Thinking Christian: Clear Theology for a Confusing World

James Spencer - Christian Theology Author and Speaker
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Christianity
  • Updated Semiweekly

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. 3d ago

    No Nation Can Be the City of God | Faith & Politics #4

    James Spencer and Ashish Varma reflect on the previous episode's conversation with Veronica Roberts Ogle — and on what happens when Augustine gets recruited for arguments he was writing against. The starting point is a claim James has encountered in political speeches: that the two cities can be collapsed, and that a nation might become the city of God. Both men think this misses Augustine's whole point. The cities are distinguished by their loves, and a community formed by self-love doesn't graduate into the other by improving its policies. From there the conversation widens. James connects Augustine's ordered loves to the Old Testament grammar of love as loyalty, and argues again that the ordo amoris isn't a ranked list. Ashish brings in Balthasar on faith as resonance — the violin that sounds because it's attuned — and Tolkien's music of creation, which is like unto a chorus without quite being one. They land on the wedge that can't be closed: a nation is bounded by resources and space, while there is always room in the kingdom for one more. Plus: pilgrims versus tourists, and why Las Vegas may be America's most honest city. Chapters: 00:00 Reflecting on the Ogle conversation 02:00 When Augustine gets enlisted for a Christian nation 06:48 Love as loyalty: Deuteronomy 6 and 1 John 09:11 Ordered loves is not a dartboard 11:25 The Good Samaritan and the outer ring 1 1:50 Balthasar: faith as resonance and attunement 17:03 Why not a chorus? Tolkien and the limits of language 19:30 Can non-Christians love? 25:11 Sameness that improvises rather than repeats 28:45 Wholesomeness is not holiness 33:07 False theologies and the sacred function of the state 39:27 The wedge: bounded nations, unbounded kingdom 44:48 What the church can do that the state cannot 50:08 O'Donovan: governing authorities as secondary witness 53:43 Pilgrims and tourists 59:39 Provision, anxiety, and the faith muscle Augustine City of God, two cities, ordo amoris, ordered loves, Christian nationalism, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Tolkien Ainulindalë, Oliver O'Donovan, William Cavanaugh, pilgrim and tourist, political theology, church and state, Veronica Roberts Ogle Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

  2. 4d ago

    Artificial Intelligence and the Church: Troy Miller on Tools, Teammates, and Human Flourishing

    AI is already cutting the audio, designing the graphics, and answering questions people used to bring to their pastors. Troy Miller, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters, joins Dr. James Spencer to talk about what happens when a productivity tool starts getting marketed as a teammate. Miller lays out three buckets: AI as production efficiency for ministries and nonprofits, the industry push to make the tools feel more human, and the legal and ethical tangle of intellectual property, deepfakes, and platform liability. From there the conversation turns to NRB and Barna survey data on how much Christians already trust these systems, research on what cognitive offloading does to our ability to think, the energy and water costs of the data centers nobody is counting, and why the answer has to start with what it means to be created in the image of God rather than with the technology itself. If AI is forming us, the question is what it is forming us into, and whether analog practices like radio, print, and actually sitting in a room with other believers are worth defending. Learn more about NRB at nrb.org.  Follow and subscribe For more thoughts on AI, see James's Christianity.com article: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/current-events/christians-ai-spiritual-formation-discernment.html  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.

  3. 6d 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.

  4. Sep 17

    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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

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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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