In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Jana Novak, co-author of Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country. Continuing the Reading Wheel Review’s year-long celebration of the American semiquincentennial, Jordan and Jana discuss the religious beliefs and expression of America’s first president, George Washington, and his understandings of divine providence, civil liberty, and religious freedom. 

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach of American University in Washington, D.C. They discuss Dreisbach’s book, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, which examines in detail the different ways that Christian scripture influenced and was used by leading figures in the revolutionary era. This discussion opens the Reading Wheel Review’s year-long celebration of the American semiquincentennial, and there is no better way to begin than with a conversation about the Bible and the American founding. 

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Paul Marshall, Wilson Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University. They discuss Marshall’s book, Called to Be Friends, Called to Serve, which documents the long and fruitful friendship of John Perkins and Howard Ahmanson Jr. These two men from different backgrounds model friendship based on an authentic Christian faith and vision of social life, offering inspiration for those seeking to promote peace and reconciliation in a world fraught by conflict and injustice. 

In this special “addendum” edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Jenna A. Robinson, president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. They discuss Russell Kirk’s book, Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning. Their conversation explores Kirk’s insights into the challenges facing authentic schooling in wisdom and virtue in the twentieth century as well as today. Kirk’s book is nearly a half-century old, but in it we see both the origins as well as the consequences of the corruption of the purposes of higher education.

In this episode, CRCD Executive Director Dr. Jordan Ballor interviews Dr. Luke C. Sheahan, associate professor of political science at Duquesne University. They discuss Robert Nisbet's classic work The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought. This wide-ranging conversation reviews Nisbet's significant life and work, and examines his exploration of different types of community throughout Western civilization, as well as its relevance for today.

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Melissa Moschella, professor of the practice of philosophy at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. They discuss Dr. Moschella’s recent book, Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law: Principles for Human Flourishing, which serves as an introduction to the school of thought known as “new natural law” and covers topics related to personal virtue as well as social life.

In this addendum edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Hunter Baker, who serves as provost and dean of the faculty at North Greenville University as well as a senior fellow at the CRCD. They discuss Dr. Baker’s recent book, Postliberal Protestants: Baptists between Obergefell and Christian Nationalism, the challenges to religious liberty today, and the prospects for a renewed commitment to America’s founding ideals.

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review podcast, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, interviews Miles Smith, an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College and author of Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War. The place of religion in public life in America’s Early Republic was a complicated and contested reality, and Smith’s volume helps unpack the complexity of what he calls “Christian institutionalism,” between disestablishment and secularism.

This month marks the 65th anniversary of the original publication of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. On this episode, First Liberty’s Chief Legal Officer Jeff Mateer joins Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of the CRCD, to discuss the book's important themes, lessons, and inspiration, as well as its impact on Jeff personally.

Recent Publications:

• Adam MacLeod, “A Charity Case,” Law & Liberty  
• Trey Dimsdale, “Fight for the First Amendment,” Religion & Liberty Online   
• Hunter Baker, “A collision of American lives,” WORLD Opinions

Upcoming Events:

• Shaftesbury Fellowship (May 19-July 25, 2025)
• FLI Educational Tour: Boston (July 3-7, 2025)
• Religious Liberty in the States 2025 Launch (July 14, 2025)

In this episode, we engage with Dr. Stephen Presley’s Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church: Recovering an Ancient Vision. Dr. Presley is director of education and engagement as well as senior fellow for religion & public life at the CRCD. He is also professor of church history at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his latest book serves as a kind of prequel to his earlier book, Cultural Sanctification, which was featured in the April 2024 edition of the Reading Wheel Review. This week, Dr. Presley joins CRCD executive director Dr. Jordan Ballor to talk about the role of Scripture in the early church, and how the Bible shaped the Christian life in the ancient world. There is much that separates us from the world of the church fathers, but Dr. Presley argues that there is much that we can learn from an approach to the Bible that views it as the life-giving, authoritative word of God that shapes our lives in service of God.