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The Civitas Podcast

Theopolis Institute

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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  • 21 episodes
  • monthly
  • Avg 1 hr 2 min
  • English

Episodes 21

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  • August 31 · 52 min

    Episode 46: A Commonwealth of Hope - A Conversation with Michael Lamb

    Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down with Michael Lamb for a conversation on Augustine, political hope, the common good, rhetoric, coercion, the Church, and the possibilities and limits of political life. Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He is also an Associate Fellow with the Oxford Character Project. His research focuses on leadership, character, and the role of virtues in public life, and he is the author of A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2022). In this conversation, Lamb introduces the major modern interpretations of Augustine’s political thought, from Augustinian liberalism and realism to communitarian and civic republican readings. Against portrayals of Augustine as simply pessimistic about politics, Lamb argues that Augustine offers a more complex account of hope as a virtue - one that resists both despair and presumption while making room for meaningful political action within the limits of the present age. The conversation explores Augustine’s understanding of temporal and eternal goods, the common good, political persuasion, civic peace, and the role of rhetoric in forming both judgment and desire. Leithart, Wood, and Lamb discuss whether political actors should seek to “win,” how Augustine engages opponents on their own terms, and how his training in rhetoric shapes the way he argues, exhorts, and seeks to cultivate virtue. The discussion also turns to some of the more difficult questions in Augustine’s political theology, including his defense of coercion in the Donatist controversy, his understanding of liberty as freedom from domination, and his complicated relationship to Christian rulers and imperial power. The episode concludes by considering the political significance of the Church: not as a pure community standing outside the world, but as a mixed body, a school of virtue, and the place where worship, sacrifice, mercy, and the right ordering of loves give concrete form to Augustine’s vision of civic and theological life. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • July 30 · 1 hr 4 min

    Episode 45: America in the Mystery of Christ and the Church — A Conversation with Reuben Slife

    Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down with Reuben Slife for a conversation on David L. Schindler, American liberalism, religious freedom, Catholic social thought, the nature of rights, and America’s place within the mystery of Christ and the Church. Reuben Slife is an editor at New Polity and the editor of America in the Mystery of Christ and the Church, a new collection of David L. Schindler’s writings on America, accompanied by Slife’s substantial critical introduction. Slife is also preparing to begin doctoral studies at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C. In this conversation, Slife introduces Schindler as an underappreciated early postliberal thinker whose work challenged the assumptions of American Catholic neoconservatism. Drawing on Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul II, and the Communio tradition, Schindler argued that Christianity cannot simply supply moral values to an otherwise neutral political and economic order. The world and its institutions are already ordered toward God in Christ, and every social system therefore embodies an implicit theology and ontology. The conversation explores Schindler’s debates with Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, George Weigel, and John Courtney Murray, especially over the neutrality of liberal institutions, the “naked public square,” religious freedom, and the First Amendment as an “article of peace.” Leithart, Wood, and Slife discuss whether rights arise from our separation from others or from our prior relation to them, how liberal individualism helps sustain the logic of abortion, and how sinful assumptions become embedded in laws, institutions, and cultural habits. The discussion also considers Schindler’s account of cosmic liturgy: creation comes from God and is ordered toward its return to God in praise. From Mother Teresa’s contemplative service to the Eucharistic life of the Church, Christian action is not secular work with religion added on top, but participation in the world’s intrinsic glorification of God. The episode concludes by asking how Americans can receive the genuine goods of their national inheritance—freedom, opportunity, invention, religious liberty, and social peace—while allowing those goods to be purified and more deeply situated within Christ and the communion of the Church. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • June 30 · 1 hr 6 min

