Top Theology Stories of 2024

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Melissa Kruger
I think we sometimes can be so fretful that, oh, the church is declining in the West. But what what we see happening is the church will continue to flourish and and I take great comfort in seeing, Oh, if it’s declining in one place, God is always at work, and he’s raising up remnants wherever, and it’s flourishing in one place where we might, you know, one day be having missionaries coming from parts of the globe that used to be not Christian at all.

Collin Hansen
Welcome to a special edition of gospel bound. I’m Colin Hanson, your host, and I’m joined by my good friend and colleague, Melissa Kruger. You may know her from her many, many books and TGC national events, which she leads. You’re listening to our annual bonus season ending episode, just something we began doing in 2020 I don’t know, Melissa, something happened in 2020 I can’t quite put my finger on it. Then remember your sounds familiar. It’s just all blocked out, maybe. But we want to take you behind the scenes, look back on the big stories and trends of 2024 and ultimately, just thank you for listening and encouraging us in this work.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, thanks for having me con I always love doing this with you. It’s fun. It’s kind of a way of reminiscing over a year, and a lot’s happened this year. When I read your top 10 theology stories, I was like, Oh, wow, that was this year too. All this stuff has been going on and and and then you kind of look back to the even previous year, it’s kind of hard to believe globally, we’re still in there. So wars happening, you know, all over Ukraine, Israel, China, with threats towards Taiwan, and we’ve got Syria now. I mean, that’s, that’s very recent. All these things continue to happen worldwide. We’re having these discussions about healthcare and transgenderism, and we have people like JK Rowling in Europe, really fighting against it, kind of surprisingly, these conversations are now not just stateside, but they’re really global as we discuss these things around the world. I like how you said it in your article. When you said she broke the transgender spell, I was like, Oh, that was very good, very good. So

Collin Hansen
got to indulge yourself a few times as a writer, yeah. I was like, Oh,

Melissa Kruger
these are, this is a good line, um, but I really want to jump in, because I found your top 10 stories this year probably the most encouraging Not, not to say that you’re curmudgeonly at all, because you’re not.

Collin Hansen
I’m an editor. Is there any difference between the two? Exactly,

Melissa Kruger
I mean. But often we’re looking around the world and we’re saying everything’s kind of falling apart. And there are a lot of really, really tough things going on in the world, but I found some of the spiritual articles that you really focused on were so encouraging, and one of these being that Bible cells have written risen 22% this year. I found that really, really interesting. I know I did buy a new Bible at the beginning of last year, just a shout out to our crossway partners, whom we love. I actually got they had a new chronological one year Bible reading, and it’s all formatted for you. So, you know, I just open it up and you have all the chronological parts together. I loved it. But one thing I really loved was that they put a podcast that reads the exact same passage that goes with what you’re reading that day. So like, if I was traveling, I could just listen to it, rather than have to carry that big Bible everywhere I went. And it’s really well done. So highly encourage that. But tell me what you think’s beyond behind this spike in Bible cells. That’s that’s kind of surprising.

Collin Hansen
It is surprising, but I think you probably captured right there. Melissa, what is behind a lot of it, some of it’s marketing, it’s repackaging, it’s different versions of the Bible. But you know, that’s not a new trend. We’ve had those going back a long time. Remember all those sort of teen magazine versions of the Bible from 25 plus years ago. I don’t think that part is especially new. And the Wall Street Journal, where I first saw this report not that long ago, they also speculated that it was because of a lot of anxiety about what’s happening in the world. And I thought, sure that’s true, but I don’t think that would account for a spike, because which year are we talking about here, where there wasn’t a lot of anxiety about what was happening in the world? Maybe if you told me in 2020 there was a 50% increase or something like that, I might, I might assume that, but I do think that I know. Thing The Wall Street Journal had identified was a lot of first time Bible buyers. Now that’s the most encouraging aspect of this, but I do think that you’re recognizing another aspect here, which is the significant role of audio books and a lot of different reading versions we’ve this was not a new thing in 2024 but crossway friends with the ESV produced a lot of different reader versions, from Robert Smith and Jackie Hill, Perry and Michael Reeves and and Ray ortland. Number of people like that and that. I’m wondering if the success Melissa of those podcast versions is really leading people back to the print editions and just more of more interest in Bible in general. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. It’s, I mean, how great is it to have Jackie in your ear reading scripture? There’s the Chris and Getty version too, which just sounds so much nicer than when I was reading

Collin Hansen
in your head so much nicer than the voices in your head.

Melissa Kruger
Nice and, yeah, it really is interesting. And I’ll say, you hear it a little bit, you read it a little bit differently when you’re hearing it. And I often think that’s how most of the Israelites throughout generations would have heard the word, I mean, they stood. I’ve always been struck by these passages in the Old Testament where it talks about all of Israel gathered together and they spent all day reading the law with everyone. The kids are there, yeah, and I’m just like, wow, what were those kids thinking when they got to Leviticus? But, you know, everybody was just there and they read it. That’s how most of them, most of them learned it. And so I think it’s great we have so many different options for getting God’s word. And what an encouraging thing. Because I always say, even, I think you would agree with this, even all of our own writings, you really would just say, just read the Bible, right? Like separating about it. Go read it yourself. Read that, and then these other things that might help you understand it better, hopefully. But that’s the that’s the best place to begin. Well, if Bible cells are on the rise, another story you talked about was that there’s a decline worldwide in fertility. So tell us more about those trends, and how is that affecting the church, or what’s the church’s role in that? And why? Yeah. Why does it really matter? Why is that one your top 10 theology stories?

