The Civitas Podcast

Episode 24: Micro-Christendoms and Local Government, with Tim Nichols and Joe Anderson Oct 31, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with Tim Nichols and Joe Anderson about their work in Englewood, Colorado.
Joe Anderson is a Pastor at Christ the Anchor church in Englewood, Colorado. For the last 10 years, Joe has led the local pastors prayer group and organized meetings between the pastors and local government officials that have led to several collaborative initiatives between the Church in Englewood and the city government. Additionally, since 2019, Joe has served on City Council in Englewood.

Tim Nichols cut his teeth in ministry teaching at the seminary level while pastoring a small church plant in the California desert, frequently getting whiplash in the transitions between the two. He presently teaches middle school at Hammersmith School, a homeschool hybrid program, operates a bodywork practice, teaches martial arts, and serves in pastoral roles at Christ the Anchor church and at Centerpoint Church, an outreach to the homeless community in Englewood.

Together, they've founded Headwaters Christian Resources, a nonprofit devoted to local ministry and producing resources for the broader church, and written the Victorious Bible curriculum for middle school, Loving: Spiritual Exercises in Tangibly Loving your Literal Neighbors, and an assortment of smaller projects.

Links:
Peter Leithart's article on Micro-Christendoms can be found HERE.
Tim and Joe's Theopolis Conversation on "Proclamation" can be found HERE.
Click HERE for Tim Nichols' excellent articles at Theopolis.

Episode 23: God and the City - D.C. Schindler Returns! Oct 01, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with D.C. Schindler about his recent work, God and the City, and how to think about politics ontologically.
Purchase the book:
D.C. Schindler
God and the City: An Essay in Political Metaphysics
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About Dr. Schindler
Dr. Schindler’s work is concerned above all with shedding light on contemporary cultural challenges and philosophical questions by drawing on the resources of the classical Christian tradition. His principal thematic focus is metaphysics and philosophical anthropology, but he also works in political philosophy, phenomenology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology. His main historical areas are ancient Greek philosophy (especially Plato and Neoplatonism), German philosophy (especially Hegel and Heidegger), and Catholic philosophy (especially Aquinas and 20th Century Thomism).

Dr. Schindler studied the Great Books as an undergraduate at Notre Dame, received a Master’s degree in theology at the John Paul II Institute, and then completed his education with a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in philosophy at The Catholic University of America. After teaching for twelve years at Villanova University, first as a teaching fellow in philosophy and then as a founding member of the Humanities Department, Dr. Schindler returned to Washington, DC to teach philosophy courses at the Institute. He has published more than a dozen books—including two volumes of a planned trilogy on the nature of freedom with the University of Notre Dame Press and a Robert Spaemann Reader with Oxford University Press—and more than 70 articles and book chapters, and his work has been translated into six languages. He is an editor of the English-language edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, and a board member of The Review of Metaphysics and New Polity: A Journal of Post-Liberal Thought; he is a translator of books and articles from French and German; he is a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at CUA and served on the Executive Council of the American Catholic Philosophical Association; and he has been invited to deliver named annual lectures in a variety of venues, including the Thomas Aquinas Lecture at four universities and colleges, the Bitar Memorial Lecture series at Geneva College, the John Paul II Lecture at the University of Dallas, the Lorenzo Albacete Lecture in New York City, and the Areopagus Lecture at Mars Hill Audio Journal in Charlottesville, VA.

Episode 22: Architecture, Urbanism, & the Sacred - A Conversation with Philip Bess Aug 28, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with Philip Bess about architecture, cities, and his book titled Till We Have Built Jerusalem.

Philip Bess is Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame.

Episode 21: A Conversation with David Dusenbury Jul 30, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with David Dusenbury about his books "I Judge No One" and "The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History."
David Lloyd Dusenbury is a philosopher, historian of ideas, Times Literary Supplement contributor and senior fellow at Budapest's Danube Institute. He is also Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations at the University of Antwerp.
Titles from Dusenbury:
I Judge No One: A Political Life of Jesus
The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History

Articles by George Steiner mentioned in this episode:
The Scandal of Revelation
Two Suppers

Episode 20: Hell Shall Not Prevail (A Field Recording with James Wood and Peter Leithart) Jun 28, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down in person to discuss recent podcast guests, as well as the new book "Hell Shall Not Prevail," which is on sale now from Athanasius Press.
Forgive the poor audio quality in this episode, as it was not recording with our typical microphone setup.

