Christians Reading Classics

Latest Episodes:

Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, with Cara Rogers Stevens Aug 13, 2026

Show notes

Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia is one of those rare books that can feel like a museum archive, a political manifesto, and a personal notebook all at once, and it still shapes how Americans argue about freedom. We sit down with historian Cara Rogers Stevens (Ashland University), author of the award-winning Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery, to ask a basic but uncomfortable question: what do we do with a “classic” that is brilliant, influential, and morally fraught?

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Nolan's Odyssey and Epics with Jonathan Geltner, Eric Hutchinson, and Rob Wyllie Aug 06, 2026

Show notes

A Hollywood blockbuster can make “The Odyssey” feel like a parade of monsters and set pieces but Homer’s epic is stranger, quieter, and more demanding than that. We sit down with poets and scholars Jonathan Geltner, Eric Hutchinson, and Rob Wyllie to ask a deceptively basic question: what is an epic, really? The answer takes us from dactylic hexameter and oral performance to the way epic poetry can build a culture’s imagination of gods, duty, and the shape of reality itself.

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Augustine - Enchiridion and Morals of the Catholic Church with Joseph Lanier and Travis Montgomery Jul 29, 2026

Show notes

A pastor asks Augustine for a short summary of the Christian life, and Augustine delivers a compact handbook that is so honest it practically stops mid-sprint when it reaches love. That tension, between real-life limits and real spiritual depth, is where our conversation lives today. We are joined by Joseph Lanier and Travis Montgomery, co-authors of *Every Perfect Gift: Classical Virtues for Christian Formation*, to explore why Augustine still trains our instincts for discipleship, moral theology, and spiritual formation.

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The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky with Maria Baer Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

A foggy train pulls into St Petersburg and two young men face each other across a third-class carriage. That opening scene from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot is our doorway into a novel that refuses to let anyone stay comfortable, especially when a pure-hearted man starts telling the truth in rooms built on performance.
Nadia Williams talks with writer and reporter Maria Baer to talk about why 21st-century American Christians should still read this translated Russian classic. We dig into what makes a “classic” more than a school requirement, how to pick a translation that actually keeps you turning pages, and why reading older books helps us notice the invisible norms shaping our own lives.

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Jack London: An American Classic with Elizabeth Stice Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

Elizabeth Stice, professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University, joins to discuss Jack London as an American classic. They explore London's wild life — oyster pirate, hobo, Klondike adventurer — and how it shaped works like Call of the Wild, White Fang, John Barleycorn, and Martin Eden. Stice unpacks the tension between London's socialist sympathies and social Darwinist streak, and why Christians can find genuine value in a writer so openly skeptical of faith.

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The Declaration of Independence and the Classics with Brad Birzer Jul 09, 2026

Show notes

A single sentence can reorder a civilization, and “we hold these truths to be self-evident” is one of those sentences. Nadya Williams sits down with historian Dr Brad Birzer to read the Declaration of Independence closely and ask why it still sends a jolt through American politics, moral imagination, and public life 250 years later.

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The Declaration of Independence with Matthew Spalding and Jake Meador Jul 02, 2026

Show notes

The Declaration of Independence is only a few paragraphs long, but it tries to do something enormous: justify a political break while teaching a moral vision of human equality, liberty, and rightful government. Nadya Williams and Jake Meador sit down with Dr Matthew Spaulding of Hillsdale College, a leading scholar of the Declaration and author of The Making of the American Mind, to read the document as an American classic that still forms our public arguments and our private conscience.

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Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis with Oliver Traldi Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

What does it mean to love someone well — and what does it cost when that love curls inward? Nadya Williams and Oliver Traldi discuss C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, tracing how Lewis reframes the myth of Cupid and Psyche to expose the jealousy beneath even the most devoted love, the limits of philosophy before the divine, and what it means to render an account of your own life.

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East of Eden with Philip Bunn & Matthew H. Young Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

Steinbeck's East of Eden returns the Cain and Abel story twice over, tracing original sin, mimetic desire, and the fragile hope encoded in timshel across the arc of early American history. Philip Bunn and Matthew H. Young join host Nadya Williams to read Steinbeck as political theorist, moral cartographer, and reluctant humanist.

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James Fenimore Cooper with Dr. Wayne Franklin Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

James Fenimore Cooper gets filed away as “important” long before many of us actually read him, and that gap is the problem we wanted to solve. I’m joined by Dr. Wayne Franklin, one of the leading Cooper scholars and the author of major biographies of Cooper, to talk about what makes a classic live past its own pages. His definition sticks with me: a classic is a book that, once you start it, you realize you already know, because it has permeated the culture and taught later writers what stories can look like.

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