Collin Hansen
Yeah. So the the trend itself is not new. In 2024 this has been a significant trend globally, going back to at least around 2007 and 2008 the Great Recession. What’s new in 2024 is that there’s a lot of national attention on this subject, and part of that is because of Vice President Elect JD Vance and him bringing a lot of attention to the question. But sometimes Melissa, it’s the the biggest questions that we’re not discussing. And that’s one thing I try to do in my gospel bound podcast, is help people to to come into those conversations. But our friend Trevin wax, who reads a column for the gospel coalition, had described it as the largest demographic decline, kind of civilizational decline, since the Bubonic Plague of the 14th century. That’s how big a deal this is. But when it comes to theology stories, the question is, What Why would you bring another human being into this world? Or why would you get married? Or why would you invest your life into caring for this other helpless being? Basically, it exposes these big questions of, why should I care about anybody else? Why should I care about the future? What does the future even hold? Is the world even the kind of place where I should bring somebody else, against their choosing into it? Those are all existential questions about, what is the meaning and purpose of life, which ultimately lead us to theological reflections. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
it really is interesting. I can actually remember when we first moved to Charlotte, it it was literally the day we moved to Charlotte was 911 the 911 and I remember soon after we had just moved back, we were, we had been overseas, and we moved back, and we were buying a used car from a guy and, and we bought it from this couple. And I remember him saying, you know, because I had Emma, she was just like, nine months old at the time, and he was like, I just can’t imagine bringing a child into this world. That was his exact thing. And, and that was, that was because that was going on, and the world has continued, and maybe it’s the increased information we have to what’s going on the world just causes people such fear and trepidation and all of those things. And so it really is in many ways. You know, I mean, our theology does impact that greatly, because we believe it’s. So hopeful. Yeah, to and we believe that’s a great way to pass the gospel on to the next generation, is to have children. So it’s a very hopeful thing. Well, speaking of even growing up in the church, which we both did, we both grew up in the Methodist Church, and this past year, the Methodist Church has really seen some big changes the global Methodist Church in particular. So can you give us some insight on what’s happening there? It’s been coming for a while, but how the global south is playing an important role in kind of theology discussions that are happening worldwide now, not just in our American context, but how that’s happening in a global sense,

Collin Hansen
the United Methodist Church was the last of the major mainline denominations to split over issues related to homosexuality. And the Methodist Church can be extremely liberal and progressive, as we know from our experiences within the Methodist Church. But there was basically the way that the church is structured globally is that when they would have to vote to make a major change on an issue like that, in their Book of Discipline, it would include the entire world. It would include Methodists from Africa and from Asia and South America and places like that. And the numbers were such that, along with evangelicals in the United States, they would be able to withhold, or kind of kind of forestall some of those changes. Well, finally, that split took hold. They decided to go their separate ways. The global Methodist Church is a new denomination that’s developed out of this. And the United Methodist Church had a deadline, December 31 2023 it’s the end of last year of when you could leave leave the United Methodist Church. And so in 2024 we saw just how many had and so there was a 26% exodus of churches. Of all the United Methodist churches in the United States, 26% of them left and either closed or joined the global Methodist church by the start of 2024 there’s another dimension here, of course, though, to the global church, and not only the kind of the significant influence that those global Methodists have already played in this conversation, but also It connects Melissa back to the previous question. So many parts of the world are it’s not just the United States, it’s not just the so called Western countries, but a lot of parts of the world are not having children right now. But one place that really is is East Africa. And it’s also significant that East Africa is a region that is highly Christian already and increasingly Christian, not exclusively so by any means, but but very much increasing in that influence. And so you’ve already seen, not only in the global Methodist Church, the influence of of global leadership, especially in East Africa, but you’ve also seen that in the global Anglican Communion, it’s one of the first churches, if not the first church, to go through this split. There was also Melissa, a major change in the in the Anglican Communion. This year, the the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who had presided over this split where especially African Leadership took took over for the global evangelical expression of Anglicanism. Again, once again, that’s where the numbers are. There are far more Anglicans worshiping in parts of Africa than in Canada, Great Britain, the United States, all these places combined. But Welby had resigned shortly after coming out himself in favor of same sex marriage. But ultimately he resigned because he was a part of a cover up of sexual abuse within the church. So lot of different turmoil happening there, but really, Melissa, at the the end of the day, is simply to highlight the significant growing influence of of church leaders outside of the West. And if you’re looking for a part of the world in particular, it’s it’s in the region around East Africa.

Melissa Kruger
It’s always so encouraging. You know, when I think we sometimes can be so fretful that, oh, the church is declining in the West. And that is a negative. I mean, we would clearly say that where the church flourishes, I believe all of culture flourishes. But what what we see happening is the church will continue to flourish and and I take great comfort in seeing, Oh, if it’s declining in one place, God is always at work, and he’s raising up remnants wherever, and it’s flourishing in one place where we might, you know, one day be having missionaries coming from parts of the globe that used to Be not Christian at all. You know, we never know what the Lord is doing as he sends people and he he does these things. So I think it’s actually encouraged to see encouraging we maybe have a view that we’ve never had in history before, because we know so much more about what’s happening in the rest of the world. And so to think, oh, wow, yeah, there. There are some true, true decline in the Church here, and even theological decline, and to see it being held up so well in other parts of the world is beautiful to see. Another story that you report on is these discussions about assisted suicide, and I found, I found this so interesting, just as we think about these ethical issues, journalist Andy Crouch said this, and you quoted this, and I thought this was just so on the number, when he, you know when, when you when I read this quote. He said, You will have the right to die for approximately 15 minutes before you start to feel the obligation to die, which will be approximately 15 minutes before you are informed that for the greater good, to be sure you are required to die. And I think we see an increased secularization in society, leading to this culture kind of death. And I mean to me, this has been coming, really, since Roe v Wade. I mean, because when you start saying I have a right to do with my body, whatever I will be do, even if that includes the taking of an unborn life, if we if that’s what our culture says, is okay, then it makes complete sense that what would follow is, well, then I have a right to end my life whenever I want to, and then perhaps as culture further declines, there’s this notion of, well, wouldn’t it be better for everyone? Because you’re going to be a very expensive Society member if we keep you, I mean, and that is just truly kind of terrifying. It just shows how all of these things are interrelated. So can you speak to that a little bit more? How? How do you see that trend growing in a secular culture, and how can the church fight against it?

