Reformed theology with historical teeth.
The Theology Pugcast gathers a Reformed-minded panel around questions that rarely stay on the surface. Episodes move from Christian doctrine into art, bioethics, paganism, critical theory, health culture, and church history, with each claim tested by distinctions and counterexamples.
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The Theology Pugcast is a Reformed theological conversation with a wide cultural appetite. It sounds less like a scripted explainer than a table of well-read Christians testing ideas in public. The panel often starts with a concrete prompt: an article on bioethics, a biopic about Mother Ann Lee, a discussion of Tolkien and Nordic neo-paganism, or a question about whether nature is conscious. From there, the conversation widens. Theology meets metaphysics, church history, literature, art, public ethics, and modern medicine. The show is brisk. It does not flatten hard subjects into slogans. It asks what words mean, where an argument came from, and what happens when an appealing idea is carried to its edge. That habit gives the program its best texture. A discussion of enchantment can move through Plato, soul, matter, and Christian creation without losing the ordinary conversational grain. A conversation about health can become a critique of joyless safety culture, with Malcolm Geit’s writing on pint and pipe as the provocation. An interview with Stephen Kratz turns illustration and book covers into a wider reflection on art as a response to art. Critical theory, transhumanism, euthanasia, Shaker history, ecumenism, and Western civilization all appear as live theological questions rather than detached curiosities. The panel is collegial, but direct. It can be funny, dry, grave, or sharply corrective when a term is being used loosely. Guests are brought into the same pattern, not treated as promotional stops. Bradley Green is introduced through theology, church history, philosophy, and teaching. Dr. Timothy Padgett’s appearance turns toward constructive ecumenism, created order, abortion, bioethics, euthanasia, and the lessons different Christian traditions have noticed sooner than others. The result is a show for listeners who can enjoy a layered argument without needing every turn simplified. Its center is not novelty. Its center is retrieval: older Christian categories brought to bear on present confusions.
Made for: For listeners who enjoy serious Christian argument, church history, philosophy, literature, and cultural criticism in a conversational panel format. Best suited to people comfortable with Reformed assumptions and layered theological distinctions.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating cultural controversies as theological and metaphysical problems, not just opinion prompts. Its strength is the quick movement between banter, doctrine, history, and careful conceptual correction.
The Theology Pugcast is three over-educated Reformed guys grumbling about what bugs them, and sometimes even barking about what they like. The show usually is recorded in a pub--that's why there is some background noise on occasion. The topics can vary widely seeing as the Pugsters have different spheres of knowledge and interest, but common themes which appear regularly include the transcendence of God and the meaningfulness of His creation.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Theology becomes a lens on creative labor, from illustration and literary history to the pressures artificial intelligence places on original work.
The Theology Pugcast treats art as a way of thinking about creation, responsibility and human purpose. C.R. Wiley talks with Tom Price and Glenn Sunshine in a conversational format that moves easily between close questioning and informed disagreement.
An AI leisure utopia meets your inconvenient question: what would you actually do with a Sabbath?
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Stephen Kratz makes illustration sound like a living answer to the books and art that shape it.
The Theology Podcast uses its interview with illustrator and graphic designer Stephen Kratz to trace how visual work can grow out of literary and theological attention.
A careful discussion of nature, forms, soul, matter, and Christian speech about reality.
The Theology Pugcast frames nature's consciousness less as a settled claim than as a problem of language: what kind of intelligibility or intelligence can be attributed to created things, and how Christians can speak about matter without letting definitions do theological…
A brisk case for evangelical cooperation that keeps historical disagreement in view.
Ecumenism can sound like a polite exercise in civility. In this episode, it becomes a more practical question: how evangelicals might engage Catholic and Orthodox traditions without flattening real disagreements. Dr. Timothy Padgett joins C.R.
A theological panel asks whether AI-driven freedom would lead to Sabbath or a thinner vision of leisure.
Artificial intelligence enters Theology Podcast through a question about leisure for everyone: if machines leave people without jobs, what would they do with that freedom? C.R.
A candid look at preaching as creative labor, where spiritual agency does not erase the need for serious preparation.
The Theology Pugcast treats preaching as stubbornly human creative labor, not a polished product that appears on command. C.R. Wiley, Tom Price, and Glenn Sunshine sit with the pressure that preparation, administration, counseling, and family life can place on a preacher who…
An Oxford conversation on C.S. Lewis's teaching, English syllabus, and Magdalen world.
Oxford sits at the center of this single-episode review, with Magdalen College giving the conversation its frame. C.R. Wiley, Glenn Sunshine, and Tom Price talk with Simon Horobin, professor of English language and literature at Magdalen College in the University of Oxford,…
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Live sermons with Easter-shaped urgency.
John West and Joe Rigney discuss their books on how Christians adopt worldly perspectives and the dangers of misplaced empathy.
A practical question turns theological fast.
Oxford is the room around the whole conversation.
The hosts of Theology Podcast interview Brian Sauvé and Ben Garrett about their new book and podcast Haunted Cosmos.
Natalie Atwill's “Other Influences Assessment” considers whether distress has psychological, physical, or spiritual influences.
Art answers art.
Can nature be conscious?
The hosts introduce themselves and their guest Bradley G.
The hosts discuss Malcolm Geit's article defending moderate smoking and drinking as part of a Christian approach to pleasure and risk.
A theology podcast panel discusses the Shakers' founder Mother Ann Lee, her heretical beliefs, and the cultural fascination with her legacy.
A panel of Christian scholars discuss David Engels' article on J.R.R.
A panel discusses the disturbing implications of transhumanist technologies and zombie bioethics as explored in a recent First Things article.
The question is what to do with other traditions that still have teeth.
Will AI turn everyone into the leisure class?
The hosts introduce themselves and their backgrounds before setting up an interview with Pastor Jake Dell about a 'Mainline Reconquista'.