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Gospelbound

Gospelbound

By: The Gospel Coalition Collin Hansen
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 Gospelbound, hosted by Collin Hansen for The Gospel Coalition, is a podcast for those searching for firm faith in an anxious age. Each week, Collin talks with insightful guests about books, ideas, and how to navigate life by the gospel of Jesus Christ in a post-Christian culture.2020 The Gospel Coalition Christianity Politics & Government Spirituality
Episodes
  • What Keeps Carl Trueman Awake at Night

    What Keeps Carl Trueman Awake at Night
    Apr 7 2026
    Western culture today largely lacks a sense of consecration, of setting apart the ordinary as holy. Yet somehow we still have a strong impulse toward desecration, of turning the holy into the ordinary. Why have we lost the taste of the good while developing a taste for the bad? That’s a core question at the heart of Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity, published by Penguin Random House’s Sentinel imprint. Carl is a professor of biblical and theological studies at Grove City College and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was a guest on Gospelbound in 2020 for his highly acclaimed, bestselling book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In his new book Trueman writes, “Transgression of the sacred is exhilarating precisely because it makes us feel like gods, the creators of our own meanings and our own selves. All we need to do is cross lines previously enforced by the idea of God and we thereby assume the role of being gods.” Desecration is how we communicate authenticity, perhaps the most important value for the modern self. This entire project has backfired. Let’s hear from Carl about why. In This Episode:00:00 – Carl Trueman on desecration and the modern crisis of humanity02:30 – Why write another book after The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self?04:22 – Why the sexual revolution sits at the center of the story06:11 – Cultural Christianity, conversion, and why truth still matters10:30 – Nietzsche’s “madman” and the collapse of moral meaning12:56 – Authenticity, evangelism, and the uphill battle against expressive individualism18:23 – Do the revolutions of modernity actually deliver what they promise?21:04 – Genetic selection, artificial wombs, and the moral vacuum of tech culture27:29 – Social acceleration, anxiety, and the instability of modern life30:23 – Technology, human limits, and the need for a normative view of humanity35:58 – Assisted suicide, autonomy, and why stories matter more than abstractions41:53 – The transgender movement, fairness, and transhumanism45:44 – Why Christian nationalism is not the answer49:40 – Creed, cult, code, congregational singing, and hospitality as a plan of consecration55:53 – Outro Resources Mentioned: The Desecration of Man by Carl TruemanThe Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl TruemanThe Gay Science by Friedrich NietzscheThe Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    56 mins
  • Top 10 Theology Stories Since 2000: Part 2

