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 in the h...
May 24, 2022•49 min
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 take of...
Apr 28, 2022•50 min
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 re...
Apr 05, 2022•56 min
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 integralism (A...
Mar 21, 2022•51 min
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 most ...
Feb 24, 2022•52 min
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 matter...
Jan 19, 2022•53 min
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 yelling o...
Dec 20, 2021•48 min
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 America...
Nov 23, 2021•54 min
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. D...
Oct 21, 2021•53 min
What makes Lutheran worship different from Anglican or Presbyterian forms? Would your average Anglican miss the hymns in an Anglican service? Why do Presbyterian services give so much time to the sermon? These were among several of the topics discussed in this recording with Korey Maas (Lutheran) , Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian). Spoiler alert: contemporary Protestants struggle with worship devices such as a prayer book....
Sep 22, 2021•54 min
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 likely diminishes. In this recording Korey Maas (Lutheran) , Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart ...
Aug 24, 2021•1 hr
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 intellectual landscape that Ross Douthat outlined in First Things . As it turned out, discussion of the valu...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 8 min
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 ecclesiastical embodiment. It doesn't make a lot of sense, for instance, for Anglicans and Lutherans to see t...
Jun 29, 2021•1 hr
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 legitimately do in "ministry." If every member is a minister, according to the logic of "every member minis...
May 28, 2021•1 hr
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 the U.S. avoided splits over the sectional crisis unlike other Protestants. One reason was that they we...
Apr 30, 2021•57 min
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 church calendar more than Presbyterians and may vary in their reasons for observance. But Reformed Pr...
Apr 01, 2021•49 min
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 Church. But with POTUSes and movie stars lining up to commune in mainline Presbyterian congregations, you c...
Mar 12, 2021•51 min
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 celebrity pastor, Max Lucado, at the National Cathedral to preach. This item provided space for distinguish...
Feb 26, 2021•44 min
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 the same interlocutors, Korey Maas, Miles Smith (THE fourth), and D. G. Hart (introduced here ). For y...
Feb 11, 2021•45 min
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 institutions. Then there is the question of the laity (and especially women) and where they receive form...
Jan 29, 2021•54 min
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....
Jan 14, 2021•53 min
