Sunday To Society

Riley Reno
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  • Society & Culture
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"From the Pew to the Public Square" Sunday to Society is a weekly podcast exploring today’s world through the lens of a Christian worldview. Hosted solo with occasional guests, each episode challenges listeners to move beyond passive faith and engage culture with clarity, conviction, and Christ at the center. Whether unpacking current events, cultural trends, or theological questions, this podcast invites you to think biblically and live boldly—every day of the week.

  1. 4d ago

    What Really Happened on October 31, 1517 | Martin Luther and the 95 Theses

    On October 31, 1517, a 33-year-old monk and university professor sat down in Wittenberg and wrote to his archbishop. Attached to the letter were 95 propositions about indulgences, written in Latin and meant for academic debate. Martin Luther wasn’t trying to start a revolution. He was asking a question. The famous picture of Luther swinging a hammer at the church door comes to us from later accounts. What the evidence documents is a letter. It was addressed to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, the very man who profited from the indulgence sales Luther was questioning. Within weeks, printers across Germany had copied the Theses and spread them far beyond the university. In this episode we trace how a scholar’s question escalated into the most consequential confrontation in church history: The indulgence system and why a pastor like Luther couldn’t stay silentWhat the Theses actually say, including Thesis 1, a call to a whole life of repentanceThe escalation: Augsburg in 1518, the Leipzig Debate in 1519, the papal bull of 1520 that Luther burned, and his excommunication in 1521A short look ahead to Worms, where Luther refused to recant unless convinced by ScriptureIt’s also a Reformation Day callback. Exactly 102 years after Jan Huss was burned at Constance, the question he died for was back on the table. Scripture: Matthew 4:17, Romans 1:17, Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Luther, Ninety-Five Theses, 1517 Nuremberg printing (Library of Congress): https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07497/The 95 Theses in English (World History Encyclopedia): https://worldhistory.org/article/1891Luther’s cover letter to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, October 31, 1517 (Project Wittenberg): https://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/nine5-albrecht.txtLuther’s letter to the Archbishop of Mainz (Internet Medieval Sourcebook): https://webhome.auburn.edu/~zuwiyzd/civluther.htmFurther reading: Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (1950); Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation (1985) Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square, and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  2. Oct 19

    He Is No Fool — The Story of Jim Elliot and Operation Auca

    On January 3, 1956, five young American missionaries landed on a sandbar along the Curaray River in Ecuador. They had spent months making friendly contact with the Waodani — a tribe known for extreme violence toward outsiders — dropping gifts from a small yellow plane into their settlements. The first face-to-face encounter had gone well. Hope was high. On January 8 all five were speared to death. They were armed. They had agreed beforehand not to shoot back — unwilling to send their killers into eternity without the gospel while they themselves were ready to die. The oldest was 32. The news traveled around the globe, appearing in a photo essay in the January 30, 1956 issue of Life magazine. gotquestions Jim Elliot had written in his journal at age 22 — not as a public declaration but as a quiet private note — "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." He died at 28 living exactly that conviction. But the story does not end on that sandbar. Jim's wife Elisabeth, their young daughter Valerie, and Nate Saint's sister Rachel, along with three other wives of the murdered missionaries, eventually moved to the Waorani village to live among the people who had killed their husbands. Within years several of the men who carried out the killings — including the man who speared Jim Elliot — came to faith in Christ. One of them, Mincaye, later traveled to the United States with Nate Saint's son Steve to share his testimony. gotquestions In this episode we follow all three threads — Jim Elliot's journals and calling, the Operation Auca mission, and the aftermath that nobody saw coming — and ask what it means to count the cost before the moment arrives. Scripture: Matthew 16:25, John 12:24, Romans 5:8 (KJV) Primary sources and references used in this episode: Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (1957, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/throughgatessplo00elliThe Journals of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/journalsofjimell0000elliOperation Auca — full account (dahlfred.com): https://www.dahlfred.com/index.php/blogs/gleanings-from-the-field/814-operation-auca-january-8-1956-sixty-years-laterJim Elliot biography — Mission Aviation Fellowship: https://maf.org/about/history/jim-elliot/Steve Saint, End of the Spear (Christian Book Summaries): https://www.christianbooksummaries.com/end-of-the-spear/Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  3. Oct 12

