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A lot of us want institutions to be clean, brave, and instantly fixed and then we join one, try to lead, and discover the painful math of limited power, limited time, and real people. We take that tension head-on by talking about what we’re calling the “Elijah syndrome”: the outsider’s sense that the whole system is compromised and that faithfulness can only exist at a distance.

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Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

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1776 gets treated like a patriotic shorthand, but it also works like a master key for the modern world. We sit down with Andrew Wilson to talk about Remaking the World and why one crowded year can illuminate the rise of the post-Christian West better than a thousand hot takes about the last decade.

We unpack Andrew’s “WEIRDER” framework (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, ex-Christian, romantic) and trace the seven shifts that propel it: globalization, Enlightenment thought, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Enrichment, democratic revolution, attempts to sideline Christianity while keeping its moral capital, and the spread of romanticism into everyday life. Along the way, we wrestle with a question Christians feel in their bones: how can a culture be shaped by Christianity and still try to move past it?

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Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, The Pursuit of Character: Recovering the Virtues, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Register for Beeson Divinity School's 2026 Preaching Conference, July 14-16 in Birmingham, Alabama: https://www.samford.edu/beeson-divinity/preaching-institute/preaching-conference?utm_source=Mere+Orthodoxy&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Preaching+Conference+2026

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1776 gets treated like a patriotic shorthand, but it also works like a master key for the modern world. We sit down with Andrew Wilson to talk about Remaking the World and why one crowded year can illuminate the rise of the post-Christian West better than a thousand hot takes about the last decade.

We unpack Andrew’s “WEIRDER” framework (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, ex-Christian, romantic) and trace the seven shifts that propel it: globalization, Enlightenment thought, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Enrichment, democratic revolution, attempts to sideline Christianity while keeping its moral capital, and the spread of romanticism into everyday life. Along the way, we wrestle with a question Christians feel in their bones: how can a culture be shaped by Christianity and still try to move past it?

—

Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, The Pursuit of Character: Recovering the Virtues, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Register for Beeson Divinity School's 2026 Preaching Conference, July 14-16 in Birmingham, Alabama: https://www.samford.edu/beeson-divinity/preaching-institute/preaching-conference?utm_source=Mere+Orthodoxy&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Preaching+Conference+2026

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Idolatry is one of those Bible words that can feel obvious until you try to use it carefully. We live far from Baal temples, yet we still talk about idols constantly and sometimes we label everything as an idol until the word loses its bite. Derek and Alastair slow down and rebuild the category from the ground up, starting where Scripture starts: the Ten Commandments, the golden calf, and the question of what it means to worship the true God rather than a controllable substitute.

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Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Classical Theism: A Christian Introduction, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship. https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

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Kelly Kapic's The Christian Life — the newest volume in the New Studies in Dogmatics series — frames Christian living as a response to divine love, arguing that human agency is always Christological and ecclesial before it is personal. With Derek Rishmawy, Alastair Roberts, and James Wood.

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Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Classical Theism: A Christian Introduction, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship. https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

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00:48
A Summit Work

04:01
False Dichotomies in Evangelical Thought

08:19
Anthropology and Life

11:33
A Little Summa

12:32
What's New About the Christian Life?

14:35
Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

15:42
The Response to the Love of God

19:20
Christ's Vicarious Love and Agency

24:44
Understanding the Law and Gospel Distinction

29:58
Capital 'S' Sin

37:11
Obedience to the law

41:38
The Role of Liturgy in Corporate Worship

49:42
Living Out the Christian Life in Community

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Carl Trueman joins Mere Fidelity to discuss his book The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity. They examine why "desecration" captures something "disenchantment" misses — the frenzied, ecstatic violation of what is still recognized as sacred — and trace its implications for abortion, gender, technology, and end-of-life ethics. Trueman argues the church's answer is consecration: creed, worship, and a code of hospitality that restores genuine personhood. With Derek Rishmawy and Alastair Roberts.