Episode 19: Family Unfriendly | A Conversation with Tim Carney May 31, 2024

James Wood and Peter Leithart talk with Tim Carney about ways that today's America is unfriendly to families.
Timothy Carney is a father of six children, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a columnist at the Washington Examiner.
Tim and his wife, Katie, have raised their family in suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia. He grew up with three older brothers in Greenwich Village and later in Pelham, New York.
Pick up Family Unfriendly HERE.
He is also the author of Alienated America, The Big Ripoff, and Obamanomics.

Episode 18: Mortal Goods | A Conversation with Ephraim Radner Apr 30, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with Dr. Ephraim Radner about his latest book, Mortal Goods: Reimagining Christian Political Duty.
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Ephraim Radner (Ph.D., Yale University) is Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College, an evangelical seminary of the Anglican tradition at the University of Toronto, where he teaches both ministerial and doctoral students. He is the author and editor of several books on ecclesiology, ecumenism, the nature of Scripture, natural theology, pneumatology, and the character of the human creature. A former church worker in Burundi and an Anglican priest, he has also served several parishes in the United States, including inner-city Cleveland. He has also been active in the affairs of the global Anglican Communion. He continues to visit, consult, and teach in various parts of the world, including Asia and Africa, and comments on cultural and political topics as they relate to the Christian Church’s life.

Episode 17: Politics and the Earthly City | A Conversation with Dr. Veronica Ogle Mar 26, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss Augustine, politics, and the earthly city with Dr. Veronica Ogle.
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Dr. Ogle is the author of Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God, and is Assistant Professor of Political and Social Thought and the Augustinian Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Villanova University.

Episode 16: Liberalism and Human Rights | A Conversation with Samuel Moyn Feb 28, 2024

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss human rights and liberalism with Samuel Moyn.
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Samuel Moyn is Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University.

He received a doctorate in modern European history from the University of California-Berkeley in 2000 and a law degree from Harvard University in 2001. He came to Yale from Harvard University, where he was Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and Professor of History. Before this, he spent thirteen years in the Columbia University history department, where he was most recently James Bryce Professor of European Legal History.

His areas of interest in legal scholarship include international law, human rights, the law of war, and legal thought, in both historical and current perspective. In intellectual history, he has worked on a diverse range of subjects, especially twentieth-century European moral and political theory.

He has written several books in his fields of European intellectual history and human rights history, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010), and edited or coedited a number of others. His most recent books are Christian Human Rights (2015, based on Mellon Distinguished Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2014) and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018). His newest book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, appeared with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in fall 2021. Over the years he has written in venues such as Boston Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Episode 15: A Conversation with Dr. Andrew Jones Jan 31, 2024

James Wood and Peter Leithart are joined by special guest, Dr. Andrew Jones, to discuss his works "The Two Cities," and "Before Church and State."
Dr. Jones is a professor of theology and the Director of Catholic Studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also the founding editor of New Polity.
Select Bibliography:
The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)
Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX, (Emmaus Academic, 2017)

Evidence of Things Unseen: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
The Word Became Flesh: An Introduction to Christology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
This Is My Body: An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
Other Published Articles:

“What States Can’t Do” New Polity (online)
https://newpolity.com/blog/what-states-cant-do?rq=subsidiarity “
Catholic Ironies: A Review of George Weigel’s The Irony of Modern Catholic History,” First Things, November 2019, 45-48.
“The Postliberal Moment” Postliberal Thought https://www.postliberalthought.com/blog/2018/10/10/what-is-liberalism
“What the Nationalists Get Wrong: A Defense of the Particular and the Universal” Postliberal Thought.
https://www.postliberalthought.com/blog//a-defense-of-the-particular-and-the-universal

Episode 14: An Annotated Bibliography: Key Texts for Peter Leithart and James Wood Dec 21, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss key texts in their thinking through political theology.

