1. Lent in Middle-earth. In this episode, we discuss the Lenten subtext, language, and images in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Return of the King.” What can Christians learn from fiction authors about the faith, devotional reading, understanding the world outside the churches through the view of the cross, and how all of reality is bent towards Easter at all times, in all places, by all people? This and much, much more on today’s show.
  2. Christopher Richmann teaches religion and is assistant director for teaching and learning with the Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University.
  3. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? In this episode, we gather for a post-Christmas, post-New Year pastoral debrief. We talk about symbols and meaning, Christmas and holidays, signs and seasons, and how modern churches quietly cleared the path for culture to push Christ out of Christmas without much resistance. We explore the strange and largely arbitrary ways the world measures time, along with the old Adam’s never-ending pyramid project. That is, his need to build meaning upward by effort, progress, and control rather than receive it as a gift. From there, we return to symbol and meaning. We ask why ancient liturgy’s nostalgia or ornamentation, but the distilled shape of reality itself, why the Lord’s Supper isn’t a side practice, but the beating heart of the Church, of worship, and of the Christian life. And why stories’ decorations for faith, but the way truth takes on flesh and finds us where we actually live. This is a conversation about time, worship, memory, and why the Church invents meaning but receives it again and again at the table.
  4. Kelsi talks with Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions, John Pless, about compiling and editing, ⁠The Essential Nestingen: Essays on Preaching, Catechism, and the Reformation.⁠
  5. Today on the Christian History Almanac, we go to Washington, D.C., to consider one of the world’s most famous cathedrals.
  6. Troy is out of the saddle this week, but Craig wrangles author and all-around good guy, Ray Keating, to sit down and talk about his new book, “Menace – an Agen Dean Cold Novel.”
  7. In this episode of Outside Ourselves, Kelsi talks with author Brittany Lee Allen about her book Lost Gifts: Miscarriage, Grief, and the God of All Comfort.
  8. In this episode of Outside Ourselves: Summer Break, author, 1517 contributor, and internet theology whiz kid, Amy Mantravadi discuss theological themes in Charlotte Bronte's novel, Jane Eyre.