Common Places

A lecture with Q&A entitled "A Very Celtic Christmas: Incarnation and Christology in Celtic Christian Theology" by Dr. Matthew Hoskin. Much is often made of the “closeness” of “Celtic” Christian spirituality to the rest of the created order and the “natural world”. At times, this approach is even presented as more “incarnational” than other forms of Christianity. Yet sometimes one wonders what is specifically “Christian” about all this. Holy wells are well and good, but what about the incarnation of Christ Himself? Did Celtic Christian have much to say about this? In this Fellows Lecture, Dr. Matthew Hoskin unpacks the the Celtic tradition’s theology of the incarnate Christ, from the foundational Trinitarian orthodoxy of St Patrick’s Confession and St Columba’s hymn "Altus Prosator" and its specific expressions in liturgy and poetry, closing with a consideration of John Scotus Eriugena. He demonstrates that the early medieval Irish, Welsh, and Scottish church had a perfectly orthodox Christian faith that e

What is the end of Protestant retrieval? After some lively response to a recent Ad Fontes article, "The End of Protestant Retrieval", we brought together Wyatt Graham, John Ehrett, Michael Lynch, and Steven Wedgeworth to discuss what Protestant retrieval is and isn't. "The End of Protestant Retrieval" by John Ehrett: https://adfontesjournal.com/web-exclu... Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Retrieval and Its Importance 05:22 The Purpose and Limitations of Theological Retrieval 10:01 Contextualizing Historical Theological Insights 15:16 Disagreements on Political and Social Retrieval 19:58 The Role of Prudence in Theological Application 24:48 Exploring the Nature of Protestant Tradition 29:47 Personal Reflections on Retrieval and Its Impact 32:16 The Value of Reading Old Texts 34:53 Prudence in Retrieval 39:57 Diverse Approaches to Retrieval 43:41 The Role of Published Works in Retrieval 52:35 End of Protestant Retrieval Intro

A lecture with Q&A given by Professor Ryan Hurd entitled "Introducing Lombard’s Sentences: The Nature and Method(s) of Scholastic Theology." Professionalization is the word which best describes the advance from patristic to medieval theology (as the medievalist Philip Rosemann has claimed). But as a consequence, contemporary students stand hopeless until they have been inducted into scholastic theology, and they remain barred even from profitably reading the texts of scholastic theologians. Perhaps no more so has this been the case than for the very textbook of medieval theology itself: Peter Lombard’s Sententiae. In this all-important text, which trained professional theologians for centuries, Lombard gifted all budding theologians sententiae patrum, the sentences of the Fathers. These were the patristic verdicts regarding various theological questions or contradictions. This bequeathed all future theologians with an initial and largely adequate set of truths about theology’s various subjects (such as God

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Audio from The Davenant Institute's event "Beyond Rules and Roles: Scripture and the Sexes", held April 2024 at 3Crosses Church, CA. Lectures delivered by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

A lecture with Q&A given by Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow, Ryan Hurd. Today, Anselm is much maligned for doing theology which results in a heartless god, and central to this caricature is his doctrine of God’s impassibility. However, critics often fail to understand the exact nature of this doctrine. Before one can even consider truth or falsity, one must determine: what does impassibility actually mean? In this lecture. Ryan Hurd determines what Anselm means by saying God is impassible, especially as found in Chapters 7 and 8 of his Proslogion, concluding that his judgment is akin to saying that someone is “invulnerable.” Although many adversities have power over us humans by virtue of our many vulnerabilities, none have any power over God, for he lacks all our vulnerabilities. This alone is what Anselm means when he says God is impassible. As he summarizes, “nothing has power against God.” Ryan Hurd is a systematic theologian whose area of expertise is the doctrine of God, specifically the Trinity. His

A Davenant Hall Teaching Fellows lecture with Q&A by Dr. Miles Smith entitled "Finding a Christian America?" Since roughly 1980, the history of religion and particularly Protestantism in the United States has been litigated along a series of binaries: evangelical v. mainline, theocratic v. secular, liberal v. conservative. While these binaries are not artificial in themselves, they are particularly problematic if they are applied retroactively to the Early Republic or any point in history that precedes the so-called evangelical historiography created in the latter part of the twentieth century. Consequently, Americans have little understanding of religion in the nineteenth century and more importantly they have no idea how the fundamental laws of the United States reconciled Protestantism to a disestablished republican order. In this lecture, exploring ideas introduced in his forthcoming book Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War, Dr. Miles Smith explains there was not i

A lecture with Q&A given by Dr. Michael Lynch entitled "The Jesuits Cannot Be Good Subjects: A Look at John Davenant’s Political Theology" with respondent Dr. Glenn Moots. John Davenant is a long neglected Reformation figure, whose work on hypothetical universalism has had a renaissance. But what about his political theology? In this lecture, Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow Michael Lynch explores John Davenant’s political theology in his early modern English context. Using lectures Davenant gave at Cambridge during his professorship and Davenant’s untranslated Latin treatise on the Judge of Controversies, Lynch explains how Davenant conceived of magisterial jurisdiction relative to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and in opposition to Roman Catholic political theology.

A talk on relief for the poor and debtors in ancient Israel and beyond. Given by Scott Pryor, Campbell University Law School

The Fall Convivium's keynote lecture, given by Adam MacLeod, St. Mary’s University

A talk given by Nick Higgins, Regent University

A Panel Discussion with Brad Littlejohn and Joe Minich, The Davenant Institute

In this address from our 2024 Davenant UK Convivium on "Renewing British Political Theology", Imogen Sinclair, Director of the New Conservatives and the New Social Covenant Unit, puts Philip Rieff and Sigmund Freud into conversation in an analysis of our current political decline.