The Brian Dainsberg Podcast

Online sports betting is now a mainstream part of American life — but what's actually happening inside FanDuel and DraftKings is designed to make sure you lose. This week, we pull back the curtain on a $120 billion industry and ask the question beneath the odds: where are you really putting your trust?

Resources:

• Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling - Danny Funt
• Don’t Bet On It: A Biblical and Theological Foundation Opposing Sports Gambling - ERLC
• When the Accounts Are Called: A Christian Understanding of Gambling - R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

(Originally Published on January 15, 2022)

Interest in socialism waxes and wanes like a teenage infatuation. "He loves me. He loves me not." This episode will extract five reasons we all should be wary of this idea that never seems to go away.

Resources:

• Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies - Kristian Niemietz

(Originally Published on December 15, 2021)

Satisfying personal desires has become the definition of the "good life." Follow this notion far enough and it leads to distorted definitions that end in moral chaos. If you want to understand cancel culture, you've got to start here. This episode will explain five outcomes of this approach to life and offer biblical correctives to each one.

Resources:

• The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman
• Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman

(Originally Published on November 15, 2021)

Satisfying personal desires has become the definition of the "good life." Follow this notion far enough and it leads to distorted definitions that end in moral chaos. If you want to understand cancel culture, you've got to start here.

Resources:

• The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman

Forgiveness sounds simple—until you actually have to do it. This episode will unpack why our culture gets forgiveness wrong, why it’s so hard for us personally, and how the cross reshapes everything. If you’ve ever wrestled with letting go, this conversation might be the doorway to real freedom.

Resources:

• Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? - Timothy Keller

It can be very difficult to ascertain a single plotline in a book as large as the Bible. But there is one. In this "out of the box" episode, you'll hear the story of the Bible in 15 minutes.

A former Hollywood actor recently made a splash, sort of, in the Christian digital world when he announced his support for "annihilationism." It's a word many are likely unfamiliar with. So what is this view? And does it make sense of the biblical witness?

Resources:

• Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment - Christopher W. Morgan (editor), Robert A. Peterson (editor)

Don't human beings have to have free will in order for love to be authentic? What role does God have in securing the love of his creatures? Welcome to a big, deep topic.

Resources:

• God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil - Thaddeus Williams

More than one billion people around the world speak English as a second language. But they don't speak it well and live in cultures where information is passed along orally. So how do we get God's Word into their minds and hearts? Special guest Ian Bultman will help explain that and how you are or can be a part of it.

Resources:

• https://www.easyenglish.bible/bible/easy/
• https://brinkmanadventures.com/
• https://www.wycliffe.org/

It has a complicated history, but knowing something about feminism's ideological genealogy is important to discerning its usefulness to the Christian life. This episode will provide a brief overview of feminism's history and some pastoral reflections on its foundations.

Resources:

• God's Design for Man and Woman: A Biblical-Theological Survey - Andreas J. Kostenberger & Margaret E. Köstenberger