The Ad Fontes Podcast

What is beauty? Is it on par with truth and goodness? And why don't people who agree about truth and goodness agree about beauty? This week, Rhys, Colin, and (eventually) Onsi discuss what a Christian philosophy of beauty means, and get into the weeds of music, architecture, and some good old-fashioned exegetical debate. NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you ma...

What do you think of when you think of Zwingli? Sausages? Memorialism? Warfare? Despite his huge influence in the Reformation (and since), most Reformed Protestants know very little about Huldrych Zwingli. This week, Onsi and Rhys have read Zwingli: God's Armed Prophet , Bruce Gordon's fantastic new biography, and Colin quizzes them on the Reformer we hardly know. NOTE: most books below...

The Church Calendar is BACK - didn't you know? This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys talk about why that might be. Should non-liturgical churches think twice about retrieving the calendar? How does it fit with Word ministry? And what can it tell us about the natural calendar of the seasons? NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these links give The Davenant...

What is poetry? Why were Greek philosophers so wary of it? How do Scripture and the Christian tradition shape our view of it? And why is it like technology? Onsi, Colin, and Rhys consider a Christian approach to poetry in this week's episode, and are glad to find just how gloriously useless poetry can be. NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these lin...

Coming to you LIVE from the Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting in Forth Worth, TX! Colin and Onsi, joined by Davenant colleagues Dale Stenberg and Michael Hughes, shoot the breeze and wonder about how Davenant fits into the evangelical world. Why do we attract more Millenials than Boomers? Can we build an evangelical intellectual ecosystem? And why do you wish you'd been at our af...

It's easy to dump on evangelicalism these days. But we do love it, and owe it a great deal. This week, Colin and Rhys take some time to talk about what they love about evangelicalism, for all its faults. They talk about its stress on a personal encounter with the external Word of the Gospel, the fruit its borne and how its outliving liberal Christianity, as well as what it actually is and how...

The newest Davenant Institute staff member, Development Diretor Justin Redemer (and yes, Colin's brother) joins Onsi and Colin this week to talk about how that came about, and why he's psyched to work here. They use this as a chance to talk about the institute's mission, where it might be going, and how our work has impacted Justin as both a high-school teaher and a men's pasto...

You have friends - don't you? Well, to answer that,you need to know what friendship is, and that's what our hosts try to work that out this week - beginning with Aristotle, before moving onto Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, and the Scriptures. NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these links give The Davenant Institute a 10% commission, and support l...

How do you do philosophy? Or, to put it in the industry's terms, what is "philosophical method"? This week, Onsi and Rhys grill Colin on what the right method of philosophy is - not a dry academic pursuit of experts, but a dialogue of questioning about reality. NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these links give The Davenant Institute a 10...

Can Protestants be friends with Roman Catholics? After all, the Reformers equated Roman Catholic doctrine to false teaching, and the New Testament has harsh and clear words regarding false teachers. This week, our hosts discuss why Protestants can still enjoy true friendship with Catholics, considering the differences between today and the Reformation. And Colin invites the Pope to a barbecue. NOT...

How should Christians think about profanity? Scripture makes clear commands about our speech, yet Scripture itself seems to use some choice language at times. How do we reconcile this? And how have great Christian minds of the past approached these things? NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these links give The Davenant Institute a 10% commission, and su...

Colin's back, and he thinks that on our previous episode (with John Ahern), Rhys and Onsi gave contemporary Christian music (CCM) too hard a time. Isn't it a good thing that the best songwriters and producers in the world are making CCM, and that Christian music is worth so much money? Doesn't writing the perfect pop song for Christ demonstrate virtuosity and poetry? And isn't...

Somewhere, right now, people are arguing about church music - and it's been that way for nearly 2000 years! Why is that? This week, Onsi and Rhys are joined by John Ahern to discuss big questions which have recurred again and again in church history: music or lyrics? Performers or laypeople? How (if at all) do we fund church music? With particular reference to the Middle Ages, our hosts consi...

