Dr. J. Stephen Yuille joins Will Spencer for a conversation on one of the most misunderstood traditions in Christian history: the Puritans.

Often caricatured as cold moralists, the Puritans were in fact pastors of the heart — “physicians of the soul” who endured suffering, cultivated the affections, and pursued holiness with seriousness that still challenges believers today.

In this episode we explore Puritan spirituality, the role of suffering in spiritual formation, mentorship across generations, and the importance of devotional reading from past centuries. We also discuss why many modern Christians instinctively sense something missing in contemporary faith and how the Puritan tradition offers a deeper inheritance.

If you are seeking a faith that is thoughtful, lived, and capable of bearing the weight of suffering, this conversation offers a rich introduction to Puritan theology and spirituality.

Mentorship and clarity for men: https://willspencer.co/mentorship

1. The Puritans and the life of the affections
2. Pastors as “physicians of the soul”
3. Suffering and spiritual formation
4. Mentorship across generations
5. Devotional reading and learning from “dead men”

Reformation Heritage Books — https://www.rhb.org

The Heart Taken Up - BUY HERE

Holy Meditation by Thomas Manton - BUY HERE

George Swinnock — The Blessed and Boundless God

Puritan Treasures for Today Bundle

🌟 The Will Spencer Podcast was formerly known as "The Renaissance of Men."

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Biblical Mentorship for Men

If you’re a man who knows something needs to change — not because life is “too hard,” but because you’ve been drifting, avoiding responsibility, or lacking direction — Will Spencer’s Biblical Mentorship for Men is a disciplined, Scripture-based process focused on clarity, responsibility, and spiritual depth. This is not therapy. It’s not self-help. And it’s not about numbing pain. It’s about learning how to suffer well, lead yourself, and live faithfully. You can book a free Clarity Call to...

Modern extremism did not survive by remaining political. It survived by becoming mystical.

In this episode, Will Spencer examines how post-war extremist movements transformed themselves into a religious worldview built on myth, mysticism, and occult hierarchy.

Rather than remaining tied to historical regimes or discredited ideologies, these movements deliberately rebuilt themselves through myth, mysticism, and occult spirituality—rejecting Christianity while absorbing pagan mythology, cyclical cosmology, and hierarchical visions of reality.

Continuing the Book Club reading of Black Sun by historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, this session explores how post-war figures reshaped extremism into a transnational religious system; how symbolism and ritual replaced politics; and how popular culture later helped mythologize and sanitize these ideas, allowing them to persist beneath the surface of modern life.

Will also reflects on why many Christians misdiagnosed this phenomenon as merely political or reactionary, failing to recognize it as a rival spiritual framework—and why that failure of discernment mattered.

This episode is part of an ongoing Book Club devoted to slow, serious reading for Christian spiritual and intellectual formation in an increasingly disordered culture.

1. How modern extremism survived after World War II by becoming mystical rather than political
2. Why myth, symbolism, and occult hierarchy replaced ideology and policy
3. How pagan mythology and cyclical cosmology displaced biblical creation and linear history
4. The role of post-war figures who reshaped extremism into a transnational religious worldview
5. How popular culture helped mythologize and sanitize evil for later generations
6. Why many Christians misdiagnosed these movements as merely political or reactionary
7. What it means to recognize extremism as a rival spiritual framework, not just an ideology
8. Why discernment requires asking what spirit is animating this, not simply who is in power

Amazon: https://a.co/d/06mG32IX

If this episode resonates, the full discussion continues in my Book Club, where we read difficult books slowly and seriously for Christian spiritual and intellectual formation.

You can learn more and join at willspencer.blog

🌟 The Will Spencer Podcast was formerly known as "The Renaissance of Men."

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What happens when therapy has no way to say a goal is wrong?

In this episode, Will Spencer is joined by Dr. Greg Gifford to examine a foundational assumption of modern therapy: that counseling exists to help clients achieve their chosen goals, but without a shared account of moral truth.

The conversation begins with a simple but unsettling question: What if a client’s goal is immoral, destructive, or sinful? If therapy cannot judge goals, what kind of formation is actually taking place?

From there, Will and Greg explore the difference between mind and brain, the rise of diagnosis-based identity, the authority of the DSM, and why Christians often adopt therapeutic categories without examining the worldview beneath them.

This is not an argument against care or compassion. It is a call for discernment, and for recovering a moral and biblical account of the inner life that modern therapy is structurally unable to provide.

Listen to Transformed on Fortis+ or wherever you get your podcasts:

https://fortisplus.org/tabs/listen/podcasts/34123

Buy "Lies My Therapist Told Me": https://a.co/d/01NGgZk5

Check out the Fortis Institute YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@Fortis.Institute

Learn more about Transformed Biblical Counseling Centers:

https://transformedbc.com/

🌟 The Will Spencer Podcast was formerly known as "The Renaissance of Men."

• https://willspencer.co/mentorship
• Will Spencer Podcast Home
• Substack
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Support the Show

Mentioned in this episode:

The Will Spencer Book Club

A guided reading community for men and women who want to slow down, think clearly, and understand the deeper intellectual and spiritual roots shaping our moment. We read demanding books together and discuss them live — not to signal intelligence, but to form judgment. Our first book: "Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity" by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke.

Learn More About "Black Sun"