Gospelbound

By The Gospel Coalition, Collin Hansen

Gospelbound, hosted by Collin Hansen for The Gospel Coalition, is a podcast for those searching for firm faith in an anxious age. Each week, Collin talks with insightful guests about books, ideas, and... more

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The podcast currently has 201 episodes available.

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Number 1: Why Pascal’s Wager Still Pays Off (with Graham Tomlin)
The patron saint of cultural apologetics is Augustine of Hippo, author most famously of City of God and Confessions. Second place is up for debate. But you’ll get a lot of votes for a 17th-century disciple of Augustine, the Frenchman Blaise Pascal. Graham Tomlin describes Pascal as the “man who made the modern world” in a new biography. Tomlin is the director of the Centre for Cultural Witness in Oxford, England. He writes of Pascal that “it is hard to think of anyone who has impacted so many fields of human endeavour in such a short time.” Here’s a taste from Tomlin about Pascal’s accomplishments: he basically invented probability theory; proved the existence of the vacuum; laid the foundations of integral calculus; conducted the first modern scientific experiment; developed theory that made possible the hydraulic press; demonstrated that air has weight; designed and built the first mechanical calculating machine, which led to what we know as the computer; set the trend of wearing wrist watches; and built the first public urban transportation system in Europe. And did I already mention he was one of the most effective and enduring cultural apologists of all time, perhaps second only to Augustine? Tomlin writes, “His was a Christianity founded in a profound experience of God, an intense devotional life and a form of faith that offered a radical alternative to the comfortable assimilation to culture that the Church of his day often seemed to promote.” Let’s talk to Graham Tomlin about this remarkable man, who lamented man’s inability to sit quietly by himself, who observed, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” In This Episode: 00:00 – Pascal’s wager and living as if Christianity is true 00:49 – Introducing Blaise Pascal, the cultural apologist who helped make the modern world 02:36 – Pascal’s remarkable inventions, including public transportation and the Pascaline 05:42 – Augustine’s influence on Pascal’s theology of desire, fallenness, and grace 08:11 – Why Pascal trusted reason in science but not as the starting point for faith 10:46 – Pascal’s “Night of Fire” and encounter with the living God 16:43 – Why Pascal went to war with the Jesuits 20:20 – Jansenism, Calvinism, and Pascal’s understanding of grace 25:51 – The hiddenness of God as an argument for faith 32:38 – How human misery points toward human greatness 39:46 – What Pascal’s Wager actually means 48:45 – Pascal, Jonathan Haidt, and the psychology of belief 49:05 – “Make it attractive”: Pascal’s enduring strategy for cultural apologetics 51:59 – How Pascal anticipated both the modern and postmodern worlds 59:22 – What Pascal would say about modern science and scientism 1:01:43 – Why Pascal’s faith speaks to people who have looked into the abyss 1:03:21 – Outro Resources Mentioned: Blaise Pascal by Graham Tomlin Pensées by Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters by Blaise Pascal Confessions by Augustine City of God by Augustine The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition. Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institute or email [email protected] for group pricing and discounts. Check out The Pour Over Podcast — politically neutral news for people who want the facts without the spin, and with a brief biblical perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
August 25, 20261h 4min
Number 2: Why AI Will Write Your Next Sermon
Like many others, generative AI has become a nearly daily part of my life in the last couple years. I’ve found help for home repairs. Diet and exercise plans. Meal preparation. Trip planning. Personal health assessments. Footnote formatting. Even baseball swing and pitching advice for my son. Combine the best of Google and YouTube, tailored to my specific needs and situations from changing windshield wipers to fixing sump pumps, and that’s how I’ve used AI so far. I know I’m not even scratching the surface of what agentic AI can and will eventually do. I’ve seen friends spin up websites it would have taken years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build just five years ago. But do you know the most common use? It’s not one I’ve employed myself. And it’s not one I’d recommend. But according to Harvard Business Review, it’s remained perched on the top from 2025 to 2026 even as other common uses have wildly fluctuated up and down the charts. It’s therapy and companionship. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering about how AI chatbots could be the reasons companies like OpenAI have been valued at $852 billion. Or why AI has become the widely and quickly adopted new technology in human history. Isn’t AI supposed to revolutionize business? Upend every profession and transform entire economies? Perhaps. The trend is clear. It looks like many others have been turning to AI for help in fixing their toilets. (Claude was wrong in my situation, by the way.) More commonly, AI is less of a computer interface and more of a, well, human face. A friend to share jokes and silly pictures. An imaginative storyteller. A trusty counselor to assess your new relationship. A medium who can predict your future. And a wise confidant who promises not to lead you astray (or tell you what you don’t want to hear). Given the wild predictions about AI’s unparalleled value, how can these cases be the most common ways we employ the technology? Is your daily horoscope worth $852 billion? Now, what if I told you this is exactly what the builders of AI expected us to do? That’s the vision behind a new book, The AI Apocalypse: A Survival Guide for Humanity, which I edited along with Skyler Flowers and The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. I spoke on my introduction from the book at a recent TGC regional