    The Black Death Killed a Third of Europe — Here’s What the Church Did

    In January 1349 Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury wrote a letter to every priest in his diocese. The plague had swept through Bath and Wells so quickly, killing so many of his clergy, that he had run out of ordained men to administer last rites to the dying. His solution was unprecedented — he authorized the sick to confess their sins to laypeople. If no man was present, even to a woman. He had instituted 228 replacement clergy in under a year. All their predecessors had died in their parishes. In Kilkenny, Ireland, a Franciscan friar named John Clyn kept writing. One by one his brothers fell to the plague around him. He kept a detailed chronicle because he refused to let their deaths go unrecorded. Near the end he wrote: “I, waiting among the dead for death to come, leave parchment for continuing the work, in case anyone should still be alive in the future.” The manuscript ends there. A later hand added a single line: “Here it seems the author died.” Between 1347 and 1351 somewhere between 75 and 200 million people died across Eurasia. In some cities the mortality rate reached 60-70%. The medieval church — the primary institution of social care, last rites, and burial — lost an estimated 45-50% of its clergy in England alone. They died not despite their faith but because of it. In this episode we follow two specific figures through the catastrophe — Bishop Ralph and Friar John Clyn — and sit with the theological crisis the Black Death forced on a church that had no framework for death at this scale: if God is good and sovereign, why is He killing the most faithful first? Scripture: Psalm 23:4, Job 1:21, Romans 8:38-39 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Ralph of Shrewsbury’s letter, January 1349 (Spartacus Educational, full excerpt): https://spartacus-educational.com/EXnormans10.htmRalph of Shrewsbury — Dictionary of National Biography (Wikisource): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ralph_of_Shrewsbury_(DNB00)Ralph of Shrewsbury’s Register, 1329-1363 (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/registerralphsh01holmgoogGasquet, The Great Pestilence (1908, full text, Project Gutenberg): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45815/45815-h/45815-h.htmJohn Clyn, Annals of Ireland (1849, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/annalsofireland00clynJohn Clyn — last entry account (Kilkenny Archaeological Society): https://kilkennyarchaeologicalsociety.ie/friar-john-klynn/Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  4. Oct 5

    The Revival That Closed Every Pub in Wales — What Actually Happened in 1904

    In the autumn of 1904 a 26 year old former coal miner stood up in a small chapel in Loughor, South Wales and began to pray. Within months an estimated 100,000 people across Wales had converted to Christianity. Taverns closed for lack of customers. Convictions for drunkenness fell dramatically — in Glamorgan alone they dropped by 50% between 1904 and 1907. Magistrates arrived at court to find no cases to try. The pit ponies hauling coal in the mines became confused and stopped, unable to understand instructions without the profanity they had always been trained to respond to. Nobody had organized this. Nobody had advertised it. There was no budget, no speaking schedule, no fixed order of service. Evan Roberts had spent eleven years underground in the coal mines, attending chapel faithfully, praying persistently for revival. In 1904 he heard a prayer that broke him open — "Bend us, O Lord" — and returned to his home village to ask if he could speak to the young people after the evening service. Seventeen people stayed. The meetings ran until 2am. Within weeks they were spreading to neighboring villages without any human coordination. The revival was real, documented, and measurable. It was also complicated. Roberts himself broke down under the weight of it by 1906, withdrawing from public ministry and never leading another revival. He lived until 1951 — another 45 years — mostly in seclusion and prayer. In this episode we follow all three threads: the young man nobody would have predicted, the revival that defied every human explanation, and the aftermath that is as instructive as the awakening itself. Scripture: Psalm 85:6, 2 Chronicles 7:14, John 3:8 (KJV) P rimary sources and references used in this episode: Welsh Revival social impact — documented statistics: https://revival-library.org/histories/1905-welsh-revival-results/Welsh Revival comprehensive history (Revival Library): https://revival-library.org/histories/1904-1905-welsh-revival/Evan Roberts biography and revival account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Roberts_(minister)Academic study on Welsh Revival and crime reduction (Lowe, 2020): https://wpcdn.web.wsu.edu/cahnrs/uploads/sites/5/2020/11/Lowe_WelshRevival_v2_compressed.pdf Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  5. Sep 28

    Jesus Said "When You Fast" Not "If You Fast" — So Why Don't We?

