The Reading Wheel Review

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Jeff Polet, Director of the Ford Leadership Forum at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. Their discussion focuses on The Federalist Papers, which is the text of the month for April 2026 at the Reading Wheel Review. Their conversation covers the motives for publishing the papers, the context of the US Constitution and debates over its ratification, as well as enduring challenges to liberty and union faced by America over the previous two and a half centuries.

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Erik Matson, Gibbons Fellow in Economics at the Catholic University of America and co-director of the Adam Smith Program at George Mason University. March marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, and Jordan and Erik discuss the significance of the great Scottish philosopher who has been called “the father of modern economics.” 

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Jana Novak, co-author of Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country. Continuing the Reading Wheel Review’s year-long celebration of the American semiquincentennial, Jordan and Jana discuss the religious beliefs and expression of America’s first president, George Washington, and his understandings of divine providence, civil liberty, and religious freedom. 

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach of American University in Washington, D.C. They discuss Dreisbach’s book, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, which examines in detail the different ways that Christian scripture influenced and was used by leading figures in the revolutionary era. This discussion opens the Reading Wheel Review’s year-long celebration of the American semiquincentennial, and there is no better way to begin than with a conversation about the Bible and the American founding. 

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Paul Marshall, Wilson Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University. They discuss Marshall’s book, Called to Be Friends, Called to Serve, which documents the long and fruitful friendship of John Perkins and Howard Ahmanson Jr. These two men from different backgrounds model friendship based on an authentic Christian faith and vision of social life, offering inspiration for those seeking to promote peace and reconciliation in a world fraught by conflict and injustice. 

In this special “addendum” edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Jenna A. Robinson, president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. They discuss Russell Kirk’s book, Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning. Their conversation explores Kirk’s insights into the challenges facing authentic schooling in wisdom and virtue in the twentieth century as well as today. Kirk’s book is nearly a half-century old, but in it we see both the origins as well as the consequences of the corruption of the purposes of higher education.

In this episode, CRCD Executive Director Dr. Jordan Ballor interviews Dr. Luke C. Sheahan, associate professor of political science at Duquesne University. They discuss Robert Nisbet's classic work The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought. This wide-ranging conversation reviews Nisbet's significant life and work, and examines his exploration of different types of community throughout Western civilization, as well as its relevance for today.

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Melissa Moschella, professor of the practice of philosophy at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. They discuss Dr. Moschella’s recent book, Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law: Principles for Human Flourishing, which serves as an introduction to the school of thought known as “new natural law” and covers topics related to personal virtue as well as social life.

In this addendum edition of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, interviews Dr. Hunter Baker, who serves as provost and dean of the faculty at North Greenville University as well as a senior fellow at the CRCD. They discuss Dr. Baker’s recent book, Postliberal Protestants: Baptists between Obergefell and Christian Nationalism, the challenges to religious liberty today, and the prospects for a renewed commitment to America’s founding ideals.

In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review podcast, Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, interviews Miles Smith, an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College and author of Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War. The place of religion in public life in America’s Early Republic was a complicated and contested reality, and Smith’s volume helps unpack the complexity of what he calls “Christian institutionalism,” between disestablishment and secularism.

This month marks the 65th anniversary of the original publication of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. On this episode, First Liberty’s Chief Legal Officer Jeff Mateer joins Dr. Jordan Ballor, executive director of the CRCD, to discuss the book's important themes, lessons, and inspiration, as well as its impact on Jeff personally. Recent Publications:Adam MacLeod, “A Charity Case,” Law & Liberty  Trey Dimsdale, “Fight for the First Amendment,” Religion & Liberty Online   Hunter Baker, “A collision of American lives,” WORLD Opinions Upcoming Events:Shaftesbury Fellowship (May 19-July 25, 2025)FLI Educational Tour: Boston (July 3-7, 2025)Religious Liberty in the States 2025 Launch (July 14, 2025)

In this episode, we engage with Dr. Stephen Presley’s Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church: Recovering an Ancient Vision. Dr. Presley is director of education and engagement as well as senior fellow for religion & public life at the CRCD. He is also professor of church history at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his latest book serves as a kind of prequel to his earlier book, Cultural Sanctification, which was featured in the April 2024 edition of the Reading Wheel Review. This week, Dr. Presley joins CRCD executive director Dr. Jordan Ballor to talk about the role of Scripture in the early church, and how the Bible shaped the Christian life in the ancient world. There is much that separates us from the world of the church fathers, but Dr. Presley argues that there is much that we can learn from an approach to the Bible that views it as the life-giving, authoritative word of God that shapes our lives in service of God.

In this month’s episode of the Reading Wheel Review, Dr. John D. Wilsey, a senior fellow at the CRCD and professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sits down with the CRCD’s director of research Dr. Jordan Ballor to discuss some of the key features of his recent book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. Conservatism is a contested perspective these days, and one that is often contrasted with liberalism. But as we will learn throughout the course of this discussion, understanding the right relationship between order and liberty is essential to defending a truly principled conservatism and religious freedom. Dr. John Wilsey’s primer is a worthwhile starting point for this endeavor.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Gerald McDermott about his book, Deep Anglicanism: A Brief Guide.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Bryan T. McGraw, Jesse Covington, and Micah J. Watson about their book, Hopeful Realism: Evangelical Natural Law and Democratic Politics.

In this final issue of the inaugural year of the Reading Wheel Review, CRCD executive director Trey Dimsdale interviews Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, a Harvard-trained economist and professor at the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America and a senior fellow at the CRCD. They discuss Pakaluk’s book, Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, as well as its reception and its resonance with her own experience as the mother of eight, step-mother to six, and grandmother to 29.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Dr. Carl Trueman about his newly released book, To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Dr. Ruth Wisse about her book, If I am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Katharine Birbalsingh about her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Dr. Daniel Mark about his book, The Nature of Law: Authority, Obligation, and the Common Good.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale talks with Mark David Hall about his book, Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church.

In this episode, Trey Dimsdale and CRCD’s senior fellow John Arthur Nunes discuss W. E. B. DuBois’s The Gift of Black Folk. Nunes is currently serving as interim president at California Lutheran University.

This episode features a special interview with Michael Wear, the founder of the Center for Christianity in Public Life about his new book, The Spirit of Our Politics. The conversation between Michael and the CRCD’s executive director, Trey Dimsdale, mentions a review of the book published in the Acton Institute’s quarterly magazine, Religion & Liberty. That review can be found at this link.

Dr. Stephen Presley, senior fellow in religion and public life at the CRCD and author of Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World Like the Early Church, joins CRCD executive director Trey Dimsdale for an engaging discussion on bridging divides, engaging the world, and building and preserving institutions on this week’s Reading Wheel Review podcast.

This episode features a discussion with Francis Beckwith regarding his book, Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant. This month marks the 750th anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Christian faith’s most influential theologians. Trey Dimsdale and Dr. Francis Beckwith dicuss St. Thomas’s influence across Christian traditions and the ways that his thought might be used to find common ground for ecumenical, and even interfaith, cooperation on matters that concern all of us.

This episode features a discussion of Kevin Vallier’s All the Kingdoms of the World. Vallier is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University.

This month, Dr. Mark Dooley joins us to discuss the work of the late Sir Roger Scruton. Mark is an Irish philosopher who has the honor of being Sir Roger’s literary executor. He is the author or editor of several books related to Sir Roger’s life and legacy including an intellectual biography, Roger Scruton: The Philosopher on Dover Beach. The second edition this work is due out this year from Bloomsbury.