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 "Theology of the Cross" appears across the catalog

  1. Ep. 410: Forde - Better not to let the 'common herd' in on such lofty and dangerous academic secrets — 34 mentions · watch from 00:06:27
  2. Ep. 407: Paulson - The free will is demonstrably not Jesus Christ — 30 mentions · watch from 00:02:08
  3. Ep. 411: Forde - Are we puppets, being jerked around against our wills by a malevolent puppeteer? — 25 mentions · watch from 00:12:39
  4. Ep. 409: Forde - Take away assertions and you take away Christianity — 23 mentions · watch from 00:02:42
  5. Ep. 383: Tolkien - The 'protestant' search backwards for 'simplicity' and directness ... is mistaken and indeed vain — 18 mentions · watch from 00:24:20
  6. Ep. 398: Paulson - A Preacher like Jonah — 17 mentions · watch from 00:05:16
  7. Ep. 430: Tolkien - The Journey Through the Desert: The Lenten Quest — 15 mentions · watch from 00:10:47
  8. Ep. 405: Barfield - Meaning and Myth — 13 mentions · watch from 00:14:18
  9. Ep. 395: Questions Answered — 12 mentions · watch from 00:03:25
  10. Ep. 401: Q&A on Christian Success — 11 mentions · watch from 00:13:04
  11. Ep. 413: Debrief on the Bondage of the Will — 11 mentions · watch from 00:17:57
  12. Ep. 377: Origen - The Church as Superior to All Things Pagan — 10 mentions · watch
  13. Ep. 419: C.S. Lewis - All that Christianity adds to Paganism is the cure — 10 mentions · watch from 00:02:35
  14. Ep. 23: You'd think that killing people would make them like you — 8 mentions
  15. Ep. 24: Your Theology Is Creating A Nice Little Climate of Panic — 8 mentions · watch from 00:08:14
  16. Ep. 246: Grothe - Set Free for Life — 8 mentions · watch
  17. Ep. 402: Tolkien - Certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth — 8 mentions · watch from 00:23:52
  18. Ep. 425: Lewis - Myth Became Fact — 7 mentions · watch from 00:23:40
  19. Ep. 295: Melanchthon - The people of God are not made by fleshly propagation and the worship of the Law — 6 mentions · watch from 00:18:04
  20. Ep. 354: Jacques Ellul - Conforming the Church to the Modern World — 6 mentions · watch
  21. Ep. 33: Please, Love Me Like You Do... — 5 mentions
  22. Ep. 348: Martin Luther on the Prophet Habakkuk — 5 mentions · watch from 00:31:33
  23. Ep. 35: Planking with Brennan Manning, part 1 — 5 mentions
  24. Ep. 379: Chrysostom - On Wealth and Poverty — 5 mentions · watch
  25. Ep. 38: The Brutal, Humiliating, Joyous Christmas Gospel - Luther's Christmas Book — 4 mentions
  26. Ep. 6: Part 1 - Rounding up all the Christendom in the world and launching it into space so it cannot ever hurt us again. — 4 mentions
  27. Ep. 10: According to the Kübler-Ross model, starting your own church is just one of the five stages of divorce. — 3 mentions
  28. Ep. 100: G.K. Chesterton's 'The Christmas Ballads' — 3 mentions · watch
  29. Ep. 25: All this damage - and it's old Adam's fault. — 3 mentions
  30. Ep. 251: Hamann - The Hostility of the Serpent's Offspring against the Blessed Offspring of the Woman — 3 mentions · watch
  31. Ep. 264: Flannery O'Connor - Revelation pt. 1 — 3 mentions · watch
  32. Ep. 32: Don't Like That We're Righteous Apart From Works? We're Not Done Yet. — 3 mentions
  33. Ep. 45: Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Failure of Christendom — 3 mentions
  34. Ep. 137: Martin Luther - The Apostles Were Reverenced and Honored By the Entire Church — 2 mentions · watch
  35. Ep. 152: Justin Holcomb - Human Trafficking in God's World — 2 mentions · watch
  36. Ep. 163: Timothy Keller - If you believe in human rights, you are probably not a utilitarian — 2 mentions · watch from 00:14:05
  37. Ep. 178: Girolamo Savaronola - Do penance, Do it now! — 2 mentions · watch
  38. Ep. 198: Simone Weil - The Cross — 2 mentions · watch
  39. Ep. 253: Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Minister's Black Veil — 2 mentions · watch
  40. Ep. 26: Let out the Viking, but keep him on the chain… — 2 mentions