Before there were Protestants, there were Moravians.

In 1415, a Roman Catholic priest named Jan Hus was burned at the stake in Prague for promoting a vernacular liturgy, clergy marriage, and the elimination of indulgences. If he had been born just a few decades later, he might have found a friend in Martin Luther. But instead we know him as the forerunner of a pre-Protestant reforming movement that became the Moravian Church.

Moravians have a unique and robust culture, a fascinating history, and were some of the first and strongest voices for Christian unity, before the ecumenical movement even began.

Who are the Moravians? What are they about? Why do they love Anglicans, and what can we learn from each other?

Today’s episode is part of our Full Communion Partner series.

You can find our other Full Communion Partner episodes here:

https://livingchurch.org/podcasts/reformation-politics-and-friendship-with-matthew-riegel/

https://livingchurch.org/podcasts/old-church-new-callings-with-magnus-persson/

Our first guest is the Rev. Derek French, pastor of Nazareth Moravian Church in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and co-chair of the Moravian-Episcopal Coordinating Committee.

And our second guest is the Rt. Rev. M. Blair Couch, bishop in the Moravian Church. She is also on the Lutheran-Anglican-Moravian Coordinating Committe in Canada and the Moravian-Episcopal Coordinating Committee in the U.S.

Now pour yourself a German beer. We’re going to hang out with some Christians who from persecuted European beginings quickly found their place among the peacemakers. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Most Christians won't be part of a monastic community. But that doesn't mean they're not influenced by one.

How do those who have taken the habit live their vocations from the monastery into the world around them? And what about the rest of us? What can we learn, whether lay or ordained, from the disciplines and wisdom of monastics? 

Today we’ll hear from three Anglicans whose vocations have been shaped by Benedictine monasticism in different ways. We'll learn about the 6th-century Rule of St. Benedict and how it continues to discipline and nurture Christian life in the 21st century. 

Our first guest is Sister Greta Ronningen. Sr. Greta is a co-founder of Community of Divine Love, an Episcopal monastery in the Benedictine tradition located in San Gabriel, California. She is also an Episcopal priest, prison chaplain, retreat leader, and writer, and the author of Free on the Inside: Finding God Behind Bars.

Our second guest is the Rev. Canon Bryan Biba. Bryan is assistant rector at Christ Church Anglican in Savannah, Georgia, and canon for leadership for the Gulf Atlantic Diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. He is also an oblate of the Order of St. Benedict at St. John’s Abbey, a Roman Catholic monastery in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Our third guest is Annie Hodges. Annie is a supply chain manager by day and an Episcopal podcaster by night. With her sister Kate Greer, she hosts The Average Episcopalian podcast, tackling the mystery of faith with reason and humor through the lens of the church they love.

Whether you’re into wimples, cinctures, and Birkenstocks, or following Jesus without the telltale garments, here’s to holy habits of all kinds. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Book Bryan mentioned: Benedictine Daily Prayer

Book Annie mentioned: St. Benedict's Toolbox

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How can church leaders pursue justice with discernment and theological depth? Pastors often find themselves in a frustrating place when it comes to pursuing justice in their parishes and communities. There's often a divide or at least a tension between two groups: those who do not want to overthink or "overtheologize" it until the moment to act is past; and those who feel wary of action without substantial, theological, and contextual discernment pieces to help.

With respect to all the practical concerns here, this is a false divide. Hopefully, today's conversation might help us start to find a way across.

We'll talk about leadership, Christian freedom, and political will; challenging presuppositions about authority and building and empowering community bit by bit; various angles and ways of being strategic; and a bit about Catholic social teaching that might help Anglican and Episcopal leaders get "unstuck" from fixed religious and politcal categories to discern more holistic paths of faithful action.

Our guests are The Rev. Canon Natalie Arendse and Dr. Elisabeth Kincaid. 

Natalie is currently chaplain to Whitsunday Anglican School in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. She is honorary Canon in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and former head of St. John's Leadership Academy in Cape Town, a formation program for lay and ordained leaders. 

Elisabeth is director of Baylor University's Institute for Faith and Learning and Associate Professor of Ethics, Faith and Culture at George W. Truett Seminary. She's also author of the new book, Law from Below: How the Thought of Francisco Suárez, SJ, Can Renew Contemporary Legal Engagements.

Now grab your thinking caps and your work boots as we discover a bit more about how prayer and politics, bible studies and social justice, can (and do) go together.