Collin Hansen
Yeah, so it’s an interesting mash up here, Melissa, between a pre Christian and a post Christian culture. So in a pre Christian culture. You did not places like the Roman Empire. You mentioned it exactly when you get to the end of your life, you’re really a burden. There’s scarce food. You might be slow in terms of movements. You can’t assist in the defense of the community, and there’s no inherent belief in dignity of being made in the image of God. Of course, that’s not every society you have. The Hebrews the Israelites as an exception to this of carrying on that view and honoring their elders. There are plenty of other cultures that honor their elders, but there is a pragmatic argument in many pre Christian societies of simply, if, if you’re a burden to society, it’s your responsibility to to leave or our responsibility to remove you there. And so we’re seeing right now a reversion to that, because we have a more utilitarian view of life, which is, life is meant to be enjoyed, life is meant to be experienced, and suffering is an aberration. So if you can’t enjoy life, you can’t experience life to your satisfaction, then, well, perhaps you should just go ahead and end it. It also, of course, Melissa is an indication of a lack of fear in of hell, of judgment there, as well, of what comes afterward. Now some people will say, well, it’s only for the people who are terminally ill. The problem here is that we can look to Canada and we can see that what starts out as being quote, unquote, only for the Terminate terminally ill radically expands to things like psychological difficulties, and then it goes all the way down to young ages, where people just are suicidal. And then now the government is sanctioning a physician helping them in that process. But now here’s the interesting part, Melissa, I mentioned that it’s a mash up, though, with a post Christian society, because the arguments are not the same. It’s the same result, but it’s not the same form of argumentation, because in a post Christian society, you see what Andy Crouch wrote about in the quote that you just shared, right there you are informed that for the greater good. Okay, so I mentioned there. This is not sort of the utilitarian. Hey, it’s really best you know that you would just go right now. It’s really more of a it’s a benevolence. It’s a Christian view of benevolence that we are assisting you in achieving something that’s really good for you. Ultimately, this is not a bad thing. This is a good thing, and this is a way of actually dignifying your life by helping you, quote, unquote, die with dignity. So it’s really interesting, Melissa, they’re reverting back to pre Christian notions of utility, of kind of that you don’t have value to society. You’re not in the image of a god. But they’re arguing in a way that is for the good. Could and upholding human dignity in ways that were definitely not argued before. So a lot of the things that we talk about within this list, and when we’re looking back on the previous year and cultural trends within our within our broader world right now, we’re seeing this, this weird mixture of we’re secularizing but arguing about our secularizing views in ways that only make sense within a broader Christian framework. Yeah, it can admittedly very confusing. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
it is. It is confusing, and it’s It very much is still this self focus, but you’re right, ironically, that turns it to a group focus, you know, for the better good. Do this for, you know, society and everything. But yet, it also is. It starts with this. I think it starts with the self focus, you know, if you’re in pain. And I even heard I was talking with some friends, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, or we can correct it in the show notes. But I believe, I think it was Belgium, that even allows teens who are have mental health issues to go ahead and commit to have to end their life through through these methods. And I was just like, these are big decisions to allow a teen to make. And yet, we’re seeing this also with your another story you told with transgenderism, we’ve been letting teens make these make decisions that are shocking to me. I can remember the first time I took my I think it was around 13, when I took my child into the doctor’s office and the nurse looked at my child and said, Does your mother have permission to be in the doctor’s office with you? And in my head, I was thinking, Well, yes, I’m not gonna let the doctor in the office without me in there. I mean, you know, that’s more disturbing to me than me being present. And it was this shocking, shocking kind of thing we’ve changed, that parents no longer have, in some sense, control over, over the medical health of their teenagers. And this, this has been happening culturally for a long time, actually slowly, but we’ve seen it. But you, you wrote about this cast report about transgender treatments that has come out. So tell us what that report is. Tell it. Tell us what it tells us. And how are these decisions affecting parents in a lot of ways as they’re raising children today. I mean, I think this is it’s it’s pretty shocking all that’s happened, and really just a few years with with our teens and with parents control over their health care. But start with the CAS report and tell us a little bit about that.

Collin Hansen
So earlier this year, Melissa was in New York City, and I serve as the executive director for the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, and we were meeting our fellows from around the world. Were meeting with Ross Douthat from the New York Times, and I asked him a question about this cast review, and it’s the largest, most comprehensive study ever conducted on the effectiveness of transgender treatments with minors, and the report coming out of the UK said it’s not clear at all that these treatments are effective or beneficial. And in fact, we have a concerning amount of evidence that would suggest that it’s actually damaging to them, physically, emotionally, psychologically. And I asked him, Why is this not getting any attention? There was almost no coverage of this report in the United States, where these transgender treatments have just exploded in popularity in the last 10 years. And he said, well, in the UK, they’re making decisions about health care from the government’s perspective on what they should pay for. But in the United States, those decisions are made by profit generating physicians and hospitals, so there’s really no incentive for that information to be communicated to the teenagers or to their parents, because they can make a lot of money on performing these surgeries and and puberty blockers and hormone therapies that in the UK, they’re saying, well, we’re not going to provide these anymore. And so this coincides, Melissa, with one thing that you alluded to right there, of California deciding in 2024 that minors can transition with help from their public schools without even notifying the parents. I mean, this is a really big problem. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that since COVID in 2020 and I think along the lines of a lot of these concerns from parents that enrollment in Christian K 12 schools has really increased as well in recent years. And I don’t think it’s all from from Christian families. I think it’s from other family as well that are disturbed by some of the things that you’re describing right there. Where, in short, you as a Christian, you have very clear reasons to be very concerned about what the world is teaching about transgenderism and and I and how we identify apart from the sex that we have at birth. You know that obviously our biological sex, but you don’t have to be a Christian to have a lot of concerns about that. The cast review is a good example of that. So, yeah, major, major trend this year, and in some ways deeply disturbing, especially if you’re not familiar with what’s with, what’s been going on. But you mentioned JK Rowling earlier, there was a hate bill, kind of a hate crime law passed in Scotland this year, and it was specifically targeting things like criticism of the trans, kind of transgender ideology. And so the day that it was passed, she went on a long rant, and really was seeking to be as provocative as possible to try to trigger the implementation of that hate crime law in prosecution of her upon her return to Scotland, she was trying to make a point about this. And interestingly, I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be a Christian have a problem with this. JK, Rowling’s concerns here are coming from a feminist perspective of how women are being pushed out of a lot of these places by men who are identifying as women. So you don’t have to be a Christian have a problem with this, but certainly Christians are are caught up and in very deep ways. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. And it it as a mom, I mean, it just shocks me. I mean, because, you know, we don’t even let children drive a car with out months and months of practice with their parent and, you know, with taking classes and having to watch this, and it’s just amazing. It’s just the irresponsibility of it, society, not not even the immorality of it, like that’s a whole nother issue. Because we’re Christians, obviously we would have problems, but I think I’m just shocked at the clear hypocrisy culturally that we do not allow this in other areas, but we’re, we’re doing it on this one, and it’s, it’s just pretty shocking to me. And

