Do you feel that our isolating individualism, nonstop injustices, consumerist lifestyles, or everyday monotony are suffocating your soul?

Our guest, Wesley Vander Lugt, believes what breathes life into us is something that we can easily miss or dismiss: BEAUTY.

His book is Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith That Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024). Here is not your ivory-tower theologian; his PhD is in Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. Wes shows how beauty can break us out of self-centered malaise, promote healing and hope for our broken world, and re-enchant our lives. Wes believes that Beauty is as essential to our souls as oxygen is to our bodies.

Here is the poem that Wes cites in the podcast:

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s madeSing his being simply by beingThe thing it is:Stone and tree and sky,Man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,Means a storm of peace.Think of the atoms inside the stone.Think of the man who sits aloneTrying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s madeThere is given one shadeShaped exactly to the thing itself:Under the tree a darker tree;Under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s madeThe things that bring Him near,Made the mind that makes Him go.A part of what man knows,Apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.

Scroll down to learn more about Wesley Vander Lugt.

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Wesley Vander Lugt

Wesley Vander Lugt is the Director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte.

His publications include Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith that Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024), A Prophet in the Darkness: Exploring Theology in the Art of Georges Rouault (IVP Adademic, 2024), Living Theodrama: Reimagining Theological Ethics (Routledge, 2014), Pocket Dictionary of the Reformed Tradition (co-authored with Kelly Kapic), and Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith (edited with Trevor Hart).

We recommend purchasing these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

On this episode, we welcome back our friend, Erica Reitz, who has been helping young men and women transition out of college for several years. The transitions that 20-somethings experience in the years after college are some of the most stressful, unstable, and uncertain times we can ever experience.

Erica Young Reitz is the author of After College: Navigating Transitions, Relationships, and Faith (InterVarsity Press, Revised Edition, 2025). It has been republished in a revised edition this year by InterVarsity Press. No book on the market deals with the after-college years so thoroughly and so practically.

Scroll down to learn more about Erica Young Reitz.

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Erica Young Reitz

Erica Young Reitz is the founder of After College Transition, an organization that helps higher education professionals, church leaders, and college ministers equip students to thrive after college.

Her experience working with college students has included teaching advanced writing at Penn State and serving in campus ministry with the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach), as well as directing Senior EXIT. She holds an MA in higher education from Geneva College with a research focus on the senior year transition. Erica serves as a leadership development specialist for Bartell & Bartell, helping individuals and teams uplevel their leadership and unleash their organizational potential. Erica lives in central Pennsylvania with her husband, Craig, and their two children.

You can purchase Erica’s book from our partner in ministry, Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Byron and Beth Borger are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about this book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

For this episode, we have one of our favorite guests: Jordan Raynor.

On a previous episode, we had a blast talking with him about his last bestselling book, Redeeming Your Time. Be sure to go back and listen to that episode. What was impressive about that book was how, even though very practical, it was so clearly written on a strong biblical foundation.

His latest book is The Sacredness of Secular Work: 4 Ways Your Job Matters for Eternity (Even When You're Not Sharing the Gospel) (Waterbrook Press, 2024)

Here at Reintegrate, I often discuss overcoming the false dualism between the sacred and the secular. I love how Jordan Raynor plays with those words in the title. We might want to call it “secular work,” but God calls the work of normal everyday workers, not just overseas missionaries or pastors, sacred work.

Scroll down to learn more about Jordan Raynor.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Jordan Raynor

Jordan Raynor’s other books that help us reintegrate faith and work include Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive, Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do and Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk.

He has also written two children’s books (The Royal You, and The Creator in You) and a weekday devotional (The Word Before Work).

Jordan’s books can be purchased from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Go to their secure order form, mention you heard about Sarah’s books on the Reintegrate Podcast, and receive 20% off your order! If you have questions or need more information, contact Byron here. Or call Beth and Byron at 717-246-3333.

Be sure to check out Jordan’s fascinating podcast, Mere Christians, where he interviews people from a wide variety of vocations about how they reintegrate faith and work.

Jordan lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and their three young daughters.

For this episode, we have one of our favorite guests: Jordan Raynor.

On a previous episode, we had a blast talking with him about his last bestselling book, Redeeming Your Time. Be sure to go back and listen to that episode. What was impressive about that book was how, even though very practical, it was so clearly written on a strong biblical foundation.

