CrossCurrent Podcasts

We must continue in our commitment to uphold religious liberty.

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Abdu Murray explains the latest news about artificial intelligence and how Christians should respond. Listen in for insights on discerning when to trust AI generated answers, understanding deepfakes, and finding peace in the trustworthiness of Scripture.

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How AI is Shaping Our View of Reality -- Artificial intelligence is changing the world faster than any of us ever imagined. Discover how to help your family navigate the age of AI with biblical wisdom, discernment, and hope with this free five-part video series featuring Abdu Murray.

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Do you have a story or comment on how Focus on the Family impacted you or your family? Leave a message for Jim Daly!

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What if your child’s screen time could help them meet Jesus, shape their character, and spark conversations that last a lifetime?

In a culture overflowing with children’s entertainment, how can Christian parents find programming that does more than distract or “babysit”? In this compelling episode of Christian Parent/Crazy World, Catherine sits down with Jess Wolstenholm, Vice President of Education & Publishing at Minno and editor of the award-winning Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids. With over 25 years of children’s ministry leadership and deep roots in curriculum development, Jess Wolstenholm brings powerful insights into how media can nourish—not just occupy—our children’s souls.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• A Better Media Diet for Kids
  Why “just clean” isn’t enough. Catherine and Jess break down the difference between spiritually “nutritious” content and empty-calorie screen time. They challenge parents to curate what their children watch, seeking stories that reinforce godly character and biblical truth rather than just avoid harm.

• Faith Formation through Storytelling
  Discover how a child’s earliest glimpses of God shape their faith journey, and why representing God’s character—holy, loving, nurturing, and present—is essential from the very start. Jess Wolstenholm shares how programming choices directly impact a child’s understanding of God, values, and themselves.

• Representation Matters—Even for Young Faith
  “There’s not enough representation of faith on screen for kids.” Hear how Minno creates and curates media—like the innovative Young David shorts—that let children see relatable, not cheesy, portrayals of Christian life. Find out why seeing faith lived out on screen can be just as important as hearing Bible stories.

• Old Treasures, New Purpose
  Relive childhood favorites like VeggieTales and discover impactful series like Torchlighters: Heroes of the Faith and Liberty’s Kids—all available on Minno. Whether it's vintage animation or state-of-the-art storytelling, these programs offer rich entry points for conversations about faith, history, and courage.

• Tools for Intentional Parenting
  Learn how to turn media moments into meaningful faith conversations. From five-minute family devotionals to printable discussion guides and screen-free audio options, Jess Wolstenholm shares practical ways for parents to build on what their children watch—even when life gets busy.

“We want kids to get to know the character of God—not just as a rule-keeper, but as a creator who delights in them.” – Jess Wolstenholm

• What Sets Minno Apart
  Find out how Minno’s holistic, on-screen/off-screen approach (think: devotionals, conversation guides, coloring pages, and audio stories) is designed to support busy Christian parents and equip the next generation for a resilient, relational faith.

• A Hopeful Vision for Gen Alpha
  Jess Wolstenholm shares her dream for the next generation: that children would “know Jesus and understand His word,” not through shame or rule-keeping, but with a healthy, balanced grasp of gospel truth and the goodness of God.

Notable Moments:

• The surprising connection between the word “Minno” and abiding in Christ.

• How “vintage” content like Torchlighters and Liberty’s Kids help children step outside the “first world bubble” and see global faith and history.

• Simple questions parents can ask after screen time to spark deep, everyday discipleship.

Why This Ma

In this special installment of the University of Notre Dame Press's Books for Better Understanding, Paul Scherz, the Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology with the University of Notre Dame, and Travis Pickell, Assistant Professor at George Fox University, get together to discuss their books, The Ethics of Precision Medicine: The Problems of Prevention in Healthcare, and Burdened Agency: Christian Theology and End-of-Life Ethics, both available from the University of Notre Dame Press.

You can purchase The Ethics of Precision Medicine here

You can purchase Burdened Agency here

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The "Yaeli" bill would empower parents to push back against the dangerous mix of government overreach and ideological poisoning.

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Dr Raluca Bianca Roman's book is an ethnography of the Finnish Kaale, Finland's national Roma community, and of the impact of Evangelical Christianity on their social and political lives. It is based on more than a decade of fieldwork and on archival research from the early twentieth century onwards. The book follows Kaale families as they handle the consequences of settlement, urbanisation and a turn towards the nuclear household, and as many convert to Pentecostalism. It moves from family homes and prayer groups in Helsinki to small towns in Eastern Finland, and on to Roma settlements in Western Romania where Kaale believers carry out missionary work. Kaale life emerges as a set of attachments and detachments, to kin and to the Finnish nation, to custom and to faith, and to other Roma at home and abroad.

Kaale Belongings and Evangelical Becomings: An Ethnography of Finnish Roma (Brill Schöningh, 2025) brings the anthropology of Roma into conversation with the anthropology of Christianity. Its first section, on Kaale belongings, looks at life in the city, at the silence surrounding sexuality, marriage and birth that shapes Kaale morality, and at "inbetweeners" who live apart from Kaale norms. The second section, on Evangelical becomings, turns to Kaale prayer groups within mixed Pentecostal congregations, to conversion as a repeated process of entering and leaving faith, and to Roma-to-Roma missionary work in Romania. Roman shows how religious identity becomes entangled with community identity, and how Pentecostalism can both bring Kaale together with non-Kaale Finns and draw new lines between believers and non-believers.

About the author

Raluca Bianca Roman is a Lecturer in Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast, where she is a member of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict and the Centre for Creative Ethnography. Her research focuses on religion, particularly Christianity, as well as ethnicity, nationalism, migration and humanitarianism, with a focus on Roma communities in Finland and Romania. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews, where she was later a Lecturer in Social Anthropology and a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC Advanced Grant project RomaInterbellum. She was also a researcher on the Academy of Finland project Roma and Nordic Societies at the University of Helsinki. She co-edited Roma Writings in History (Brill, 2021) and a special issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, Counter-readings on Finnish Nationhood: Minority Strategies and the Making of the Nation (2021). She is now developing research on artificial intelligence and transhumanism.

About the host

Niall Herron is a PhD researcher in Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast. His ethnographic work examines queer experience during the Northern Ireland Troubles, taking the everyday as a focal point for how queerness and space were assembled across the period, and how sexuality, gender, region, ethnonational identity, and class were bound up together. His writing has appeared in the anthropology journal Ethnos and the academic queer history blog NOTCHES.

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The death penalty is in the news again. Is it moral? The trailer for the new Narnia movie has been released. John and Maria give their thoughts. And legislation has been proposed in Congress that will protect parental rights.

Segment 1 – Death Penalty; Narnia Trailer

• Death penalty / public execution

• Details on Execution

• Crista Pike

• Trump calls off livestream of execution <

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What does it really mean to be an indie author? Are you simply writing books, or are you also running a publishing business? In this episode, we’re talking about the different hats indie authors wear, from writer to publisher to entrepreneur, and whether you really need to wear all of them to build a successful writing career. 

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