Collin Hansen
when somebody tells you to follow the science, those people are not usually following the science on what it says about transgender topics, and they’re also not following the science with what it says about abortion either. So that’s just one of those clobber statements that’s used against Christians very often, that we’re the people who don’t follow the science Well, in all the science related to abortion, transgender issues is in our favor, but people will ignore it when it’s inconvenient for their views. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. And so I hope that increasingly, as we look even to nature, in some sense, that it will prove the truths of the script of the scriptures. I mean, which we know, since God created all things, all things speak to His truth, in some sense that I think these studies will continue to show exactly what this one did, that these are not life giving pursuits, and truly are doing harm. I mean, I just think about the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. And when you are changing a person’s body, you are doing harm to their that’s physically working just fine. In some sense, you’re you’re doing harm. So it’s definitely an ethical problem that I’m sure medical ethicists are discussing, probably quietly behind closed doors, because I’m sure it’s hard to have those conversations publicly, very easily at this point. Well, one thing that is happening that we’re seeing a lot on college campuses, which is is good, are signs that Gen Z is going through some sort of revival spiritually. We Yeah, there are different reports out that really see this awakening that you just sent me, actually a Ruf report that you got that was so encouraging of from a Ruf reform University Fellowship, which is a ministry on different college campuses across the country, seeing a real desire for spiritual growth on the college campus. I’ve experienced this with my own kids. I’ve seen they’re they’re both. They’ve both been at secular universities, yet with such great fellowship groups. I’ve actually been super encouraged by that. So tell us a little bit more about this hopeful report you’ve seen and what you wrote about in the article.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, you really are the expert on this topic, Melissa, more so than me, but yeah, that was an Ruf report that I got from my alma mater at Northwestern just yesterday, and it was confirming what I had written about earlier in the top 10 theology stories. This is what we try to do in our. Jobs. Just try to discern what the Lord is doing and and what we’re picking up. And hearing from different ministries. And the most common refrain I’m hearing from churches that work a lot with young people, young adults, as well as as well as ministries, is, I mean, just a a real a real spiritual harvest, a really significant interest in growing in the faith and people coming to faith. And I think there are some pretty clear reasons for this, beyond simply the praise of the Holy Spirit and God’s providential plan. You see a really especially a post 2020 concern with a frenzied phone, addicted life a major turn toward interest in the spiritual disciplines. And part of what we’re seeing come out of I mean, you can a lot of the negative trends that we look at, such as addiction to technology, social media, smartphones, the accompanying rise of anxiety. Of course, can have a flip side, which is the hope of the gospel that delivers us, not only from these maladies, but ultimately from our sin and judgment, into salvation for all eternity and so but the lot of the bad things can have an effect, where people wake up to see, I I need God. They’re they’re just alarm bells for them. And so we’re seeing mass baptisms on campus. We’re seeing athletes, entire university teams, leading evangelistic rallies. I don’t know if you’ve seen this at all, Melissa, but for the first time that anybody can remember, ever, men are showing to be more religious, or kind of concerned with their faith and their practice of their faith than women are in Gen Z specifically, I do think there’s perhaps a couple reasons for that, and it’s related to what we’ve been talking about before. A lot of the gender confusion has had a particular effect on men of making them feel as though they’re inherently bad or confused. I did an interview with Nancy pearcey earlier this year on gospel bound that many people gave me good feedback on where she talks about this. She labels it a toxic war on masculinity. I think that could be a little bit of why we’re seeing this shift in Gen Z and among men in particular, but I don’t know what you’re seeing exactly out there. Melissa, no,

Melissa Kruger
I listened to that interview, and I would just encourage anyone listening to this one to go back. It was really good. I thought that was a really encouraging one. Yeah, I can just say I’m so encouraged. You know, my son is a junior, and he lives with 10 guys who are just great. They love the Lord. And you know, the Christians on campus are really alive in their faith and and it’s just, it really is so encouraging to see. And I’m, you know, if I can say anything to parents who are listening, I mean, I can just say, just keep praying like the spirits at work. He’s he who is in us, who is greater than he who is in the world. And we can, we can trust that all things will show forth the goodness of the gospel, even the darkness will allow the light to shine brighter. And so, yeah, there is a lot of darkness. There are a lot of really bad choices being made, and there are a lot of and we all know a lot of kids are being very affected by the lies of our culture. So that’s that’s definitely happening as well. But I think as we see those run their course and when they when they fail to satisfy, which they ultimately will fail to satisfy, that we can have people there giving the hope of the gospel that this is where life is found, and this is life abundant. And so it’s wonderful to see some of that harvest maybe starting to come to fruition, that they say, yeah, when you tell me, I’m just a molecule and there is no God, well then what is life? And I think we’re seeing kids wrestle with that, and it that that’s a pretty hopeless place to be when you look at what the secular world can offer, is that, yeah, there’s really nothing after this. And this is all there is. Well man, this is all there is. This isn’t that great. How hopeful for us as believers, we say, No, this isn’t all this there is. We’re actually waiting for a place where there’s no more sorrow, no more sign, no more tears, and we have a great mission while we’re here that makes you want to live, yeah. I mean, there’s you have, you have something to give the world that can actually make the world better. That’s the Christian message. Whereas secularism can never, can never really kind of compete with that, because it’s, yeah, yeah, eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die. I mean, yeah, that’s and then we do see that on the college campus. Let’s not that’s definitely alive and well, but ultimately empty. And I think we’re starting to see that so well there. Were a lot of the stories from this year, obviously, the one that probably more media hours were dedicated to than any others, where the election, we can’t, we can’t close out this year and not talk about it. There were some pretty shocking events the season, I think, went where no one could have foreseen with Biden dropping out of the presidential race, that was pretty shocking to assassination attempts on President elect Trump. I mean that I don’t think that’s ever happened. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but these are really surprising things. So tell us your thoughts on the election and what you as you look back on this year, what you see happening, and what’s what, what your thoughts are on it. I

