Beeson Podcast, Episode #545 Collin Hansen Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today on the show we have a good friend of mine. A colleague who keeps his office here at Beeson Divinity School. A Beeson Advisory Board member and starting next year an adjunct professor here at Beeson. I’m just talking about one person here, who plays all these roles. He’s here to talk about his two latest books, as well as the course he’ll be teaching for us in January. I have known today’s guest for many years. I couldn’t tell you exactly how many. Maybe he’ll tell us later. I think I first met him as he was about to graduate from Northwestern University and was thinking about seminary. Since then, I think he took a class of mine back in the day. I’ve admired his many writings and his work for the Gospel Coalition. So, I couldn’t be more happy to have him on the show. Before Kristen gets us started, let me thank you for listening to the podcast every week. We love hearing from you. So, please drop us a line. Let us know how God has used a particular episode to encourage or to bless you, or let us know if you have feedback or ideas for future episodes. You can email me at dsweeney@samford.edu and you can email Kristen Padilla at kpadilla@samford.edu. And speaking of Kristen Padilla, why don’t we turn things over to her and ask her if she will introduce today’s guest. >>Kristen Padilla: Sure will. Hello, everyone. We are glad to have Mr. Collin Hansen with us on the show today. Collin is Vice President of Content and Editor in Chief for the Gospel Coalition – one of the most read Christian websites in the world – and host of the acclaimed Gospel Bound Podcast. He travels the world promoting gospel-centered ministry for the next generation. And he lives right here in Birmingham, Alabama and serves on our Advisory Board. Welcome, Collin, to the Beeson Podcast. >>Collin Hansen: Oh, thanks, Kristen. I’m excited to be back. >>Kristen Padilla: Yeah, I think this is the first time that Doug and I interviewed you, but before that you were on the show quite often with Dr. George when he was host. I remember him saying every time we had you on the show you write a book a minute. And it really does seem that way. (laughs) >>Collin Hansen: He should talk! Of all people! (laughs) >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we have you back on the show to talk about your two newest books. But before we do, and for those few people who don’t know who you are, how about you introduce yourself and then catch us up to speed about what life and ministry has looked like since the pandemic? >>Collin Hansen: Yeah, so as you’ve already said, my day job I’m at work as a Vice President of Content and Editor in Chief of the Gospel Coalition. Usually when I say that to people they say, “Is that a full time job?” And I say, “Yeah, unbelievably it actually is. Internet publishing keeps you employed.” And I’ve been doing that since 2010. Recently promoted into that position, but in many ways it sort of makes official what I’ve been doing for a long time, which is when you don’t like something that we do content-wise at the Gospel Coalition you can usually blame me for that. Which plenty of people do. So, we try to do ... We’ve got a great team. It’s all over the world and it’s really my greatest professional privilege to be able to work with those editors and council members and all those sorts of different folks. I get to do that from anywhere. I choose to do that from just living a few minutes away from Beeson and hanging out here on the third floor at Beeson Divinity School. I guess you also asked about life in the last year. My goodness, I mean, since I was already digitally native. I mean, in terms of my work, it really wasn’t a big disruption except for the fact that we had 12,000 women signed up for our women’s conference last June and couldn’t go ahead with that. We postponed that. So, that was the major change. You mentioned I typically travel about a third of the time. Especially in the spring and the fall. I didn’t do any of that. So, I guess I had a lot of spare time. So, started two podcasts, wrote a couple of books, wife and I are having another baby. I mean, it was pretty crazy. Yeah, it was a busy time. I’m ready for things to get a lot closer to normal. And I think they’re getting there. But tried to be productive in the last year. >>Doug Sweeney: I think, Collin, that the job title that Kristen used to announce you with is different. It’s new, right? You’ve been promoted? >>Collin Hansen: It is. That was in January. Really, we’ve had a major shift at the Gospel Coalition because our founder, of course, one of your long time colleagues, Doug, Don Carson, as our President, had stepped down. He’s at retirement age. So, we searched for another one of your ... I can’t remember, was Julius Kim a student of yours? >>Doug Sweeney: He was. >>Collin Hansen: Okay. There you are. So, Julius Kim from Westminster Seminary in California came in as our new President. So, part of what Julius had done was change our organization. We have two vice presidents, Jeff Ju, formerly of Westminster Theological Seminary and Philadelphia as our operations vice president, and then I serve as the content vice president and Editor in Chief. So, yeah, it’s really when you think about podcasts, videos, conferences, books, articles, journals, and things like that that we produce – sort of my job to keep those things in alignment with our original vision, our theological vision of ministry, our confessional statement. And try to keep them aligned and keep them coherent with staff all over the world who are executing on that vision. Again, it’s a fun thing. I’ve been able to build, in some ways, from scratch since right after I graduated from Trinity in 2010. It is a change. A change in title, for sure. But a change in responsibility not quite as much. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we want to talk to you about your two new books and the first one we want to talk to you about has recently published by the time this episode airs. It’s called “Gospel Bound: Living With Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age.” What a wonderful subtitle. You co-wrote that book with Sarah Zylstra. What is Gospel Bound about? Who is it for and what led you to write the book? >>Collin Hansen: Great question, Kristen. It’s pretty simple. The thesis is: we’ve got to get back to the gospel so we can move forward together. It’s as simple as that. We’ve got to get back to the gospel so we can move forward together. We conceived the book together, really, in 2019. So, we did not anticipate the pandemic. We did not anticipate all the difficulties that we faced last year. Though, I suppose, the political dimensions we did anticipate. But it wasn’t so much the divisions in the churches but really a lot of the transforming change that’s come upon this country politically, especially as it applies to religion, and so the basic idea behind the book was when everything is swirling around you, when everything seems to be in flux, when everything is changing, what can keep you grounded? What can keep you steadfast in the storm? That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, what we did, Sarah especially is gifted at this, is telling people stories. Christians around the world who are doing that. They’re bound to the gospel so that those winds of change don’t blow them over, but also they’re bounding forward in hope because they trust in the promises of God. So, we just think, Kristen, that we see so much evidence of discouragement in the Church. A lot of that unfortunately is true, it’s real, but it’s not the full story if you know where to look. And, Doug, I think this is something that I learned in the context of learning from you about Jonathan Edwards. But really what’s inspired my whole journalistic career is something that I read from Edwards. It was actually when I was writing at Trinity about the origins of the Christian history periodical – the first religious periodical in the United States. I think it was 1743 to 1745. A New Light publication. Thomas Prince Sr. and Jr. there in Boston. Well, it was Jonathan Edwards’ vision that inspired that publication because one of the things he encouraged them to do was to say news of revival in one place when spread broadly carries revival to other places. I thought if they could do that with the religious periodical in 1743 in the first great awakened can’t we do that even better with the internet today? And can’t we do that with books still today? So, Gospel Bound, Kristen, is for anybody who wants good news of what God is doing around the world so that they can have a ... Who doesn’t need a morale boost these days about what God is doing? Who doesn’t need a model of what it looks like to be faithful in living out that hopeful vision in a changing climate and changing circumstances? So, we’re hoping people will be encouraged by what God ... I know we’ve been encouraged. Let’s just say it was a really good way to spend our time in 2020 to be talking with and writing about Christians who are just inspiring us with how they serve God and how they love their neighbors. It’s just been a really fun project to work on with Sarah. >>Doug Sweeney: And you did some research with her over the course of a few years, if I’m not mistaken? Where you, “investigated character traits of a gospel bound believer. You talk about sacrificial, gospel-centered, kingdom advancing, God glorifying lives that give you much cause for rejoicing and much reason for confidence,” as you say in the book. What did you learn? What are the character traits that make for a gospel bound believer? >>Collin Hansen: What we did is it actually kind of crystallized for me reading through the Book of Romans. I love Romans 12 in particular. I mean, I don’t know who couldn’t, but I just love the concept of not being overcome by evil but overcoming evil with good and how all of this work, Christ’s work, makes that possible for us to do. How we can honor everyone, how we can love our enemies. All of the principles are pulled from different aspects of the Book of Romans. We show how gospel bound Christians suffer with joy. We show how gospel bound Christians will love their enemies. We show how gospel bound Christians embrace the future. Because they know Christ is coming again soon. So, they don’t have to get trapped in worry about trying to make this world ... trying to fix everything in this world, but actually they are motivated to fix things in this world because they know that Christ is coming back. They can live with hope in that. Of course, we look at the Early Church’s martyrs when we talk about that. We talk about them setting another seat, Gospel Bound Christians set another seat at the table. That’s about hospitality. Again, pulling all of these things especially from Romans 12, but elsewhere, I just saw these different commands brought together or encouragements brought together in the Book of Romans with that theological foundation of the gospel. And then Sarah and I have been working for years on just telling ... I’ll put it this way especially – if you’re in sort of reformed evangelicalism, like I am, you don’t need to be told to criticize other people. It just comes with the territory. It just sort of emanates there. But it gives a very distorted perspective on what God is actually doing. The internet also kind of sets you up for that. It just makes you want to criticize everybody and everything. So, we