Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, with Eric Hutchinson

Christmas can shrink into a month of noise, nostalgia, and a storyline we think we already know. Our guests this week, historian Lynneth Renberg and theologian Adam Renberg, combine their wisdom to recover Advent as the early and medieval church actually lived it: a season of longing, prayer, and deep attention to the mystery of the Incarnation.Adam and Lynneth are authors of the book Candles in the Darkness: Experiencing Advent with the Early and Medieval Church, a unique, primary source-backed devotional that walks through some of the earliest Christmas traditions.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

A man decides he can do one terrible thing for the greater good. The fallout isn’t just legal trouble, it’s the slow collapse of his own soul. Author and educator Perry Glanzer helps us take Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment seriously as Christians, not for ideals it champions, but for naming the spiritual cost of dehumanizing people and trying to outthink conscience.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

Poe doesn’t just write about ravens, floorboards, and crumbling mansions. He writes about what happens when the mind starts feeding on itself and you can’t tell whether the horror is out there, in here, or both. Steve Knepper and Father Ryan Dunn join to discuss three essential Edgar Allan Poe classics: “The Raven,” “The Telltale Heart,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and we ask what it looks like to take spooky literature seriously as Christians.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

Moby-Dick is a whale hunt on the surface, but underneath it’s a confrontation with a world that won’t fully make sense. Kyle Harper, a historian of whales and the wider animal world, joins us to argue for Herman Melville’s masterpiece as the great American novel and to pin down what we really mean when we call something a “classic.” Kyle explains why timeless books survive changing tastes: they keep asking the fundamental questions about truth, God, knowledge, and what it means to be human. Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

A single sentence can hold an entire war: “All quiet on the Western Front.” That understatement is exactly why Erich Maria Remarque’s novel still haunts readers almost a century later, and why we wanted to slow down and read it carefully rather than treat it like a history lesson.Today we are joined by Jason Barnhart, a peace theologian and professor of historical theology, to talk through the transparency, humanity, and paradoxes that make All Quiet on the Western Front a true classic of war literature.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

A beautiful story can still be brutal, and Billy Budd proves it. Christine Norvell, author of The Sycamore Fig Tree, joins to discuss Melville’s unforgettable portrait of a sailor who seems almost made for admiration—which makes his tragedy that much more thought-provoking.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

Aristotle is everywhere in Western civilization, but most of us meet him as a difficult assignment instead of a real human being with a complicated story. We sit down with classicist and biographer Philip Freeman, author of Aristotle: The First Teacher, to follow Aristotle from an out-of-the-way town in northern Greece to the intellectual pressure cooker of Plato’s Academy and then into his own ambitious project at the Lyceum.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

We’re joined by Miles Werntz, associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University and editor of Nothing Can Separate Us: Healing for Souls and Nations, a reader of Thurman’s writings. Together we trace Thurman’s story from the segregated South to Morehouse and Howard University, through his journey to India to meet Mahatma Gandhi, and into his bold experiment of founding one of America’s earliest intentionally interracial churches. Along the way we explore why Thurman distinguishes “the religion of Jesus” from what Christianity has sometimes become, and how that distinction both helps and troubles readers who love the church.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

The complicated struggle of faith is no new phenomenon. Philosopher and novelist Daniel McInerny joins today to revisit Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and ask why this Catholic classic still feels like it is describing our own age, our own friendships, and our own hunger for beauty. Along the way, we tackle a surprisingly practical question for readers and writers alike: what is a classic, really? Not just a book that tells timeless truths, but a work that pushes a tradition forward and deepens the conversation about what a human being is for. Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor known for his philosophical insights, penned his thoughts in a private notebook that became one of the most enduring classics of Western literature. In this episode, Nadya Williams speaks with Eric Hutchinson, Associate Professor of Classics at Hillsdale College, to delve into the essence of Aurelius's Meditations and the Stoic principles that shaped his life.Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.Listen and read The Daily Liturgy by going to http://mereorthodoxy.com/daily-liturgy