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Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Classical Theism: A Christian Introduction, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship. https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

—

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 01:10 - Why "Desecration" and Not Just "Disenchantment"
• 06:16 - The Pleasure of Desecration and Alternative Sacralizing
• 10:07 - Is This a Perennial Problem or Something New?
• 14:27 - Power, Impotence, and Promethean Shame
• 17:35 - Dizziness, AI, and the Nothingness of Radical Freedom
• 22:41 - Nietzsche, Nature, and the Denial of the Given
• 28:42 - Consecration as Response: Creed, Cult, and Code
• 33:14 - The Church and End-of-Life Ethics
• 39:18 - Vitalism, False Friends, and the Logic of the Cross
• 45:38 - Two Cheers for Christianity and the Opportunity Before Us
• 48:51 - Freedom, Belonging, and the Gospel

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What does it mean to live well in morally incoherent times? Alan Noble joins the show to discuss his new book To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, which uses the four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues as a framework for navigating choice paralysis, the loneliness epidemic, and contemporary anxiety. The conversation covers why courage and temperance feel especially urgent today, the difficulty of writing on justice, hoping all things for political opponents, the sunk cost fallacy in vocational discernment, and why friendship requires intentional cultivation. Grace, not optimization, grounds the virtuous life. Hosted by Derek Rishmawy, Alastair Roberts, and James Wood.

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Get the Spiritual Formation for the Family ebook for free at http://mereorthodoxy.com/family.

Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Classical Theism: A Christian Introduction, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship. https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

—

Chapter Markers

• 00:00 - Welcome and introductions
• 00:52 - The pitch for To Live Well
• 03:30 - Diagnosis: alienation or anomie?
• 06:30 - The four cardinal and three theological virtues
• 08:14 - What is a virtue?
• 10:11 - Office hours and the paradox of choice
• 14:54 - Fortitude in an anxious age
• 18:41 - The sunk cost fallacy and pivoting well
• 21:40 - The heap of broken images and Christian wholeness
• 25:07 - Hoping all things for political opponents
• 29:36 - The hardest chapter to write: justice
• 32:17 - What pastors and churches can do
• 34:40 - Grace, virtue, and the Protestant hesitation
• 38:55 - Friendship as the practice of love
• 44:31 - Closing thoughts

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Was the Apostle Paul Torah-observant — not just before the Damascus road, but throughout his apostleship to the nations? Brad East stakes out a thesis drawn from Messianic Judaism and the Paul Within Judaism school: that Acts 21 should be read straight, that James is telling the truth about Paul, and that Genesis 12 and 17 still bind Jewish believers. Derek Rishmawy and Alastair Roberts push back hard, working through Galatians 2, 1 Corinthians 9, and the question of whether the law's force after Christ is divine command or Hookerian adiaphora — with the future of Jewish identity in the church in view.

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Get the free ebook Spiritual Formation for the Family at http://mereorthodoxy.com/family.

Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Keeping Kids Christian: Recovering A Biblical Vision For Lifelong Discipleship, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv (or M.Div., your choice) and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship: https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