wanted to use the journalism that we were both trained in at Northwestern to tell the stories that no one else was telling. The stories of extraordinary people, ordinary people, but just doing these things. Yeah, that’s the research. We worked together, Sarah and I, at Christianity Today. Again, we had both studied journalism at Northwestern. So, we just seized the opportunity to say, “We just wanna see where God is working and just write about that.” And go back to that stuff from Edwards. As people hear about that, they’re going to pray and work for God to do that in their own environments. Yeah, it’s been years and years of working on that together. But really fun for it to all come together in 2020 and to come out in 2021. >>Kristen Padilla: As I said, this book is already out. So, we encourage you listeners to go out and get your own copy. I’m sure, Collin, it’s on Amazon and wherever books are sold. Right? >>Collin Hansen: That’s true. You can pick it up at the Gospel Coalition store. That’s a good place to get it. We can usually sell stuff for cheaper than Amazon on select titles. But yeah, wherever you want to pick it up. It came out from Multnomah. It’s been a fun process working with Multnomah for my first time with them. >>Kristen Padilla: Great. Well, let’s transition to talk about a second book that is set to come out at the end of the summer called, “Rediscover Church: Why The Body of Christ is Essential.” And this is also another co-authored book, this time with Jonathan Leeman. So, what is this book about? And what was the impetus for it? >>Collin Hansen: Kristen, probably about five or six years ago Jonathan, who works for 9Marks as their Editorial Director out of the Washington DC area, had wanted to write a book that is a basic introduction to people in your church to, “Why am I here? What is this all about? What is the point of church?” The church that I worship in, Redeemer Community Church, led by many, many, Beeson graduates. People come to our church from all different kinds of backgrounds. There’s not a shared sense when they come in of, “What am I supposed to expect in this place?” So, the book concept started out that way. It didn’t quite get traction, though, until 2020. In 2020, all of a sudden we faced, I mean, you guys, Doug especially, you’re the historian here. I was asking Andy Crouch recently on my Gospel Bound podcast what was the last time the Church has been globally disrupted to this extent compared to what we saw in 2020? I know this is going to sound hyperbolic and I don’t mean it to be equivalent, but we both agreed it was the 14th century and the Black Plague. I mean, World War II obviously is more cataclysmic, things like that. But it didn’t disrupt the Church in some ways in the same way in terms of just the separation of people. So what clicked for us in the rediscover church concept was that a lot of people have drifted away from church. Possibly, according to some statistics, up to a third of people. If that’s even close to true, it is the biggest disruption that any of us will likely see in our lifetimes and in many, many previous lifetimes. So, we’ve got to get back to basics to explain to people why the Body of Christ is essential and why virtual church, while I’m grateful for that – it’s better than nothing – is an oxymoron. I can’t think of too many places better than Beeson Divinity School to talk and that are better prepared to train pastors who can preach who can embody that kind of vision of why the gathered community is essential. So, we’re hoping that this gets in the hands of church leaders to give to members of their church or people who have drifted away from their church, be out in the summer, to say, “Hey, come on back. Virtual church is not going to be an adequate replacement. You need to worship Christ ... the Church is going to be by far the best tool that God has given you to be able to grow in this way.” Not just because of the information download that comes from the preachers, but because of the very community that’s gathered, that Body of Christ. So, we’re excited about that book. It’s coming out with Crossway. We have plans from Crossway and 9Marks and the Gospel Coalition to release that book simultaneously in 17 different languages with translations. And also for online distribution for free in those languages as well. Just to underscore the fact that we have not seen a global disruption of this nature. And it’s not equal in all these places, but just in the extent of that disruption. It’s amazing that whatever language we’re talking in people are saying this is a resource that we need because it’s hitting you whether you’re in Albania or Alabama. It’s just all over the place. >>Doug Sweeney: I agree with you, Collin, that virtual church is an oxymoron. I want to get you to talk a little bit more about that. Partly because we preach that all the time here at Beeson. But I’m not trying to be selfish about this. I really want our listeners to understand what you mean by that and what difference thinking about that should make as we come back out of COVID? >>Collin Hansen: Yeah, I could talk for too long about that concept. I’m grateful that when everything went haywire with the shutdown last year that we had something to fall back on to be able to have some measure of just contact with people. But if we’ve learned anything in the last year about virtual church, again, it’s an oxymoron, because there is an essential aspect of church, which of course literally ecclesia is “the assembly.” There is an essential nature of the gathering. Now, I don’t even think, Doug, that you have to be a certain kind of sacramentalist in that theology to be true. It can help. But I think you can be a Baptist, like me, and still see that