The Christian Research Institute
500 episodes listed below
Measured Christian critique for contested modern ideas.
Postmodern Realities Podcast works from books, films, public teachers, and theological trends toward explicitly Christian evaluation. Its conversations are patient and article-driven, often moving from definitions and background into biblical categories, moral concerns, and practical church questions.
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Postmodern Realities Podcast sits at the intersection of Christian apologetics, cultural criticism, and theological book review. Its episodes are built around conversations connected to Christian Research Journal articles, feature pieces, and critiques. The show does not hurry. It usually starts by naming the subject plainly, then lets a guest supply background, distinctions, and concerns before drawing out the Christian evaluation. Recent episodes show a wide intellectual range. Avatar: Fire and Ash becomes a way to talk about spirituality, mythic imagination, and the appeal of sacredness without commandments. Aristotle and C.S. Lewis open a discussion of virtue, character, action, and the biblical meaning of the heart. Sigmund Freud appears in relation to modern sexual identity and psychoanalytic accounts of religion. Other conversations consider Andy Stanley, Preston Sprinkle, parenting literature, deconstruction, marriage, queer theory, and progressive education. The show is at its most distinctive when it refuses to separate ideas from consequences. A film, a classroom movement, a memoir, or a popular teacher is treated as a real carrier of assumptions about God, the human person, authority, desire, family, and the church. The pacing is measured, and the questions tend to be clarifying rather than performative. There is warmth in the way the conversations unfold, but the analysis remains firm. The show is comfortable saying where it thinks a book, movement, or teacher conflicts with biblical categories. It is also comfortable spending time on terms before judging them. That makes the experience less like a hot-take show and more like an editorial conference with theological stakes. The Christian Research Institute setting is visible throughout, including references to related articles, podcasts, and ministry resources. Ad breaks and ministry updates can interrupt the flow. Even so, the core appeal is consistent: careful Christian assessment of the ideas shaping ordinary belief, public institutions, entertainment, sexuality, parenting, and church practice.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants Christian apologetics applied to books, films, public teachers, sexuality, education, parenting, and church life. It is best for someone patient with article-centered conversations and explicit theological judgment.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its steady movement from cultural artifact to doctrinal evaluation. Similar programs may react to controversies; this one more often defines the issue, traces its assumptions, and asks what follows for Christian belief and practice.
Hosted by Melanie Cogdill the Managing Editor at the Christian Research Institute, Postmodern Realities is a podcast from the Christian Research Institute and the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL. Each podcast features in-depth conversations with our JOURNAL authors.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Christian author interviews trace the theological claims embedded in popular culture, technology, religious controversy, and everyday arguments about truth.
Melanie Cogdill brings Christian theology into direct conversation with contemporary arguments and popular culture. Her author interviews move from Freud's account of religious belief to social media's influence on Gen Z women, then from debates over biblical authority to the…
Wicked's many versions lead Melanie Cogdill into questions of objective truth; your movie chat may need a notebook.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured defense of evangelism that keeps Calvinism tied to witness, not excuse.
This episode asks a plain but unsettled question: if God elects, why bother evangelizing? Douglas Groothuis answers by treating outreach as a Christian duty, not a tactical add-on.
A measured look at Avatar's mythic appeal and why its spiritual imagery reaches so many people.
The episode reads Avatar and Fire and Ash as mythic stories with wide reach, arguing that they make awe feel accessible without sanding down its mystery.
A careful Christian look at the Lunar New Year and the Chinese zodiac.
The episode looks at Lunar New Year and the Chinese zodiac through a Christian lens rather than as a simple cultural overview. Lindsay Medden-Waltz explains the animal cycle, yin and yang, and the elements clearly, while Melanie Cogdill keeps the discussion pointed toward…
A focused case for virtue as character formed by practice, not feeling.
Melanie Cogdill and Lewis Marcos trace Aristotle, C.S. Lewis, and virtue with a steady focus on character formed by practice. Drawing on Marcos's 2025 book From Aristotle to Christ and his article Aristotle and C.S.
A sober Christian look at AI avatars, grief, and the pull of artificial comfort.
