Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Dr. Donald Fairbairn, professor of Early Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the academic dean of the Charlotte campus and author or translator of seven books. His book Life in the Trinity has had a great impact on Hank, and Hank has no doubt that everyone will take something valuable away from their conversation this week. Topics discussed include: the relationship between the Father and the Son as explained in Fairbairn's book Life in the Trinity (2:00); how the evangelical Fairbairn's travels around the world correlate to his interest and study of Eastern Orthodoxy (3:30); deification and Theosis as foreign concepts for many in the West (9:00); the ways Dr. Fairbairn believes his work in ministry has grown directly from his deafness (11:00); the fundamental relationship involved in salvation and how the focus can all too often be on the means to salvation as opposed to the meaning of it (15:00); the role that doctrines play in the Christian faith (18:00); the danger of making the Christian faith transactional in nature as opposed to transformational (24:00); the importance of the early church fathers (26:30); the Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist as concepts that we can apprehend, not comprehend (30:30); the problem when academic arrogance creeps into theology (34:00); what happens to society when we place humanity, rather than God, at the top of the order (36:30); the Lord's high priestly prayer exemplifying the relationship between Father and Son in the Trinity (43:00); how Fairbairn used Star Wars to explain the premise of his book Life in the Trinity for the Christian Research Journal (47:30); is it possible to achieve unity throughout the branches of the "family tree" of the Christian faith? (51:30); ecclesia and the importance of being part of a church body (54:00); unpacking the idea of deification (57:30); and what drives Dr. Fairbairn to make a difference every day (1:02:30).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by veteran journalist Mindy Belz, senior editor of WORLD magazine and the author of the book They Say We Are Infidels. Belz is a journalist who has risked her life to go behind enemy lines, and her unique perspective on global issues from an informed, Christian perspective is invaluable to us all. Topics discussed include: Belz's unique role as a female journalist going behind enemy lines in dangerous Islamic countries (2:30); Belz's perspective on how the Trump administration is handling the inevitable crisis with North Korea (6:00); the courage that the gospel provides us to feel peace in the face of danger (14:00); bias concerning perception of Christian persecution as opposed to Islamic protectionism (18:00); wearing the "noon" symbol used to represent Nazarene as a statement of solidarity with Christians persecuted in the Middle East (25:00); what Belz learned from worshiping with Eastern Christians in Iraq (29:30); when the United States should help police the world and how it would be most effective (34:30); can Sharia law and democracy coexist? (40:00); the vacuum secularism is leaving in the West and how Islam is prepared to fill it (48:00); how increased diversity can revitalize the Christian church (51:30); the gospel as the source of Mindy's optimism (56:00); the three-pronged fork in the road of apostasy, apathy, and radicalization that Nabeel Qureshi faced as a Muslim and the example he became as he found the power of Christ (59:30).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged for the second time by Middle East expert Raymond Ibrahim to continue their discussion on the importance of being educated about the truth of Islam. There is no doubt that we are in a clash of civilizations and it's vital for Christians to know the truth about the world's fastest-growing religion. Topics discussed include: is ISIS merely a sign of Islamic history repeating itself? (1:30); a priori conclusions about Islam based on wishful thinking (11:00); the current condition of the Islamic State (17:00); how the Protestant Reformation helped Islam grow in size and perception (24:00); how the academic issue of publish-or-perish propagates false history of Islam (31:00); the reason that liberals tend to embrace Islam and oppose Christianity (36:00); the unwavering continuity of Islam (40:30); the West self-destructing from within (51:00); the issue of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia practicing the ISIS version of literal Islam (53:30); the irony of calls for Islamic reformation (57:00); why focusing on ISIS alone is missing the real problem (1:02:30); will terrorist attacks continue to escalate? (1:05:00); the hypocrisy of politicians like Hillary Clinton consistently supporting Saudi Arabia (1:08:30); the robust Christian message necessary for migrant Muslims to find Christ (1:16:30); the tribal nature of Islamic culture (1:21:00); the mass genocide of Christians in the East depicted in Ibrahim's book Crucified Again (1:25:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Andreas Knapp, author of The Last Christians: Stories of Persecution, Flight and Resilience in the Middle East. Andreas Knapp left a position as head of Freiburg Seminary to live and work among the poor as a member of the Little Brothers of the Gospel and ministers to prisoners and refugees. His latest book, The Last Christians, recounts the stories of refugees in his neighborhood and of displaced people in camps in Kurdistan, northern Iraq. This is a powerful conversation that you won't want to miss. Topics discussed include: Knapp explains what the Little Brothers of the Gospel society is (3:00); why Knapp left his post as the head of a seminary to live on the margins of society amongst the poor (5:30); Germany's transition away from Christianity and the need for Christians to stop fighting one another and to unite around the essentials (11:00); how Western Christianity often neglects to understand Eastern Christianity (16:30); the strength of witness when we live our lives like Christ (20:00); the Christian refugees in Germany that inspired Knapp and brought him to the Middle East (26:30); why Knapp titled his book The Last Christians (30:30); the political roots of Islam preclude true democratic development in Islamic countries (35:00); the danger of placing ideology above common humanity (45:30); the use of the fourteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet as a sign of solidarity with Christians suffering persecution (49:00); the problem of Islamic migration without assimilation in the West (51:00); the two competing movements in Turkey today (57:30); the difference between martyrdom in Christianity and Islam (1:01:00); why Knapp wrote The Last Christians (1:05:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Mary Eberstadt, author of It's Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies. Her writing has appeared in TIME, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, First Things, and The Weekly Standard, and in March 2017, she was named Senior Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute. They discuss the secularist religion birthed by the Sexual Revolution and how it helped yesterday's sinners become today's secular saints. Topics discussed include: the secularist religion birthed by the Sexual Revolution (3:00); Christians being labeled as bigots and a damaging decrease of dialogue in society (9:30); the social experiments of the Sexual Revolution (13:00); what inspired Mary to do the work she is doing? (16:00); the new hypereugenics movement and Margaret Sanger as a secular saint (20:30); the growing ideological incoherence of many who claim to be Christians (30:00); the anti-Islamophobia motion in Canada and their censorship of Hank with the release of MUSLIM: What You Need to Know About the World's Fastest-Growing Religion (34:00); the demographic crisis in Europe (40:00); the need for Christians to pursue excellence in word and thought in the public arena (46:30); dhimmitude and the death of religious liberty in America (48:30); the Nazarene pin and the Scarlet letter that being a Christian has become in society (52:00); how the Sexual Revolution helped yesterday's sinners become today's secular saints (55:00); Mary's wake-up call to the West (1:01:30).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by the executive director of Levant Ministries, Fares Abraham, to discuss the great opportunity for ministry in the fertile soil of the Levant. Hank has traveled to Bethlehem and spent time with Fares and his family in their homeland of Palestine, and this conversation conveys how the love of Christ can provide strength in the face of intense persecution. Topics discussed include: being a Christian in Palestine today (2:00); The Apocalypse Code and its impact on the Middle East (9:30); the vision of NEXTGEN conferences to use Millennials to impact the Middle East (14:00); the power of the gospel to impact the Levant and Western Civilization (23:00); are all Muslims terrorists? (27:00); distinguishing between Muslims as people and Islam as a religion (30:00); the serious responsibility of Christians to act like Christ (33:00); the gospel in the Levant (38:00); the prejudice of many church pastors against Palestinians (42:00); the importance of sound theology in understanding issues in the Middle East (48:00); Fares says a prayer for the Levant and the body of Christ (59:30).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and the author of New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. He also wrote the foreword to Hank's new book MUSLIM: What You Need to Know About the World's Fastest-Growing Religion. Author of seventeen books and counting, Spencer is one of the foremost experts on Islam, and this conversation covers the many ways that Islam is putting our world in peril. Topics discussed include: the work of Jihad Watch (1:00); the danger of Islamic immigration without assimilation (2:00); the double standard of Islamic blasphemy laws (6:00); the largely defensive nature of the Crusades to counter Islamic aggression (7:30); why Robert has dedicated his life to revealing dangerous truth about Islam (11:30); the denial of free speech when it comes to Islam (17:30); the unlikely alliance between the liberal left and Islam in the West (20:30); Confessions of an Islamophobe (23:00); Robert Spencer's ban from entering the UK for talking about Islam (30:00); what PayPal's ban of Jihad Watch says about free society (36:00); Robert Spencer being