0:00 - 10:00
James Wood on Leslie Newbigin
10:00 - 20:35
Peter Leithart on RJ Rushdoony
20:35 - 31:30
James Wood on William Cavanaugh
31:30 - 36:00
Peter Leithart on Stanley Hauerwas
"The church doesn't have a social ethic, it is a social ethic." - SH
36:00 - 44:00
James Wood on Oliver O'Donovan
44:00 - 52:30
Peter Leithart on John Milbank
52:30 - 59:40
James Wood on Henri de Lubac
59:40
Peter Leithart on DC Schindler

Episode 13: Expounding Ecclesiocentrism Nov 24, 2023

James Wood and Peter Leithart discuss some highlights from the past year of the Civitas Group and the podcast.
Peter Leithart then leads a discussion on three of James' recent essays, which can be found below with timestamps.
(12:35)
1. Ordering our Social Loves, at Ad Fontes/Commonwealth
(39:22)
2. How Abraham Kuyper Lost the Nation and Sidelined the Church, at Ad Fontes
(57:48)
3. Can the Church Still Speak? - in Comment Magazine.
Click HERE for James' author page at Ad Fontes.

Episode 12: A Conversation with Ross Douthat Oct 17, 2023

James Wood and Peter Leithart are joined by special guest, Ross Douthat, to discuss the new right and post-liberalism.

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Ross Douthat is an opinion columnist at The New York Times, and is also a host on the weekly Opinion podcast, “Matter of Opinion.” Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website.
A prolific writer, Mr. Douthat has written for The Atlantic and National Review and has been published widely in the popular press. He is the author of several books including The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery (2021) “The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success” (2020); “To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism” (2018); “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” (2012); “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream” (2008), which he coauthored with Reihan Salam; and “Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class” (Hyperion Books, 2005).

He has a BA in history from Harvard University.
Click HERE for Douthat's articles at First Things.

Episode 11: A Conversation with Nancy Pearcey Sep 26, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by special guest, Professor Nancy Pearcey, to discuss her recent work on the war on masculinity.

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Nancy Pearcey's latest book is The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Her earlier books include Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners:How Now Shall We Live (coauthored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) and Total Truth. Her books have been translated into 19 languages. She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. A former agnostic, Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth. She has been quoted in The New Yorker and Newsweek, highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today, and hailed in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."

Episode 10: A Conversation with Eric Gregory Aug 31, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by special guest Eric Gregory to discuss Augustinian civic liberalism and political theology.

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Eric Gregory is director of graduate studies and Professor of Religion at Princeton University, where he has served on the faculty since 2001. He is a world-renowned scholar in Christian Ethics and Policital theology.

He is the author of Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship (University of Chicago Press, 2008), and articles in a variety of edited volumes and journals, including the Journal of Religious Ethics, Studies in Christian Ethics, and Augustinian Studies. His interests include religious and philosophical ethics, theology, political theory, law and religion, and the role of religion in public life. In 2007 he was awarded Princeton’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

A graduate of Harvard College, he earned an M.Phil. and Diploma in Theology from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and his doctorate in Religious Studies from Yale University. He has received fellowships from the Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame, the Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Tikvah Center for Law & Jewish Civilization at New York University School of Law. Among his current projects is a book tentatively titled, What Do We Owe Strangers? Globalization and the Good Samaritan, which examines the ethics of humanitarianism in light of secular and religious perspectives on global justice.

He serves on the board of directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the editorial board of the Journal of Religious Ethics.

Episode 09: A Conversation with Oliver O'Donovan Jul 25, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by special guest Oliver O'Donovan to discuss political theology.

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Oliver O’Donovan, born in 1945 in London, held teaching posts at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Wycliffe College Toronto before becoming Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford in 1982. He was Professor of Christian Ethics & Practical Theology at Edinburgh from 2006 to 2012. Ordained as a priest of the Church of England, he was an active participant in ecumenical dialogue and a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2000.

He has held distinguished visiting lectureships in Cambridge, Durham, Rome, Hamilton, Pasadena and Hong Kong, and delivered the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University in 2021.