    Episode 44: The Crisis of Liberalism — A Conversation with Michael R.J. Bonner

    Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down with Michael R.J. Bonner for a conversation on liberalism, Christianity, freedom, secularism, Iran, and the theological roots of the modern political order. Michael R.J. Bonner is a scholar, writer, and political consultant based in Ontario. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford and has written widely on Iranian history, especially the Sasanian Empire and late antiquity. His books include In Defense of Civilization and The Crisis of Liberalism: The Origin and Destiny of Freedom. In this conversation, Bonner discusses The Crisis of Liberalism, arguing that liberalism is far more difficult to define, defend, and sustain than many of its champions assume. At its heart, Bonner suggests, liberalism is a political commitment to personal freedom, but that commitment rests on deeper assumptions about human equality, free will, individual autonomy, historical progress, and the separation of religion from the secular realm. Drawing on John Gray, Francis Fukuyama, John Locke, scholastic theology, and the Böckenförde dilemma, Bonner argues that liberalism depends on Christian theological claims that it cannot finally justify on its own. The conversation also explores the contested Christian roots of liberalism, including debates over free will, Pelagianism, Franciscan voluntarism, nominalism, human equality, and the image of God. Leithart, Wood, and Bonner consider whether liberalism’s dependence on Christianity is a strength, a problem, or both. Along the way, they discuss Western and Iranian political imagination, Zoroastrianism and the Sasanian Empire, secularism as a Christian inheritance, Hobbes, Kant, Comte’s religion of humanity, woke liberal catechisms, Orthodox political theology, symphonia, the Investiture Controversy, and whether liberalism can recover a meaningful account of what freedom is for. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • May 26 · 51 min

    Episode 43: One Church, Many States — A Conversation with John Ehrett

    Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down with John Ehrett for a conversation on political theology, economics, Luther, antitrust, and the church’s witness amid fragile regimes. John Ehrett is an attorney and writer in Washington, D.C., currently counsel at Lex Politica. He has served at the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Education, and as chief counsel for Senator Josh Hawley. He is a graduate of Patrick Henry College, Yale Law School, and the Institute of Lutheran Theology, and writes Between Two Kingdoms, a Substack on political theology, public policy, postliberalism, and the Lutheran tradition. In this conversation, Ehrett discusses his book Martin Luther’s Theology of Antitrust, arguing that Luther’s critique of monopoly, usury, and predatory pricing was not merely economic but theological. Against the modern assumption that antitrust is a “morality-free zone,” Ehrett shows how Luther understood monopolistic behavior as a failure to love one’s neighbor, an attempt to usurp divine prerogatives, and a refusal to live faithfully under providence. From regulatory capture and consumer protection to Uber, AI, and the church’s authority to speak about economic injustice, the conversation explores what it might mean to think Christianly about policy areas often treated as spiritually neutral. The second half turns to Ehrett’s forthcoming work on Gudina Tumsa, the Ethiopian Lutheran theologian and church leader sometimes called the “African Bonhoeffer.” Ehrett sketches Tumsa’s life under Ethiopia’s Marxist regime, his martyrdom, and his deeply ecclesiocentric political theology. Tumsa’s vision relativizes the state without despising the nation, insisting that “there is the Church, and there are these states.” Along the way, Leithart, Wood, and Ehrett discuss two-kingdom theology, Christendom, ecumenism, national belonging, and why the church’s unity is always a political threat to regimes that demand ultimate allegiance. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • April 28 · 1 hr 2 min

    Episode 42: Church Unity, Ecumenism, and the Cost of Staying - with Ephraim Radner

    Peter Leithart and James Wood sit down for a second conversation with Dr. Ephraim Radner. Ephraim Radner is a theologian, Anglican priest, and one of the most penetrating thinkers on the doctrine of the church today. He is Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College (University of Toronto) and the author of several major works including Brutal Unity, Hope Among the Fragments, The End of the Church, and Mortal Goods. In this conversation, they take stock of the modern ecumenical movement — its genuine gains, its institutional failures, and the deeper roots of Christian disunity that no dialogue paper or cooperative venture has yet reached. Radner argues that division is not merely a pastoral inconvenience but a form of murder, and that the path toward unity runs not through procedure but through sacrifice. From the collapse of North African Christianity to the Joint Declaration on Justification to receptive ecumenism, Radner offers a searching and characteristically unsentimental assessment of where the church finds itself — and what faithfulness might actually require. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • March 31 · 1 hr 1 min

    Episode 41: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson, with Dr. Bradley Birzer

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Dr. Bradley Birzer, the author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson. Dr. Bradley J. Birzer received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1990 and his Ph.D. in American History from Indiana University in January 1999. Currently Amos Kirk Chair in history and director of American studies at Hillsdale College, Michigan, Birzer specializes in the history of the Jacksonian period, the American Civil War, the American West, and the American Indians. He is a senior fellow with the Center for the American Idea (Texas). He has recently edited a collection of James Fenimore Cooper's works of political and social criticism, and is co-author of a forthcoming encyclopedia of the American West. His publications include: Russell Kirk: American Conservative (2015) Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions (2015) American Cicero: Charles Carroll of Carrollton (2010) Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson (2007) J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth (2003) _______________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • February 27 · 1 hr 14 min

