Episode Archive
Banned Books

Banned Books Podcast

With Donavon Riley & Christopher Gillespie
Episodes
Authors
Topics
60 Glossary

Welcome to Banned Books, where we read and converse with the rebel children, the holy mischief-makers of God, who fight against the kind of useless religious, spiritual, and moral methods of life improvement that seek to smother the glory of God in Jesus Christ. We want to introduce you to those who forgot everything except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Some were faithful to the end, and are safe in Jesus' death. Many lost their way and ended up expressing the biggest bad news of all, that we must stop sinning if we want God to like us.

But, we all struggle with fear of being last, lost, least, littlest, and dead, and so we are here to encourage, challenge, provoke, and maybe even offend you by introducing you to theologians who at one time or another were banned by their church, declared dangerous, or simply vilified for daring to confess that Christ alone is the way, truth, and life. They dare to be called fools for Christ's sake even when their own church throws ever larger stumbling blocks in front of them. This is the Banned Books podcast. Welcome rebel children, holy mischief makers, and fools for Christ. This podcast is for you.

Your Hosts

Donavon Riley
Host
Husband, father, and pastor. Host of Banned Books and Warrior Priest. Author of Crucifying Religion and The Withertongue Emails. He has written hundreds of articles, teaches mixed martial arts, and considers himself a story-teller and friend of trees.
Christopher Gillespie
Host
Husband, father, Lutheran pastor, and media producer (gillespie.media). A coffee roaster (gillespie.coffee) who produces content for 1517, Higher Things, Doxology, CPH Music, and Concordia Theological Seminary.

Reading List

Where "Deus Absconditus" appears across the catalog

  1. Ep. 253: Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Minister's Black Veil — 17 mentions · watch
  2. Ep. 261: Herman Melville - Moby Dick — 5 mentions · watch
  3. Ep. 371: Pastoral Debrief - On Storytelling and Myth — 5 mentions · watch from 00:05:39
  4. Ep. 94: Martin Luther, 'God Preached, God Hidden; God's Will Revealed, God's Will Secret' from 'The Bondage of The Will' — 5 mentions · watch
  5. Ep. 172: Henry Patrick Reardon - To Take One's Stand and to Keep Watch — 4 mentions · watch
  6. Ep. 252: Hamann - We Hear the Blood of the Redeemer Crying Out in Our Heart — 4 mentions · watch
  7. Ep. 255: Parables of Kafka & Nietzsche — 4 mentions · watch
  8. Ep. 310: Sasse - The Theologia Crucis belongs to the Western Church — 4 mentions · watch
  9. Ep. 76: John Bunyan, 'The Pilgrim's Progress' - The Shadow of Death — 4 mentions · watch
  10. Ep. 211: Tocqueville - Life is neither a pleasure nor a sorrow — 3 mentions · watch
  11. Ep. 239: Bayer - The grace of God opens eyes and ears and hearts and mouths and hands — 3 mentions · watch
  12. Ep. 240: Sasse - All religion, no matter how disfigured and deformed, finally refers back to an original revelation — 3 mentions · watch
  13. Ep. 247: Grothe - How to 'Save the World' — 3 mentions · watch
  14. Ep. 248: Grothe - Help for Hopeful Pilgrims — 3 mentions · watch
  15. Ep. 256: Dostoyevsky - The Grand Inquisitor pt. 1 — 3 mentions · watch
  16. Ep. 263: Dostoyevsky - The Devil—Ivan Fyodorovich’s Nightmare pt. 2 — 3 mentions · watch
  17. Ep. 311: Forde - Proclamation is the Present Tense of the Gospel — 3 mentions · watch
  18. Ep. 358: Melanchthon - Commentary on Romans 3:21ff — 3 mentions · watch
  19. Ep. 46: Flannery O'Connor - Good Country People, part 1 — 3 mentions
  20. Ep. 110: Viktor Frankl, 'Man's Search for Meaning,' part 2 — 2 mentions · watch
  21. Ep. 115: Clement of Alexandria on Free Will and Predestination — 2 mentions · watch
  22. Ep. 138: Martin Luther - We Will Not Permit Ourselves to Be Shoved or Budged Away From Justification — 2 mentions · watch
  23. Ep. 141: Martin Luther - The Christian Has Use of The World and All Its Creatures — 2 mentions · watch
  24. Ep. 159: Zempel - Churches Aren''t Avoiding Death By Keeping Their Doors Closed. They''re Ensuring It — 2 mentions · watch
  25. Ep. 202a: Robert Farrar Capon - The Mystery and Guilt pt. 1 — 2 mentions · watch
  26. Ep. 206b: Eagleton - The figure of the tortured and executed Jesus is the overthrowing of the Satanic image of God — 2 mentions · watch
  27. Ep. 212: Tocqueville - Religion Considered as a Political Institution — 2 mentions · watch
  28. Ep. 23: You'd think that killing people would make them like you — 2 mentions
  29. Ep. 235: Paulson - Darwin's real problem is … the command of God that has no restraint — 2 mentions · watch
  30. Ep. 265: Flannery O'Connor - Revelation pt. 2 — 2 mentions · watch
  31. Ep. 320: Whitford - Tyranny and Resistance — 2 mentions · watch from 01:21:04
  32. Ep. 357: Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling — 2 mentions · watch
  33. Ep. 376: Origen - Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans — 2 mentions · watch from 00:44:19
  34. Ep. 381: Kleinig - The Things That Make a Theologian — 2 mentions · watch from 02:04:06
  35. Ep. 43: Billy Graham - Christ's Answer to The World — 2 mentions
  36. Ep. 47: Flannery O'Connor - Good Country People, part 2 — 2 mentions
  37. Ep. 99: Martin Luther, 'Reviews of Erasmus' Preface' from 'The Bondage of The Will' — 2 mentions · watch
  38. Ep. 132: Martin Luther - The Gospel Teaches Nothing But The Free Forgiveness of Sins — 1 mentions · watch
  39. Ep. 181: Chesterton - Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God — 1 mentions · watch
  40. Ep. 21: Just Follow The Step by Step Instructions — 1 mentions