Podcasts I Listen To

This is sort of an update to a post from a few years back: Do you geek out when there’s a new episode of Radi­o­lab? Thought­ful Chris­t­ian Pod­casts, although it’s broad­er and includes pod­casts that aren’t specif­i­cal­ly Chris­t­ian.

Tonight I had a bunch of friends over and we began dis­cussing pod­casts we lis­tened to. One of them asked me write up my list, and I thought it might be of more gen­er­al inter­est.

1. Plan­et Mon­ey — this is a fas­ci­nat­ing NPR pod­cast about the econ­o­my. One of my absolute favorites. The episodes are not long but the top­ics are explored in suf­fi­cient depth to be infor­ma­tive.
2. Radi­o­lab — a show about curios­i­ty (often with a strong sci­ence bent). This was the show that got me into pod­casts. When it is good, it is off the charts.
3. Cam­pus Min­istry Lead­er­ship Pod­cast — two Chi Alpha lead­ers, Lennon Noland and Andrew Young­blood, con­duct engag­ing inter­views with uni­ver­si­ty min­is­ters.
4. Pete Bul­lette from Chi Alpha at UVA — Pete is one of the con­sis­tent­ly best preach­ers I know. I lis­ten to him to stretch myself. Bias alert — Pete is a friend of mine and so fac­tor that into my endorse­ment.
5. Lar­ry Osborne from North Coast Church — Lar­ry Osborne is extreme­ly insight­ful. The pod­cast is a mix of the var­i­ous pas­tors on staff, so I should clar­i­fy I only lis­ten to him — I don’t res­onate with the oth­er preach­ers on the church staff that much. Oth­ers seem to like them a lot, though.
6. Unbe­liev­able? — this one is from the UK. This is a show that usu­al­ly fea­tures a Chris­t­ian debat­ing a non-Chris­t­ian. The host is phe­nom­e­nal at keep­ing his guests on track and forc­ing them to inter­act with their oppo­nen­t’s strongest argu­ments. The episodes are long, but if you like the top­ic of the day you will be pleased with the qual­i­ty of the con­ver­sa­tion.
7. The Andy Stan­ley Lead­er­ship Pod­cast — Andy has a tal­ent for tak­ing big ideas and mak­ing them acces­si­ble. I near­ly always walk away from one of his pod­casts with a new prac­ti­cal insight.
8. Ask Pas­tor John — these are bite-sized pod­casts. Each day John Piper answers one ques­tion that has been emailed to him. Every once in a while the ques­tions are sil­ly, but very often they’re relat­able ques­tions and Piper gives well-thought-out answers.
9. Think­ing in Pub­lic — an inter­view-style pod­cast with the pres­i­dent of South­ern The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary. The guests are usu­al­ly amaz­ing and the top­ics are stim­u­lat­ing.
10. Bay­side Church — a large church near Sacra­men­to. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like Curt Har­low’s ser­mons (bias alert — I have known Curt for over 20 years and con­sid­er him a good friend).
11. Con­ver­sa­tions with Tyler — Cowen is one of the great pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als of our age, and if I am at all inter­est­ed in the per­son he’s inter­view­ing I know I will love it. He asks ques­tions that oth­er hosts don’t think to ask.
12. Econ­talk — from Russ Roberts, a schol­ar at the Hoover Insti­tute here at Stan­ford. I like the host, but some­times the top­ics fail to inter­est me.
13. Research on Reli­gion — the host, Antho­ny Gill, is a pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton. He hosts experts on reli­gion (usu­al­ly aca­d­e­mics) to talk about their area of exper­tise.
14. Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry — best­selling author Mal­colm Glad­well digs into some­thing from his­to­ry and ana­lyzes it from a fresh per­spec­tive.