The von Helms Show

How should a church measure faithfulness and success? What happens when the attendance numbers of a congregation increase so rapidly that the leadership cannot properly care for its members? In this fascinating conversation, Mike Ashcraft, pastor of Port City Community Church in Wilmington, North Carolina, describes for Todd von Helms what it was like to see a gathering of a dozen people meeting in his apartment explode into a mega...

Chad Hudson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and had a stellar career before a series of choices while living in the fast lane of life led him into a world of trouble and pain. In 2021 Chad experienced a mysterious form of paralysis from the waist down that has bound him to a wheelchair and nursing care facilities ever since. Recently, a longtime friend invited Chad to join a Bible study via zoom. That unexpected en...

In this episode, “Recovering From the Bible,” Tommy Nelson describes why he is still recovering from the Bible, as well as how he prepares his sermons. Tommy Nelson served as the Senior Pastor of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas for nearly 50 years, which included preaching to thousands each week and mentoring hundreds of future leaders through the Young Guns discipleship program. Today, Tommy Nelson serves as the P...

John as the Fourth Synoptic Gospel? In this episode, Todd von Helms talks with New Testament scholar Mark Goodacre about his latest book, The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Mark Goodacre is Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University. He specializes in the New Testament and Christian Origins. He earned his MA, M.Phil and DPhil at the University of Oxford and has been at Duke since 2...

Is there legitimate historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? In this episode, Dr. Todd von Helms interviews Dr. Dave Newton about this topic. From 1984-2012, Dr. Newton was a full-time university professor of entrepreneurship, finance, and strategy – first in the Pepperdine MBA program, then at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and until 2012 at Westmont in Santa Barbara, CA. He has a BS in Business, an MB...

Is healing somehow tied to prayer, a result of Divine intervention, related solely to doctors and medicine, or merely a coincidental part of life? What happens when people fervently pray for healing and it does not happen? “Divine healing” is at the core of a movement within Christianity called Pentecostalism. In this episode, Dr. Todd von Helms and emeritus historian Dr. Grant Wacker discuss Pentecostalism and the poss...

Speaking in tongues? Divine healing? Gifts of the Spirit? Some believe these topics to be outdated, weird, or residing only in the imaginations of overly religious people. Today, there are more than 600 million adherents to Pentecostalism, a worldwide movement within Christianity. What are we to make of these topics? Few are better qualified to discuss these issues than Emeritus Historian, Dr. Grant Wacker, who is an award winning ...

Who is Peggy Wehmeyer? She was the first full-time religion correspondent for a major news network in the United States. Her captivating reporting in the 1980s and 1990s garnered the attention of renown journalist Peter Jennings of ABC News, who invited Peggy to join the network. For many years, award winning journalist Peggy Wehmeyer reported on the most pressing religious issues and news of the day, including sit down interviews ...

Todd von Helms sits down with Dr. Michael Strauss to discuss his research, as well as his faith in God. Dr. Strauss (PhD, UCLA) is an award winning tenured professor at the University of Oklahoma. He is an experimental particle physicist who studies the fundamental particles and forces in the universe. He is currently analyzing data from the ATLAS detector using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switze...