His latest book is The Sacredness of Secular Work: 4 Ways Your Job Matters for Eternity (Even When You're Not Sharing the Gospel) (Waterbrook Press, 2024)

Here at Reintegrate, I often discuss overcoming the false dualism between the sacred and the secular. I love how Jordan Raynor plays with those words in the title. We might want to call it “secular work,” but God calls the work of normal everyday workers, not just overseas missionaries or pastors, sacred work.

Scroll down to learn more about Jordan Raynor.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Jordan Raynor

Jordan Raynor’s other books that help us reintegrate faith and work include Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive, Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do and Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk.

He has also written two children’s books (The Royal You, and The Creator in You) and a weekday devotional (The Word Before Work).

Jordan’s books can be purchased from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Go to their secure order form, mention you heard about Sarah’s books on the Reintegrate Podcast, and receive 20% off your order! If you have questions or need more information, contact Byron here. Or call Beth and Byron at 717-246-3333.

Be sure to check out Jordan’s fascinating podcast, Mere Christians, where he interviews people from a wide variety of vocations about how they reintegrate faith and work.

Jordan lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and their three young daughters.

We know that quiet is an essential aspect of the spiritual life, that we need to leave the craziness of our hurried and frenzied lives and find the deep peace of being in God’s presence. But in our busy lives of deadlines and distractions, of screens at work and at play, this seems abstract and impossible.

David Loughney and Bob Robinson welcomes Sarah Clarkson to the podcast. She writes regularly about literature, faith, and beauty. Check out her Substack, From the Vicarge, where she writes about “suffering and beauty, theodicy and theology, imagination and the luminous grace of real, disciplined wonder.”

Her latest book is Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention (Baker, 2024). In it, she tells her story of trying to overcome anxiety and hurry by cultivating a life of holy attention, an inner quiet of paying attention to God in the everyday aspects of life.

Scroll down to learn more about Sarah Clarkson.

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Sarah Clarkson

Sarah loves reading many novels, listening to a great deal of music, and drinking as many cups of coffee and tea as she can get away with in a day. She’s married to Thomas, a priest in the Church of England, and they have four children, Lilian, Samuel, Lucie, and Elanor. They live in (and she does her writing from) an old English vicarage in Oxford.

Sarah Clarkson on Instagram.

Sarah has also authored This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness (Baker, 2021), Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life (Tyndale Momentum, 2018), and The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming (Tyndale Momentum, 2016).

Sarah’s books can be purchased from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Go to their secure order form, mention you heard about Sarah’s books on the Reintegrate Podcast, and receive 20% off your order! If you have questions or need more information, contact Byron here. Or call Beth and Byron at 717-246-3333.

VIDEO LINK on YOUTUBE.

Should Christians care about the ecological crises that we face? Should climate change be a concern for believers?

Many Christians still view their faith as primarily a “spiritual” matter that has little to do with the “physical” world in which they live.

Our guest is Steven Bouma-Prediger, who contends that protecting and restoring our planet is an essential practice for Christians. Steve has studied the Bible and understands what it teaches about this earthly life. He has written extensively about how humans are called, in the words of Genesis 2:15, to “work and take care of” the world in which we live. He is troubled by how too few Christians see this as a crucial part of Christian discipleship.

Scroll down to learn more about Dr. Steven Bouma-Prediger.

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. Go to re-integrate.org for further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission.

Steven Bouma-Prediger, Ph.D.

Dr. Steven Bouma-Prediger is Professor of Religion at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he has also served as the chairperson of the Department of Religion and as the associate dean for teaching and learning. He also oversees the Environmental Studies minor. In addition, Steve teaches in Belize and New Zealand for the Creation Care Study Program.

His latest book is Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice (from Baker Academic).

Among his previous books are Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic and For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care, and (co-authored with Brian J. Walsh) Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement.

His books can be purchased from independent bookseller Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore.

Both David and Bob are history buffs. But studying history is not as simple as watching a documentary, a biopic, or reading a bestselling narrative history.

We need to be aware of how historians actually do their craft, and use those same tools as we watch and read.

Some use history to advance their political agendas, while others just echo ideas that are not substantiated by historical scholarship. Armchair historians can often get it very wrong.

How should Christians study history? Christians are a people of the Truth, so how do we know what is legitimate history?

How do we reintegrate our faith with our understanding of the past?

Our guest is Dr. John Fea, Distinguished Professor of American History at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He has recently released the second edition of his book, Why Study History?: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past (Baker Academic, 2024). In this book, he talks about what historians do, what bad history looks like, and how studying history can be a form of spiritual formation.

Scroll down to learn more about Dr. John Fea.

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Please share this podcast with your friends.

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney.

Go to re-integrate.org for further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission.

John Fea, Ph.D.