    Open your Bible to Matthew 6. Jesus gives instructions on giving, prayer, and fasting — three disciplines treated as parallel practices, each introduced the same way. He says "when you give." He says "when you pray." He says "when you fast." Not if. When. Most Protestant Christians pray. Most give. Almost none fast. Somewhere between the first century and today, one of the three disciplines Jesus assumed his followers would practice quietly disappeared from mainstream Protestant life — and almost nobody noticed. This episode is not a history of fasting. It is a theological examination of what fasting is, what Scripture says it does, and how and why Protestant Christianity largely walked away from it. The early church fasted twice a week as standard practice — the Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, instructs believers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. John Wesley fasted every Wednesday and Friday throughout his ministry and expressed concern that Christians who didn't fast were spiritually shallow. The Reformers did not reject fasting — they rejected its misuse as a way of earning grace — but in practice that distinction collapsed, and a discipline practiced by Moses, David, Esther, and Jesus himself gradually became optional, then unusual, then invisible. Early Christian Writings We also sit with the most important Old Testament passage on fasting — Isaiah 58 — where God rejects religious fasting disconnected from genuine repentance and justice, and ask what a fast that God actually chooses looks like. Scripture: Matthew 6:16-17, Isaiah 58:6, Acts 13:2-3 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: The Didache, Chapter 8 — fasting instructions (Early Christian Writings, full text): http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.htmlThe Didache, Chapter 8 (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.viii.i.iii.htmlJohn Wesley, Sermon 27, "Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount" (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/sermons.vi.xxvii.htmlCalvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III (CCEL full text): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.v.iv.htmlSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  6. Sep 21

    He Sat 300 Hungry Children Down With No Food — And Gave Thanks Anyway | George Müller

    One morning in Bristol, England, George Müller sat 300 orphaned children down at an empty breakfast table. There was no food in the house. There was no money to buy any. He bowed his head and gave thanks to God for what they were about to receive. A few minutes later a baker knocked at the door. He told Müller he hadn't been able to sleep the night before and had felt compelled to bake bread for the orphanage. Minutes after that a milkman whose cart had broken down outside asked if the orphanage could use several large cans of fresh milk. This was not a one-time miracle. This was a Tuesday. George Müller was born in 1805 in Prussia. As a child he stole money from his father and indulged in sinful activities. His father wanted him to become a clergyman to have a comfortable life, not to serve God. At 20 he wandered into a small prayer meeting almost by accident and was converted that night. He eventually settled in Bristol, opened his first orphan house with 30 children in 1836, and made a deliberate decision he never broke: he would never make a public financial appeal, never go into debt, and never tell anyone but God when there was a need. Scribd By 1870 he was housing over 2,000 children in five purpose-built orphan houses on Ashley Down — the largest orphanage complex in the world. Every penny came unsolicited. He recorded over 50,000 specific answered prayers in his journals. He died in 1898 at age 92 still working. His estate was valued at £160. In this episode we follow all three threads of Müller's story — the unlikely conversion, the audacious faith experiment, and the prayer theology simple enough for anyone to apply — and ask what it would look like to give thanks before the provision rather than after. Scripture: Matthew 7:7, Philippians 4:19, Hebrews 11:6 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Müller, Autobiography (1905 Centenary Edition, Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/autobiography-of-george-mullerMüller, Autobiography (condensed, georgemuller.org): https://www.georgemuller.org/uploads/4/8/6/5/48652749/the-autobiography-of-george-muller.pdfMüller, Autobiography (Monergism full eBook): https://www.monergism.com/autobiography-george-m%C3%BCller-ebookSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  7. Sep 14

