Join Sam Fornecker for a conversation with C. Kavin Rowe (George Washington Ivey Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Vice Dean for Faculty, Duke Divinity School). Drawing on Rowe's recent book, Leading Christian Communities (Eerdman's, 2023), this conversation focuses on how the New Testament enables the communities it shapes to envision a faithful and compelling vision of Christian leadership ..read more

Join Sam Fornecker for a chat with David Gustafson (Chair of Mission and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School). Drawing on insight's from David's book, Gospel Witness through the Ages (Eerdman's, 2022), this conversation focuses on how Christians can learn to fulfill our charge to "do the work of an evangelist" (2 Tim. 4:5) by learning from the evangelistic strengths—and weaknesses—of the Church throughout the ages ..read more

In this finale of the inaugural season of The Ridley Institute Podcast, Sam talks with Norman Wirzba, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School. Drawing on themes from Wirzba's forthcoming book, Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022), Sam and Norman explore how the cultivation of an "agrarian" vision of core Christian spiritual practices — including, but not limited to, prayer and perception — can guide the heart of the Christian into ever-greater alignment with the heart of God ..read more

Join Sam Fornecker for a chat with D.C. Schindler, Professor of Metaphysics and Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C., about Christianity's gift to the world—the gift of freedom. Drawing on a wealth of insights in Schindler's new book, Retrieving Freedom: The Christian Appropriation of Classical Tradition (Notre Dame, 2022), this conversation explores vital questions, ranging from the relationship of Jewish and Greek thought to Christianity, to the devastating consequences of affirming half-truths about God and ourselves.  ..read more

In this episode, Sam chats with speaker, writer, and social critic, Os Guinness. Discussing themes developed in his most recent book, The Great Quest: Invitation to an Examined Life and a Sure Path to Meaning (InterVarsity, 2022), Os and Sam explore big questions about faith, reason, and the meaning of life. In the spirit of great Christian thinkers like Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis, Os helps listeners to grasp how Christianity both questions our answers, and answers our questions ..read more

Join Sam, Alice, and Jake for a conversation about the English reformer and Marian martyr, John Bradford (1510–1555). In this episode of the New Parker Society series, the team focuses broadly on Bradford's devotional works, homing in especially Bradford's meditations on the Lord's Prayer. Read along here ..read more

Sam speaks with Simon Gathercole, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Cambridge University, on early Christian gospel literature, the theological message uniting the gospels of the New Testament canon, and why The Da Vinci Code is probably not the ideal source for information on Jesus Christ (or, ahem, New Testament scholarship). Gathercole's latest book on the gospels, discussed throughout this conversation, can be found here. Listeners can access the lectures mentioned toward the end of the episode by clicking here ..read more

Join Alice, Jake, and Sam for the third installment of the New Parker Society series. This time, the gang meets to discuss the bishop of Gloucester and of Worcester, John Hooper's 1547 work, A Declaration of Christ and His Office. The late David Steinmetz described Hooper as a "volcano of energy, who shook the indifferent out of their self-satisfaction and who let the ignorant and slothful catch a sobering whiff of brimstone." Suffice to say — this one will leave you whistling the theme song ..read more

For those desiring to understand Anglican teaching on Holy Communion, one could do worse than turn to the writings of the English reformers themselves. In this episode, Sam Fornecker and Alice Soulieux-Evans revisit the great English reformer, Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556). Having previously examined Cranmer the preacher, this episode considers Cranmer the theologian, as Sam and Alice take listeners on a guided tour through Cranmer's first book-length work, A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ (1550).  Jake Griesel is away for this epi ..read more

On this episode, Sam is joined by Jasmine Holmes, to discuss her new book, Carved in Ebony: Lessons from the Black Women Who Shape Us (Bethany House, 2021). Drawing on the stories of ten remarkable Black women of mid-nineteenth century American history, Jasmine and Sam discuss what it meant for women like Nannie Helen Burroughs, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Amanda Berry Smith, to be God's image "carved in ebony"—and how Christians stand to gain from their legacy today ..read more