without the contextual gathering, the preaching for this particular group of people in this particular place ... and remember, 1 Corinthians 12 enacted the different giftings that are meant to be employed by the diverse body for one another. There’s no hint in scripture that church is just about a sort of preaching performative act that we’re all simply witnesses to. Which basically is what virtual church becomes – an entirely passive endeavor. I mean, I could go on and on about this. But I think the basic concept is that God, in his infinite wisdom, has planned these assemblies for us as three dimension people of how we grow and how we change and how we serve. But what the internet does is it eliminates at least one of those dimensions. It eliminates some of the essential dimensions of our life and it basically then puts us in a position where we just opt in to things. We only engage on our terms. The beautifully difficult thing about church is that it forces us to engage on other people’s terms. And so the whole virtual concept where everything revolves around me ... Well, how do you grow as a disciple in that context? How are you shaped in an environment that’s set up for you to shape everything according to your wants and your needs? Again, I could go on and on about that. But I think in a place like Beeson that has been emphasizing for so long that kind of embodied education our pastors, our graduates, should be well positioned to be able to show why the Body of Christ is essential because they’ve seen that in their own education experience. So, I mean, I think Beeson is in a good position. And I haven’t talked with you guys before about the educational experience, and again I’m grateful for things that can plug the gaps for the time, but I have to think that it’s made the embodied education experience that much more appreciated when we haven’t been able to have it to the full extent. >>Doug Sweeney: We agree completely. The trouble is so many schools make it so easy for students to get their MDiv’s completely online. That schools like ours, even though we try to be as up to date as we possibly can be, they seem a little old fashioned to people because we’re not doing everything virtually. >>Collin Hansen: I was just reading a book from another seminary president. It was about seminary. I was reading it last night. He was talking about how they have the fully online MDIV and they have the residential program. But he was still really pushing the residential program. Now, he was trying to argue simultaneously that they were equal and at the same time that the residential was preferable. It was a little bit inconsistent to talking about that. But one of the things that he said was a lot of people treat the online option as a reason not to jump in. They treat it as a reason to sort of dabble and to kind of build a seminary education around the periphery of their life. I think he made a pejorative comment about mom’s basement or mom’s zip code, I think, in there. (laughs) I hadn’t thought about that before. It comes back to discipleship. Discipleship is an immersive experience. That’s certainly how Jesus himself did it. The very incarnation, let alone the years of gathering his disciples around him. And so if that’s how Jesus modeled it and that’s how ... I think we’d be very loathe to just dismiss that altogether. When I talk about people who’ve had profound transformative seminary experiences, there’s always a communal dimension to it. There’s always those relationships with professors and students. So, you don’t have to pay me at Beeson to advocate for that, because it’s what I absolutely believe. And I think that’s the best way to do it if at all possible for students. >>Kristen Padilla: Collin, for those who want to learn more about Rediscover Church, can they find that on the TGC website as well? >>Collin Hansen: Yes. Everything is there on Amazon, it’s an August release. But yeah, stay tuned. We’ll have those translations coming. We’ll have audio versions coming. We’ll have a chance for you to be able to pick it up online for free. We expect probably the best way people will do it is to buy it in bulk and to send it to their members or hand it to their members. Use it in new member classes would be another example for that. Yeah, I just can’t imagine. I don’t know how many people are coming back. I don’t know how many people, I mean, the number of conversations I have with church leaders around the country and the number of complications that I keep hearing about this re-entry, it’s that if church leaders think we can just get back to normal and reset the clock on 2019 it just isn’t there – something fundamental has shifted. It’s shifted depending on your circumstance. But some things definitely changed. Yeah, you can pick it up those number of different places. >>Kristen Padilla: Wonderful. Well, we want to allow you the opportunity to give us a little teaser about the course that you’re teaching in January. Doug mentioned that you’re going to be teaching a course and it’s called, “Cultural Apologetics.” So, talk to us about this course. What do you mean by this title and what are your objectives? >>Collin Hansen: I am so excited about this. Cultural Apologetics is an emerging field. It’s not a brand new field, but I would call it an emerging field. When you often think about apologetics you’re thinking about a rational defense of Christianity, proofs of Christianity, defenses, presuppositionalism, all those kinds of debates. Cultural Apologetics is a bit of a more inductive exercise. It’s more of working with the materials of our culture, philosophical analysis, sociological analysis, literature, pop culture, things like that. Weaving those together to be able to help communicate and