Calling something "practically medieval" is never really a positive thing. But were the so-called Dark Ages really so dark? Onsi, Colin, and Rhys set out to bust some medieval myths prominent among Protestants, and in Western culture at large. They talk about technology, science, sex, death, feudalism, personal piety, and more. NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purc...

We talk a lot about the sin and scandal of public figures in the Church... but do we talk about talking about it? That's what Onsi, Colin, and Rhys do this week! How can a philosophy and theology of sin affect the way that we talk about it? NOTE: most books below are linked via Bookshop.org. Any purchases you make via these links give The Davenant Institute a 10% commission, and support local...

Have childless philosophers ruined Western civilization? Why are great intellectuals usually such terrible fathers and husbands anyway? And is it easier to be a theologian parent than a philosopher parent? This week, Onsi and Rhys are joined by Davenant Teaching Fellow Alastair Roberts to discuss the relationship between celibacy and the intellectual life. NOTE: most books below are linked via Boo...

It's the middle of summer... so we're talking about spring! Launching off of "Ver Erat Aeternum", an Ad Fontes essay by E.J. Hutchinson, Onsi, Colin, and Rhys discuss the season. Why is it historically associated with Paradise in different cultures, and is that right? And are created phenomena like the seasons meant to teach us anything? NOTE: most books below are linked via Bo...

What is piety? What happened to it? And can we make it great again? This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys talk about piety (not to confused with "pietism" or "piousness") - our natural bonds and relationship to those around us. They cover its place in the ancient world, what the Reformation had to say, and what (if anything) it might look like today. NOTE: most books below are linked...

Do you have free will in listening to this podcast? Listen and find out! This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys discuss free will, launching off of The Davenant Institute's new translation of Peter Martyr Vermigli''s On Free Will and the Law. They discuss the Greek myths and philosophers, totaly depravity, God's foreknowledge, and the pastoral relevance of a clear doctrine of free wel...

Does this podcast have a hidden meaning? Probably not. But plenty of history's great writings have hidden meanings (well, maybe they do). This week, Rhys and Colin discuss esoteric writing, where the author's real meaning is veiled, and apparent only to a small inner group with the right knowledge (often to prevent themselves getting killed). Springing off of Leo Strauss' Persecutio...

How should Christians think about law? Not the Levitical law, but law itself in our nations and societies. What even is a law? How is our legal tradition founded in Greek philosophy? How did Augustine and Aquinas develop that? This week, Onsi and Rhys grill Colin on these questions and more, off the back of his recent Davenant House intensive on the topic. NOTE: most books below are linked via Boo...

John Donne is one of history's great poets. He taught us that "no man is an island" and to not ask "for whom the bell tolls". Yet he is often overlooked by Protestants as a Protestant. This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys talk about Donne's life and divine poetry, the limits of language, and what we can learn from him as a Protestant poet. NOTE: most books below are linked...

This week we come to you direct from Davenant House! Recorded during our Annual Convivium Irenicum (and so apologies for slightly subpar audio quality), Onsi and Colin talk with Michael Lynch about classical education. Or rather, how much of what calls itself classical education isn't that classical at all. How can we remedy that? What should a real Christian classical education look like? Su...

Did you know you're already a philosopher? Sorry to break it to you. This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys discuss the role of philosophy in the Christian life, but not how you might think. Springing off of "Philosophy As A Way of Life", a Davenant essay by Peter Escalante and Joseph Minich, they lay out the current divide between analytic and continental philosophy, and explore how true...

Something's changed when it comes to evangelicals and evolution. One of the hottest and most divisive topics in the early 2000s doesn't cause the arguments it used to - and it's not because everyone now believes in evolution. This week Onsi, Colin, and Rhys consider why these debates have cooled, and whether that gives us a chance to consider what a "mere Christian" positi...