguments over prayer in schools, and a reading of Ahaz in Isaiah 7 — a king who had already decided, and dressed the decision in piety. Chapters (part-two offsets assume the recordings join cleanly at 28:00 — verify against the export): 00:00 The survey, and what it doesn't tell us 03:25 "Politically motivated" — who gets the label 06:28 Constantine, Nicaea, and the entanglement begins 10:09 Sacred social order and the scope of government 12:33 When political procedure starts discipling us 14:54 Care for the poor, and why it becomes welfare 16:48 Augustine's two cities 18:56 The early church and military service 22:12 Bezalel: creativity constrained by a given pattern 25:32 Selective use of Scripture as a rejection of authority 26:30 Conservatism has no place for Christ 28:00 Two sides of the same coin 31:00 Where do our ideals actually come from? 36:00 Reparations, history, and what we're actually called to learn 36:30 Engel v. Vitale and the Wednesday night prayer meeting 39:40 The government has no interest in informing you 42:00 Housing, highways, and the history nobody teaches 46:40 When the platform changed and nobody blinked 48:50 Isaiah 7: Ahaz had already decided 53:20 McGilchrist, Deuteronomy 30, and knowing what we don't Follow and subscribe Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org  Website: www.thinkingchristian.org  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  5. Sep 3

    When Doctrine Divides Christians Who Aren't Wrong

    James Spencer and Ashish Varma return to the diagnoses that narrow the church's vision, this time with fragmentation — the way faithful Christians end up separated from one another not by heresy but by tradition, idiom, and the slow drift of communities that no longer talk across their boundaries. James opens with a job interview from 2005 where a pastor announced he wanted no one in the role who wouldn't bleed for the Southern Baptist faith. Both men are clear that boundaries have real value; the question is what happens when a community's distinctives quietly become the test of who counts as a Christian at all. The conversation leans on George Lindbeck's argument that doctrine is second-order — an attempt to make sense of the biblical narrative rather than the thing itself — and on what gets lost when that ordering flips. Along the way: the ecumenical councils and why some councils didn't make the cut, the filioque and the East-West split, Genesis 22 and whether its tension sits in the text or in front of it, and why James has traded getting it right for getting it plausible. Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns — verify against the final cut): 00:00 What fragmentation is, and what it isn't 02:29 Church history as the place to start 04:25 "Bleed for the Southern Baptist faith" 08:35 When boundaries are legitimate 11:03 The ecumenical councils and what made them ecumenical 13:53 Insularity, and the cost of never crossing traditions 16:24 Doctrinal distinctives become vested interests 21:05 Lindbeck, Vanhoozer, and doctrine as second-order 23:19 East and West: the filioque and the split 25:16 The Reformation and the explosion of denominations 29:37 Inversion: when doctrine climbs on top of the text 31:15 Genesis 22 — "now I know that you fear God" 36:40 Is the tension in the text or in front of it? 41:13 Written in pencil 42:57 Reading the Bible without the systematic categories 47:38 Nobody reads from nowhere 49:18 The cloud: how secondhand narratives harden 54:11 Petitions, feedback loops, and doctrinal echo chambers 55:35 From "getting it right" to "getting it plausible" 57:37 The Nicene Creed as a broad boundary Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  6. Sep 2

    Marx and Moody: What the Church Left Undone | Dr. Gregg Quiggle

    Karl Marx and D.L. Moody lived at the same time, watched the same cities industrialize, and asked the same question about the poor. One had a doctorate, wealthy patrons, and a theory of history. The other had about five years of formal schooling and a Bible. Dr. James Spencer talks with Dr. Gregg Quiggle about Marx and Moody: Two Contemporaries. Two Gospels. Two Tombstones. One Choice., the new book Quiggle co-wrote with Erwin Lutzer for Moody Publishers. They work through where Marx's system runs out of road, particularly its silence on how a state ever relinquishes power, and why that silence traces back to a thin account of the human heart. They also take up Moody's conviction that charity is life on life rather than a check sent across the tracks, the difference between the early church in Acts and state redistribution, and the harder question Quiggle raises near the end: how much traction would any of this have today if evangelical churches had actually taken up Moody's model of hands-on engagement in their own communities? Purchase: Marx and Moody Bread and Bibles: D.L. Moody's Evangelism and Social Action Follow and subscribe Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org  Website: www.thinkingchristian.org  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  7. Aug 31

    Is Technology Neutral? Grok, AI Deepfakes, and Discipleship

    James Spencer and Ashish Varma close out the series on narrowing with amplification — Marshall McLuhan's insight that technology extends human capacity, and what that means when the capacity being extended is our tendency to forget God. The conversation runs from forks and chopsticks to John Deere, from the fig leaves in Genesis to Albert Borgmann's distinction between things and devices: the wood-burning stove that gathers a household versus the thermostat that anonymizes everything behind the heat. Ashish pushes back on the common classroom line that technology is morally neutral, arguing that development and use are different questions and that a technique built for accumulation carries that logic with it. James traces the same tension through David refusing Saul's armor, the warning in Deuteronomy 8 about cisterns you did not dig, and Paul's rebuke of the Corinthian habit of following personalities — a habit our follower counts and platforms have made much easier. It ends with a hard look at AI image generation, the Minnesota law and the litigation around it, and two Old Testament laws about goring oxen and rooftop parapets that were written to protect people without stopping progress.     Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  8. Aug 27 ·  Video

    When Your Interpretation Becomes the Authority | Inversion

    James Spencer and Ashish Varma continue the series on what narrows the church's vision with a look at inversion — what happens when an interpretive grid quietly takes over the authority that belongs to Scripture itself. The conversation moves from the hermeneutical spiral (nobody comes to the text from nowhere) to the passages most of us never work: the command not to destroy fruit trees in Deuteronomy 20, God giving the land little by little in Deuteronomy 7, the instruction not to dispossess Moab in Deuteronomy 2, and the "remember the poor" tagline at the end of Paul's account of the Jerusalem council. James and Ashish ask what those texts do to confident readings of conquest, Christian nationalism and dominionism. They also walk through how heresy was actually decided — Augustine and Pelagius, Nicaea in 325 and the deliberate loosening of that language in 381 — and why the young-earth reading of Genesis 1 owes more to a social moment than to the text. Plus: Acts 7, Aquinas, and why interpretations should be written in pencil. Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns — verify against the final cut): 00:00 What inversion is: when the grid outranks the text 03:22 The hermeneutical spiral — no one reads from nowhere 09:30 Beach muscles: the books we never work 12:11 Deuteronomy 20 and the fruit trees 16:03 Galatians and "remember the poor" 20:11 Deuteronomy 2, dominionism, and the limits question 29:06 Acts 7: Stephen and the opposite error 33:18 How heresy was actually decided  42:23 Nicaea 325 → 381 and loosening the language 47:15 Genesis 1, young earth, and the social moment 59:40 Brokering gaps, creativity, and writing in pencil Follow and subscribe Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org  Website: www.thinkingchristian.org  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ. Find more from James at https://www.thinkingchristian.org/.

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