contextualize the gospel in your teaching and in your preaching and in your discipleship and in your evangelism of course as well. So, it’s not a surprise. I think one of the most capable cultural apologists of our generation is Tim Keller, one of my colleagues, and mentors, so a lot of what I’ve picked up comes from him on this. The basic concept in what I’ve been trying to do at Doug’s invitation is be able to take Beeson’s amazing historical and exegetical and theological doctrinal curriculum and bridge it to the ministry concerns of today. So, we’re going to be doing things in the class like walking people through a personal discovery of disinculturation. What I mean by that is pretty simple. We hear a lot about deconstructing these days in the church. Disinculturation is what missionaries do. What in my life and my practice of my faith do I need to maintain as a Christian? What should I dismiss as being not Christian? And what’s neutral depending on the culture? So, I want to help prospective ministers to work through that process because you’ve got to be able to do that even now domestically. You’re just not going to walk into some sort of ready-made culture. You’re going to have to be discerning about that. I’m going to ask students to write a theological vision of ministry for their church. You’ve got your confession over here, you’ve got your programs and your practices, but how do you connect the two? How do you get from one to the other? Rick Lints at Gordon-Conwell has a great perspective on what it means to do theological vision. I want the students to write collaboratively to work on a new catechism for the post-Christian West. So, engaging issues that didn’t come up in previous catechisms, but that need to be addressed for today. And I want the students also to write a brief engagement with what they regard to be the most difficult challenge to Christianity. It’s one of my favorite questions, Kristen, to ask on my podcast. I’ll ask evangelists and apologists, “What do you think is the most difficult aspect of Christianity?” I remember asking David Platt that and he started and he said, “Oh, that my Savior would die for such a woeful sinner as me.” I was like, “Oh, come on, David.” (laughs) It was the hardest. “When I’m going to Nepal and there’s a child who is ten years old and suffering incredibly and has never heard from Jesus and is going to be judged eternally in Hell.” And I said, “Okay. Now we’re talking.” So, that’s what we’re going to try to do in the class, is take all of this amazing theology and things that they’ve learned and try to put it into practice personally and also how they minister to others in a contemporary sphere and employ a lot of different sort of sociological and historical and cultural analysis to be able to do that. If any students are listening and you’re interested in that, let’s sign up and we’ll have a fun couple of weeks in January. >>Doug Sweeney: Super. Thanks very much, Collin, for agreeing to do that with us. It’s going to be great. You know, Collin, you’ve been on this show before. We like to end our interviews with guests by asking them what the Lord has been teaching them recently and so I ask you in your walk with God and your prayer life and your devotional time – anything that the Lord has been teaching you that might be worth passing along to our listeners by way of building them up in the faith? >>Collin Hansen: I get a chance through my work to talk with and to learn from and to collaborate with a number of just successful and godly examples of Christian leaders. But the one thing that really holds true for leaders who are truly successful in the Kingdom of God is humility. That sounds obvious, and I’m not meaning to flatter here, but it’s true. One of the reasons I love Beeson is because of how my heart resonates with the example of humble leadership that Timothy George displayed for so long and that, Doug, you continue in your leadership. I don’t take that for granted. I don’t assume that’s normative everywhere. It just isn’t. But it makes a huge difference in a church, in a seminary, and I don’t think it comes very naturally to me in my flesh. But Christ continues to call me back with those examples, with role models like you. It was 2007 when I first audited your class on 19th Century Protestant Thought in America. That was how I made a decision about going to seminary myself, coming to study there at Trinity. Just having examples like that in the faith. Unfortunately, we’ve never been more exposed to bad examples of Christian leadership. It’s everywhere you look. It’s staring you in the face, you can’t avoid it. And so being taken back to those friends and those colleagues who show you how to humbly walk with God is a blessing that I won’t take for granted and that I want to be able to pass along myself despite the fact that my flesh wars against that. And it doesn’t seem to get easier, it seems to get harder with time. Yeah, I’m just grateful for a number of examples. You, Doug, Dr. George, Tim Keller, and others like that who have just really shown that to me over the years. John Woodbridge – give a shout out to our friend, John, as well. Just grateful for that. God has always been kind to me in that way. >>Doug Sweeney: Thanks, Collin. Listeners, you have been listening to Collin Hansen, Vice President of Content and Editor in Chief for the Gospel Coalition. Dear friend of ours here at Beeson Divinity School. We are grateful to you, Collin, for this gift of your time with us today. We’re grateful to you, our dear listeners, for tuning in. Please continue to pray for us as we make our way out of the COVID epidemic and try to do our part in building up the churches in our area. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.