Author

  1. 430: Tolkien - The Journey Through the Desert: The Lenten Quest

    book
    02/27/26
    12 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    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.
    430: Tolkien - The Journey Through the Desert: The Lenten Quest

  2. 429: Lewis - "'Nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her"

    book
    02/20/26
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    A Church as Big as the Cosmos! In this episode, we enter into Lent with a reading from C.S. Lewis’ The Discarded Image. We discuss the medieval understanding of life, the universe, and everything— how it can help the churches today deepen their “vision” of how God orders the universe, the church, and the human being. We converse about the Grail legend, how God’s Word encounters and changes people, being lost in the Garden, how Christ ministers through others, and being annoyed by death. This and much, much more on this week’s episode of Banned Books.
    429: Lewis -

  3. Monday, February 16, 2026

    book
    02/16/26
    13 mins
    By Dan van Voorhis
    Today on the Christian History Almanac, we head to the mailbag to answer a question about Dan’s favorite books.
    Monday, February 16, 2026

  4. The True Myth of the Gospel with Louis Markos

    book
    02/03/26
    4 mins
    By Kelsi Klembara | Louis Markos
    Kelsi talks with English professor and Christian apologist, Louis Markos, about the importance of myth, storytelling, and imagination within Christian apologetics.
    The True Myth of the Gospel with Louis Markos

  5. 425: Lewis - Myth Became Fact

    book
    01/23/26
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    The Hangman’s Nous. In this episode, we read an excerpt from The Maniac, by G.K. Chesterton, followed by Myth Became Fact, from C.S. Lewis’ book of essays, “God in the Dock.” The primary question we discuss, then, is whether men and women can live a healthy and sane life with mystery, without myth, and without higher truth. What has happened to modern churches that exorcised mystery from preaching, teaching, evangelism, and worship? What anchors the Body of Christ when it’s unmoored from Church history and tradition? What have been the consequences for churches that treat the Christian story as more fantasy than fact? What does Lewis mean that God is “mythopoeic”? What does it mean that Christianity is, according to Lewis, “perfect myth and perfect fact”?
    425: Lewis - Myth Became Fact

  6. 420: C.S. Lewis - Christmas is unfortunately everyone's business

    book
    12/13/25
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    I’m Wasted, and I Can’t Find My Way Home. In this episode, we again invite C.S. Lewis to teach us about Christmas. We also discuss the early church fathers, worship, symbolism, mystery, Freud and Jung’s influence on modern Christians, consumerism and gift-giving, and, of course, Christmas: all this and much, much more on this episode of the podcast.
    420: C.S. Lewis - Christmas is unfortunately everyone's business

  7. 419: C.S. Lewis - All that Christianity adds to Paganism is the cure

    book
    12/05/25
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    Pagan Neart, Christian Soul. In this episode, we read C.S. Lewis’ “A Christmas Sermon for Pagans.” Why does the post-Christian person need to become pagan again to be prepared to hear the gospel? How has a mechanistic view of nature led us to kill each other? Why do we reject the good news that Jesus ended the need for guilt-offerings, sin-sacrifices, and fear about the afterlife? What happened as a consequence of moderns pushing heavenly truth out of the material world? What is the message of Christmas that offers a cure for all that ails us?
    419: C.S. Lewis - All that Christianity adds to Paganism is the cure

  8. 405: Barfield - Myth is the Ghost of Concrete Meaning

    book
    08/22/25
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    Little Plastic Castles. In this episode, we read the first Inkling, Owen Barfield, as he defends the use of old words, old stories, and old ways of expressing what’s good, beautiful, and true against modern proponents that argued for more modern “scientific” ways of judging language, esp., poetics and myth, as well as religion and culture.
    405: Barfield - Myth is the Ghost of Concrete Meaning

  9. 404: Auden - A Litany and the Horae Cononicae

    book
    08/16/25
    9 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    Liturgy Amongst the Rubble. In this episode, we read poems by W.H. Auden about pulp fiction, ancient myths, conversion, liturgy, poetics, and how industrialization and corporatism build a new Babel inside and around the churches.
    404: Auden - A Litany and the Horae Cononicae

  10. 400: Paulson - The Hidden Life of Christians

    book
    07/17/25
    8 mins
    By Donavon Riley | Christopher Gillespie
    You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. In this episode, we read the Outlaw God and discuss the hidden life of a Christian. How are Christians to understand the living Word, or Christ crucified before Adam and Eve, or being called into vocations that serve the kingdom of life rather than a culture of death?
    400: Paulson - The Hidden Life of Christians

  11. 399: More Questions Answered - Myth and Taylor Swift

    book
    07/11/25
    8 mins
    By Christopher Gillespie | Donavon Riley
    What Do You Mean, There’s More to This? In this episode, we answer a listener's question about Taylor Swift that leads us into a conversation about symbols and meaning, religious iconography, wild truth, and seeing reality through what’s occurring in the sacraments.
    399: More Questions Answered - Myth and Taylor Swift

  12. Law and Gospel in Jane Eyre

    book
    07/01/25
    9 mins
    By Kelsi Klembara | Amy Mantravadi
    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.
    Law and Gospel in Jane Eyre