Ep. 17 | Interview with Jeff Mateer | To Kill a Mockingbird
This month marks the 65th anniversary of the original publication of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. On this episode, First Liberty’s Chief Legal Officer Jeff Mateer joins Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of the CRCD, to discuss the book's important themes, lessons, and inspiration, as well as its impact on Jeff personally. Recent Publications:Adam MacLeod, “A Charity Case,” Law & Liberty Trey Dimsdale, “Fight for the First Amendment,” Religion & Liberty Online Hunter Baker, “A collision of American lives,” WORLD Opinions Upcoming Events:Shaftesbury Fellowship (May 19-July 25, 2025)FLI Educational Tour: Boston (July 3-7, 2025)Religious Liberty in the States 2025 Launch (July 14, 2025)
--------
45:11
Ep. 16 | Interview with Dr. Stephen Presley | Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church
In this episode, we engage with Dr. Stephen Presley’s Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church: Recovering an Ancient Vision. Dr. Presley is director of education and engagement as well as senior fellow for religion & public life at the CRCD. He is also professor of church history at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his latest book serves as a kind of prequel to his earlier book, Cultural Sanctification, which was featured in the April 2024 edition of the Reading Wheel Review. This week, Dr. Presley joins CRCD executive director Dr. Jordan Ballor to talk about the role of Scripture in the early church, and how the Bible shaped the Christian life in the ancient world. There is much that separates us from the world of the church fathers, but Dr. Presley argues that there is much that we can learn from an approach to the Bible that views it as the life-giving, authoritative word of God that shapes our lives in service of God.
--------
44:11
Ep. 15 | Interview with John D. Wilsey | Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer
In this month’s episode of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. John D. Wilsey, a senior fellow at the CRCD and professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sits down with the CRCD’s director of research Dr. Jordan Ballor to discuss some of the key features of his recent book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. Conservatism is a contested perspective these days, and one that is often contrasted with liberalism. But as we will learn throughout the course of this discussion, understanding the right relationship between order and liberty is essential to defending a truly principled conservatism and religious freedom. Dr. John Wilsey’s primer is a worthwhile starting point for this endeavor.
--------
45:15
Ep. 14 | Interview with Gerald McDermott | Deep Anglicanism: A Brief Guide
In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Gerald McDermott about his book, Deep Anglicanism: A Brief Guide.
--------
1:04:18
Ep. 13 | Interview with Bryan T. McGraw, Jesse Covington, and Micah J. Watson | Hopeful Realism
In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Bryan T. McGraw, Jesse Covington, and Micah J. Watson about their book, Hopeful Realism: Evangelical Natural Law and Democratic Politics.
Physical books are at once a conduit for conveying complex and well-developed ideas and an artifact of the time and place from which they come. While digital media has its place in social discourse, the book is an enduring piece of technology that has been one of the primary vehicles for shaping civilization. The Reading Wheel Review is an initiative designed to anchor sustained attention to books that truly matter, and to shape a substantive dialogue around them.
UK