Paleo Protestant Pudcast

We did try, the we being co-hosts  Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian). The plan was to have a Zoom chat with listeners. We did but only one listener showed up.  We will have to take another run at this.

Even so, the lack of other chatters and despite some technological glitches, the co-hosts still managed to talk about what it means to belong to the church, the importance of the institutional church (over against parachurch competitors), and the degree to which cultural or civilizational Christianity reinforces church ties.  Among the titles that we mentioned in connection with the effects of the Cold War on church life in the United States were Stephen Bullivant's Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America; Darin Lenz's article, “‘Hail Luther’s Contribution’: A Sixteenth-Century Reformer in Cold War America” in Church History; and Kirk Farney's Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier.  Even "The Crown" came up (still working on "The Wire") in relation to the episode that features Billy Graham's preaching for Queen Elizabeth (Season 2, ep.6). 

No sponsors this time. We would hate to sully any company or institution with this sorry technological performance. 

The Woody Allen movie, "Manhattan," includes a scene where two couples are walking and the one played by Michael Murphy and Diane Keaton unveil their Academy of Overrated.  To this body they assign Gustav Mahler, Isak Dinesen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lenny Bruce, Norman Mailer, Mozart, , Vincent Van Gogh, and Ingmar Bergman.  The co-hosts on this recording, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), consider their own list of overrated theologians.  The ones discussed are Karl Barth, the recently deceased Juergen Moltmann, and C. S. Lewis.  

The reason behind raising the question is not to belittle any of these theologians' achievements but to consider how it is that a theologian -- when there are so many -- emerges as the "go to" authority for ending a doctrinal debate.  It also relates to confessional Protestant theological traditions in which those students training for a specific communion are going to be much more likely to read theologians in the Lutheran, Reformed, or Anglican traditions -- instead of reading broadly in the theologians who transcend specific Protestant communions.  A final thread of conversation was whether the "big names" of Protestant theology can survive in an age of megachurches and church planting networks.  

The sponsor this time is Ethan's Donut Factory in downtown Hillsdale, Michigan. 

The co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith @IVMiles (Anglican), and D. G. Hart @oldlife  (Presbyterian) have returned to campus and are so dedicated to their audience that they carved out time before the semester starts to talk about denominational news.  Summers are when the NBA hosts its championship so that commissioners from confessional Protestant communions  have something to watch after denominational meetings.  The co-hosts go through the round-up of denominational news and even though the Lutherans did not meet Korey Maas explains the peculiarities of Missouri Synod polity.  

The hosts also discuss the relative toxicity of David French (who was invited to a Presbyterian General Assembly only to be uninvited) and Carl Trueman who drew crowds at an Anglican synod (Diocese of the Living Word).

For anyone outside a denomination and feeling a hankering for this sort of Christian organization, Ross Douthat's nostalgia for the Protestant mainline in the United States may suggest the value of such structures.  Yuval Levin's own positive estimate of institutions is another reason to consider the superiority of denominations to networks and church-planting start-ups.  

Keep an eye out for a live Paleo Protestant Pudcast sometime in September.  Information will be forthcoming (dv). 

The whole crew (D. G. Hart-Presbyterian, Korey Maas-Lutheran, and Miles Smith-Anglican) returns in this discussion of Miles's review of several recent books by evangelicals who left evangelicalism to become - you guessed it - exvangelicals. These books parallel the rise and fall of the Young Restless Reformed which was the subject of this article.  These trends also coincide with the increase of Americans who qualify as "nonverts," that is, people who used to identify as some version of Christian and now consider themselves "none," as in having no religion. 

For those who consider the importance of institutions, especially for confessional Protestants with  a high doctrine of the church, these trends present serious dilemmas for the ongoing ministry of  word and sacrament through the agency of an institutional church (sometimes known as denomination).  Confessional Protestants generally take denominational structures for granted even though since the rise of the megachurch (1990s), followed by social network forms of Christian cooperation and aspiration (Gospel Coalition and Acts 29, for example), more and more American Christians are unfamiliar with the institutional mechanisms for organizing ministry and belonging. 

What may be especially intriguing for those with ears to be intrigued is that the shelf-life of recent evangelical endeavors in church planting run out of steam and done so almost as fast (as they tell us) as the planet is heating up. 

Summer is too short for advertisements.  But Twitter access is still available for Miles Smith @ivmiles and D. G. Hart @oldlife. Please do not bother Korey Maas. He has an academic department to run. 

Summer has made convening the co-hosts more challenging than when the academic calendar locks these confessional Protestants down. For this episode, the pudcast needed to aspire to Internet greatness without the presence of our Lutheran colleague, Korey Maas.  This left D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) and Miles Smith (Anglican) to talk about Mile's new book, Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War.  The conversation explores the Protestant character of American society before 1865 without having an established church.  What the United States did have was the host of voluntary societies and organizations about which Alexis de Toqueville marvelled, institutions that shaped public and private sentiments in ways that were not doctrinaire but were generically Protestant.  These realities lead inevitably to questions about what relevance or wisdom this era of American history has for current elbow-throwing and breast-beating about Christian nationalism. 

This recording has no sponsor but if it did, it would have to be the publisher of Miles' book, the Davenant Press.  

