Jonathan McCormick (acknowledgingEusebius.blogspot.com) and I co-host a podcast titled “An Oral History of the Church.” SUBSCRIBE through iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, Blubrry, Player FM, Podbean, and other podcast apps, or click on the list of episodes below!
Also, check out our companion podcast, Saints Gone Before, available on all the same platforms except for YouTube.
Volume 1: The Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary Campus Relocation Project
“If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.”
-Thomas Aquinas
Our first project in this podcast is an oral history of the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary’s campus relocation from Mill Valley, CA to Ontario, CA. In June 2016, Golden Gate Seminary successfully changed its name to Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Oral history enables a prepared interviewer to procure important information from an interviewee that might otherwise never be preserved. Thus, it can cover impressions and interpretations, opinions and anecdotes which even conscientious diarists and memoirists might not have occasion to think of or to record. Secondly, this technique of research can inject life into what some non-historians regard as a dull exercise. … Thus, oral history as an approach to historical research reminds historians that people after all are the real stuff of history and will keep before them the personal dimension of the past whether remote or recent.” W. Morgan Patterson, Reflections on the Use of Oral History in Baptist Studies
You can click the title of each episode for a direct download, or click the subsequent YouTube link to listen there. YouTube versions include pictures of many of the interview subjects, as well as the Mill Valley campus and its environs!
Episode 0: Preface. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj2lSGv6k28
Episode 1: Dr. Jeff Iorg. https://youtu.be/Iebc2R_rYfc
Episode 2: Daniel Choi. https://youtu.be/QTa7m6y4gGE
Episode 3: Dr. Rick Melick. https://youtu.be/q4XXBbop5Ws
Episode 4: Dr. Lisa Hoff. https://youtu.be/A9RNSNbTXiM
Episode 5: Christi Zerbst. https://youtu.be/ECkG_nSSeXE You can help the new preschool run by Christi’s previous colleagues by donating to their GoFundMe campaign here: https://www.gofundme.com/ggakidsmarin
Episode 6: Dr. Glenn Prescott – https://youtu.be/mMQLVBjs5Rc
Episode 7: Dr. Kent and Katie Philpott – https://youtu.be/kCuA_JJ5fDg First episode when we switched to a WEEKLY schedule. You can find more from Kent and Katie Philpott at their publishing house http://evpbooks.com/ and their church http://www.w3church.org/ .
Episode 8: Jared Jenkins – https://youtu.be/gxgsEzzjUh4 You can find more of Jared at SaltyBelieverUnscripted.com and EntrustedWithTheGospel.com.
Episode 9: Dr. Gary Arbino – https://youtu.be/9ZO4KPWeiPg
Episode 10: Anne Marie – https://youtu.be/W8H49UQsfnE
Episode 11: Steven and Grace Howell – https://youtu.be/DKidcGmymWs
Episode 12: Miguel Rodriguez – https://youtu.be/AP77xGjR3TA
Episode 13: Marc Jantomaso – https://youtu.be/45yHNEvKp0Y
Episode 14: Dr. Brice Butler – https://youtu.be/FY1jzDgHfUo
Episode 15: Dr. Kelly Campbell – https://youtu.be/rf7vM03oDPM
Episode 16: Adam Christman – https://youtu.be/7TzgP3K6tHw
Episode 17: Jonathan McCormick – https://youtu.be/NPQB9kNnjJY
Appendix A: Video Tour of a GGBTS Library PhD Study Carrel – https://youtu.be/43hCZiejUwY
Appendix B: Video Tour of the GGBTS Library – https://youtu.be/3FXc6-uqFfQ
An Oral History of the Church conducted interviews for the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary Relocation Project over the course of January 2016 to September 2016. We targeted current (at the time) and past GGBTS/Gateway Seminary students, staff, and faculty, as well as local ministers. The interviews are largely presented in an unedited form, except for amplifying quiet voices or quieting loud voices. This method was selected in order to preserve a truer oral history, collecting anecdotes and information that lays outside typical history texts. Interviewees volunteered their time.
We used a template of questions for this oral history. If you would like to see our list of questions, you can view it on Google Drive here.
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Volume 2: What is History?
The second volume of our podcast focuses on why historians write history as they do. Why, for example, is it important that we know Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times, but we don’t know what he had for breakfast? In other words, how does history get written? And how can we use history? Are they mere stories? Or do they matter for ethics (both political and personal)?
Episodes ran from November 2016 to February 2017.
Episode 1: Historiography Schools of Thought – https://youtu.be/YqciI0LTj3c
Episode 2: Christian Historiography – https://youtu.be/cDsnz2d43kI
Episode 3: The Three Canons – https://youtu.be/nNcQznDy4kk
Episode 4: Primary and Secondary Sources – https://youtu.be/sakOuztP2jg
Episode 5: Tertiary Sources – https://youtu.be/0YRRI491uGw
Episode 6: Social Sciences and Historiography – https://youtu.be/rOJEYGMzLxg
Episode 7: History Writing – https://youtu.be/ovk927c9yds
Episode 8: Examples of Historiography – https://youtu.be/_sdNATECNHo
(Features a piece written by co-host Adam as well as chapter 1 from Gerald Bray’s book, Augustine on the Christian Life: Transformed by the Power of God.)
An Oral History of the Church is on hiatus from February 2017 to July 2017 to let us prepare for volume 3, as well as to see to our other commitments.
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Volume 3: The Lutheran Reformation’s 500th Anniversary
The third volume of An Oral History of the Church turns the spotlight to the Lutheran wing of the Protestant Reformation during its 500th anniversary, measured from the nailing of Luther’s 95 Theses to the Wittenburg door on Oct. 31, 1517. We will keep the focus strictly on the Lutheran side of the Reformation in this volume in order to paint a more detailed portrait of this wing of the movement. We hope to follow this up in the future with studies on the Magisterial Reformation, Radical Reformation, and Catholic Reformation. Primary sources from the Reformation era will be and already are found in “bite-sized” portions on our companion podcast, Saints Gone Before.
Episode 1: An Overview of the Reformation
Episode 2: The Lutheran Reformation in Film
Episode 3: The Youth and Conversion of Martin Luther
Episode 4: Luther’s Turn from Obedient Catholic to Loud Reformer
Episode 5: The 95 Theses of Martin Luther
Episode 6: Luther’s Most Influential Works – Part 1
Episode 7: Luther’s Most Influential Works – Part 2
Episode 8: Martin Luther as an Exegete
Episode 9: Martin Luther’s Afflictions and Death
Episode 10: The Legacy of Martin Luther
A blog by Adam W. Christman 