Digital Public Square

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Jeremy Tedesco and to talk about his contribution with Christiana Kiefer entitled, Content Moderation and Suppressing Speech: Are There Limits to Talking about Sexuality and Gender Online?. Today, Jeremy and I talk about the relationship between private companies and free speech as well as how Christians can think about the nature of the digital public square.

Meet Jeremy:
Jeremy serves as senior counsel and senior vice president of corporate engagement for the Alliance Defending Freedom. In this role, Tedesco leads ADF’s efforts to combat corporate cancel culture and to build a business ethic that respects free speech, religious freedom, and human dignity. Tedesco was also a part of the legal teams that successfully litigated Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Reed v. Town of Gilbert, and Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, before the United States Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Regent University School of Law.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by David French to talk about his contribution entitled, “Can the Government Save Us from Ourselves?: The Legal Complexities of Free Speech and Content Moderation.” Today, David and I talk about the debates over regulating the technology industry in light of the challenges to free expression today as well as the role of personal virtue in the public square.

Meet David:
David is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and previously served as senior editor at the Dispatch as well as a contributing writer for the Atlantic. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, a former lecturer at Cornell Law School, and a past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his most recent book is, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. He is a former major in the United States Army Reserve and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he earned a Bronze Star.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, this week I am joined by Brooke Medina to talk about her contribution entitled, “Defining the Limits of Hate Speech and Violence: Dignity, Truth, and Speech in the Digital Public Square.” Brooke and I talk about the widespread debate over hate speech and how Christians must speak both truth and grace in the public square.

Meet Brooke:

Brooke serves as vice president of communications for the John Locke Foundation. She has completed numerous programs with the Charles Koch Institute, including the Koch Leaders Program and Koch Communications Fellowship, focusing on the philosophical underpinnings of market-based management and classical liberalism. She also sits on the board of directors for ReCity Network. Her writing has been published in numerous outlets, such as The Hill, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Signal, and FEE. She is a graduate of Regent University.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Joshua Wester to talk about his contribution entitled, “Free to Believe? The Case for Religious Freedom and Free Expression in the Digital Age.” Today, Josh and I talk about the nature and necessity of religious freedom in our technological society.

Meet Josh:
Josh serves as the lead pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina and is an associate research fellow of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission where he researches issues of public theology, political philosophy, and religious freedom. He holds a ThM in public theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a PhD in Christian ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also the author of the forthcoming book A Student’s Guide to Politics with Christian Focus Publications.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Bonnie Kristian to talk about her contribution entitled, “Should We Ban Pornography? Navigating the Complexities of Objectionable Content in a Digital Age.” Today, Bonnie and I talk about the moral plague of pornography in our society and the difficulties of banning objectionable content online.

Meet Bonnie:
Bonnie is a journalist and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What it Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). She is a columnist at Christianity Today and a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank. Her work has been widely published at outlets including the New York Times, The Week, USA Today, CNN, and Politico. A graduate of Bethel Seminary, she lives in Pittsburg with her husband and twin sons.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Patricia Shaw to talk about her contribution entitled, "The Global Digital Marketplace: Engaging International Technology Policy from a Christian Perspective". Today we talk about some of the international aspects of the technology policy debate and how nations around the world are thinking through these important issues in their specific contexts.

Meet Patricia: 

Patricia serves as CEO of Beyond Reach Consulting Limited and is based in the UK but advises internationally on AI and data ethics, policy, governance, and corporate digital responsibility. She has twenty years’ of experience as a lawyer in data, technology, and regulatory/government affairs and is a qualified solicitor in England and the Republic of Ireland. She has authored and edited numerous works on law and regulation, policy, ethics, and AI.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Nathan Leamer to talk about his contribution entitled, "The Wild West of Technology: A Convergence of Optimism and Pessimism in the United States". Today, we talk about how Christians can think wisely about the role of government and industry in the technology policy debate in the United States.

Meet Nathan: 

Nathan serves as the Executive Director of the Digital First Project and Vice President of public affairs at Targeted Victory. He previously served as Policy Advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Before working at the FCC, he was a Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute where he managed the institute’s government relations and wrote extensively on issues of emerging technology, intellectual property, and privacy.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

As we continue our mini-series on our recently released volume The Digital Public Square with B&H Academic, I am joined by Dr. Bryan Baise to talk about his contribution entitled, Once More, with Tweeting?: Bracketing a Public Square from the Perils of Notoriety. Today, Bryan and I talk about how technology has altered our understanding of a public square and teaching the next generation about social ethics.

Meet Bryan: 

Bryan serves as associate professor of philosophy and apologetics at Boyce College, where he also directs the Augustine Honors Collegium and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics degree program. He has contributed to edited academic volumes and writes popular-level essays for several Christian outlets. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He resides in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife and three children.