He is the author of The Problem of Self-Love in Saint Augustine (Yale 1979), Begotten or Made? (Oxford University Press, 1984), Resurrection and Moral Order (Eerdmans, 1986), On the Thirty-Nine Articles (Paternoster, 1986), Peace and Certainty (Eerdmans, 1989), The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Common Objects of Love (Eerdmans, 2002), The Ways of Judgment (2005), Self World and Time (2013), Finding and Seeking (2014) and Entering into Rest (2017).

He was married to Joan Lockwood ODonovan in 1978 in Toronto. They have two sons, both musicians.

Jointly he and his wife are the authors of a well-received collection of readings in the history of Christian political thought, From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought 100 - 1625 (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999) and of a volume of essays, Bonds of Imperfection. Christian politics past and present (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2004). The O’Donovans were married in 1978, and have two sons and four grandchildren.

Episode 08: A Conversation with Dr. James Patterson Jun 27, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by James Patterson to discuss Neo-Integralism, Fulton Sheen, Americanism, and more.
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Dr. Patterson is an associate professor and the chairman of the politics department at Ave Maria University; a fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy; a fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology; a contributing editor of Law & Liberty; a member of affiliated faculty with the Jack Miller Center, and the president of the Ciceronian Society.
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The Civitas Podcast, co-hosted by Peter Leithart and James Wood, exists to explore Christian political theology, with a specific focus on contemporary debates about liberalism and post-liberalism, and to elaborate a distinctively "ecclesiocentric" Theopolitan version of post-liberalism.
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Articles referenced in this episode:
No to Neo-Integralism
by: James Patterson
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/01/23/no-to-neo-integralism/
After Republican Virtue
by: James Patterson
https://lawliberty.org/after-republican-virtue/
Two Forms of Catholic Nationalism
https://lawliberty.org/two-forms-of-catholic-nationalism/

Episode 07: A Conversation with Jerry Bowyer Jun 01, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by Jerry Bowyer to discuss corporations, wokeism, discipling businesses, and economics.
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Jerry Bowyer is the chief economist of Vident Financial, editor of Townhall Finance, editor of the business channel of The Christian Post, host of Meeting of Minds with Jerry Bowyer podcast, president of Bowyer Research, and author of The Maker Versus the Takers: What Jesus Really Said About Social Justice and Economics. He is also resident economist with Kingdom Advisors, serves on the Editorial Board of Salem Communications, and is senior fellow in financial economics at the Center for Cultural Leadership. Jerry lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Susan, and the youngest three of his seven children.
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The Civitas Podcast, co-hosted by Peter Leithart and James Wood, exists to explore Christian political theology, with a specific focus on contemporary debates about liberalism and post-liberalism, and to elaborate a distinctively "ecclesiocentric" Theopolitan version of post-liberalism.

Episode 06: Liberalism is Heretical Ecclesiology Apr 28, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss liberalism, two kingdom theology, Lockean reductionism, what to do in a divided church, and more.
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The Civitas Podcast, co-hosted by Peter Leithart and James Wood, exists to explore Christian political theology, with a specific focus on contemporary debates about liberalism and post-liberalism, and to elaborate a distinctively "ecclesiocentric" Theopolitan version of post-liberalism.

Episode 05: A Conversation with Brad Littlejohn Mar 28, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood are joined by Brad Littlejohn to discuss two kingdoms, Christian Nationalism, and Christian commonwealths.
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About Brad Littlejohn:
Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping public leaders understand the intellectual and historical foundations of our current breakdown of public trust, social cohesion, and sound governance. His research investigates shifting understandings of the nature of freedom and authority, and how a more full-orbed conception of freedom, rooted in the Christian tradition, can inform policy that respects both the dignity of the individual and the urgency of the common good. He also serves as President of the Davenant Institute
A scholar and writer in the fields of Christian ethics, historical theology, and conservative political thought, he earned his PhD in Theological Ethics at the University of Edinburgh in 2014, where he studied the relationship of freedom and authority in the English Reformation. He is the author of The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty and The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed, among other books, as well as numerous peer-reviewed and popular-level articles and book chapters on topics ranging from freedom of conscience to the nature of property rights to the moral architecture of digital technology
In 2013 he founded the Davenant Institute, an organization dedicated to retrieving and renewing the Protestant theological and ethical tradition, and frequently writes, speaks, and teaches for their publications, conferences, and courses. He has also taught at Moody Bible Institute and Patrick Henry College, and served as Headmaster of Loudoun Classical School
He formerly worked as a Senior Fellow of the Edmund Burke Foundation as lead author on multi-year project entitled “Foundations of Liberty: Rediscovering the Anglo-American Conservative Tradition.” His essays arising out of this research have appeared in journals such as National Affairs, American Affairs, The American Conservative, First Things, and Modern Age.
He is also a weekly Opinion Contributor at WORLD Magazine, and publishes regularly on questions of Christian ethics and political theology for outlets such as The Gospel Coalition, American Reformer, Desiring God, and Mere Orthodoxy.

