The Pudcast and co-hosts return thanks to the news coming out of the Middle East and stories about American Protestants' understanding of Israel and Jews. Co-hosts ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Miles Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Anglican), ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠D. G. Hart⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Korey Maas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Lutheran) talk about eschatology, Protestant familiarity with Israel (thanks at least to the Old Testament), the degree to which confessional Protestants (unlike American men who think about Rome) think about Jerusalem. Among...

After a long hiatus, the Hillsdale History Protestant confessionalists are back to talk about denominations under the broader heading of institutional Christianity. Co-hosts include Korey Maas, resident Lutheran, Miles Smith, resident Anglican, and D. G. Hart, resident (alien) Presbyterian. A question that haunts confessional Protestants is whether denominations as a vehicle for ministry have run out of steam thanks to the rise of megachurches, affinity networks among congregations of a...

On July 28, 1881, J. Gresham Machen was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Four decades later he was an important figure in the Presbyterian controversy between conservatives and modernists, thanks in part to his 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism, which (if you do the math) turns 100 this year. Co-hosts ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Miles Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Anglican), ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠D. G. Hart⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Korey Maas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Lutheran) talked earlier this week about Machen, his book, and the author's significance. ...

Did you know that the enrollment of Mennonite students at denominational colleges is in decline (and has been or a decade)? You probably didn't and you may not care if you have traditional confessional Protestant disregard for Anabaptists. But that trend is not isolated among Mennonites. Evangelical colleges have struggled with declining applications and enrollments even to the point where -- despite changing from colleges to "universities" -- administrators gut departments in the humanities....

This recording takes a different direction as co-hosts ⁠⁠⁠Miles Smith⁠⁠⁠ (Anglican), ⁠⁠⁠D. G. Hart⁠⁠⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠⁠⁠Korey Maas⁠⁠⁠ (Lutheran) welcome Aaron Renn to the Paleo-Protestant Pudcast. Aaron Renn is a consultant and keen observer of American cities and social trends who has taken an active interest in American Christianity and political conservatism. Many will know him from his First Things piece on the three worlds of evangelicalism (positive, neutral, and negative). Those...

Anglicans were in the news in April which provoked co-hosts ⁠⁠Miles Smith⁠⁠ (Anglican), ⁠⁠D. G. Hart⁠⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠⁠Korey Maas⁠⁠ (Lutheran) to talk about they way confessional states operate in comparison to confessional churches. Are confessional states like England or Scotland stricter than their respective national churches? How strict can churches be when their punitive instruments are ministerial and declarative? Also, can confessional churches have more freedom in a liberal...

This time co-hosts ⁠Miles Smith⁠ (Anglican), ⁠D. G. Hart⁠ (Presbyterian), and ⁠Korey Maas⁠ (Lutheran) talk about the limitations of the American Protestant binary that divides white Protestants into either evangelicals or mainline (can you say "liberal"?). If a Protestant group doesn't fit one of those molds, that leaves "fundamentalist"? The inhumanity! Each of our communions has brushes with positions, episodes, and sensibilities that might produce charges of make fundamentalism. At the...

In this conversation, co-hosts Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) lean heavily on Korey Maas (Lutheran) to make sense of the dust up in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod over a new edition of Luther's Large Catechism.  It comes from Concordia Publishing House and includes essays on various theological and moral topics.  Some in the LCMS have detected the fingerprints of progressive politics (or worse) in some of the essays even while others regard those critics as leaning...

After a holiday break, co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) catch up on highlights of downtime (and don't even mention the liturgical calendar) and then converse about a species of Protestant that goes by the name, "ecclesiocentric post-liberals."  A mouthful.  The essay that was in the background of this discussion is here. The question of ecclesiocentrism (post-liberal or not) is of some import to confessional Protestants because Anglicans,...

It's the most wonderful time of the year because we have so many seasons to observe (do liturgical calendar adherents really think they can have it to themselves?).  We have post-Thanksgiving nostalgia, the start of league play in NCAA DII basketball, the end of the academic term with finals and grading, Advent, and the excess of Christmas provides welcome push back to stale Halloween lawn displays.   In this session co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart...

At the end of the previous recording, co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) were talking about expectations for being a good Anglican, Lutheran, or Presbyterian.  One consideration not often in the equation is singing in worship. When a church member not only shows up for the service, but pulls out the hymnal and sings along with the rest of the saints the song selected by the pastor or priest, is he or she making any kind of show of devotion?...