Collin Hansen
just want to focus Melissa on one theological aspect to the election. And it’s hard with our news culture to really reflect on any particular issue, but one issue that is an event that has just stuck with me all year was the first of those assassination attempts on President elect Trump, and just how close it came to succeeding, and how we knew from nearly the first instant I can remember where I was when I was watching the reports come out, but just how egregiously bad the Secret Service protection had been, and really how simple the entire thing was, and how shocking it was that he, President elect Trump, was not hit. I’m simply trying to make here a point about Providence, our view of God’s providence, we often focus on the things that that happen. Makes sense with things that are done. We often don’t focus on the things that are left undone, or the evil that God restrains, that we never see, that we never think about. And I just think about that moment and wonder what would have happened if he had been hit, if we had watched that happen effectively on live television, especially now that he was elected president in a fairly decisive way. You know, what are the what are the historical implications of that moment? But the other thing about God’s providence is that you don’t necessarily understand what the significance of an of a specific event is in that moment. So we can know in that moment that probably there was great, great evil and violence. I mean, first of all, just the just the murder of Donald Trump, that was an evil that was prevented. But how much more unrest, violence, retribution, and perhaps even worse, could have unfolded, especially with that lapse in the Secret Service. But yet we don’t really know how this is all going to play out. We don’t know what the full implications are now, of course, that he is going to be president again. We don’t know where that’s going to go. What are what are we going to look back on in 1015, 2040, whatever years? Or will we even be able to know that in our lifetimes? That’s really just a question of Providence and the strange ways that God works, and ultimately the mystery of God’s plan. And any of us who have a sense that this is exactly what God is doing, or especially that God is going to do, we have a lot of evidence, not only from from the world, but also from our scripture, to know that we can’t really be sure about a lot, except that Christ is coming again. He’s coming again soon. That’s right. We don’t know exactly what that soon means. With the Lord, it could be 1000 years and beyond, but with Jesus coming back, he’s coming back soon. That’s what we know. The rest of it is pretty mysterious to us. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. And, and I’m so thankful, I mean, with us not being in charge of the universe like because it does lead to these questions, why was this attempt the Lord restra, you know, just inches off, and yet, you have other, other situations you know, where presidents have been murdered, and even people running for office have been murdered. And it, it didn’t go that way. And you can spend your life trying to say, Why, this, why and this, we all know this, why? One person gets cancer and gets healed somehow, through prayers or whatever, and another person doesn’t and and someone

Collin Hansen
else did die on that assassination attempt. It wasn’t Donald Trump, but it was someone else. Yeah, so, I mean, that’s not like something you can also celebrate in there because a husband and father was murdered exactly moment, and you’re exactly right once you I think one. So this is theologically, again, this is really where we where we go to the book of Job. The comforters those miserable friends. They start out fine. They don’t say anything, they don’t pretend to know exactly what’s going on, but as it goes on, they want comfort to know that it’s not going to happen to them. And therefore, there must be a reason that job is in this situation. And of course, there isn’t that they can understand, or that job can understand is according to God’s mysterious providence in that so, yeah, we love, we would love to have answers. Why did this happen? What does it mean? And the Lord says, I have my purposes. Some of them are known to you. Most of them are not. That’s

Melissa Kruger
right, or we did something enough so that he, he did this and where it says, you know, I mean, before one of my days came to be, you know them completely. Yeah, he knows the beginning from the end. And I find that, I’ll be honest, such a place to rest my head. Somebody said you can rest your head on the pillow of God’s sovereignty. I can’t remember who said that. And I’m like, That’s a beautiful place to rest at night. Because if I’m in control of the universe, goodness, I’m a stressed out basket case. You know, with with life, I mean, I’ve got a child applying to colleges. If I think I’m in control of that process, it’s just gonna, you know, it’s going to lead to anxiety, fear and all of the things, whereas truly knowing that the Lord reigns, I always remember John Piper. He gave a gave a talk at one of our conferences. Was 2012 extras the first women’s conference. It was on Isaiah six, and he juxtaposed in the year King Hezekiah died, I saw the Lord seated on his throne, and it was this picture of one is dead, this ruler is dead, but God reigns. And so it’s this great confidence we have, no matter what what does happen in the world, God is always on his throne, and he is reigning over all the things, and we can praise Him in all things because of that. So that’s, that’s the that’s the good news of every year when we end it, that he is reigning and he is alive, coming into 2025 Well, in this past year, you’ve interviewed 24 people. Were there any interviews that stood out to you this year? And do you have any upcoming that you can tell us about?