poisoned in Iceland (43:00); the truth about the group CAIR (53:00); the distinction between Jesus Christ and Muhammad (56:00); what faith will replace Marxism in China? (55:00); the distinction between Jesus Christ and Muhammad (56:00); Saudi Arabia and the spread of Wahhabism (1:08:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by author, social critic, and longtime friend Os Guinness. Hank has a deep respect for the intellect of Os, and this conversation does little to dissuade the listener of his enormous impact on Christian thinkers. Together they weave through many issues facing the West today while talking about how we should live in a dangerous post-truth world. Topics discussed include: Os explains how a Western culture that continues to cut our Christian roots leaves us with a "cut flower society" (5:30); fear is the predominant global emotion, but Os is optimistic because the gospel says to "have no fear" (9:00); the problem of Christians not thinking and living Christianly (11:30); the danger of a post-truth America spelling the end of freedom (19:30); issues of Christophobia and the importance of not having a victim mentality (23:30); the importance of standing for truth for an audience of One before the Lord (29:00); the unlikely alliance between the liberal left and Islam in the West (39:30); how to respond to the ABC moment we are living in [Anything But Christianity] (48:30); the need for Christians to start thinking and develop a Christian mind (53:00); what faith will replace Marxism in China? (55:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Clay Jones, associate professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University and one of the pre-eminent scholars on the issue of theodicy, answering why God permits evil. This conversation is an exploration into why God allows sin and suffering. Topics discussed include: why does God allow evil? (3:30); why did God let that child die? (5:30); why it's hard to reconcile determinism and theodicy (9:00); why do people want determinism to be true? (14:30); how God uses suffering (19:30); why do bad things happen to good people? (27:00); transgenderism as child abuse (36:00); the Christian Research Journal article "Killing the Canaanites" (42:00); what difference does belief in original sin make? (48:30); why people who think heaven will be boring are wrong (51:00); the importance of making our lives on Earth count (57:30); what does God want our legacy on Earth to be? (1:01:30); finding ways to be useful to God (1:04:30).

This week Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Dr. Benjamin Wiker, a distinguished professor and author of many books. This conversation runs the intellectual gamut as they discuss issues facing our world today such as Islamic persecution of Christians, building our economies around vices, and the need for a deeper discussion on global warming. Topics discussed include: Muslim Persecution of Christians in the Middle East (4:00); Islam, The Reformation and a call for Mere Christianity (8:00); In Defense of Nature--Environmental and Ethical Ecological Systems (15:30); Recycling as a distraction from our consumerist behavior (27:00); The danger of building economies around our vices (35:00); Correlating the empire of waste with the 7 deadly sins (41:00); The addiction driven by hyperpalatability in food, pornography and technology (44:00); Misleading food labels revealing the importance of a local economy (56:00); The need for wider, deeper talk about global warming (1:06:00); Wiker's Book 10 Books that Screwed Up The World revealing how ideas have consequences (1:14:30); Do we live in a meaningful world?(1:18:30).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Carl Amari, producer of the award-winning "Word of Promise" audio Bible. Find out how Carl has produced audio versions of the Bible that enable us to hear and understand the Bible like never before in human history. Topics discussed include: the origins of Carl's interest in classic dramatic radio (5:00); the future of terrestrial radio (11:00); presenting the Bible with A-list actors performing the audio to create a theater for the mind (13:00); the "street cred" Hollywood actors feel when working on a project related to the Bible (18:00); using the Apocrypha to better understand the Bible (24:00); the importance of having different biblical translations (26:00); the usefulness of having a theologian to provide actors with biblical context when recording the Bible (31:00); the evolution of production and consumption in media today (38:30); the free page Carl made for followers of CRI to stream the Word of Promise version of the Gospel of Mark [http://www.wordofgodcri.com] (42:00); will movie theaters soon disappear? (48:00); could audio Bibles help solve problems of biblical illiteracy in the world today? (51:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by New York Times best-selling author Jay Richards. Jay is a true Renaissance man academically, and their conversation exemplifies that as they touch on a wide range of topics such as global warming, gender identity, consensus science, economics, the Eucharist, and much more. Topics discussed include: the right questions to ask about global warming (2:30); does Al Gore really believe