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Bestselling author Rod Dreher has a knack for putting his finger on what people are going to be talking about next. He's done it again with his new book on re-enchantment, Living in Wonder. He joins us today to talk about embracing what historian Tom Holland calls the "weird stuff" in Christianity.
What does it mean for the world to be enchanted? Isn't enchantment just superstition? What does the trend towards psychedelics and the occult tell us about the public's longings? Are demons real?
Note: There are some quality issues on Dreher's audio feed.
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Wonder-Finding-Mystery-Meaning/dp/0310369126/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Yes, he is related to the Guinness brewing family. He has an incredible life story, being born in China to medical missionaries and living through the communist takeover there. He has a DPhil from Oxford and has been involved with many eminent organizations ranging from the Brookings Institution to the Trinity Forum.
He’s also the author of many books, including his latest Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, which he joined me to discuss today. What is a "civilizational moment"? Why did Christianity lose its purchase on the West? Why have some contenders to replace it fared better than others? What should Christians in the Wes be doing today?
But Our Civilizational Moment: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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Delano Squires is a Research Fellow in Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation, and a contributor to the Blaze. He joins me today to talk about the enduring relevance of the call to manhood and family, and how to live that out in today's world.
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Stephen Eide is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies homelessness and mental illness. He joins me to discuss his new article in National Affairs magazine about how to help the homeless and those who struggle at the very bottom of society.
Read Eide's article: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/uplifting-the-man-farthest-down
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Austin Knuppe is an assistant professor of political science at Utah State University specializing in Foreign Policy, International Politics, Middle East Politics, and War. He's the author of a recent book on how Iraqis survived the Islamic State.
He joins me to discuss Christians in the Middle East. Once sizable Christian populations there have declined noticeably in the past 100 years. He argues that America's Global War on Terror, however, has accelerated the decline of Christian communities in Middle Eastern countries.
Austin Knuppe: There Are Always Consequences: https://americanreformer.org/2024/08/there-are-always-consequences/
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Journalist and AEI Senior Fellow Tim Carney joins me to discuss his new book Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be
Read Jason Jewell's review of the book: https://americanreformer.org/2024/09/the-war-on-ordinary-families/
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Family-Unfriendly-Culture-Raising-Harder-ebook/dp/B0C592J1TF/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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Nate Fischer, Founder and CEO of New Founding, joins us to talk about his firm's investment strategy, and particularly the macro forces that will be shaping the society and economy of tomorrow.
Read the New Founding Strategy: https://www.newfounding.com/post/strategy
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While divorce rates have fallen from their peak, they are still very high, with women initiating the vast majority of them. The divorce rate among American Christians is also too high. While divorce is difficult for non-religious men, Christian men face unique issues. Their churches are likely to blame them for the divorce, and they are likely to lose their friend network at church as well.
Men's devotional writer and podcaster Chris Bolinger joins me to discuss what Christian men need to know to survive divorce.
Buy Chris Bolinger's 400,000 copy selling men's devotional Daily Strength for Men: https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Strength-Men-365-Day-Devotional/dp/1424557534/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
My article on what to do when your wife divorces you: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-40-what-to-do-when-your
My article on how to help your friends whose wive's divorced them: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/newsletter-41-how-to-help-our-friends
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James Davison Hunter is a renowned sociologist at the University of Virginia who introduced the term "culture war" to the US discourse. He's a leading expert on cultural change and cultural battles in America.
He joins me to discuss his new book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis, which tells the deep cultural story underlying today's polarized politics.
This important book describes the deep structure of American culture as resting on what he calls the "hybrid Enlightenment," joining various strands of European Enlightenment thinking with largely Calvinist Christianity. The various contradictions in this hybrid Enlightenment, such as slavery, were worked out over time. But that hybrid Enlightenment also became unraveled over time, leaving Americans without the cultural underpinnings necessary to sustain solidarity. The result is nihilism and culture war.
Democracy and Solidarity is a compelling and important read to understand our present cultural moment.