    Episode 40: Secularization, Social Order, and World History - A Conversation with Dr. Kevin Flatt

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Dr. Kevin Flatt, the author of Secularization, Social Order, and World History: Toward a Global Perspective. Kevin Flatt serves as Professor of History and Associate Dean of Humanities at Redeemer University, and as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures at the University of Waterloo. As associate dean, he provides academic leadership for the programs in History, Philosophy, Politics, and Religion & Theology. His teaching has covered several areas of world and Western history, including Canadian, European, and Middle Eastern history. His research on Protestantism in Canada has been widely featured in national and international media. In recent years, his scholarship has focused on the history and sociology of secularization. His most recent book, Secularization, Social Order, and World History (Routledge, 2026) places secularization within a world-historical comparative framework. Dr. Flatt lives with his wife and three children in his hometown of Kitchener, Ontario. Books Flatt, K. Secularization, Social Order, and World History: Toward a Global Perspective. Routledge, 2026. Flatt, K. After Evangelicalism: The Sixties and the United Church of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • January 30 · 57 min

    Episode 39: The Return of the Common Good - A Conversation with Stefan Borg

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Stefan Borg, the author of The Return of the Common Good: The Postliberal Project Left and Right. Stefan Borg is Associate Professor in Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Swedish Defence University. His current research is focused on two distinct agendas: firstly, U.S. foreign, security and defence policy, and secondly, postliberal social and political thought. Borg is the author of European Integration and the Problem of the State: A Critique of the Bordering of Europe (Palgrave 2015), and The Return of the Common Good. The Postliberal Project Left and Right (Routledge 2025). His work has also appeared or is forthcoming in international peer-reviewed journals such as European Journal of Social Theory, European Political Science, European Security, Geopolitics, Global Affairs, International Affairs, International Journal, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of International Political Theory, Journal of International Relations and Development, Middle East Critique, Parameters, Review of International Studies, and Security Dialogue. He currently teaches on liberalism (Liberalism and its Critics) and convenes the undergraduate internship course at SDU. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Dec 30, 2025 · 58 min

    Episode 38: Some New World - A Conversation with Peter Harrison

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Peter Harrison, the author of Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age. Peter Harrison is a former Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford and is Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland. He presently holds a Professorial Research Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, Australia and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Dec 2, 2025 · 1 hr 13 min

    Episode 37: Paul and the Resurrection of Israel - A Conversation with Dr. Jason Staples

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Dr. Jason Staples, the author of Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites. Jason A. Staples (Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill) is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at NC State University, where he teaches courses on biblical literature, early Judaism, Christian origins, ethics, globalism, conflict, and various theoretical perspectives in the study of religion and society. He is the author of Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites (Cambridge University Press, 2024), The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and numerous scholarly articles. He was a 2008 recipient of the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and is a member of the UNC Royster Society of Fellows. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Sep 30, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min

    Episode 35: The Collapse of Global Liberalism - A Conversation with Philip Pilkington

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Philip Pilkington, the author of The Collapse of Global Liberalism: And the Emergence of the Post Liberal World Order Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and former investment professional. He is the author of The Reformation in Economics and the forthcoming The Collapse of Global Liberalism. His writing has appeared in numerous outlets including The Telegraph, The New York Post, American Affairs, Post-Liberal Order, Moneyweek, The Spectator and Unherd. He is the co-host of the Multipolarity podcast. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Aug 26, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min

    Episode 34: Sacred Foundations - A Conversation with Anna Grzymala-Busse

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Anna Grzymala-Busse, the author of Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State. Anna Grzymala-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, the Director of the Europe Center, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. Her research focuses on the historical development of the state and its transformation, political parties, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Other areas of interest include populism, informal institutions, and causal mechanisms. She is the author of three books: Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist Successor Parties; Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Development in Post-Communist Europe; Nations Under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Politics and Sacred Foundations: the Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State. She is also a recipient of the Carnegie and Guggenheim Fellowships. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Jul 30, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min

