Listening In

Michael Matheson Miller is Director and Producer of Poverty, Inc., a movie that explains how current systems of dealing with extreme poverty around the world are flawed, and proposes new models that are both effective and sustainable.Miller was also the director and host of the Acton Institute's PovertyCure DVD series, a series that also featured WORLD's Marvin Olasky, among others. The popular PovertyCure series also dealt with the root causes and cure for extreme poverty, highlighting approaches that actually work. PovertyCure and Poverty Inc. are projects of The Acton Institute, non-profit research organization dedicated to the study of free-market economics informed by religious faith and moral absolutes.

Mark Hendrickson is one of the nation's leading advocates of what is sometimes called the Austrian School of Economics ' a brand of economics that advocates limited government and free markets. He has taught at Grove City College since 2004. He is also a Fellow for Economic and Social Policy with The Center for Vision and Values.

Erick Erickson is fast becoming one of the best known conservative voices in the country. He is the co-founder and former editor of RedState, one of the most widely read center-right sites on the Internet. After selling RedState, he founded a new political blog called The Resurgent. He also hosts the most listened to radio talk show in Atlanta, and is a frequent guest host of Rush Limbaugh.Erick Erickson's new book is You Will Be Made To Care: The War on Faith, Family, and Your Freedom To Believe, which he co-wrote with Bill Blanckschaen.

Deb and Ron DeArmond were married more than 40 years before they decided to write a book about marriage. They waited so long in part because it took them more years than it should have ' by their own admission ' to learn some of the lessons in their new book 'Don't Go To Bed Angry: Stay Up and Fight.'The book says that the problem in marriage is not conflict, but how we deal with conflict. In a fallen world, they say, conflict is inevitable. But conflict doesn't have to lead to destruction. It can lead to discovery, greater insight into our spouses's thoughts, feelings and perspective. Ron DeArmond is a pastor, and Deb DeArmond is a writer, trainer, and consultant.

Kathy Koch believes all children, indeed all people, are smart but we're not all smart in the same way. She says the tools we use to measure intelligence, such as IQ tests, are fine for helping us to identify a particular kind of intelligence, but miss the vast majority of ways that we humans learn, process information, and create.Her latest book is 'Eight Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child's Intelligences.' Kathy Koch is also the founder and president of Celebrate Kids, a Ft. Worth-based ministry that helps parents, educators, and children learn and grow.

Mindy Belz is currently senior editor for WORLD News Group, in charge of international coverage for the magazine and related digital and audio platforms. But for a decade she was editor of WORLD Magazine, and she has played a vital role with WORLD since it was founded nearly 30 years ago. She also has a new book called 'They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East,' which is the story of everyday Christians in the Middle East, who have been thrust into the role of heroes and martyrs.

Samuel W. Oliver, known to friends and colleagues as Dub Oliver, has been a steadily rising start in the world of Christian higher education for the past 20 years. He is a native of Texas and spent more than a decade in various roles at his alma mater Baylor University before being tapped as president of East Texas State University. He took over the presidency there in 2009, and after a successful five years there, Oliver became president of Union University in 2014.

Mark Galli is the editor of Christianity Today, Abdu Murray is North American Director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, and Dr. Jason Peters serves as Associate Vice President of Connection for the Christian ministry Voice of the Martyrs. Warren Smith talks with them about the state of modern journalism, Islam, and Christian persecution.

Religious liberty has always been a lynchpin of American life. It is one of the freedoms codified in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and many legal scholars say it is the freedom upon which all the other freedoms depend.But until recently, religious liberty has been taken for granted by most religious conservatives. That attitude changed with the Obergefell Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. This decision, along with a myriad of state and local ordinances regarding sexual orientation and gender identity have elevated religious liberty in the consciousness and on the political agenda of those on both the left and the right.Warren Smith speaks with college professor turned political candidate Hunter Baker, writer and religious liberty advocate Ryan Anderson, and Becket Fund for Religious Liberty President Bill Mumma about the topic of religious liberty.

Annie Dupree is the lead singer of the Annie Moses Band. The Annie Moses Band has been tough for the music industry to label. It's made up of six brothers and sisters, so it's a family band. They're all classically educated and have top-drawer playing ability, so the classical label sometimes fits. The members of the band are Christians, and often play Christian events and in churches, so some people have called them a contemporary Christian group, though they record on a secular label and almost none of their music has ever been played on Christian radio. In fact, even though they do a lot of original music, they're perhaps best known for their versions of what some call the American Songbook: Americana, jazz, and pop standards.

Leadership is a word so often used in both secular and Christian settings that it has become almost emptied of its meaning. And leadership in practice is often abused in public life. We see true leadership so rarely that we often mistake demagoguery for leadership, or self-aggrandizement and self-promotion for leadership, or bullying for leadership.Alan Crippen has thought deeply about leadership in a Christian context, and he has worked over the past 20-plus years to mold young people into leaders as founder and president of the John Jay Institute, based in Philadelphia.

Christian apologist Larry Alex Taunton struck up an unlikely friendship with atheist Christopher Hitchens in the last years of Hitchens' life. Those close to Hitchens say he valued friendship, and he ' to use Hitchens' own phrase ' kept two sets of books regarding his life: one for public consumption and the other for those close to him. Taunton debated Hitchens, studied scripture with Hitchens, and even went on two road trips with Hitchens. Taunton's new book, 'The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist,' is a moving account of Hitchens and their friendship.

Three conversations with Christian apologist Mark Mittelberg, poetic cultural prophet Rod Dreher, and pollster George Barna.

Anne Graham Lotz comes from one of the most famous families in the evangelical church. She is the daughter of Billy Graham, who once called her the 'best preacher in the family.' She sits on the board of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, where her brother Franklin is president. But she also has a thriving ministry of her own. AnGeL Ministries, based in Raleigh, NC, is her ministry base, from which she has written more than 15 books and traveled the world.While her life has been full of successes, it has also had its share of heartbreak ' including recently the death of her husband Danny Lotz, a dentist and an active layman. Her latest book is The Daniel Prayer, Prayer that Moves Heaven and Changes Nations, a book published this month to correspond with the National Day of Prayer, an effort she serves as the honorary chair.

Audrey Assad is a singer-songwriter who is blazing her own trail in the world of contemporary Christian music. After years of grinding it out in churches and small venues, she became a background vocalist with worship leader Matt Maher, touring the country with his band for three years and also co-writing songs with him. She released her debut album in 2010, a second in 2012, and released an independent album in 2013. She has just released her fourth album this year, and it has taken the Christian music world by storm.