    Top 10 Theology Stories Since 2000: Part 2
    Mar 24 2026
    Join Collin Hansen, Michael Graham, and Sarah Zylstra as they continue to look back on the top theology stories from the last 25 years. In part 1, they counted down stories #10 to #6. Now in part 2, Graham and Zylstra walk with Hansen through his stories #5 down to #1. In This Episode: 00:00:00 – Why homosexuality became a presenting issue dividing the church 00:00:41 – Sarah Zylstra introduces the second half of the top 10 list 00:01:34 – Recap of stories 10 through 6 from the previous episode 00:03:06 – Number 5: COVID-19 shuts the world down 00:04:57 – COVID, institutional mistrust, and the authority of scientists 00:06:25 – A decade of digital change compressed into one year 00:09:22 – What COVID did to church attendance and online ministry 00:11:38 – Rediscovering embodied worship after metaverse-era predictions 00:14:11 – Number 4: The Trump era and its theological consequences 00:15:41 – Supreme Court appointments, religious liberty, and legal change 00:18:50 – Dobbs, abortion, and evangelical disengagement from the pro-life cause 00:19:54 – Immigration as a leading social and theological issue 00:22:13 – Executive power, post-liberalism, and Christian nationalism 00:24:05 – Number 3: Obergefell and the moral transformation of marriage 00:25:20 – Sexuality, family, and the collapse of shared moral norms 00:27:48 – Don Carson’s 2005 warning about homosexuality as a presenting issue 00:29:22 – Mainline denominational splits and the global Methodist divide 00:32:11 – Why many evangelicals held to historic sexual ethics 00:33:17 – How race and sexuality became bundled in public discourse 00:36:56 – Rebecca McLaughlin and navigating race and sexuality faithfully 00:37:21 – Number 2: The iPhone and the shift to digital life 00:38:05 – Smartphones, fertility decline, and changing social habits 00:39:13 – Social contagion, gender identity, and online plausibility structures 00:40:08 – Podcasts, YouTube, AI, and the reshaping of knowledge 00:43:44 – Mike Graham on screens, AI, and the future of epistemology 00:48:00 – Individualized media diets, institutional decline, and gender divergence 00:50:06 – AI sycophancy, abuse scandals, and algorithm-shaped reality 00:53:51 – Why digital life felt like it could have been number one 00:54:26 – Number 1: Why 9/11 tops the list 00:56:23 – Christianity, Islam, and civilizational conflict 01:00:07 – 9/11, the new atheism, and the category of “fundamentalism” 01:02:01 – Theodicy, suffering, and major disasters after 9/11 01:03:12 – Mike Graham on why 9/11 is civilizationally decisive 01:06:17 – Middle Eastern Christians, Iraq, Syria, and migration into Europe 01:07:11 – Signs of God’s providence and good emerging from tragedy 01:09:18 – Tim Keller, New York church planting, and the young, restless, and Reformed movement 01:12:58 – Closing reflections on God’s providence over the last 25 years Resources Mentioned: Rediscover Church by Collin Hansen and Jonathan LeemanThe Secular Creed by Rebecca McLaughlinThe WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph HenrichGenerations by Jean M. TwengeTimothy Keller by Collin Hansen — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Top 10 Theology Stories Since 2000: Part 1

    Top 10 Theology Stories Since 2000: Part 1
    Mar 10 2026
    Join Collin Hansen, Michael Graham, and Sarah Zylstra as they look back on the top theology stories from the last 25 years. In part 1 of this two-part series, Graham and Zylstra walk with Hansen through his stories #10 down to #6. Since the year 2000, religion in America has changed dramatically. As recently as the 1990s, religion in America was what Tim Keller called “thick”: In general, many clergy were held in high esteem, churches were respected, and people either belonged to a congregation or knew that would be a good idea. Yet since 2000, the percent of religious Americans has dropped and the number of nones (no religion) has jumped up from 8 percent to 22 percent—and climbing. So while social commentators lament how much time Americans spend on our screens, describe how views on sexuality have drastically changed, identify how our politics have become sharply polarized, and observe how mental health especially in Gen Z has declined, they often miss the biggest story of all, the one underneath all the others—the decline in attention and deference to God. In This Episode: 00:00 — The Great Dechurching: belief vs. disaffiliation 00:32 — Sarah hosts: why a 30,000-foot view now 03:26 — “Factfulness” and why we overlook positive trends 05:00 — #10: Global church leadership moving south 09:02 — Theological education hasn’t moved south at the same pace 10:03 — #9: Rise of non-denominational congregations 14:49 — Data point: non-denominationalism grows from ~3% (1972) to ~14–15% today 17:27 — Why churches drop denominational labels; media amplification; scandal-by-association 20:00 — #8: China’s church growth—and crackdown 22:07 — India, Hindu nationalism, and persecution; Nigeria and the Africa frontier 25:41 — #7: The Dechurching of America 30:24 — Apologetics after dechurching: from hostility to apathy 34:25 — Are churches fewer but stronger? 36:39 — Retention vs. conversion: why evangelical identity declines less 39:09 — #6: The Great Awokening (Ferguson to Floyd) 47:20 — Four paradigms for navigating race in America 52:44 — Wrap-up: Part 2 teaser 53:10 — Outro + where to find the podcast/newsletter Resources Mentioned: Factfulness by Hans RoslingThe Reason for God by Timothy KellerMaking Sense of God by Timothy KellerA Secular Age by Charles TaylorDivided by Faith by Michael EmersonThe Color of Compromise by Jemar TisbyWe Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospelbound/id1499898207 ▫ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0kRYr5FTKr5ru1N7MR65Br ✅ SUBSCRIBE: ▫ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thegospelcoalition ▫ TGC Updates: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/newsletters Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    54 mins
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