Follow Miles Smith on Twitter @ivmiles and D. G. Hart @oldlife.  Korey Maas remains inaccessible. 

One reason for the appeal of Christian Nationalism - either in its current form or its 1980s Moral Majority version - is the loss of moral norms in the wider society.  American Christians (Protestants more than Roman Catholics) functioned in their society relatively comfortably with generic Christian morality as the standard for public and private behavior.  As a moral consensus has eroded (is Donald Trump up or down stream from Pride Month?), churches may need to be more intentional about the basics of Christian morality than they were in previous generations.

This discussion among the co-hosts - D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), Korey Maas (Lutheran), and Miles Smith (Anglican) goes fairly deep into the weeds of preaching the law with the unexpected twist of the Lutheran leading the charge for application and moral exhortation in sermons.  

Later in the recording, the co-hosts also discuss the legitimacy of churches having a one-strike-and-you're-out policy for church officers who commit adultery through sexual sin.  Is plagiarism in preaching as bad as adultery?  Or do sexual offenses compromise a church officer's integrity in ways unlike other breaches of the moral law?

Apologies to listeners for taking so long to post this recording.  Hiccups in schedules and switching podcast platforms are partly to blame.

The confessional Protestants from south central Michigan return to the topic of the last conversation - how much Christianity in the modern West dependes on the Roman Catholic Church -- with particular reference to the cover that Rome gives to Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians.  For instance, can our communions oppose abortion more plausibly and vigorously because Rome, a big player in world affairs, already does?

Co-hosts, Miles Smith (Anglican), D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), and Korey Maas (Lutheran) approach this question with help from two recent articles that make a point about an affinity between Protestants and Roman Catholics that keep the former from being able to disregard the latter's recent disputes over blessing same-sex unions.  One is by Carl Trueman at First Things, the other by Hans Boersma at Touchstone Magazine.

This recording's sponsor is the New Heights podcast with the Kelce brothers, Jason and Travis, an easier arrangement than obtaining Taylor Swift's blessing.

Listeners may follow two of the hosts @IVMiles and @oldlife. Korey Maas' administrative duites mean email is his social medium.  

(Many thanks to our Southern audio engineer who makes the pudcast possible.) 

This relatively brief conversation is downstream from previous discussions and arguments about Christian Nationalism first at Reformed Forum and then at Presbycast.  Dr. Miles Smith (Anglican) and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) had the benefit this time of Dr. Korey Maas' (Lutheran) presence to function as the adult in the room.  Topics ranged from the generational appeal of Christian Nationalism (boomers turn out to be reliable -- who knew?), the traction it receives among Lutherans in the LCMS, and the erosion of confidence or participation in civic and ecclesiastical institutions.  The co-hosts did not have enough time for discussion of Miles Smith's forthcoming book which bears directly on the Christian, more precisely Protestant, character of American political institutions in the Early Republic.  

Listeners can follow Dr. Smith (@IVMiles) and Dr. Hart (@oldlife) on X (formerly Twitter). To keep up with Dr. Maas, follow him following his children.  

The Pudcast and co-hosts return thanks to the news coming out of the Middle East and stories about American Protestants' understanding of Israel and Jews.

Co-hosts ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Miles Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Anglican), ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠D. G. Hart⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Korey Maas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Lutheran) talk about eschatology, Protestant familiarity with Israel (thanks at least to the Old Testament), the degree to which confessional Protestants (unlike American men who think about Rome) think about Jerusalem. Among the items mentioned during this session are: Roland H. Bainton and Menachem Begin, "Luther and the Jews in Light of his Lectures on Genesis: An Exchange of Letters," Lutheran Theological Journal 17 (1983) 131-34; the documentary, When Jews Were Funny; Gerald McDermott's case for Christian Zionism; Gardiner H. Shattuck's recent book, Christian Homeland, on American Episcopalians in the Middle East; and Miles Smith's article on anti-Semitism and American patriotism.

No advertisements this time - our marketing division has lost key players.

Listeners may follow two of the hosts @IVMiles and @oldlife. Korey Maas continues to avoid social media.

(Many thanks to our Southern audio engineer who makes this pudcast possible.)

After a long hiatus, the Hillsdale History Protestant confessionalists are back to talk about denominations under the broader heading of institutional Christianity. Co-hosts include Korey Maas, resident Lutheran, Miles Smith, resident Anglican, and D. G. Hart, resident (alien) Presbyterian. A question that haunts confessional Protestants is whether denominations as a vehicle for ministry have run out of steam thanks to the rise of megachurches, affinity networks among congregations of a particular spiritual hue, and the appeal of social media in creating platforms for cooperation among like minded Protestants outside the formal mechanisms of a denomination. Relevant reading that informed the discussion were pieces by Aaron Renn, Jake Meador, and Ross Douthat on the Protestant mainline denominations. Also of relevance is the example of Tim Keller who was in the Presbyterian Church of America while also creating a number of vehicles for ministry outside the denomination. One last consideration is the work of Yuval Levin on the decline of institutions in American life more generally.

As usual, listeners can follow Miles Smith and D. G. Hart on X (Twitter). Those who want to follow Korey Maas need to pound sand.