    The Empire That Tried to Destroy the Church Became Christian Instead

    Nero burned them as torches to light his garden parties. Diocletian demolished their churches and burned their Scriptures. Ten emperors across 250 years tried to destroy the early church. None of them succeeded. From the time of Nero's persecution in 64 AD until Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 AD, Christians suffered many periods of persecution, sometimes lasting for decades. They were accused of atheism for refusing to worship Roman gods, of cannibalism for misunderstanding of the Eucharist, and of political subversion for declaring Jesus Lord rather than Caesar. Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan around 110 AD noting his concern about the rapid spread of Christianity across large towns, villages, and rural districts — pagan temples were being deserted. RDRD Bible StudyWikipedia The persecution was making it worse. Tertullian — a North African lawyer turned theologian — observed it plainly: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Polycarp of Smyrna, a direct disciple of the Apostle John, was brought before a Roman proconsul and told to renounce Christ. He replied that 86 years of faithful service had given him no reason to blaspheme his King and Savior. He was burned at the stake. The church kept growing. In 312 AD Constantine reportedly saw a vision before the Battle of Milvian Bridge. The following year the Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution across the Roman Empire. The same empire that had burned Christians in Nero's garden was now returning their property and granting them full legal protection. Wikipedia This episode follows all three threads of the early church's survival — the persecutions, the men and women who defended the faith intellectually and physically, and the stunning reversal of 313 AD — and asks what it means that the gates of hell did not prevail. Scripture: Matthew 16:18, Romans 8:28, John 12:24 (KJV) Primary sources referenced in this episode: Pliny the Younger, Letter to Trajan (112 AD, full text): https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/pliny_letter_to_trajan_about_christians.htmPliny's Letter — Christian History Institute overview: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/pliny/The Martyrdom of Polycarp (full text): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htmEdict of Milan (313 AD, full text via Lactantius): https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/edict_of_milan.htmEusebius, Church History (full text, CCEL): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.htmlSunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

  8. Sep 7

    Why Are There So Many Bible Translations? | The English Bible Part 2

    In 1604 a king commissioned a new Bible translation. He wasn't motivated by theology. He was motivated by footnotes. The Geneva Bible — produced in 1560 by Protestant exiles in Calvin's Geneva — was the most beloved English Bible of its era. It was the most widely read and influential English Bible of the 16th and 17th centuries, printed from 1560 to 1644 in over 200 different editions. Shakespeare quoted it. Milton used it. But its marginal notes troubled King James I, who found them politically threatening to the divine right of kings. James wanted something to replace it. A Puritan's MindChristian History Institute In 1607 James appointed nearly fifty scholars divided into six companies, working across Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge. What they produced was not entirely new — the work of William Tyndale, the first major English translator, is evident in many passages. The translation committees said they did not seek "to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better." Christian History Institute + 2 The King James Bible was published in 1611. It was initially slow to catch on — the Geneva Bible remained more popular for decades. And yet it became the most printed book in the history of the world. In this episode — Part 2 of our English Bible series — we follow the story from the Geneva Bible through the King James Version to the modern translation explosion, and ask why there are so many English Bible translations today, and what that actually means for how you read Scripture. Part 1 covered Wycliffe and Tyndale — the men who fought and died to put the Bible in English in the first place. If you haven't listened to that one yet, start there. Scripture: Psalm 119:89, Romans 10:17, 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) Primary sources and references used in this episode: Geneva Bible 1560 facsimile (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/genevabiblefacsi0000unseGeneva Bible 1560 full scan (Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/TheGenevaBible1560KJV Translators' Preface 1611 (Wikisource, full text): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/PrefaceKJV Translators' Preface (CCEL, full text): https://www.ccel.org/bible/kjv/preface/pref1.htmHampton Court Conference — historical overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_ConferenceKing James Bible history and translators: https://thekingsbible.com/Library/BibleHistory Sunday to Society is a Christian podcast exploring how men and women of faith lived out their convictions in the public square — and what their stories mean for ours. New episodes weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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"From the Pew to the Public Square" Sunday to Society is a weekly podcast exploring today’s world through the lens of a Christian worldview. Hosted solo with occasional guests, each episode challenges listeners to move beyond passive faith and engage culture with clarity, conviction, and Christ at the center. Whether unpacking current events, cultural trends, or theological questions, this podcast invites you to think biblically and live boldly—every day of the week.

Information

  • Creator
    Riley Reno
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    79
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Riley Reno
  • Show Website
    Sunday To Society