The Aaron Renn Show

Justin Shubow is the president of the National Civic Art Society, a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. that promotes the classical and humanistic tradition in public art and architecture. He was also formerly the chairman of the US Commission of Fine Arts. He joins me to talk about our public buildings and how to make them beautiful.

Note that this podcast includes a discussion of specific buildings. Pictures of these buildings are shown in the video version of the podcast, which you can watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6MwHNiEgcQ

National Civic Art Society: https://www.civicart.org/

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Bestselling author Rod Dreher has a knack for putting his finger on what people are going to be talking about next. He's done it again with his new book on re-enchantment, Living in Wonder. He joins us today to talk about embracing what historian Tom Holland calls the "weird stuff" in Christianity. 

What does it mean for the world to be enchanted? Isn't enchantment just superstition? What does the trend towards psychedelics and the occult tell us about the public's longings? Are demons real?

Note: There are some quality issues on Dreher's audio feed.

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Wonder-Finding-Mystery-Meaning/dp/0310369126/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

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Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Yes, he is related to the Guinness brewing family. He has an incredible life story, being born in China to medical missionaries and living through the communist takeover there. He has a DPhil from Oxford and has been involved with many eminent organizations ranging from the Brookings Institution to the Trinity Forum.

He’s also the author of many books, including his latest Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, which he joined me to discuss today. What is a "civilizational moment"? Why did Christianity lose its purchase on the West? Why have some contenders to replace it fared better than others? What should Christians in the Wes be doing today?

But Our Civilizational Moment: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

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Delano Squires is a Research Fellow in Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation, and a contributor to the Blaze. He joins me today to talk about the enduring relevance of the call to manhood and family, and how to live that out in today's world.

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Stephen Eide is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies homelessness and mental illness. He joins me to discuss his new article in National Affairs magazine about how to help the homeless and those who struggle at the very bottom of society.

Read Eide's article: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/uplifting-the-man-farthest-down

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Austin Knuppe is an assistant professor of political science at Utah State University specializing in Foreign Policy, International Politics, Middle East Politics, and War. He's the author of a recent book on how Iraqis survived the Islamic State.

He joins me to discuss Christians in the Middle East. Once sizable Christian populations there have declined noticeably in the past 100 years. He argues that America's Global War on Terror, however, has accelerated the decline of Christian communities in Middle Eastern countries.

Austin Knuppe: There Are Always Consequences: https://americanreformer.org/2024/08/there-are-always-consequences/

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Journalist and AEI Senior Fellow Tim Carney joins me to discuss his new book Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be

Read Jason Jewell's review of the book: https://americanreformer.org/2024/09/the-war-on-ordinary-families/

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Family-Unfriendly-Culture-Raising-Harder-ebook/dp/B0C592J1TF/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

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Nate Fischer, Founder and CEO of New Founding, joins us to talk about his firm's investment strategy, and particularly the macro forces that will be shaping the society and economy of tomorrow.

Read the New Founding Strategy: https://www.newfounding.com/post/strategy

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While divorce rates have fallen from their peak, they are still very high, with women initiating the vast majority of them. The divorce rate among American Christians is also too high. While divorce is difficult for non-religious men, Christian men face unique issues. Their churches are likely to blame them for the divorce, and they are likely to lose their friend network at church as well.

Men's devotional writer and podcaster Chris Bolinger joins me to discuss what Christian men need to know to survive divorce.

Buy Chris Bolinger's 400,000 copy selling men's devotional Daily Strength for Men: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Strength-Men-365-Day-Devotional/dp/1424557534/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

My article on what to do when your wife divorces you: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-40-what-to-do-when-your

My article on how to help your friends whose wive's divorced them: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-41-how-to-help-our-friends

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James Davison Hunter is a renowned sociologist at the University of Virginia who introduced the term "culture war" to the US discourse. He's a leading expert on cultural change and cultural battles in America.

He joins me to discuss his new book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis, which tells the deep cultural story underlying today's polarized politics.

This important book describes the deep structure of American culture as resting on what he calls the "hybrid Enlightenment," joining various strands of European Enlightenment thinking with largely Calvinist Christianity. The various contradictions in this hybrid Enlightenment, such as slavery, were worked out over time. But that hybrid Enlightenment also became unraveled over time, leaving Americans without the cultural underpinnings necessary to sustain solidarity. The result is nihilism and culture war.

Democracy and Solidarity is a compelling and important read to understand our present cultural moment.

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Solidarity-Cultural-Americas-Political-ebook/dp/B0CW17D3N3/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Dr. Hunter is also the publisher of the Hedgehog Review magazine: https://hedgehogreview.com/

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