Collin Hansen
Sure. So we mentioned one, Nancy pearcey, that interview stood out to me, and there was a clip that we took from that. In the end, she’s talking about the influence of Andrew Tate, who, if you don’t know who he is, you can count yourself lucky, essentially a misogynist, but has a massive following among young people and Gen Z in particular, men. And she said that she had was just shocked to find out that all of these boys in a classical Christian School were really interested in Andrew Tate. And I was like, whoa, okay, that was one of those windows into something happening that I didn’t know about, a discouraging window, but one that’s just helpful to know about in terms of how we Shepherd younger generations and what they’re taking interest in, and what they’re worried about and where they’re looking for those answers. But my interview with David Brooks was, was a really special I think I know, I think you read his book this year. Did

Melissa Kruger
you know a person? Yeah, that was so good. It was really good, very,

Collin Hansen
very good book. I just love people who are helping us to attend to the basic things of life about how to how to take an interest in other people, and how to be a good friend and a good neighbor. I mean, what a what a good thing to devote your attention toward. But then also, our friend Bob Doll did an interview with him, just learning about his history with within investment banking as as his vocation, and how he lost his job for being a Christian, but then also how he and his wife go about their philanthropy, about how they support other ministries, and their plan to die broke. Boy, it was really an inspirational interview, just learning from him and he’s just been such a good friend and a good supporter over the years, but you know, we’ll, we’ll start back up Melissa with gospel bound in February. Lord willing and pretty excited about where we’re going to be starting heading into the new year. We’ve got, we’ve got Ross Douthat coming back once again, a book being published by Zondervan called believe. It’s kind of an it’s a direct apologetic appeal to faith. We haven’t seen that from Ross before, so it’ll be an interesting conversation with him. We’ll follow that up by talking to Nicholas Carr. A lot of people will know him from his writing about the bad influences of media. Is Google making us stupid things like that. We’ll talk. About media criticism, and then we’ll come back talking with Kevin DeYoung about his book daily doctrine, which has been a great read and very popular out there. But it’ll be Kevin’s first time. A lot of people know Kevin and I are good friends, and I appear regularly on his life and books and everything podcast, but it’ll be his first time on gospel bound. So that’s something to look forward to the new

Melissa Kruger
year. I didn’t know that. Yeah, he just won that book. Just wanted to know, was it with us award, or was it Christine?

Collin Hansen
Yes, that was our popular theology book award. Sorry, sorry for

Melissa Kruger
me not remembering that that was from us.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, you probably won other awards too. I mean, it deserves awards, but it definitely won our popular theology category. That’s

Melissa Kruger
great. I do remember when you were just talking about that Nancy pearcey interview. I remember she said almost the worst men were the kind of religious but didn’t attend church, yes, but the best men were the men who had to, yeah. I mean, just the the family men, the the wife is happy, yeah, like just societal men who are when I say best men, that’s kind of what I’m trying to get at. Were men who go to church every week. That was the deciding factor, not whether they claim to be a Christian or not, but whether or not they went to church. And I thought that was just really profound, too. That’s a

Collin Hansen
study that goes back from Brad Wilcox the University of Virginia, goes back about 20 years. That was the first time I ever saw the phrase a nominal evangelical. I thought, what the world is a nominal Evangelical, that’s a total contradiction of terms. But the point was somebody who had a loose connection or affiliation with an Evangelical Church, perhaps having been baptized or confirmed or something like that, but who does not participate in it. They tend to have the highest rates of spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, things like that. So very eye opening that none of but then encouraging on the flip side, as you said right there, which is that the practice of faith has wonderfully positive results for everybody. Everybody’s blessed, and that’s what we would expect biblically,

Melissa Kruger
yeah, yeah, that’s right. So it’s like encouraging the word is on the rise, 22% increase. We pray that that would also be coordinated with church attendance. I’m not sure you know what that is, but these things really matter. And over all of it, as we pray for the Spirit to be at work, we can go into 2025 hopeful, because, because of those things. Well, every year we do have, which I just mentioned, we have end of the year book awards, which, thank you Spence, even though I can’t remember the different ones that I’ve read and we have. We often share, as editors, different books that we’ve read and enjoyed personally, which Ivan is always spearheading. So we’re thankful for that. But is there a book you’ve read this year that has really, you know, caused you to ruminate and think a lot? I know you’re always thinking. So you know,

Collin Hansen
for better or worse is true. When Ivan was putting this together, and Spence is helping him, has as well bring it bring it back. Spends our book review editor Andrew Spencer, but as he was bringing this back, Ivan said somebody has to make sure to mention the anxious generation by Jonathan Knight. And my point was so many of us could have cited that book with great appreciation in 2024 but I think it’s a really good pairing with your book, of course, from 2024 parenting with hope. It’s really the the flip side of what we of why we need your message, Melissa, of what we can do. So the anxious generation. Jonathan Knight diagnoses the problem society wide, and he’s really focused on governments and schools. That’s his primary focus, especially with attention to the the influence and the negative influence of smartphones and we have, there has been a massive political response triggered by this book. So it’s a it’s incredible deal in 2024 entire, entire states like California, Virginia, Arkansas, banning smartphone use, things like that, and seeing really positive results. But as a flip side, Melissa of your book, parenting with hope of of what, of the positive ways that we can bless these generations. So those are the two that I would mention from this last year.

Melissa Kruger
Now that book was so good, and because what I would say, I think that’s a really, I love how you actually put it there. Because what I would say is, cell phones are presenting problem, yeah, but if we don’t fill with something better, it’ll just be a new presenting problem. So you’re exactly right. What I’m trying to say is we actually, as the church and as God’s people, have something so good to give to our kids, and we should never, never minimize that. You know? I mean, we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. We actually have life and life to the full to offer. Offer them, and the world is always going to be, it’s always going to be shown to be lesser, and so we can take, take good heart. I read a lot of fiction this

Collin Hansen
year. I need, I need, I need more book recommendations. Yeah, I don’t have enough fiction

Melissa Kruger
because I can’t think this year I had a wedding to plan. I had conference to plan. All my books coming out. I was like, this year, I realized when I when you asked me this, when we were talking about I was like, oh, did I read anything of thought? And I was like, I didn’t have any space for it. I did, yeah, I did read how to know a person. I thought that was, that was great. But I’ll say probably the book that has stuck with me, Faith wise, the most was the watchmakers daughter. I’ve obviously read about Corey Tim Boone before. I read the hiding place, which was her telling of it. But this one, this is a new book that came out this year. I really enjoyed it, and I had read the author. I didn’t realize it till at the very end. I had read him. He had written about a female spy in World War Two, a spy named Liesel? I think that is that could be wrong. But I had read him before. This biographer about her, she was, I think she was a secular, I don’t think she was a Christian. And so it was interesting to read him in a similar time period talking about Corey Tim Boone, and it was just really encouraging and convicting. I am very I’m probably most convicted by biographies, and I thought it was just an excellent encouragement

Collin Hansen
in the family, code name lease or Lisa. That

Melissa Kruger
was it. That was it. He wrote that one as well. And so he really writes it as a biographer and someone who’s written, you know, multiple other ones in that same time period. And I thought it was really, really well done. And I’m always encouraged to again what dark times those must have been truly, truly evil was abounding and expanding everywhere. And then yet there were lights like the 10 bin family. And it was really interesting. I told you this, we were talking about one day to see the generational effects. It was started really with her grandfather. He started praying for the peace of Jerusalem. He had seen it in Scripture, and this was way before any any anti semitic behavior was rising in Europe at this time. And he had really had his family praying for these things generations before, and to see the effects that that had, that they could stand strong in their own lives. It was really encouraging to see, yeah, so there’s and then just tons of fiction, you know, all these things. I’m trying to think which one I really would recommend. I did, like anxious people, but have you read that one?