    Episode 33: The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It, with Alec Ryrie

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Alec Ryrie, the author of The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It. Alec Ryrie is professor of the history of Christianity at Durham University and a fellow of the British Academy. His previous books include Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt. He lives in rural County Durham. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Jun 24, 2025 · 55 min

    Episode 32: Get Married and Save Civilization, with Brad Wilcox

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Brad Wilcox, the author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. BRAD WILCOX is a professor of sociology and the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He studies marital quality; marital stability; and the impact of strong and stable marriages upon men, women, and children. The author and editor of six books, Wilcox has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, and National Review, as well as for scientific journals such as the American Sociological Review and the Journal of Marriage and Family. A Connecticut native, he now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and family. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • May 29, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min

    Episode 31: Origins of the Modern State, with Peter Leithart and James Wood

    Peter Leithart and James Wood discuss a handful of the books being studied by the Civitas Group on the topic of the formation of states and Christian Nationalism. To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Apr 29, 2025 · 57 min

    Episode 30: A Conversation with David P. Goldman

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with David P Goldman. David P. Goldman is a Washington Fellow at The Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. His research focuses on China, American manufacturing, and trade policy. Goldman is Deputy Editor of Asia Times, where he has written the "Spengler" column since 2001. He is also a Senior Fellow of the London Institute for Policy Research. He previously was a partner at Reorient Group (Hong Kong), and global head of fixed income research at Bank of America and Cantor Fitzgerald. He was also a Managing Director at Credit Suisse and Bear Stearns, a member of Institutional Investor's All-America Fixed Income Team, and was the Pulliam Fellow at Hillsdale College in 2017. His books include You Will Be Assimilated: China's Plan to Sino-Form the World (2020), How Civilizations Die (2011), and It's Not the End of the World — It's Just the End of You (2011). Goldman writes frequently for The Claremont Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Newsweek, Law & Liberty and Tablet Magazine. He has published numerous scholarly articles on economics, finance, and intellectual history. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Mar 31, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min

    Episode 29: A Conversation with Aaron Renn

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Aaron Renn. Aaron Renn is a writer and consultant in Indianapolis, and author of the book Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture. His writings appear in a number of leading global publications, including The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and others. He is also a Senior Fellow at American Reformer, a former Senior Fellow in urban policy at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and a former Managing Director at Accenture. Click HERE to follow Aaron Renn on Subtack. _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Feb 25, 2025 · 58 min

    Episode 28: The Inversion of Family Law | A Conversation with Jeff Shafer

    Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Jeff Shafer. Jeff Shafer is Director of the Hale Institute. He graduated with honors from the Regent University School of Law in 1995. Early in his legal career, he operated a general practice firm in Cincinnati with a particular emphasis on criminal defense litigation. Thereafter, he practiced in a law partnership, focusing on elections law and civil constitutional cases. From 2005 to 2020, he served as Senior Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom at its Washington, D.C., and Scottsdale, Arizona offices. Mr. Shafer has litigated public interest cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the United States, as well as developing academic and advocacy initiatives on matters of policy concern. Outside of the courtroom, he has addressed a wide array of audiences in academic and community venues, in the US and abroad, on matters of legal and cultural interest. ________________ Machine Antihumanism and the Inversion of Family Law by: Jeff Shafer _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

  • Feb 11, 2025 · 1 hr

    Episode 27: Technology and Why Conservatism Failed | A Conversation with Jon Askonas

    James Wood and Peter Leithart have a conversation with Jon Askonas. Jon Askonas is an assistant professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America, where he works on the connections between the republican tradition, technology, and national security. He is currently working on two books: A Muse of Fire: Why the U.S. Military Forgets What It Learns in War, on what happens to wartime innovations when the war is over and The Shot in the Dark: A History of the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group, the first comprehensive overview of a unit that helped the Army adapt to the post 9/11 era of counterinsurgency and global power competition. His writing has appeared in Russian Analytical Digest, Triple Helix, The New Atlantis, Fare Forward, War on the Rocks, and the Texas National Security Review. ________________ Technology for the American Family by: Jon Askonas _________________ To Give to Theopolis, click HERE. Get the Theopolis App, HERE. Use Code "theopolitan" to get your first month free! Sign up for In Medias Res, HERE.

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