chapter meeting in Nashville. Thank you to TGC Nashville and Edgefield Church for hosting and recording this podcast in front of a lively and engaged audience. You could have heard a pin drop when I talked to these (mostly) pastors about why AI will write their next sermon. Now is the time to work through the ethical implications together and decide where to draw the line. In This Episode: 0:00 AI's Unexpected Role as a Human Companion and Counselor 7:21 AI, Love, and the Lessons from Her 13:37 The Role of AI in Defining Human Purpose 20:17 The Impact of AI on Literacy and Human Creativity 28:51 The Irreplaceable Human Touch in Preaching Amid AI Advancements 38:39 Navigating AI Ethics in Church, Family, and Education 40:41 The Impacts of AI on Society and Economy Resources Mentioned: AI Apocalypse edited by Collin Hansen Empire of AI by Karen Hao The Odyssey by Homer Social Acceleration by Hartmut Rosa Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics The Gospel Coalition Recorded (Podcast) by The Gospel Coalition — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition. Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institute or email [email protected] for group pricing and discounts. Check out The Pour Over Podcast — politically neutral news for people who want the facts without the spin, and with a brief biblical perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
September 08, 202646min
Number 3: What Keeps Carl Trueman Awake at Night
Western culture today largely lacks a sense of consecration, of setting apart the ordinary as holy. Yet somehow we still have a strong impulse toward desecration, of turning the holy into the ordinary. Why have we lost the taste of the good while developing a taste for the bad? That’s a core question at the heart of Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity, published by Penguin Random House’s Sentinel imprint. Carl is a professor of biblical and theological studies at Grove City College and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was a guest on Gospelbound in 2020 for his highly acclaimed, bestselling book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In his new book Trueman writes, “Transgression of the sacred is exhilarating precisely because it makes us feel like gods, the creators of our own meanings and our own selves. All we need to do is cross lines previously enforced by the idea of God and we thereby assume the role of being gods.” Desecration is how we communicate authenticity, perhaps the most important value for the modern self. This entire project has backfired. Let’s hear from Carl about why. In This Episode: 00:00 – Carl Trueman on desecration and the modern crisis of humanity 02:30 – Why write another book after The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self? 04:22 – Why the sexual revolution sits at the center of the story 06:11 – Cultural Christianity, conversion, and why truth still matters 10:30 – Nietzsche’s “madman” and the collapse of moral meaning 12:56 – Authenticity, evangelism, and the uphill battle against expressive individualism 18:23 – Do the revolutions of modernity actually deliver what they promise? 21:04 – Genetic selection, artificial wombs, and the moral vacuum of tech culture 27:29 – Social acceleration, anxiety, and the instability of modern life 30:23 – Technology, human limits, and the need for a normative view of humanity 35:58 – Assisted suicide, autonomy, and why stories matter more than abstractions 41:53 – The transgender movement, fairness, and transhumanism 45:44 – Why Christian nationalism is not the answer 49:40 – Creed, cult, code, congregational singing, and hospitality as a plan of consecration 55:53 – Outro Resources Mentioned: The Desecration of Man by Carl Trueman The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition. Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institute or email [email protected] for group pricing and discounts. Check out The Pour Over Podcast — politically neutral news for people who want the facts without the spin, and with a brief biblical perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
April 07, 202657min
Number 4: Would Jesus Be on TikTok?
Collin Hansen, Brett McCracken, and Ivan Mesa discuss how digital technology affects culture, especially social media and information overload in younger generations. They explore themes from Scrolling Ourselves to Death, highlighting the need for wisdom, memory, and history in navigating the digital age. The conversation covers parenting challenges, the role of technology in shaping society, and the importance of meaningful family interactions and outdoor experiences. They emphasize the church’s role in fostering community and encourage a balanced approach to technology that prioritizes real relationships and local church engagement. Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition. Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institute or email [email protected] for group pricing and discounts. Check out The Pour Over Podcast — politically neutral news for people who want the facts without the spin, and with a brief biblical perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
April 29, 20251h 4min
Number 5: The Triumph and Tragedies of the Black Church
In this episode of Gospelbound, Collin Hansen sits down with Walter Strickland to discuss his book, Swing Low: A History of Black Christianity in the United States. They explore the rich history of Black Christianity in the United States, considering the importance of participation in theology and the challenges faced by Black church leaders in proving their orthodoxy. Strickland explains how Black theology developed and the need for a story that truly represents the Black Christian experience. He also shares how faith can bring hope and peace despite life's challenges. Use code “GOSPELBOUND” for 25% off tuition. Learn more at downlinememphis.com/virtual-institute or email [email protected] for group pricing and discounts. Check out The Pour Over Podcast — politically neutral news for people who want the facts without the spin, and with a brief biblical perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
April 22, 202547min