Home Podcasts The Ridley Institute Podcast
The Ridley Institute Podcast

The Ridley Institute Podcast

Sam Fornecker 57 episodes Latest Apr 16, 2026

From The Ridley Institute at St Andrew's Anglican Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: conversations on Christian faith and discipleship in our secular age. Hosted by Sam Fornecker.

Episodes

Galahad and the Grail, with Malcolm Guite Apr 16, 2026 00:48:20 What would it be like to live in a world where one rash action could lead to a wasteland for all? What if we live in just such a world? What might the old tales tell us about how to live in such a world by the hope of the Gospel? Join Sam Fornecker for a chat with priest and poet ​M​alcolm Guite, about the first of his four-volume Arthuriad, Merlin's Isle, entitled, Galahad and the Grail. Find
Light on Darkness, with Cosima Clara Gillhammer Dec 22, 2025 00:39:25 Humans cannot help but understand ourselves and our story through ritual. For Christians, as also for many irreligious people in the west today, this happens nowhere more powerfully than through the liturgy of the Church. Join Sam Fornecker for a chat with Cosima Clara Gillhammer of Oxford University's Lady Margaret Hall. Drawing on insights from her new book, Light on Darkness: The Untold Sto
Patristic Biblical Theology, with Stephen Presley Nov 20, 2025 00:46:16 We apologize to listeners for our error in the first release of this episode, and have corrected the error in this release. Please enjoy this interview with Stephen Presley!In the West, the term "God" has become virtually a placeholder, a moniker kept pristinely vacant. Even Christians have been known to treat the scriptures as butterflies to pin, probe and prod, comb and codify, until s
The Age of Hitler, with Alec Ryrie Aug 18, 2025 00:44:06 For centuries, the lodestone of the West's moral compass pointed to Jesus. Today, it points away from Hitler. That shift from a positive to a negative moral touchstone can be seen in popular culture's panoply of dark lords—Darth Vader, Sauron, Voldemort—each a rather unsubtle echo of Hitler himself.Join Sam Fornecker for a conversation with Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christian
Follow Jesus Like It's 199 :: Stephen Presley on Christian Witness in the Age of Caesar Oct 7, 2024 00:42:46 How can Christians stay embedded within our culture while pursuing virtue and rejecting vice, in personal and in public life? Join Sam Fornecker for a chat with Stephen Presley, author of Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World like the Early Church (Eerdman's, 2024), about what the modern church has to learn from Christians of the second and third centuries. According to Presley (Cultural Sa
Jesus and the Powers, with Mike Bird Sep 19, 2024 00:37:34 What has God to do with politics? What has the kingdom to do with the cross? And what does it mean to work for a kingdom whose origin lies beyond creation, but whose destiny lies within it? Join Sam Fornecker for a conversation with Mike Bird, deputy principal and lecturer in theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia, about insights unpacked in Mike's new book with NT Wright, entitl
"We Are Underdone Eschatologically": On Gospel Theology, with Tim Patrick Jun 17, 2024 00:50:45 What do Christians miss when we extol the cross of Christ (three cheers!), but fail to place emphasize correspondingly the resurrection of Christ, with all its implications for our lives today? How do we turn up the volume on this critical element of the gospel message? Join Sam Fornecker for a conversation with Tim Patrick (Principal, Bible College of South Australia). Drawing on two of Tim'
A Praying Church, with Paul Miller May 21, 2024 00:54:47 Sam Fornecker speaks with Paul Miller about his recent book, A Praying Church: Becoming a People of Hope in a Discouraging World (Crossway, 2023). Why does God care if I pray with other Christians? Is a prayer meeting really the best use of my time? What would God do through corporate prayer that He wouldn't do in response to private prayer—or, for that matter, regardless of any prayer at all
Five Lies of an Anti-Christian Age, with Rosaria Butterfield May 2, 2024 00:58:22 Sam Fornecker speaks with Rosaria Butterfield, about her most recent book, Five Lies of an Anti-Christian Age (Crossway, 2023). What's the difference between being a Christian in 1992 and 2024? What distinguishes a post-Christian, from an anti-Christian, age? To paraphrase St Paul (Rom. 13:11–14), do we know what time it is? In this conversation, Sam Fornecker speaks with Rosaria Butterfield
Echoes of the Incarnation: Early Christian Formation, with Alex Fogleman Apr 11, 2024 00:55:35 No affirmation more roundly rebuts the modern presumption that humans are merely "brains-on-sticks" than the core Christian confession that, in Jesus, God assumed human nature. To reckon fully with this fact is to enter into "a complex set of practices oriented toward the transformation of one's being and understanding of the world," the learning of "habits of body and
Lost in the Chaos, with R.J. Snell Mar 28, 2024 01:04:26 Sam Fornecker chats with philosopher R.J. Snell about his latest book, Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope (Angelico, 2023). What have frenzied activists, scheming rationalists, and men in Gandalf garb got in common? Why is each symptomatic of societal despair? And what hope can the Church offer a world no longer pining for the forgiveness of sins? In this conversation, Sam Fornecker spe
Charismatic Christianity, with Helen Collins Mar 19, 2024 00:50:35 Sam Fornecker chats with theologian Helen Collins about her recent book, Charismatic Christianity: Introducing Its Theology through the Gifts of the Spirit (Baker Academic, 2023). What is "charismatic Christianity"? What are its signal emphases, its prevailing values, its cardinal foci? How is it to be understood in relation to Pentecostalism, on the one hand, and the wide world of evan

Recommended

Playing