JWI Presents: Anchoring Truths Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Think back to when you were in high school or even middle school. Do you remember the history textbook you used? Perhaps that’s the problem: what passed for your reading material was so forgettable. Or if you do remember it, do you remember it being so ideologically slanted you were constantly fighting the story you were presented with? Indeed reinstating lost academic standards for excellence is an arduous task. Fortunately, a path towards academic renewal has been charted by a burgeoning reform movement of parents and educators who aspire to a higher standard for children. In recent years this coalition has made critical strides in expanding families’ freedom to choose alternatives from legacy educational models. It’s with this backdrop that we are delighted to convey that there is a fantastic new textbook series, a two volume set titled "The Golden Thread” which offers an eloquent and refreshing overview of the trajectory of the West—its unique customs of art and literature, law, philosophy, science, faith, and tolerance that have bound the people of its tradition together—from the ancient Greeks and Romans to medieval Christendom and Europe, and finally the modern world and America. And we are pleased to have one of the authors of this series, a friend of ours for many years, Prof. Allen Guelzo, on the Anchoring Truths Podcast to tell us about this fantastic new offering.

Prof. Guelzo has joined the Hamilton School faculty at the University of Florida in the summer of 2025 as a Professor of Humanities. He is a New York Times best-selling author, American historian and commentator on public issues. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently Robet E. Lee a Life  as well as Gettysburg: the Last Invasion and Lincoln Redeemer President. He was the Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and he taught for many years at Gettysburg College.

Lawyer and legal scholar Timon Cline joins the podcast to share his ambitious proposal to revisit and overturn the Supreme Court’s 1947 ruling on the Establishment Clause in Everson v. Board of Education. Drawing on his recent Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy article, "Everson Must Fall," co-authored with Josh Hammer (James Wilson '21) and Yoram Hazony, Cline explains the role that the opinion has played in misshaping our culture and a potential path to its reversal. 

Timon Cline is the Editor in Chief at American Reformer. He is an attorney and a fellow at the Craig Center at Westminster Theological Seminary and the Director of Scholarly Initiatives at the Hale Institute of New Saint Andrews College. His writing has appeared in Anchoring Truths, the American Spectator, Mere Orthodoxy, American Greatness, Areo Magazine, and the American Mind, among others.

The episode is adapted from a webinar the James Wilson Institute hosted with the Center on Religion, Culture, and Democracy of First Liberty Institute.

Join the Anchoring Truths Podcast for an episode featuring a scholar quite near and dear to us at the James Wilson Institute, Daniel Mahoney.

Mahoney is an affiliated scholar with the James Wilson Institute, and with his latest book he applies his gift of prose to perhaps our most pertinent cultural issue, the rise and possible fall of wokism with The Persistence of the Ideological Lie, The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now from Encounter Books.   

Mahoney is a professor emeritus at Assumption University (where he taught from 1986 until 2021), a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and a senior writer at Law and Liberty. He has written extensively on statesmanship, French politicalthought, the art and political thought of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, conservatism, religion and politics, and various themes in political philosophy. His most recent books are The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order (2011), TheOther Solzhenitsyn (2014, reissued in 2020), and The Idol ofOur Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity.

Purchase The Persistence of the Ideological Lie, The Totalitarian Impulse Then and Now from Encounter Books.

In this special episode, Garrett speaks with JWI Scholar David Forte and AEI Fellow Adam White about the history of fetal heartbeat legislation, the new Texas Heartbeat Law, and its unique enforcement mechanism allowing a private right of action for any citizen to bring suit.

Join Garrett Snedeker and Seth Root as they interview Judge Robert Conrad of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. They discuss his new book, John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads, and how the faith and integrity of these two men carried them through challenges and social upheaval.

Michael Knowles, author of the new book "Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds," joins the Anchoring Truths Podcast to discuss how conservatives should not expect to win the culture war by abandoning all standards, how critical theory made its “long march through the institutions,” and the need for conservatives to adopt a view of free speech that is consonant with a coherent conservative worldview.

And now for something different: a peek behind the curtain. For a special edition of our podcast, JWI Deputy Director Garrett Snedeker convened Summer Interns Tom Sarrouf and Sean Tehan for a discussion of their experience with us. Topics included how they grappled with JWI's unique approach to law, their views on how JWI adds to their own understanding of jurisprudence, learning new skills such as podcasting, and becoming accustomed to juggling independent and team-based responsibilities. 

Glenn Ellmers, author of "The Soul of Politics: Harry V. Jaffa and the Fight for America," joins the Anchoring Truths Podcast to discuss the singular contributions of Jaffa to our understanding of the moral ground of the American regime. Topics include how Jaffa and JWI Founder Hadley Arkes overlap in their views on morality and law, the fight over conservatism in America since World War II, and Jaffa's recasting of Lincoln as the securer of the Founding.

Dr. Charles Murray, Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, joins the podcast to discuss his new book "Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America." Author of "The Bell Curve" and "Coming Apart," Murray shares insights into his book, which he believes is a timely reminder that the timeless moral principle of "all men are created equal" need not mandate equal outcomes for all racial groupings.