Postmodern Realities Podcast treats AI avatars of deceased loved ones as a grave Christian question, not a novelty. Melanie Cogdill and Dr. Douglas Grothuis keep the focus on grief, lament, and how believers might respond when artificial comfort starts to imitate memory.
Freud, religion, and belief get a careful Christian hearing.
This episode gives Sigmund Freud a careful Christian hearing. It treats his view of religion as immaturity, compulsion, and wishful escape, then slows down to test the logic behind those claims before turning to Christian critique.
A careful Christian critique of Andy Stanley that keeps the theology clear and restrained.
Matthew Kennedy takes a careful Christian look at Andy Stanley's teaching, and the piece works best when it moves from reputation to theology.
A careful look at discernment, Christian voices online, and the feeds shaping Gen Z girls.
This discussion looks at how social platforms shape Gen Z girls and at the Christian voices they encounter online. It is clearest when it keeps Christian truth, content that pushes back on it, and material that borrows the language of faith but carries a different agenda in…
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Live sermons with Easter-shaped urgency.
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In this episode, host Melanie Cogdill interviews Elisa Riddell about Sigmund Freud's influence on modern culture, exploring his theories, personal flaws, and the Christian critique of his work.
Melanie Cogdill and Ann Kennedy review Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir Beard, which recounts her four-year marriage to Devin, a man who was attracted to men and repeatedly unfaithful.
Anne Kennedy reviews The Myth of Good Christian Parenting, whose authors Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey Kramer McGinnis want evangelicals to stop spanking and reject the promise that biblical parenting guarantees Christian children.
Anne Kennedy reviews the teaching of Dr.
Jay Watts tells Melanie Cogdill that a pastor asked him about a speaker whose every post was a confrontation, which led to his Christian Research Journal article 'The Problem of Platforming Anger.' He says algorithms define interests by what keeps you scrolling, not by what you would want to cultivate, and he cites the Mochon and Schwartz 'confrontation effect' study, in which anger stops scrolling 60% of the time.
Melanie Cogdill and Alexa Kramer review Netflix's K-Pop Demon Hunters, released in June 2025, and address why its song "Golden" topped the Billboard chart and the film became Netflix's most-watched ever.
Cole Burgett of Corbin University tells host Melanie Cogdill that Guillermo del Toro's Netflix Frankenstein treats 'the real monster' as 'the human being who refuses to love.' He traces the pop-culture image of the creature to James Whale's 1931 Universal film, Boris Karloff and makeup artist Jack Pierce, and contrasts it with Shelley's articulate, philosophical creature.
Postmodern Realities Episode 471 pairs host Melanie Cogdill with author Robert Velarde to discuss his Christian Research Journal review of Alien: Earth, an eight-episode series set in 2120, two years before the original 1979 Alien.
Host Melanie Cogdill interviews Cole Burgett about James Cameron's film Avatar: Fire and Ash, exploring its spiritual themes, mythic storytelling, and how Christians can engage with it through cultural apologetics.
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Reverend Matthew Kennedy critiques Pastor Andy Stanley's theology, focusing on Stanley's rejection of biblical authority in evangelism, his view of human nature, and his methodology for reaching a post-Christian culture.
This episode features a conversation with Dr.
Host Melanie Cogdill interviews Christian apologist Alexa Kramer for a spoiler-filled analysis of the films 'Wicked' and 'Wicked: For Good'.
Ratio Christi president Corey Miller tells Postmodern Realities host Melanie Cogdell that the US is in a 'cultural revolution' driven by ideas that move 'from campus to culture,' the thesis of his October 2025 book The Progressive Miseducation of America.
This episode explores how short-form social media content affects evangelism among Gen Z women, discussing challenges like shortened attention spans, the prioritization of lived experience over credentials, and the prevalence of misleading influencers.
Melanie Cogdill interviews Lindsay Medden-Waltz about the Chinese zodiac and Lunar New Year, exploring its cultural significance, layers like yin-yang and elements, and its impact on life decisions.
Host Melanie Cogdill interviews Dr.
Theology professor Cole Burgett joins host Melanie Cogdill for a spoiler-filled discussion and Christian analysis of the Apple TV+ sci-fi series Pluribus.