Tim and Joel are back for 2026 with a conversation about authority, hierarchy, and authentic relationship with Jesus.

It starts with parenting, authoritarian (high control, low love) versus authoritative (high control, high love). But the real question: how does the parent-child relationship mirror our relationship with God? For those with great fathers, God being the perfect Father is comforting. For those with absent or abusive fathers, it's healing.

This opens a bigger conversation about hierarchy and power. Postmodernism wants to deconstruct all hierarchies as inherently corrupt. But because there's an inherent power imbalance between Creator and creation, they argue there must be such a thing as good hierarchy. The difference isn't whether power exists, but how it's used, to serve others or serve yourself.

Tim shares about joining the Crossformed Kids podcast, leading into intergenerational ministry and reciprocity. A five-year-old is no more or less saved than a senior minister. Equal in God's kingdom, even while maintaining appropriate roles. They discuss Tom Holland's "Dominion", how even secular progressive concern for the vulnerable is borrowed from Christian moral tradition. Marx's vision could only emerge from a Christian worldview.

The conversation turns to math with Joel reading John Lennox and his son to discover how mathematics reveals God's beauty and order. The elegance of math points to a rational universe created by a rational God.

Finally, parasocial relationships, Cambridge Dictionary's 2025 Word of the Year. People are forming one-way relationships with celebrities and AI chatbots. Tim contrasts this with his word for the year: abiding. "I don't want a parasocial relationship with Jesus. I want to genuinely abide in Him."

The takeaway? God has the right to tell us how to live. And because He's the perfect Father, that's not oppressive, it's beautiful and relational.
https://online.hillsdale.edu/
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro and welcome back for the new year
09:33 - Parenting, hierarchies, and power and our true Father
25:32 - Tim's hosting another podcast, the reciprocity of intergenerational relationships and ceding power to God's good hierarchy
36:20 - God is a God who cares for vulnerable people
43:20 - Science and maths explaining God's created world
54:52 - Parasocial versus abiding
1:13:06 - Tim's Takeaway: authentic relationship with Jesus

DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE:
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, by Yuval Noah Harari
Rivers of London series, by Ben Aaronovitch
Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell
Crossformed Kidmin Podcast
The Child in God's Church, by Tim Beilharz
Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, by Tom Holland
Anglicare Australia
The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality, by Glen Scrivener
Hillsdale College online courses
Can Science Explain Everything?, by John Lennox
Why This Oxford Mathematician is Confident God Exists | John Lennox
The 2025 Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year
Death of Rob Hirst

He has the right to tell me how to live