In history and geography, Presbyterians are adjacent to Puritans, which makes them "hot" Protestants in the sense that they exhibit forms of piety more intense, more holiness forward than other confessional Protestants.  That is the reputation anyway for British Protestantism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Over time, Presbyterians became synonymous with "God's frozen chosen" because their worship is and remains (for some) so dull and lacking in energy.   Heat and cold are not...

Upstream from Christian nationalism, the topic of our last discussion, is the use to which historians of the United States have put denominational or church history in describing American identity (and with it American nationalism).  In this recording, co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) talk about Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian reactions to the way two or three generations of American historians, literary scholars, and faculty in...

The Magisterial Reformation was one version of Christian nationalism way before evangelical historians and hysteria prone journalists discovered the sources of support for Donald Trump.  Co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian hopes for and reliance on civil government.  They kick off the discussion in reference to two pieces that describe Christian nationalism in...

Too much for any single podcast to cover, but the regulars, co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) give it their best college try.  The topic that was supposed to drive this conversation was the annual meeting of synods and general assemblies.  But because Presbyterians are much better organized (some call it anal) than Anglicans and Lutherans, the confessional Protestants only had the Christian Reformed Church Synod, and the General Assemblies...

Another potentially controversial subject -- especially given Presbyterians' tradition of kvetching (and more) about prayer books -- but once more co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) avoid conflict.  It's a shame.   This recording's subject is the degree to which confessional Protestants rely upon read or formal prayers, how that affects occasions (like men's Bible study) when spontaneous prayer may be in order, and the effects on devotion...

Christians on social media got a lot of mileage out of typing "He is risen!" on a specific Sunday in April.  Some Presbyterians wondered about all the hub bub since during the week leading up to Easter Sunday, Jesus was was risen on each and every day.  This episode brings co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), together to talk about Easter, the liturgical calendar, and what it means or doesn't mean to them.  The hope was for interlocutors to...

The short answer is: go back to the early days of First Things and convince its founding editor, Richard John Neuhaus, not to convert to Roman Catholicism. Short of that, co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) consider why Roman Catholics have so many magazines and Protestants are limited to Christian Century, Christianity Today, and World Magazine (which is in a long winded way the successor to J. Gresham Machen's Presbyterian Guardian).  The...

This conversation took place before Spring Break. Listeners will decide how well it aged.  The question before the co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), was whether Confessional Protestants have any stake in either a David-French-like defense of Drag Queen Story Hour or a Sohrab Ahmari denunciation of such public events as the inevitable result of political liberalism. In other words, what alternatives do Protestants have other than...

In this recording Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) take the temperature of confessional Protestants.  The notion of a "hot" Protestant has less to do with sexual appeal than with intense piety.  Michael Winship's book on the Puritans uses "hot" to describe those English Protestants who were eager to carry out the reformation in the Church of England as well as in the lives, families, and vocations of believers.  A similar tendency was evident in the...

The regular interlocuters, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian), finally get to politics -- church life can only hold your attention for so long.  The reason for the shift in discussion is the larger critique that Roman Catholics and Protestants are making against political liberalism (short hand for representative government, constitutionalism, separation of powers, civil and religious liberty).  (For an evangelical -- largely squishy -- take on the...

It is likely obvious by now that Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) together are not as funny as Lutheran Satire (Dr. Maas on his own may manifest the Lutheran spiritual gift).  That is a backhanded way of saying that this episode's discussion of Christmas, Advent, and December congregational singing is not nearly as pointed or as amusing as Martin Luther Yelling about Inferior Anglican Christmas Hymns.  (This episode's title comes from Luther's...

Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) do their impersonations of evangelicals and give their testimonies in this episode.  That's a way of saying they describe the biographical route by which they came to Lutheran, Anglican, and Presbyterian churches, respectively.  Spoiler alert: theology is important (even for Anglicans).  Related: education and catechesis are also important.  What may be surprising is the influence that Francis Schaeffer had on three...

Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) return to talk about the way that our different communions use and rely on our confessions (Book of Concord, Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Westminster Standards).  We even go into the weeds of subscription, a topic that Presbyterians may have thought they owned but is also relevant to Lutherans.  These men even talked about revisions to confessions and whether that undermines the status of the original confessions....