A Practical Guide to Culture with John Stonestreet

08/09/17 • 67 min

Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

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).

Previous Episode

We Were Wrong

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).

Next Episode

Talking Global Warming, Gender Fluidity, and Group Think with Jay Richards

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).