his own rhetoric? (9:30); illiberal liberalism on college campuses and the culture at large (12:00); the gender identity movement's war on natural law's of science (17:30); the consequences of going against the cultural narrative as shown by astrophysicist and Intelligent Design advocate Guillermo Gonzalez (23:30); our Earth as "The Privileged Planet" (27:00); taking materialist claims to their logical conclusion (31:00); how to think about celebrity scientists like Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson (38:00); consensus science or group think? (40:00); Millennial views on capitalism and socialism (44:00); Jay's book on "The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got and the West Forgot" called The Hobbit Party (52:30); the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; and the importance of having an eternal perspective (57:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and cohost of the radio show BreakPoint. This is a truly wide-ranging conversation on the major cultural issues of today and how Christians should handle these uniquely modern issues outlined in Stonestreet's new book A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today's World. Topics discussed include: Chuck Colson as a mentor to both (1:30); the false dichotomy of sacred and secular and the pandemic of churches conforming to the culture (9:00); the importance of authority in the church in accordance with Scripture and the ties to church history (17:00); the distinction between cultural waves and undercurrents outlined in Stonestreet's book A Practical Guide to Culture (23:30); the problem of perpetual adolescence and a culture that craves staying young forever (30:00); how information has replaced knowledge in our age, the shifting importance of right from wrong to whether we're nice or mean, and discernment as an antidote (37:00); the transactional nature some churches have taken on as opposed to being transformational (43:30); the influence of materialists like Richard Dawkins on culture and the loss of what it means to be humans made in the Imago Dei (51:30); gender fluidity in contrast to biological reality (56:30); influencing the culture rather than the culture changing us (1:01:00).

This week Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by one of his closest friends and brothers in Christ, Chris Wilde. Hank and Chris became friends as a result of the providential meeting between the local church and the Christian Research Institute that resulted in an extensive primary research project that resulted in the CRI Journal titled "We Were Wrong." Years of research led CRI to amend their position on the local church from one of condemnation to one of commendation, as the group has played a significant role in the transformation of Hank's personal life in addition to the moniker of the ministry. This is an emotional episode of Hank Unplugged that you cannot miss. Topics discussed include: The unlikely origins of their friendship as a result of investigating the Lord's recovery (4:30); The providential meeting between the local churches and the Christian Research Institute and the primary research project that ensued (8:30); The revolutionary impact the Lord's recovery has had on Hank personally as well as the ministry of CRI (18:30); Brief history of Watchman Nee, Witness Lee and their ministries in China and beyond (21:00); A seminal moment in Hank's life that caused the moniker of CRI to change to "Because life and truth matter" (26:30); A moving story of the meeting between Gretchen Passantino and a Christian Chinese man who suffered immense persecution as a result of her writings for CRI in the 70's (33:00); The significance of the local church edition of the CRI Journal entitled We Were Wrong (42:00); The continued damage that misinformation does to the Local Church (53:00); Chris's transformational testimony (59:30); The immense value of the Local Church to the body of Christ (1:07:00).

This week, Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by Paul Nelson, a PHD in philosophy and a leader in the Intelligent Design movement. At one point in history, it would have been difficult to believe that the mighty Soviet Union would fall, but it did, and Dr. Paul Nelson believes that there are major cracks in the edifice of evolution and that Darwinism is ready for a fall of its own. Topics discussed include: whether or not Darwin would have been able to propose his theory as it were today (5:00); the persuasive effect of presenting arguments with a spirit of love and respect (12:00); the unscientific baggage that advocates of evolution bring to the table as a "theory about us" (17:00); the unhappy consequence of celebrity culture seeping into the sciences with "celebrity scientists" like Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson creating cultural consensus (26:00); the expectation of radical shifts on critical Darwinian concepts such as common descent in the next decade (31:00); the courage of Michael Behe and others who challenge the scientific status quo (39:00); comparing the collapse of the Soviet Union with the eventual collapse of the evolutionary edifice (47:00); the key to earning the right to dissent is becoming the best student of the prevailing view (57:00).