Inside Pastor Tim Keller’s Mind: Kathy Keller on Sin, Idolatry & Today’s Crisis

“Sin is the last taboo.”
Kathy Keller joins Luke Martin for one of the most personal and revealing conversations ever recorded about faith, grief, idolatry, and the theological ideas she shared with her late husband, Tim Keller.

Kathy reflects on growing up bookish in Pittsburgh, discovering C.S. Lewis as a teenager – and even writing to him, receiving several personal letters that shaped her early Christian life. She also opens up about the thinkers who most influenced Tim’s preaching: John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, Herman Bavinck, Tolkien, Packer, Stott and more.

A major theme of the interview is sin, which Kathy calls “the last taboo” in modern culture. Drawing on Tim’s posthumous book What Is Wrong with the World?, she explains how sin disguises itself, how idolatry takes root in every heart, and why facing our brokenness is essential for understanding God’s grace.

We also hear moving reflections on Kathy’s marriage to Tim, the shock of losing him, and the painful discovery of the idols we never knew we had — alongside her conviction that “You were built to run on God.”

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 – Intro: Who is Kathy Keller?
1:35 – CS Lewis, Narnia and a teenage call to ministry
3:03 – Seminary & discovering substitutionary atonement
6:03 – “Not a biography”: the real sources behind Tim Keller
11:13 – The books & theologians that shaped Tim’s preaching
14:32 – Substitutionary atonement & God’s eternal plan
16:10 – What contextualisation really means
19:10 – “Sin is the last taboo”
30:22 – Tim Keller’s posthumous book: What Is Wrong with the World?
34:02 – The many faces of sin
41:10 – Idolatry & Kathy’s own painful discovery
58:02 – Sin as slavery & our culture’s false freedom
1:09:15 – Why pastors must preach on sin & “you were built to run on God”
1:14:27 – Final reflections on Tim’s legacy

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