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There's a powerful group of women who you may not know are in your church. They handle your prayer requests. They support your priest. They may help with Sunday school, coffee hour, or missions. And they are an inspiring example of the understated power of simple service. These women are the Daughters of the King. 

The Order of the Daughters of the King is a vowed order for women who are communicants of Episcopal Churches or churches in the historic episcopate. They currently include women around the world in the Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic traditions.

Daughters take vows to obey the two Rules of The Order: the Rule of Prayer and the Rule of Service. They aid local clergy and parishes in prayer and evangelism, and do it while wearing a simple silver cross, the cross of The Order. 

Our guest today is Dr. Grace Sears, past president and archivist of the Order of the Daughters of the King, and past editor of its magazine, The Royal Cross. She is also past vice president of the board of The Living Church Foundation.

We'll talk today about being taken by surprise by a calling, learning leadership, navigating controversial times, and what happens when the Holy Spirit falls in a business meeting.

What can we take from a group of women who simply vow to pray and serve together, no matter their own season of life, or what's going on the life of the church or the world?

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What do pilgrimage, tiny bridges, and time machines have to do with Christian unity?

Today we'll be looking at the ministry of the Anglican Centre in Rome, a hub of ecumenical meeting, dialogue, and fellowship in the Eternal City.

The Anglican Centre was founded in 1966, during the watershed of ecumenical engagement that followed the Second Vatican Council. It hosts lectures, exhibitions, special courses, and other public events that foster deeper understanding between Anglicans and Roman Catholics. It also works closely with the Catholic lay community St. Egidio, in projects that serve the poor and disadvantaged in Rome. 

We'll be hearing from its new Director, the Rt. Rev. Anthony Ball. Our conversation will cover his own journey into ecumenical ministry, the Anglican Centre's mission today, and what his own calling might bring to the Centre. We also talk about the importance of pilgrimage and imagine Christianity 100 years from now.

Bishop Anthony is also Archbishop of Canterbury’s Representative to the Holy See. He's served in many capacities, including as a diplomat, as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Heads of the Orthodox Churches in Syria and Lebanon, as Rowan Williams's chaplain, as Bishop of North Africa, as canon steward of Westminster Abbey and as Archdeacon of Westminster.

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What do bluegrass, bourbon, and Bible have in common? How about a group of Hillbilly Thomists? Today, we share an episode from the Signal Award-winning podcast, No Small Endeavor. Produced by PRX and Great Feeling Studios, No Small Endeavor explores what it means to live a good life.

In this episode, you’ll hear from the Hillbilly Thomists, the Billboard-charting bluegrass band made up entirely of Catholic Dominican Friars. They talk about their theology and vocation, as well as how they manage life on the road as priests who have taken a vow of poverty. Plus, they give live performances of some of their finest songs.

When they are not contemplating, studying, and preaching, the Hillbilly Thomists are writing songs. They've released four albums including

Hillbilly Thomists, Living for the Other Side, Holy Ghost Power, and Marigold. Marigold spent 3 weeks on the Billboard bluegrass charts, debuting at #2. The friars also have a Christmas album in the works.

Proceeds from album sales, donations, and merchandise sales allow the friars to continue to produce and perform music, while providing ongoing support to the formation of friars at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

Thanks to No Small Endeavor for sharing this episode with us.

For other episodes like this one, follow No Small Endeavor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.

Learn more about the Hillbilly Thomists

Learn more about No Small Endeavor

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What can Christians on the right and left continue to learn about the experience and discipleship of trans people and those with gender incongruence?Today we'll be looking into some of the tough questions of transgender anthropology and pastoral care. But instead of debating directly over the questions (Should we use preferred pronouns? What is just legislation? How do we talk to kids? To affirm, or not to affirm?), we concentrate on how to care for people.

Our two guests today, while not in substantial theological disagreement about trans topics, bring to their different experiences, approaches, and relationships lots of much-needed nuance, and some timely new questions, to a conversation grounded in traditional Christian theology.

Can we question aspects of trans-anthropology as needed, or question current rhetoric or practices, but in the cause of charity, honesty, and human flourishing rather than against it? How do the right and left get caught in echo chambers here? How do we affirm the flawed gifts of the human body, while engaging its most painful experiences? How can we learn better to love and trust people?

Our guests today are Dr. Abigail Favale and Pieter Valk. 