Collin Hansen
I’ve read other things from this author, but okay, that was a good one,

Melissa Kruger
and the Dutch house was really good too. I can’t remember who the author was. That one was interesting as well, but that’s

Collin Hansen
the one that’s read by Tom Hanks. An audiobook isn’t, oh,

Melissa Kruger
I don’t even know, huh? And I told you about we were the lucky ones, so that one’s a big recommendation. This one’s been made into a mini series. I had actually read it before. It was, it was, it’s about a Polish family during World War Two, and what happened to the family. And it’s really, really, really amazing and well done. It’s based on a true story written by the granddaughter of one of the family members, but she adds things to it. So it’s not considered non fiction, but it’s it’s really well done.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, well, I hope you have a little bit more space for some thinking this next year, but maybe not, because we have the gospel coalition 2025 conference coming up in April. I wondered, Melissa, if you could tell us a little bit about that event that takes up a lot of your wonderful, wonderful time. What are you excited about in particular?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, well, providentially, this is kind of amazing. I we’re, we’re studying the book of Ephesians. And in my Bob, on the year plan, whatever Today’s date is, I just finished Ephesians today. So I love, I love when the Lord does that. So I’m super excited, really, about that book and getting to study it together. And just even today, you know, one, one Lord, one baptism, one hope. I mean, just the unity that should be ours in Christ, which is so much greater than kind of the squabbles that can divide us, but that we really are alive together, because we’re all rooted in Christ and what he’s done for us, and so that focus on what Christ has done for us and how that affects every area of our life, and that’s what I can’t wait to Just study God’s Word together. It’s just always a joy to be together with other, yeah, 1000s and 1000s of other people hearing these truths and singing these truths together. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. But what about you? Anything going on in the upcoming year that you’re excited about?

Collin Hansen
I’m not working on anything, Melissa, I’m just gonna. Hang

Melissa Kruger
out the year. Colin just decides to take it easy.

Collin Hansen
I just want to read fiction. The previous episode of gospel bound, she got great feedback on is the one where I’m reading fiction. So, oh yeah, I’m a little

Melissa Kruger
bit upset that I was invited to that discussion, but that’s okay. We’ll just let Kendra

Collin Hansen
it might it might be because of some of your frustration with some of my recommendations.

Melissa Kruger
You’re like i You always need to check a page number account before you order a call. And handsome fiction recommendation, they might be 800 pages. You never know. You think you’re gonna have a nice light beach read, and they bring 800 pages in? Yeah,

Collin Hansen
that might be part of the problem. We’ll do another episode. We’ll come back and we’ll do another episode on fiction, you know. So I am excited about the 2025, national conference. Love for people to sign up and see us there. I’ll be doing number of different things, but I’m doing a session with my colleagues here at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, will be there in Indianapolis for the TGC conference, doing a session on three different effective pastoral apologists. So Doug Sweeney is like the expert on Jonathan Edwards. He’s our Dean here at Beeson, Josh our Billy Graham Chair of evangelism. His office is just behind me here. Uh, he’ll be doing one on Augustine, and I’ll be talking about Tim Keller on apologetics. So really excited for that. But then I’m also going to be doing a couple different sessions. One on on social media, actually, that you helped to arrange there, Melissa. And then I’m going to be doing another session on a new book that I have coming out that’s just in a couple months, or that’s just in in February or so. It’s a short book. It’s part of TGC hard questions series. We’re trying to get it ahead of of Good Friday and Easter. My book is called, Where is God in a world with so much evil? And essentially it is what it is, but it’s looking as it’s titled, but it’s specifically looking at the moral questions that arise and really challenge our faith coming out of the Holocaust. So it’s engaging with Eloise else work in particular. And how can you really believe in a God when He allow would allow something like the Holocaust to happen? So got that coming out in February should provoke some interesting discussion. Also have a chapter on preaching in our new TGC crossway book, scrolling ourselves to death. That’s an homage to Neil Postman amusing ourselves to death. And so I’m writing about the, especially the changes that have come with the internet the last 25 years, and how that affects preaching. That’ll also be out in April for our national conference. And then this is very, especially exciting. Yeah, every year I think I don’t have that much going on. And then I realized, yeah, we’ve got three books coming out next year. I wrote, I edited, wrote the introduction and conclusion to our first ever book from the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, written by our fellows. And the book is called The Gospel after Christendom, an introduction to cultural apologetics that’s coming out in in September, and also pretty excited. Melissa, you can correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think our cultural apologetics 101 session is one of the most popular at TGC, 25 so very exciting. Yeah.

Melissa Kruger
Oh, it is. No, you’re exactly right. I was thinking. I was thinking cohort. I was like, Oh, I don’t know, but yes, you’re exactly right. And it’s just, I think it’s so encouraging to see those centers grow and what they’re doing. And I’ve kind of gotten to have an inside view, because, yeah, I’m involved with it from the gospel coalition, but my husband’s involved with it from being a Fellow, and getting to see the discussions that take place are pretty amazing, and how, how it really does trickle down into books like this, that, yeah, but they’re there. It’s like this thought, little think tank that’s happening that then can translate into books like this, that can, can really help in so many ways. It’s encouraging. It’s encouraging. What are

Collin Hansen
you working on? Melissa, you know,

Melissa Kruger
because my brain doesn’t work anymore. I’m although, I should say maybe it’s just working in a different way. I’ve got a kids book coming out next year that I’m super excited about. Actually, I’m working on. I have a kids book that will not come out until, I guess, 2026 but it’s a little bit on the problem of evil. What and how did how to discuss that with your five year old. When Emma was about five or six, she was riding her bike. She fell off, and we’ve been talking about how, you know, God’s all powerful. He’s all good, and he can protect you. God can do anything. And so she looks at me after she falls off her bike, she skins her knees. She’s got tears in her eye. Eyes, and she says, Why didn’t God protect me? It really is this question of the problem of evil for a mom with a six year old, you know, at 3pm on a Friday afternoon, and you’re thinking, huh, motherhood requires theologian hood this

Collin Hansen
theologian hoodness

Melissa Kruger
new work we can do that because my brain doesn’t work anymore, but, but how do we? How do we help a child understand the providence of God married with the goodness of God? How do we? How do we wrestle with those things? And I love, I love taking deep theological things like that, and how do we explain it to a child? Because I think that’s when I know I really understand it.

Collin Hansen
Moms are the most important theologians in their children, young children’s lives. And I mentioned Augustine earlier. We think about his mother, Monica, especially in her role in his life. So absolutely moms are theologians. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. It’s a wonderful, wonderful role, wonderful school room to get to have. And so, any other last things to discuss before we end up the year? Colin,

Collin Hansen
well, I actually I’ve got a little bit of a something that I was not planning to do so just kind of developed during our podcast, and I want to draw a little bit of attention. You’re going to be surprised by this, and I’m going to see emotionally, if I can get through this. Okay, so a lot of people know that we, we’ve launched the Carson center for theological renewal at the gospel coalition, and that’s a tribute, of course, and carrying on the legacy of our of our first president, long time president and and co founder, Don Carson. We lost Tim Keller, their co founder last year. And the Carson center, we often it’s it’s hard to explain all the different things that that the Lord is doing through the gospel coalition. But one of Don’s long term visions was to create an entire free digital library of biblical and theological resources from the world’s best scholars and teachers and by God’s grace, in recent years, we’ve taken huge steps in that direction. 266 essays on biblical and systematic theology, 450 courses you can take for free, a whole Bible Commentary. I was just using that this week, Melissa, because I’m writing a sermon on Jeremiah one I’ll be preaching after Christmas. 143 themelios journals, if not the one of the most widely circulated academic journals of theology and biblical studies in the world, more than 6000 sermons, a compilation of the best commentaries for every level on every book of the Bible, whether you’re studying it yourself with no background languages, you’re teaching a Bible study, or you’re a scholar, we help you with all of those. And so I just want people to know that when they support TGC, when they make a financial contribution, you’re helping to make those resources available for free to Christians, especially around the world, who need them. But what I was not expecting to do here is that we just got a message from Don’s wife joy. Well, I’m definitely not going to make it in this part emotionally. So not people may know. I mean, Don, Don hired me at the gospel coalition in 2010 I’ve been a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, so we’ve worked together and known each other for for a long time, and we just got permission from joy to make an announcement. Don had actually shared this recently in their family Christmas letter. I’m just going to go ahead and read it here from from Don. He says, As for me, I am slowing down at the beginning of the year. I was still speaking now and then, here and there, but I’m now forced to put such responsibilities aside. The physical limitations arising from my Parkinson’s disease slow me down, but the cognitive limitations constitute a more serious impediment. A few weeks ago, for several minutes, I tried to convince my neurologist that we were living in 2008 I could not remember the name of the first President of the United States. United States, he says in parentheses here, I thought of offering to provide the name of the first Prime Minister of Canada, which I could remember, but I doubt the neurologist would have been impressed. Said. I am still serving on the elders board of our church, but no longer in any public capacity. At the end of November, I attended what will probably turn out to be my last conference of the Evangelical Theological Society. It is time to get rid of my books, tools and other accouterments, so that joy is not left to clean up my mess. In any case, I am not suffering from anything that. A good general resurrection can’t fix. So, yeah, that’s an announcement there from from Don, and, of course, very significant and in a ministry and a life well lived. So we hope we’ll continue to have Don as our as our friend and companion for for years to come, but as far as we know, his ministry has concluded. And what a ministry It was, yeah, so. And what hope, yeah, and what hope for all of us, that general resurrection to come.

Melissa Kruger
Colin, you can’t do that. Sorry. Thank you for reading that. Thank you for sharing it.

Collin Hansen
Goodness. So yeah, I didn’t expect to go that direction, but I do want to just conclude here and say thanks to everybody who supports us in so many different ways. Your your words of encouragement, your your questions, your your comments, your commendation of the podcasts that we, that we do. I know Melissa that the influence of Let’s Talk continues to spread around, around the world, and people are going to get to see maybe we’ll save that announcement for another time, but a special, special new podcast coming from you, something to look forward to in 2025 but just wanted to say thank you when you when you guys give a one time gift, or support us $25 a month, or whatever you can Do, it makes it possible for us to do this. It makes it possible for us to to try to encourage and to build up the church, and it helps us to carry on Don Carson’s legacy through the Carson center, and to fulfill that vision for making these biblical and theological resources available for free to the whole world, to those church leaders in East Africa that we’ve talked about and everywhere else who don’t have the access. I should have mentioned this earlier Melissa as well, but we made an appeal this year for help for the first ever theological library in Africa, in southern Africa, we asked our readers, people who follow the gospel Coalition for 30,000 books in two shipping containers, and we can now report that they in the process of receiving and processing 50,000 books. It was not just our readers, but many others who joined in that process. But I remember thinking, Melissa, if our readers, if the people who love the gospel coalition, what we’re doing, if they care about anything, they would care about this supporting building a theological library so that other church leaders might benefit around the world. So I just want to say thank you, and I think probably that’s a way to just kind of close, close out and wish everybody a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and look forward to joining you again next year. Wherever you’re listening to to this podcast.