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

This is a special episode of the podcast as we kick off a new mini-series themed after a new volume that I had the privilege of editing entitled The Digital Public Square: Christian Ethics in a Technological Society. This book is published by B&H Academic and is available Wednesday, February 1st wherever books are sold.

This volume along with my other recently released books including Following Jesus in a Digital Age, the companion Bible study, and A Student’s Guide to Social Media are part of a larger research project that I have been leading at the ERLC over the last couple of years. The Digital Public Square research project is designed to help Christians think deeply about the pressing questions of faith and the public square as well as take part in a larger conversation about these pressing challenges of technology and social media whether in the halls of Congress, your state capital, on campuses of the largest and most influential technology companies, in academic gatherings, and most importantly your own home. 

I am joined by 11 other contributors who address issues such as political philosophy, technology policy, free speech and content moderation, religious freedom, hate speech and hate crimes, gender/sexuality, pornography, conspiracy theories and misinformation, and digital authoritarianism as well as Christian discipleship and mission in the 21st century.

Over the next couple of months, I am going to be joined by each contributor to talk about their interest in these areas, their chapters, and what if anything has changed since they wrote their chapters given how quickly the field of technology changes.

Download a sample of The Digital Public Square

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. John Dyer to talk about the formative power of technology and how it deeply shapes the way we see the world around us including how we read the Scripture given the prominence of digital Bibles today. We discuss the newly revised version of his book From the Garden to the City from Kregel Publications and his new work People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture.

Meet Dr. Dyer

John serves as the vice president for enrollment and educational technology as well as an assistant professor of theological studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He has been a technology creator for over 20 years, and his research focuses on the intersection of faith and technology, including Bible software, digital ecclesiology, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism.

Resources:

• From the Garden to the City by John Dyer
• People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture by John Dyer
• Transhumanism and the Image of God by Jacob Shatzer
• Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age by Alan Noble
• The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch
• Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture by Heidi Campbell

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Coleman M. Ford to talk about his new book A Bond between Souls: Friendship in the Letters of Augustine from Lexham Press. Today, we discuss the life and work of St. Augustine as well as his understanding of friendship.

Meet Dr. Ford

Dr. Ford serves as assistant professor of humanities at Texas Baptist College. His research interests include the spirituality and pastoral theology of Augustine of Hippo, the transcendentals (truth, goodness, beauty) in the patristic tradition, virtue and ethics in the patristic tradition, Christianity in late antiquity, and the history of Christian spirituality and formation.

Resources:

• A Bond between Souls: Friendship in the Letters of Augustine by Coleman M. Ford
• Confessions by St. Augustine and Henry Chadwick (translator)
• Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Mary T. Clark (translator)
• Friendship and the Moral Life by Paul Wadell
• Made for Friendship: The Relationship That Halves Our Sorrows and Doubles Our Joys by Drew Hunter
• Augustine: A Very Short Introduction by Henry Chadwick

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. David Mathis to talk about his book Workers for Your Joy: The Call of Christ on Christian Leaders from Crossway. Today we talk about Christian leadership and the proper role of authority in the Church.

Meet David Mathis:

David serves as senior teacher and executive editor at DesiringGod.org, a pastor at Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and an adjunct professor at Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis. He is the author of several books, including Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

Resources:

• Workers for Your Joy: The Call of Christ on Christian Leaders by David Mathis
• Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines by David Mathis
• The Cross and Christian Ministry by D.A. Carson
• Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor by D.A. Carson
• Sticky Teams by Larry Osborne
• Biblical Eldership seminar with John Piper

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Russ Shafer-Landau to talk about on moral philosophy and questions of metaethics. Today, we talk about his books Moral Realism: A Defence and The Fundamentals of Ethics.

Meet Dr. Shafer-Landau

Russ Shafer-Landau serves as a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Moral Realism: A Defence, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?, The Fundamentals of Ethics, and Living Ethics. He also is the editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Shafer-Landau served as President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division) in 2021. He is currently working on a large collaborative project with John Bengson and Terence Cuneo that seeks to offer a new vindication of non-naturalist moral realism, entitled The Moral Universe (Oxford 2023) focusing on the metaphysical and normative dimensions of morality.

Resources:

• Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? by Russ Shafer-Landau
• Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology by Russ Shafer-Landau and Terence Cuneo
• Metaethics: A Contemporary Introduction by Mark van Roojen
• Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches by Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Jessica Joustra to talk about Herman Bavinck and the centrality of ethics in the Chrisitan life.

Meet Dr. Joustra:

Dr. Joustra is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Theology at Redeemer and an Associate Researcher at the Neo-Calvinist Research Institute of the Theologische Universiteit Kampen. She is also the Director of Redeemer’s Albert M. Wolters Centre for Christian Scholarship. She earned a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from Fuller Theological Seminary and the Free University and an M.Div from Calvin Theological Seminary. 