Abby is a writer and professor in the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. She has an academic background in gender studies and feminist literary criticism, and now writes and teaches on topics related to women and gender from a Catholic perspective. Her latest book is The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory. 

Pieter is a sought-after author and speaker on discernment, vocational singleness, and LGBT+ topics. Pieter is also the Founder and Director ofEquip, the leading coaching and training solution for theologically-traditional churches aspiring to be places where LGBT+ people thrive according to God's wisdom. He is also a teacher and diaconate explorer in the Anglican Church in North America.

Pieter's Christianity Today article with stats from the Us Versus Us report

Abby's website

Pieter's website

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Today is a conversation between a pastor and a farmer. What might working the land, protecting local economies, and nurturing Christian communities have in common?

We'll be speaking with Mary Berry, executive director of the Berry Center, and daughter of poet, farmer, and essayist Wendell Berry. My fellow interviewer today is the Rev. Clint Wilson, rector of St. Francis in the Fields, Harrods Creek, KY, not far from the Berry Center. 

We talk about joy of hard work, and hard work that is good work. Growing up with Wendell Berry as a dad. Faith and farming. Decisions to live with or against a given landscape. What is home? How do you make a home and dedicate yourself to it? The thick fabric of a place, and how work might be interwoven with neighbors, family, and seasons.

What does it mean to actually "Love your neighbor as yourself"? We'll also touch on special challenges the suburbs pose to meaningful life together.

Mary Berry, Executive Director of The Berry Center, grew up at Lanes Landing Farm in Henry County, KY. She has farmed for a living in Henry County, and started The Berry Center in 2011 to continue the agricultural work of John Berry, Sr. and his sons, author Wendell Berry and former Kentucky state senator, the late John M. Berry, Jr. The Berry Center focuses on issues confronting small farming families in Kentucky and around the country.

Hear Mary speak at the Living Church conference

Learn more about the Berry Center or Home Place Meat

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With the death of Pope Francis, today's bonus episode is a reflection on his ministry, particularly as it relates to Christian unity.

Fr. Matthew Olver and Amber Noel chat with Fr. Martin Browne, who serves at the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Christian unity. Martin shares his first impressions of the pope and what it was like working for him. We discuss the pope's choices and charisms, his passion for shared leadership with other Christians, his inability and refusal to fit into a political box, and the fruit this has borne in personal relationships and the global scene, as well as some of the hype, frustration, and bewilderment in the wake of Francis' leadership style and its very public preference for the poor. 

We'll also chat a bit about the movie, Conclave, and what it might get right and wrong about how the new pope will be selected.

The Rev. Martin Browne, OSB, is a Benedictine monk of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. He currently lives at the Primatial Abbey of Sant' Anselmo in Rome, and serves as an official in the Western Section of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. In the Dicastery he is the desk officer for relations with the Anglican Communion and the World Methodist Council. He is also responsible, in collaboration with the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, for the preparation of the prayers and reflections for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. He serves as the Catholic Co-Secretary of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commision for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM).

A brief note on when we recorded this: it was just after the pope's death and before his funeral. So take any details or speculations about the funeral proceedings with a grain of salt.

TLC Podcast: Dispatch from Rome

Article: "Pope Francis and the Power of the Symbolic"

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How can Christian leaders face the "overwhelm" of our times, in politics and national life, in personal life and relationships, and in ministry? 

We live in an age of what our guest today calls "polycrisis." Issues interconnect, pile on, and come hard and fast, faster than we can fix or, often, respond to in a thoughtful or Christian way.

How do we avoid either inaction or anxiousness?

We'll seek what our guest today calls "apocalyptic clarity." And we'll ask, "How do we recognize what's true, despite appearances, resist what's false, and participate joyfully in what God is doing?" This turns out to be a helpful window to perspective and practical decision making in a 21st-century Christian life. 

Our guest today is the Rev. Dr. Jesse Zink, principal of Montreal Diocesan Theological College and canon theologian in the Diocese of Montreal. And we'll be discussing his latest book, Faithful, Hopeful, Creative: 15 Theses for Christian Witness in a Crisis-Shaped World. He's also the author of four books about Christian history and global Christianity, as well as an introduction to theology and mission in the Episcopal Church called A Faith for the Future. 

Jesse's bio and books

Study guide for Faithful, Creative, Hopeful

Book Jesse mentioned: What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets