The best podcasts for thinking about culture, God and civics.

Honestly, this one was picked first because....well....it's my own podcast. The show covers primarily topics concerning theology and apologetics. But, because it's focused on "everything that makes us human," there are also episodes on things such as culture, public policy issues and even fitness and strength training. While I am not a trained theologian, philosopher or political scientist (I actually have had a certification for as a personal trainer, so there's that), I have been self-taught in these various fields for years and am currently enrolled in a program for a Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics through Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Greg Koukl has done so much for me as far as learning to think more carefully about ideas and avoid jumping to conclusions. I have always appreciated his communication style as he has a way of "throwing the ball so that you can catch it." On this show, Greg takes calls from listeners and helps them to think through some difficult circumstances, using logic and reason to work through ideas, issues, doubts and worldview issues.

This is one of my very favorite podcasts. Roman focuses, not on the politics and shallow-thinking, emotionally driven culture of today. Rather, he approaches his understanding of our nation from the perspective of the people who put it into place. He does this by looking at the actual writings of these men. While many other shows may be available to look at the official documents they wrote (The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, etc.), Roman reads through personal correspondence between the people behind those documents that help to provide a deeper understanding of their thinking, their values and why the documents ultimately contained what they did.

This is a great, relatively short update on some of the main issues going on in the culture today. It provides a great balance to get to the heart of stories that either are completely ignored by the main stream media or brings to light some key information that MSM chooses to keep from including in their stories.

J. Warner Wallace was a cold-case homicide detective in the L.A. area and was an atheist until about the age of 35. He brings his skills investigating events that happened in the past, for which there are no living eye-witnesses and the only information we have is written statements from people who were originally involved in the investigation. He takes those same skills and uses them to investigate Christianity. Wallace does a great job of explaining what counts as evidence, the power of "circumstantial evidence" and how to trace a "chain of custody."