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Solidarity-Cultural-Americas-Political-ebook/dp/B0CW17D3N3/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
Dr. Hunter is also the publisher of the Hedgehog Review magazine: https://hedgehogreview.com/
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Joshua Klein, editor of Mortise and Tenon magazine, joins me to talk about his love of traditional wood construction techniques, and the value of craftsmanship and manual work. In addition to the magazine, Klein is also an Associate Fellow in Mechanical Arts at Greystone Theological Institute.
Buy Mortise and Tenon Magazine: https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/
Greystone Theological Institute: https://www.greystoneinstitute.org/
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Jon Tyson, founding and senior pastor of Church of the City in New York, joins me to talk about the urban church in today's world. Tyson discusses:
How to deal with the constant population churn in the city?The differences between pre-Covid and post-Covid New YorkHow Covid wiped out 70% of what Tim Keller and others built over the previous 35 years in terms of New York City church plantsThe flow of church planters into New York drying upWhat's unique about Generation Z? Includes that they don't want to plant churches.Why New York is not as different from the rest of the country culturally as it used to be.The impact of the migrant influx on ManhattanThe future of the cultural engagement model of churchWhat he thinks of Trumpist culture war ChristianityHow he talks about flashpoint cultural issuesAdvice for church planters thinking about New York City.Visit Church of the City: https://www.church.nyc/
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Oren Cass is founder of American Compass, a reformist center-right think tank seeking to look beyond dogmatic adherence to libertarian economics. He joins me to talk about the future of the American worker.
American Compass: https://americancompass.org/
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Artificial intelligence is the hot topic of the tech world today. But how do we make sense of it? Dean Ball is a Research Fellow in the Artificial Intelligence & Progress Project at the Mercatus Center, who also writes a Substack on the subject. He joins me to discuss this new AI technology and how to regulate it.
Subscribe to Dean Ball's Substack: https://www.hyperdimensional.co/
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BYX (Beta, Upsilon, Chi in Greek, for Brothers Under Christ and pronounced "Bucks") is a Christian college fraternity. National director Jared Musgrove and Georgia chapter member Will Pesch join me to talk about this fraternity and how it shapes young men in a campus environment.
BYX Website: https://byx.org/
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Miami and South Florida have been booming. City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez joins me to talk about their success and the "Miami model" of urbanism. We discuss:
- Miami's transition from America's most dangerous big city to one of its safest.
- Why Miami is an emerging national and global business center
- The inflection points that boosted Miami's trajectory
- How Mayor Suarez, a Republican, and his party have found success in a big, dense, diverse, heavily Latino city.
- What Miami will do next that will surprise people.
Read my profile of Miami as an under-heralded urban success story: https://www.governing.com/urban/miami-the-under-appreciated-urban-success-story
Read my article on why conservatives should care about cities: https://americancompass.org/conservatives-should-care-about-cities/
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American Enterprise Institute scholar Yuval Levin joins me to discuss his new book American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again.
While many today argue that the US Constitution is dead or obsolete, Levin argues that the Constitution is actually the path forward for creating unity in our deeply divided republic.
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/American-Covenant-Constitution-Unified-Nation_and/dp/0465040748/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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Miles Smith is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College. He joins me to discuss what he learned from reading exvangelical memoirs and books about Christian nationalism.
Miles Smith's "Reading the Exvangelicals": https://mereorthodoxy.com/reading-the-exvangelicals
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Matthew Peterson, editor-in-chief of the Blaze and founding editor of the American Mind, joins me to talk about the media and conservative media landscape in America today.
Visit the Blaze: https://www.theblaze.com/
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Georgetown Professor Joshua Mitchell, author of the book American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time, joins me to talk about what factors caused the rise of identity politics in America.
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/American-Awakening-Identity-Politics-Afflictions/dp/1641771305/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon joins me to discuss her recent book Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. It's a look at the travails facing America's working class.
Read my review of Second Class: https://www.city-journal.org/article/review-of-second-class-by-batya-ungar-sargon
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Class-Betrayed-Americas-Working/dp/1641773618/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
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