Recovering the Christian Mind

Pastor Mike Elliott is Teaching Pastor at Compass Bible Church in Tustin, California (and Pastor Paul's nephew). He joined Paul on radio to talk about how growing up in a pastor's family and working under Dr. John MacArthur shaped his own ministry as a pastor in southern California.

Originally broadcast on The Paul Edwards Program on WMUZ, Pastor Paul takes us to the Bible to build on what Dr. R. C. Sproul said about marriage: "...if you want to have an excellent marriage, the first thing you have to be prepared to do is to work, and to work hard. Because excellent marriages in this day and age, when almost 50% of marriages in this country dissolve in divorce and a whole lot more are extremely unhappy and provide a miserable atmosphere for the home in general, if you want to transcend the normal in this country, you're going to have to be prepared to work at it, because it doesn't come naturally."

Paul speaks with Christian apologist and popular podcaster Alisa Childers about her new book, "The Deconstruction of Christianity: What it Is, Why It's Destructive, and How to Respond."

In this hour long conversation, Dr. Larry Sanger, Co-Founder of Wikipedia, recounts his testimony of his journey from skeptic to believer in the claims of Christ.

On this episode of Recovering the Christian Mind Paul is joined for an in studio conversation with former Detroit Tigers pitcher Frank Tanana and Chapel Leader of the Detroit Tigers Jeff Totten.

Dr. Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He joined Paul to discuss the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

As a part of our coverage of the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion on demand, we spoke with World Magazine's Life Beat Reporter and co-author of the book, "The Story of Abortion in America."

Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of 180 Church in Detroit was one of several religious leaders invited to offer a benediction at President Donald J. Trump's Second Inaugural on January 22, 2025. Pastor Paul criticized the prayer as "performance art." And then Lorenzo Sewell and he had a heart-to-heart conversation about it.

Pastor Douglas Wilson from Christ Church Moscow, Idaho joined Paul on The Paul Edwards Program to discuss a London Telegraph article touting that young, single men are leaving traditional churches for a more 'masculine" alternative.

Paul is joined by Dr. Matthew Emerson for a discussion of his TGC review of Rhyne R. Putman’s book Conceived by the Holy Spirit: The Virgin Birth in Scripture and Theology. Matt Emerson (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is dean of theology, arts, and humanities at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, as well an executive director of the Center for Baptist Renewal. He’s the author of “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday, winner of a 2019 TGC book award.

Pastor Jeff Johnson is the pastor of Grace Immanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He joined Paul on WMUZ in Detroit to talk about his book, "Taming the Fingers: Heavenly Wisdom for Social Media," published by Reformation Heritage Books (www.heritagebooks.org). While social media has many benefits, it has often served as a breeding ground for divisiveness and hostility. Hidden behind our screens, we are often tempted to type things we would never say aloud. In this helpful book, Jeff Johnson encourages us to tame our fingers with wisdom from the Proverbs. He organizes these principles under five guiding questions that can help us cultivate heavenly wisdom in our use of social media.

Alun Ebenezer, the Founding Headmaster at The Fulham Boys School in London, says we are at “a watershed moment in the reconstruction of twenty-first century man…it is open season on manhood.” Alun joined Paul on The Bob Dutko Show in Detroit to discuss his new book, Call to Action: Become the Man God Designed You to Be. The world needs real men. Christian men. But real manhood doesn’t just happen. Are you ready for basic training? Alun Ebenezer calls men to stop being passive and pursue godly character. In thirty chapters, he provides practical steps for pursuing godly manhood. Take action to become the man of God you must be—the man who our churches, schools, universities, workplaces, families, communities, and countries need you to be.

On December 28 Pastor Paul was the guest host on The Bob Dutko Show on WMUZ-FM 1035 in Detroit (Michigan's Most Listened To Christian Talk). During the program, Paul interviewed theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem about his Newsweek op/ed calling on President Trump to drop out of the Republican Primary race for the nomination for president. The essence of Dr, Grudem's argument is that Trump cannot win enough of the independent voters to win the general election. However, Dr. Grudem unequivocally stated that if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, he will vote for Donald Trump. As expected, many of Bob's listeners responded angrily to the interview, hearing only criticism of Trump when in reality the majority of the interview was not negative on Trump, but merely a discussion of the political realities. When Bob returned to the host chair he responded. Bob and Paul had a private conversation prior to Bob addressing this issue on his program on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. All is well between Pastor Paul and Bob Dutko.

Dr. Wayne Grudem is Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary and the author of the standard Systematic Theology used in Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries. He has published a lengthy essay outlining the reasons why Donald Trump should drop out of the Republican Primary race for the nomination for the presidency.

Today's episode of Recovering the Christian Mind is a conversation with Greg Lukianoff about his forthcoming book, "The Canceling of the American Mind." Greg Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and one of the country’s most passionate defenders of free expression. He has written on free-speech issues in the nation’s top newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and was executive producer of the documentaries Can We Take a Joke? and Mighty Ira. Lukianoff earned his undergraduate degree from American University and his law degree from Stanford. He worked for the ACLU of Northern California, the Organization for Aid to Refugees, and the EnvironMentors Project before joining FIRE in 2001.

Matthew Boyd made his Major League Baseball debut as a Toronto Blue Jay on June 27, 2015 and one month later he was traded to the Detroit Tigers. He has played 8 years of his 9 year career with the Tigers, but not without adversity. He was sidelined for the entire 2022 season after flexor tendon surgery in September 2021. More recently, 16 pitches into a game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, something didn’t feel right. Two days later he would have season ending Tommy John surgery. Matthew is a committed follower of Jesus Christ. How does the Christian faith work when something isn’t right, when we are facing adversity, setbacks, and disappointments?

In this episode of Recovering the Christian Mind we revisit an interview with Dr. Carolyn Weber about her memoir of coming to faith in Jesus Christ as an agnostic while a student at Oxford University: Surprised by Oxford. This is a wide-ranging conversation with includes discussions of anti-Christian bias in academia, the pressures Christian academics face as professors and teachers in academia, and the surprising way God used the intellectual environment of Oxford to bring an agonistic to Himself. This interview was recorded in 2011 and is probably one of my top five favorite conversations I ever had during my 12 years as a talk radio host.

Consider today's episode of Recovering the Christian Mind a Bonus Track to yesterday's conversation with Pastor Jeremy Walker about the excellent new two-hour video documentary on the history of revival, Revival: The Work of God. In this brief conversation, Jeremy and I discuss the production aspects of the documentary: the beautiful locations they visited, including historic churches and places, and the pastors and professors they interviewed to help all of us place revival in its proper biblical and historical context.

Pastor Jeremy Walker is the Writer and Presenter of the new Reformation Heritage Books documentary, Revival: The Work of God. This two-hour video documentary sets revival in its biblical and historical context, freeing us from our contemporary pragmatic view which sees revival more as a result of human creativity and ingenuity than a true work of the Spirit at the sole initiative of our sovereign God. Pastor Walker says, "In times of reviving, God does what He always does. But there's a pace and a power to it that is distinctive; and sometimes it's momentary - it's A sermon; other times it's a period; sometimes it's a lifetime; sometimes it sweeps across a whole region that there's this sort of this elevating of the spiritual tone that I think is incontrovertible. It is the God who, in His grace, draws near to bless in ways that are perhaps beyond, certainly that beggar I think, our low and shallow expectations of Him."

Part 2 of a two-part conversation with World Magazine "life beat" reporter Leah Savas on her new book (co-authored with Marvin Olasky), "The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level View 1652-2022."