Paleo Protestant Pudcast

Yes, that's a bit of a tease (maybe more) but it may be the best way to encourage people to listen to a conversation about church polity.  Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians have many differences in theology and worship and these are likely the easiest to identify. But when it comes to the structures of government that bind and unify each of these confessional Protestant communions, awareness...

Confessional Protestants are again NOT in the news thanks in part to a new survey that breaks the white Protestant world in the U.S. down into either evangelical or mainline Protestant camps.   Korey Maas , Miles Smith , and D. G. Hart (aka Bob Dole) aimed at using the recent headlines surrounding those survey results to consider what the Protestant equivalent would be to the Roman Catholic intell...

The stories we tell about ourselves, our nations, and our communions matter for how we understand ourselves.  Whether church history should matter as much as it does to Anglican, Lutheran, or Presbyterian identity, the origins, controversies, splits, and turning points in a communion's history matter for how church members understand themselves in relation to a Christian tradition and its ecclesia...

In this recording, the Anglican (Miles Smith), the Lutheran (Korey Maas), and the Presbyterian (D. G. Hart), each a white Protestant man in case you did not notice, talk about pressures among confessional Protestants to open ordination beyond historic limits.  It is another way of asking where the lines are between the tasks reserved for those ordained and what lay people (men or women) may legiti...

Scientists tell us that people ideally go through 4 to 5 90-minute cycles of sleep, that run from wake to light sleep to deep sleep to REM before repeating the process.  Church historians may be tempted to conclude that confessional Protestants go through similar cycles when it comes to social reform and political activism.  In the nineteenth century, for instance, Lutherans and Episcopalians in t...

For many confessional Protestants, this week is the big one, the Holy One. Which leads to questions about ways Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Lutherans mark time. Which days are holy, which seasons does the church follow, and to what degree does a liturgical calendar divide or separate Protestants who trace their roots to the sixteenth century?  Without surprise, Lutherans and Anglicans follow the...

The three part series of comparing and contrasting confessional Protestant churches in the U.S. comes to a close with Presbyterians this time.  Younger listeners may have a hard time understanding that during the two decades after World War II, Presbyterianism was in the sweet spot of American identity.  Of course, that did not extend to conservative communions like the Orthodox Presbyterian Churc...

The latest recording of three Protestant history professors talking shines the spotlight on Anglicanism with Dr. Miles Smith taking heat and receiving praise for his communion's contribution to confessional Protestantism.  The conversation (with Dr. Korey Mass , the Lutheran, and Dr. D. G. Hart , the Presbyterian) began with recent news about Episcopalians' apologies for hosting evangelical celebr...

Hard questions on this episode, such as why Lutherans, who have the most members, don't get more respect from other Protestants. This is the first of several episodes (God willing) on prestige and status among confessional Protestants, such as how do they rank, who has the the most appeal to evangelicals, and what do Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Lutherans know about the other communions?  Still t...

If you want to serve in a confessional Protestant communion as a minister, where should you go to seminary?  Related to this is the role that seminaries play in the life of a denomination.  Lutherans have closer ties to their seminaries, Presbyterians are all over the place (even though the OPC and PCA depended on seminaries for their start), and Anglicans rely often on evangelical and mainline in...

Korey Maas teaches history at Hillsdale College.  He also talks a lot about Lutheranism of the LCMS variety. Miles Smith teaches history at Hillsdale College.  He writes about Anglicanism. D. G Hart teaches history at Hillsdale College.  He talks about Presbyterians sometimes with other Presbyterians.  Thanks to Chortles Weakly for technical assistance.