Fear & Trembling

In this month’s podcast, we engage Michael Wear’s timely reflections on the nature and role of politics in public life. His reflections, drawing principally from the work of Dallas Willard, invites Christians of any stripe to wrestle with how politics forms them, individually and corporately, and in turn they influence the political process. He invites us to enter the political fray with the express intent of depolarizing the conversations. Join us as we wrestle with Wear’s challenging reflections.

If you want to dig deeper, Michael Bird’s Religious Freedom in an Age of Secularism provides a thoughtful backdrop to Wear’s ideas and is worthy of a thoughtful read as well.

Born in China in 1973 as Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution was ending, Wang Yi rose to become a leading human rights lawyer and public intellectual in his homeland. In 2005, he was converted to Christianity and publicly baptized as he joined one of China’s non-government “house churches.” Beginning Sunday, December 9, 2018, now a pastor, Wang Yi and over 100 members of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, China, were arrested. That triggered the public release of a statement he had prepared entitled My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience where he states “As the Lord’s servant John Calvin said, wicked rulers are the judgment of God on a wicked people, the goal being to urge God’s people to repent and turn again toward Him.” On December 30, 2020, he was convicted in a secret trial and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Like Dr Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, Wang Yi challenges us to consider the different expressions of serving Christ in circumstances where faithful discipleship may put us at odds with the power structures of our world.

Join us as we discuss Rebecca Mc Laughlin’s book No Greater Love: A Biblical Vision for Friendship. Mc Laughlin ‘walks us through the highs and lows of friendship love—a love that’s been neglected and malnourished in our modern world’ (from the book summary). The love that she lays out for us in her book, and reminds us of today, is the sacrificial life-changing love that Jesus put on display in offering His life for us and the world.

Join the guys as they discuss the 2019 movie/docudrama "Just Mercy" which tells the story of young defense attorney, Bryan Stevenson who takes up the case of African-American inmate Walter "Johnny D." McMillian who is unjustly on death row for the murder of a an 18-year-old white girl in the deep south. The guys will discuss many of the important and relevant themes and topics that arise in the film including justice, faith and how view one another.

Listen in as the Harderwyk pastors discuss John Dickson’s book, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at that Good and Evil of Christian History. Dickson surveys the high and low points of church history to counter the oversimplistic claims that religion is an evil force in the world. His engagement with the historical documents is illuminating and his brutally honest appraisals illuminate how culture was both harmed and enhanced by individuals in the name of Christ. Our conversation included reflections on some of the low and high points recounted in the book, what we appreciated about his approach to this subject, and how wrestling with the low and high points in Christian history can inform our Christ-following.

Join the guys as they discuss the movie/docudrama Jesus Revolution, which is currently on Netflix and can be found elsewhere. Jesus Revolution visits the start of the Jesus movement in California during the late 60’s and follows the journey of pastor Chuck Smith, Lonnie Frisbee, and a teenage Greg Laurie. All three of these men would be influential church leaders both then and into today.

Join the guys next month as they discuss the latest book from Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America. Russell Moore is the current editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention.

We welcome Dr. Mary Vanden Berg to the table for a conversation about the importance of creeds and confessions (statements of belief and faith) in our lives and faith journeys. Dr. Vanden Berg is a professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.

In light of last month’s conversation around the Netflix series “Inventing Anna” the team is talking about a recently released book “Don’t Follow Your Heart: Boldly Breaking the Ten Commandments of Self-Worship” by Thaddeus Williams. Here’s a brief description of the book from the website for the book:

“Today we are told to be true to ourselves, look within for answers, and follow our hearts. But when we put our own happiness first, we experience record-breaking levels of aimlessness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Self-centeredness always fails to deliver on its promises…With a fascinating blend of theology, philosophy, science, psychology, and pop culture, Williams points us to a life beyond the self-defeating dogmas of self-worship to a more meaningful life centered on Someone infinitely more interesting, satisfying, and awesome than ourselves.”

This month’s podcast we are talking about the Netflix mini-series “Inventing Anna.” The story is based on the true story of how Anna Sorokin “Delvey” posed as a German heiress and was able to steal the hearts, imaginations and money of New York elites.