Wade Center

How do you share your faith in an increasingly post-Christian world? This week Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down with leaders from C.S. Lewis Institute to discuss the challenges of defending the faith and making disciples in today’s intellectual climate. President Joel S. Woodruff and Karl “KJ” Johnson, Director of the C.S. Lewis Institute in Chicago, explain the genesis of their organization and how it seeks to live out the legacy of C.S. Lewis.

Over the last week, people have been turning to our authors, especially Lewis, for wisdom about how to live in this new coronavirus age. We felt like it was important to slow things down this week and ask, "what would our authors say in a situation like this?" Many of them, like Lewis, Tolkien, and Sayers, lived through two world wars and the Spanish Flu. Join Crystal and David as they sit down with our close friend Jerry Root to discuss how the Wade authors might respond to this global crisis.

How can we possibly see the story of Jesus with fresh eyes this Lenten season? In this week's episode Dr. Crystal Downing sits down to discuss Dorothy L. Sayers's play-cycle on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, The Man Born to Be King. Dr. Christine Colón (English Professor, Wheaton College) and Marjorie Mead (Associate Director, Marion E. Wade Center) unpack how Sayers used her skills as a playwright to help an entire generation of Britons rediscover this ancient yet still relevant story.

When is a dragon more than a dragon? In this week's episode Dr. David C. Downing (Co-Director of the Marion E. Wade Center and co-host of our podcast) sits down with Crystal and Producer Aaron Hill to discuss his inaugural lecture which compared the imaginary worlds created by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien in their respective novels. Does the way that Lewis and Tolkien use dragons reveal something more fundamental about the way they approached world-building and the realm of imagination?

The Czech Republic is one of the most atheistic countries in Europe, if not in the world. Despite this, many Czech people enjoy the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In this week's episode, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing sit down with Dr. Pavel Hošek (Charles University in Prague) to discuss the impact of these two British Christian authors on the Czech people as well as his own spiritual journey.

How do you adapt a literary work like The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien? Many fans of Tolkien's novels also love the movies which were directed and produced by Peter Jackson. Yet, as we discussed last week, movies and books are two entirely different mediums. Not everything on the page can make it into the movie. This week our two in-house Tolkien experts—Wade Archivist Laura Schmidt and Wade Co-director David C. Downing—join Crystal to discuss the challenges that Peter Jackson faced in adapting Tolkien's beloved novels for the screen.

Instead of reading novels, more and more people are watching movies and epic TV shows. With Oscar season upon us, we are focusing on movies this January with two special episodes. This week Dr. David C. Downing and Producer Aaron Hill sit down with our very own Co-director, Dr. Crystal Downing to discuss her recent inaugural lecture on Dorothy L. Sayers and cinema as well as her work on how Christians can communicate unchanging truths through ever-changing mediums like movies. Join us on January 23rd for a special episode about the movie adaptations of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

You never truly know someone until you know where they are from: where they grew up, went to school, and have lived. Places shape us. In this week's episode, Dr. Jerry Root sits down with Drs. Crystal and David Downing to discuss how visiting the places from C.S. Lewis's life can shed light on the Oxford don. How did these locations inspire various characters, locations, and plot elements in Lewis's fiction? Take an audio trip to the British Isles and follow in Jack's footsteps.

One year ago the Wade Center Podcast interviewed Douglas Gresham about his stepfather, C.S. Lewis! In this week's episode, Crystal and David sit down with producer Aaron Hill to look back at our best, funniest, and surprisingly profound moments from our almost 30 episodes in 2019. Thank you to all our listeners. You have helped our humble podcast reach tens of thousands of fans in over 60 countries around the world! We look forward to 2020 and to all the great conversations we will have about the work and impact of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, George MacDonald, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield.

What can detective novels teach us about community? Dorothy L. Sayers expert, Dr. Christine Colón (Professor of English at Wheaton College) returns to the podcast to talk about her new book, Choosing Community: Action, Faith, and Joy in the Works of Dorothy L. Sayers, based on her 2017-2018 Hansen lectures. Also joining this week's discussion on the theme of community in the work of Sayers is one of the contributors to the book, Dr. Tiffany Eberle Kriner, Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College. What can we learn about community from Sayers's works and what does it mean to be called to live in community together? Listen to Ep. 17: The Importance of Being Vulgar w/ Dr. Christine Colón