Episode 04: A Conversation with D.C. Schindler Feb 28, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood talk with D.C. Schindler about his father's work, liberalism, and post-liberal discourse.
_______
About Dr. Schindler
Dr. Schindler’s work is concerned above all with shedding light on contemporary cultural challenges and philosophical questions by drawing on the resources of the classical Christian tradition. His principal thematic focus is metaphysics and philosophical anthropology, but he also works in political philosophy, phenomenology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology. His main historical areas are ancient Greek philosophy (especially Plato and Neoplatonism), German philosophy (especially Hegel and Heidegger), and Catholic philosophy (especially Aquinas and 20th Century Thomism).

Dr. Schindler studied the Great Books as an undergraduate at Notre Dame, received a Master’s degree in theology at the John Paul II Institute, and then completed his education with a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in philosophy at The Catholic University of America. After teaching for twelve years at Villanova University, first as a teaching fellow in philosophy and then as a founding member of the Humanities Department, Dr. Schindler returned to Washington, DC to teach philosophy courses at the Institute. He has published more than a dozen books—including two volumes of a planned trilogy on the nature of freedom with the University of Notre Dame Press and a Robert Spaemann Reader with Oxford University Press—and more than 70 articles and book chapters, and his work has been translated into six languages. He is an editor of the English-language edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, and a board member of The Review of Metaphysics and New Polity: A Journal of Post-Liberal Thought; he is a translator of books and articles from French and German; he is a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at CUA and served on the Executive Council of the American Catholic Philosophical Association; and he has been invited to deliver named annual lectures in a variety of venues, including the Thomas Aquinas Lecture at four universities and colleges, the Bitar Memorial Lecture series at Geneva College, the John Paul II Lecture at the University of Dallas, the Lorenzo Albacete Lecture in New York City, and the Areopagus Lecture at Mars Hill Audio Journal in Charlottesville, VA.

Episode 03: Magisterial Reformation Political Theology, with Glenn Moots Jan 26, 2023

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss magisterial reformation political theology, reconstructionism, and Christian Nationalism with Dr. Glenn Moots.
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Glenn A. Moots is Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Northwood University and also serves as a Research Fellow at the McNair Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship there. He is the author of Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology (University of Missouri Press, 2010, 2022 paperback) and coedited, with Phillip Hamilton, Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American Revolution (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018).
Books and articles mentioned in this episode:
1. Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology

2. Glenn's essays at Law and Liberty
3. Glenn's two-part review of Stephen Wolfe's recent book, The Case for Christian Nationalism - Part 1 | Part 2

Episode 02: Ontological Individualism and Ecclesiocentrism, with James R. Rogers Dec 29, 2022

Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss ontological individualism and ecclesiocentrism with James Rogers, who chairs the Theopolis Civitas group.
James R. Rogers is associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University. He holds a Ph.D. and a J.D., and teaches and publishes scholarship at the intersection of law, politics, and mathematical models. He has published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Public Choice, and in numerous other academic journals. He edited and contributed to the book, Institutional Games and the Supreme Court, and served as editor of the Journal of Theoretical Politics from 2006 to 2013. He is currently contributing editor at Law & Liberty. He chairs the Theopolis Institute’s Civitas group.

Episode 01: Introducing the Civitas Podcast Nov 28, 2022

The Civitas Podcast, co-hosted by Peter Leithart and James Wood, exists to explore Christian political theology, with a specific focus on contemporary debates about liberalism and post-liberalism, and to elaborate a distinctively "ecclesiocentric" Theopolitan version of post-liberalism.

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