Upstream

Stephanie Gray Connors is a pro-life activist who is taking her advocacy for the pre-born to a logical conclusion for those suffering at the end of life. 

She provides strong perspective about the dynamic of eliminating the sufferer vs. alleviating the suffering. She calls us to look at all humans as image bearers whose suffering calls us to participate in a Gospel perspective.

Visit Stephanie's website to order Start With What: https://loveunleasheslife.com/love-unleashes-life

Andrew Lazo is a C.S. Lewis scholar known for his expertise in Lewis' Till We Have Faces. Lazo delivers a strong apologetic that Lewis' chief aim was to explain love. Lazo carefully unpacks many Lewis books to reveal a push for humanity to love rightly. This love is bound in Christ's call for an ordered love of God and love of man.

When's the last time you and your family have experienced the beauty and majesty of God's creation together? Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Shane Morris welcomes Pastor Randy Smith, host of the immensely popular YouTube Channnel "America's Parks."

Pastor Smith discusses how he came to fall in love with America's national parks and how experiencing creation together has helped to shape his family's faith life and provided his children with memories for a lifetime.

"To its many and vocal modern critics, marriage is legalized slavery, anti-feminist, and a receding institution whose dying grip on society can't come soon enough." 

Upstream host Shane Morris asks sociologist Mark Regnerus to give a picture on the state of modern marriage. Regnerus paints a picture of the future, where many see marriage going the way of the dinosaurs. 

Mark Regnerus is Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a senior fellow at the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture, and his research and simple approach to facts in the areas of sexual behavior, family, marriage, and religion has garnered a respected and criticized reputation.

Mark is the author of over 40 published articles and book chapters, and three Oxford University Press books, with much of his work being widely reviewed, including in Slate, the Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The New Yorker, and his research and commentary has been featured in numerous media outlets.

There's not one square inch in all of creation where God doesn't cry out, "mine". This was a rally cry of Chuck Colson, referencing Abraham Kuyper. But does the saying hold true in our culture?

Dr. Jordan Ballor is a senior research fellow at the Acton Institute. He has figuratively written the book on Abraham Kuyper. He is the general editor for the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology Series. 

He unravels the fascination that surrounds Kuyper, a statesman theologian. Ballor walks listeners through the deep thinking of Kuyper to deal with the modern world while living an example for living in challenging complexities.

“This idea that a criminal tortured to death on a cross is in some way a part of the God of Israel who is also the God who created the entire cosmos and everything in it, is possibly the strangest idea that anyone has had to persuade people of.”

But it’s also idea that changed the world forever—perhaps the most influential idea in human history. So says historian Tom Holland, author of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.

Human rights, equality, forgiveness, caring for the vulnerable, none concepts were imaginable in the pagan world before Christianity. The pressing question is, are they viable in a post-Christian culture?

Today, Shane Morris welcomes Tom Holland to the BreakPoint Podcast.

Historian and author Glenn Sunshine helps guide us through the season of Advent with confidence. Dispelling challenges to common practices surrounding Christmas, Glenn provides strong historical why many of our practices aren't rooted in pagan traditions.

Shane Morris pushes Glenn to engage in popular linking of Jesus to Horus and Mithra. Glenn dives into the Christmas tree debate, proving the practice has strong cultural context rather than pagan practice. Glenn closes the interview with a strong urge to practice Advent, calling Christians to understand and respect the hallowed reality of the incarnation.

Sean McDowell was the first generation to live through the Christian purity culture of the 1980s and 90s. Now with teenagers of his own he is recasting a vision of sex, love, and relationships. 

Sean challenges the  love that the world tells us to pursue. Guiding us from a "follow your heart's desire" path of the world to a Christian view of love, McDowell calls his readers in his newest book to give love to God and others.

Shane interviews McDowell on his newest work, Chasing Love: Sex, Love, and Relationships in a Confused Culture. The two engage a millennial response to purity culture and dwell on the renewed perspective McDowell is presenting in his work.

Eric Huffman's upbringing was idyllic. He grew up in the church, had a loving family, and was set to pursue a calling to the pastorate. However, after a liberal seminary experience his heart moved from the Gospel of Jesus to the gospel of socialism.

Eric served as an agnostic pastor. He challenged the Biblical norms he was raised under. His church was revolting against a Biblical framework and it was exhausting him.

Eric shares his story with Shane Morris on Upstream. Christ transformed his heart and redeemed him from social, marital, and ministry chaos. 

Pastor Eric Huffman is the lead pastor of The Story Houston, host of the Maybe God Podcast, and author of “40 Days of Doubt: Devotions for the Skeptic”. Pastor Eric's passion is to lead new generations to ask their questions, to doubt their doubts, and to know the truth of God through Jesus Christ.

This year has felt like a lost year. Tensions are high and stress levels are through the roof. It would make sense that Covid is having a negative impact on marriages, as well. That's not the case.

Brad Wilcox wrote a piece in the Washington Post that sheds light on data revealing marriages are staying strong in the pandemic. Is this because people fear getting sick in filing for divorce? Is there a backlog of people waiting for the pandemic to clear before they break their vows? Or is it that married couples are finding more satisfaction in spending more time together. Dr. Brad Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia where he also serves as a Philosophy professor. His article sets a foundation for Shane to unpack what is a surprising statistic coming out of the pandemic.