John Fea’s essays and reviews on the history of American culture have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. John speaks regularly at universities, academic conferences, churches, school and teacher groups, civic groups, and historical societies and has appeared on NBC News, CNN, C-SPAN, National Public Radio, and dozens of radio programs nationwide.

John writes about American history, religion, politics, and academic life at his blog housed in the online magazine Current.

John Fea has authored several other books, including Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2011), and Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans, June 2018).

John was on two previous episodes of the Reintegrate Podcast, discussing these two books: here and here.

We just came out of yet another contentious election year. People are as divided and polarized as ever, and the situation doesn’t seem to be improving.

John Inazu is the author of Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect (Zondervan, 2024).

It’s a unique book because John Inazu walks us through a school year as he teaches law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis. In this environment, students learn to embrace a better way to settle disputes. We get to learn alongside them, gleaning universal principles for conversing with people we disagree with.

Scroll down to learn about John Inazu.

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Please share this podcast with your friends.

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney.

Go to re-integrate.org for further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission.

John Inazu

John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the founder of the Legal Vocation Fellowship, a 15-month program for early-career attorneys, which grew out of his work with The Carver Project at Washington University. He is also a Senior Fellow at Interfaith America and also the Trinity Forum. He holds the J.D. from Duke University and a PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Check out John Inazu’s Substack, *Some Assembly Required.

We often see setbacks and disasters as events that keep us from our best life. But what if these are actually opportunities to grow in our leadership? Our guest on this episode is Dr. Gayle D. Beebe, who has been a leader for over two decades and has insights into how to overcome the disorienting challenges that we face, both personally and in our leadership.

In his new book, The Crucibles That Shape Us: Navigating the Defining Challenges of Leadership, the university president shares personal stories and the wisdom of many other authors and mentors on how we can tackle suffering, revealing that, although we can be confused at first, these situations ultimately can bring us into a deeper relationship with God and also make us better leaders.

Beebe identifies seven crucibles—powerful catalysts for transformation—that, when embraced, shape us into what God wants us to be.

Scroll down to learn about Gayle Beebe.

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Please share this podcast with your friends.

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney.

Go to re-integrate.org for further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission.

Dr. Gayle D. Beebe

Gayle D. Beebe has been serving as president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California since 2007. Before that, he was president of Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He has also served as dean of the graduate school of theology at Azusa Pacific University.

He has three master's degrees: the Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, the Master of Philosophy of Religion and Theology from Claremont Graduate University, and the Master of Business Administration in Strategic Management from the Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University. He also has a PhD in Religion and Theology from Claremont Graduate University.

How can creative people honestly pursue their crafts in an age of Artificial Intelligence? What key components fuel creativity for those who make art, film, novels, poetry, graphic art, or music?

Our guest is Craig Detweiler, author, filmmaker, educator, cultural commentator, and Variety Magazine’s Mentor of the Year recipient.

Over the years, Craig has taught and mentored thousands of students at Pepperdine, Biola, Fuller Seminary, and Grand Canyon University. He has encouraged these aspiring artists to launch creative projects with intention, awareness, and confidence. His students have founded festivals, started companies and schools, written acclaimed graphic novels, and directed movies for Marvel.

Now, at a time when generative AI can aggregate text and images in seconds, he shows why “honest creativity” is one of the core tenets that separates humans from machines. For Craig Detweiler, creating honestly is a way of honoring the gift of life. Humans are called to honestly create magnificent things because it is what humans, made in the image of God, do.

Craig’s latest book is Honest Creativity: The Foundations of Boundless, Good, and Inspired Innovation (Morehouse Publishing, 2024).

Scroll down to learn about Craig Detweiler.

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Please share this podcast with your friends.

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney.

Go to re-integrate.org for further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission.

Dr. Craig Detweiler

Craig Detweiler (MFA, Univ of Southern California, M.Div. and Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is the President & CEO of Wedgwood Circle, a philanthropical investment collective funding creative projects of meaning. He is the Dean of the College of Arts & Media at Grand Canyon University. Craig is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker.

Check out an episode of the Reintegrate Podcast from 2020, in which Craig Detweiler discusses how to reintegrate our faith with watching movies.

Check out Craig’s other books:

Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age (Brazos, 2018).

iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives (Brazos, 2013).

Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God Paperback (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century (Cultural Exegesis, Baker Academic, 2008).

A Purple State of Mind: Finding Middle Ground in a Divided Culture (Harvest House, 2008).

A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture (Engaging Culture, Baker Academic, 2003).

You can purchase these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about this book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.