Resources:

• Reformed Ethics: Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity by Herman Bavinck and John Bolton
• Reformed Ethics: The Duties of the Christian Life (Volume 2) by Herman Bavinck and John Bolton
• Essays on Religion, Science, and Society Herman Bavinck and John Bolton
• Responsible Conduct: Principles of Christian Ethics by Jochem Douma
• John Bolt’s Dissertation on Bavinck’s Two Essays on the Imitatio Christi

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Christopher Kaczor to talk about the ethics of abortion and human personhood in light of his new book The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice from Routledge.

Meet Dr. Kaczor

Dr. Kaczor is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University.  He graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Kaczor did postdoctoral work at the University of Cologne. He was appointed a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life of Vatican City, a fellow of the Word on Fire Institute, and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is also a winner of a Templeton Grant and has written more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters and over 16 books on a host of issues including bioethics, human dignity, and abortion.

Resources:

• The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice by Christopher Kaczor
• Abortion Rights: For and Against by Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor
• Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments by Randy Alcorn

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Harry Lee Poe to talk about the life and faith of C.S. Lewis in light of the final volume, The Completion of C.S. Lewis, in his three part biography published by Crossway.

Meet Dr. Poe

Dr. Poe serves as the Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University, where he has taught a course on C. S. Lewis for over twenty years. He is the author of twenty books, including Becoming C. S. Lewis and The Making of C. S. Lewis, as well as numerous articles on Lewis and the Inklings. Poe hosts the annual Inklings Weekend in Montreat, North Carolina, and is a regular speaker on Lewis at universities and other venues around the world.

Resources:

• The Completion of C. S. Lewis: From War to Joy by Harry Lee Poe
• The Making of C. S. Lewis (1918–1945): From Atheist to Apologist by Harry Lee Poe
• Becoming C. S. Lewis (1898–1918): A Biography of Young Jack Lewis by Harry Lee Poe
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Nigel Biggar to talk about his book What’s Wrong With Rights? from Oxford University Press and we discuss the nature of rights and the common good.

Meet Dr. Biggar

Nigel Biggar until his recent retirement was the Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life. He has degrees from Oxford, Regent College, and the University of Chicago. He studies the contribution of religion to the health of liberal societies; moral questions about killing (especially in relation to suicide, euthanasia, and war); forgiveness after civil conflict; the public responsibility of the media; and the public vocation of universities. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Christian ethics and public theology.

Resources:

• What’s Wrong with Rights? by Nigel Biggar
• The Idea of Natural Rights by Brian Tierney
• Justice: Rights and Wrongs by Nicholas Wolterstorff
• Natural Rights: A Criticism of Some Political and Ethical Conceptions by David Ritchie
• On Human Rights by James Griffin

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Patrick Schreiner to talk about his new book Political Gospel: Public Witness in a Politically Crazy World from B&H Publishing.

Meet Dr. Schreiner

Dr. Schreiner is Associate Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology as well as the the Director of the Residency PhD program at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City Missouri. He previously taught at Western Seminary in Portland Oregon and received his Ph.D. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of a number of books, including a commentary on the book of Acts, The Visual Word: An Illustrated Guide to the New Testament Books, and The Mission of the Triune God: A Theology of Acts. 

Resources:

• Political Gospel: Public Witness in a Politically Crazy World by Patrick Schreiner
• The Mission of the Triune God by Patrick Schreiner
• The Visual Word: Illustrated Outlines of The New Testament Books by Patrick Schreiner
• City of God by St. Augustine of Hippo
• How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age by Jonathan Leeman
• World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age by C. Kavin Rowe

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Ronni Kurtz to talk about his new book Fruitful Theology: How the Life of the Mind Leads to the Life of the Soul from B&H Publishing. Today, we talk about how theology can help reorient our entire life toward the fruit of the Spirit which leads to right living before God.

Meet Dr. Kurtz:

Dr. Kurtz earned his PhD from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and currently serves as an assistant professor of theology at Cedarville University. Before moving to Ohio, Ronni was a pastor in Kansas City, Missouri for seven years where he also taught theology at Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College. He is also the author of No Shadow of Turning: Divine Immutability and the Economy of Redemption.

Resources:

• Fruitful Theology by Ronni Kurtz
• No Shadow of Turning by Ronni Kurtz
• God Without Measure by John Webster
• The Culture of Theology by John Webster
• On the Unity of Christ by Saint Cyril of Alexandria
• On the Trinity by Saint Augustine of Hippo
• On the Incarnation by Athanasius of Alexandria
• On God and Christ by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
• Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

In this episode, I am joined by Bonnie Kristian to talk about our modern knowledge crisis and the rise of misinformation.

Meet Bonnie:

Bonnie Kristian is a seasoned journalist and a columnist at Christianity Today. She previously served as a deputy editor and the acting editor-in-chief of The Week. She is the author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today. Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

Resources:

• Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought by Jonathan Rauch
• The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Earley

The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.