This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline

theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moller, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in

Louisville, Kentucky.

And I seem odd to many Americans to know that back in the second half of the 20th century Time magazine put

not one but three major American theologians on its cover. Each of these men

had a distinctive role to play in American culture in the mid-20th century and

they are the concern of a new book about which we're going to be talking today.

But there's another aspect of this that's really important.

All of them were talking about sin. As a matter of fact in America

in the mid 20th century and beyond, the conversation in public about sin was a very urgent

issue.

That leads us to question why it is less so today.

And that's why we need to get about the business

of thinking in public.

Andrew Finnstow is the director of the Honors College and serves as associate professor in the Department of History at Boise State University.

He's the author of the book Original Sin and Everyday Protestants, the theology of Reinhold

Nieber, Billy Graham, and Paul Tilic in an age of anxiety.

Professor Finn's doing welcome to Thinking in Public.

Thank you, glad to join you.

You know, when I saw your book, I was immediately struck by the sense that it made to see these

three figures who towered over American Protestantism at mid-century in the 20th century, and yet by the fact

...