My brother Jonathan and I started a podcast. It’s called “Devotion to Christ: Anglican Spirituality, a Tradition for Today.” Our discussions will be anchored in the Book of Common Prayer to prevent it from ranging everywhere and thus becoming nothing in particular. But we’ll also bring in Scripture and the Anglican divines. That said, using the first episode as evidence, when I talk off the top of my head, I bring in things like Met. Anthony Bloom’s book Living Prayer, St Seraphim of Sarov, and St Theophan the Recluse. (At least, I think I brought in St Theophan.)
Why do a new podcast when about a gazillion (give or take) already exist?
Our combination of shared personal history but differing professional expertise makes for interesting conversations, for one thing. He’s an actual minister who preaches, so he’s good at finding concrete, real life things to say to make a topic relevant. I, on the other hand, am an academic, so I tend to bring us back to the sources (in our first episode, this would be the BCP). I also have a lot of ancient and Orthodox sources informing what I say, whereas he is stronger on the actual Anglican tradition than I am.
Another reason is that people desperately need to know Jesus — they need to know Him better, or even at all. The various things our communities, lives, churches, institutions, are doing aren’t necessarily producing deeper, more, or “better” disciples, which is to say, they aren’t helping people know Jesus. We think the Anglican devotional tradition can help people know Jesus better as his disciples. So maybe, by having people listen to us talk about it for half an hour every two weeks, they’ll be strengthened and encouraged to know Jesus more.
Finally, we’re both fans of the daily office, and even started a dispersed community called The Witness Cloud to promote it — maybe our podcast will help recruit for the Witness Cloud and the daily office as a means of grace.
You can find us on the podcast website, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Amazon, and elsewhere as I sort out distribution. I’ll also be uploading videos of the episodes to YouTube, as you see below:
Classically Christian 