—

• 00:00 - Welcome and the Disclaimer
• 01:00 - The Thesis: Paul Remained Torah-Observant
• 01:34 - Messianic Judaism and Paul Within Judaism
• 04:29 - Acts 21: Is Paul Lying or Walking the Law?
• 08:04 - Alastair's First Move: Affirming, Not Practicing
• 10:33 - A Law You Need Not Obey Is Not a Law
• 12:17 - Law as Covenant vs. Law as Instruction
• 15:34 - Circumcision as the Test Case
• 16:13 - Adiaphora, Hooker, and Binding Authority
• 17:40 - 1 Corinthians 9 Enters the Conversation
• 18:08 - The Halakhic Question: Should Elders Discipline?
• 21:11 - Acts 15 and Internally Differentiated Norms
• 23:13 - Alastair on Existing Authorities and Custom
• 26:36 - The Canonical Vision: Revelation 7
• 29:50 - Adiaphora's Sociological Problem
• 33:22 - Galatians 2: What Was Peter Doing?
• 38:18 - Permission vs. Prohibition
• 41:04 - Why Reduce Genesis 12–17 to Local Custom?
• 44:02 - Baptism, Circumcision, and Covenant Signs
• 47:55 - Does God Want Jews in the World?
• 50:10 - Providence and the Future Conversion
• 56:42 - One Body in Christ and the Complementarian Parallel
• 57:08 - Reinterpreting "Under the Law"
• 1:01:18 - Difference Without Division
• 1:04:13 - The Empirical Problem for Both Views
• 1:07:51 - Reading Our Situation Back into Paul
• 1:10:46 - Closing

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How do we hold together confidence before God and a proper sense of his holiness? Derek Rishmawy, Alastair Roberts, and Joe Minich take up a pastoral question at the heart of Christian worship and prayer. Working from the Lord's Prayer, the Psalms, Job, and John 8, they discuss the dangers of both presumption and paralyzing anxiety, the relationship between knowledge of God and knowledge of self, and why assurance is less a fact we verify than a relation we inhabit. Along the way: Isaiah's vision, Calvin on "stupid" prayer, and what Alcoholics Anonymous teaches about showing up.

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Spiritual Formation for the Family ebook: http://mereorthodoxy.com/family

Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Keeping Kids Christian: Recovering A Biblical Vision For Lifelong Discipleship, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv (or M.Div., your choice) and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship: https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

—

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 01:17 - Confidence and holiness: the central tension
• 02:52 - The Lord's Prayer and the dynamic of approach
• 04:48 - The honesty of the Psalms and Job
• 09:16 - Boldness in prayer: the unjust judge and friend at midnight
• 11:11 - Hebrews and the two mountains
• 13:45 - Name-it-and-claim-it vs. petitionary prayer
• 14:45 - Being seen by God rather than seeing God
• 16:50 - John 8 and the woman caught in adultery
• 19:50 - Owen, Calvin, and "hard thoughts about God"
• 23:51 - "There is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared"
• 24:34 - Judgment and absolution in forgiveness
• 29:13 - The joy of approach and the glory of God
• 31:13 - Calvin, Isaiah, and the knowledge of God and self
• 33:58 - The erasure of sin in Waugh and Eliot
• 36:25 - Assurance as relation, not calculation
• 39:13 - Adoption, marriage, and secure identity
• 41:11 - Two kinds of self-absorption
• 45:48 - Alcoholics Anonymous and staying in the game
• 50:10 - Distorting the game itself: Jeremiah and the den of thieves
• 52:30 - Pastoral wisdom: who needs what
• 55:05 - Closing

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On this episode of Mere Fidelity, historian of history Paul Gutacker joins Matt, Derek, and Alastair to talk about the changing and sometimes fraught relationship that Protestants have had with the notions of "history" and "tradition." Paul's book, The Old Faith in a New Nation, particularly examines how nineteenth century debates about slavery, etc., influenced our ideas about the roles of Scripture and Church in regard to history. 
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Get the free ebook Spiritual Formation for the Family at http://mereorthodoxy.com/family.

Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Keeping Kids Christian: Recovering A Biblical Vision For Lifelong Discipleship, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv (or M.Div., your choice) and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship: https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships

—

Timestamps:
Neo-Calvinism [0:30]
My Fellow Subjects [2:08]
Meta-history [3:22]
What is Biblicism? [4:37]
Misusing History [9:54]
Scripture's Changing Role [14:42]
Tradition or History [18:41]
Church Disputes [23:36]
Foreigners [27:06]
Spirit and Letter [29:35]
Hermeneutical Precedent [42:42]
How should pastors use history? [46:05]