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Intra-Ecclesial ApologeticsArguing for the church God intended, to the church itself.
New here? Read this first: what intra-ecclesial apologetics is, and who it is for. Start here

The programme

Three courses, an exercise at the end of every session, and roughly twenty-two hours of lectures. Take it at your own pace, or with a cohort.

Self-paced

Start today. Finish whenever you finish.

Pay what you can

  • All 39 sessions, released at once
  • Audio and written editions of every lecture
  • The exercises, to work through alone or with a circle
  • A progress tracker that keeps your place
  • Lifetime access; no dates, no deadlines

Best if you are reading on your own, if your week will not hold a fixed hour, or if you want to see the whole argument before bringing it to anyone.

Give once and start now Give monthly and start now

Give whatever you can, once or monthly. Any amount opens the whole programme, and your access code arrives straight away. Card payments are handled by Stripe. Would rather ask first? Enrol and I'll write back.

Online cohort

Eighteen weeks, with the same people throughout.

  • One course per six weeks, in order
  • A live discussion each week with the group
  • Exercises done between sessions and brought back
  • A small group, kept small on purpose
  • Everything in the self-paced edition as well

Best if you intend to act on this, if you want the argument tested by people who will push back, or if you are leading and need somewhere to think out loud.

Next cohort dates are announced by email to everyone enrolled.

Join a cohort

Which one

The material is identical. What differs is whether anyone is in the room with you. That is not a small difference, and the programme itself argues so: the design is recovered by a circle of four or six people at a table, not by one person who has understood something. If you already have that circle, self-paced will serve you well. If you do not, the cohort is the circle, at least for eighteen weeks.

What a session is

A lecture of forty to sixty minutes, and an exercise. The exercises are the actual course. The lectures give you the argument; the exercises turn it into something you can see.

Open the course Already enrolled? Log in there with your access code.

Course One: The Design, and Why It Fits Us

  1. The Two Doors and the Third Week One: The Third Door
    the lived apologetic; Deuteronomy 4:5-8; election for the outsider; the four moves.
  2. Who This Is For Week One: The Third Door
    the wounded, the loyal, the leaders; systems before villains; why good people resist good designs.
  3. This Is Your Wisdom Week One: The Third Door
    what the Bible means by wisdom; the wisdom of the nations; where the two part ways; the glory of God to conceal a thing.
  4. Mandated, Modelled, Free Week Two: What the Design Actually Says
    six criteria for sorting the New Testament's practices.
  5. The Inventory Week Two: What the Design Actually Says
    the assembly's purpose is edification, not worship; the nine mandated items.
  6. The Prediction the Doctrine Makes Week Three: Grace Perfects Nature
    Aquinas on nature, the four causes, form, and privation.
  7. The Creature the Design Assumes Week Three: Grace Perfects Nature
    belonging, self-determination, attachment, and the communal relationship.
  8. The Soil and the Seed Week Four: Good Ground
    the parable of the soils as a lesson about environment; formation and habit.
  9. The Room Itself Week Four: Good Ground
    sociopetal and sociofugal space; affordances; the size convergence.
  10. What Love Requires Structurally Week Five: Genuine Love
    the three levels of cost; safety; pluralistic ignorance; Matthew 18 as protocol.
  11. The Honour Inversion Week Five: Genuine Love
    1 Corinthians 12:22-25; status generalization; the household and the ecosystem.
  12. Excursus Week Five: Genuine Love
    The God Who Looks at the Poor -- the whole-Bible case, and Acts 6 as the inversion applied to office and money.
  13. The Therapeutic Community Week Six: The Healing Environment
    what a healing community is and is not; casual is not flat.
  14. A Training Locus, Not a Ward Week Six: The Healing Environment
    Hebrews 5:11-6:12 read whole; healing is for deployment.

Course Two: The Captivity: How the Family Became a Business

  1. The Bending Principle Week One: How Institutions Bend
    isomorphism; 1 Samuel 8 and a king like all the nations; Romans 12:2.
  2. The Five Stages Week One: How Institutions Bend
    the whole arc previewed; every culture bends it.
  3. When the Question Changed Week Two: Greece
    household to school; disciple to student; the philosophers' question.
  4. The Cost of the Vocabulary Week Two: Greece
    the centre of gravity, the criteria of competence, the test of belonging.
  5. Constantine and the Basilica Week Three: Rome
    the courtroom, the vestments, kleros and laos.
  6. The Government Form Week Three: Rome
    diocese and canon law; every ingathering imports gods.
  7. Excursus Week Three: Rome
    The Government Jesus Brought -- why a religion that becomes a state cannot stay clean.
  8. Christendom Week Four: Europe
    baptism as civic registration; nobody chooses; assurance anxiety as structure.
  9. What Territorial Religion Does Week Four: Europe
    when everyone is a Christian the word describes nothing.
  10. The Religious Market Week Five: America
    disestablishment, the upstarts, revival as technique.
  11. The Inner Workings Week Five: America
    the market's incentives and the factory's form; the self-made man and the plural you.
  12. The House Week Six: The Natural Environment
    the texts, the arc, warmth over rigor, and the psychology of household formation.
  13. The Repurposed Building Week Six: The Natural Environment
    Basil's Basiliad; a building justified by Tuesday.

Course Three: What Now: Recovery Without Coercion

  1. No Wonder You Cannot Believe Week One: The Engine
    the honour economy; John 5:44; the receipt; Diotrephes.
  2. What the Church Is Built On Week One: The Engine
    prayer, teaching, good works; the subtraction test.
  3. How the Room Made Spectators Week Two: The Spectator
    Ephesians 4:11-12; social loafing; active learning.
  4. Systems, Metrics and Passive Christianity Week Two: The Spectator
    leverage points; Goodhart's law; the Theranos case.
  5. Plurality Week Three: Leadership
    four arguments; Asch's ally made permanent; the overrule test.
  6. Who Seeks Power Week Three: Leadership
    emergence against effectiveness; Gideon and the ephod.
  7. The Four Categories Week Four: Money
    settled elder, itinerant, dependent, family mutuality; the weakest joint named.
  8. What Payment Does Week Four: Money
    the working elder; crowding out; the common purse.
  9. The Church Present Nowhere Week Five: Presence and Good Works
    the commuter church; good works as evidence that must be seen.
  10. Seek the Peace of the City Week Five: Presence and Good Works
    Jeremiah 29; collective efficacy; the contact conditions.
  11. Teach Before Touch Week Six: Recovery
    no instrument for compelling the will; the circle; the little church within the church.
  12. Subtraction, Resistance, and the Person Doing This Week Six: Recovery
    the change calculus; the twelve-month plan; go set the table.

Cost

The cohort is . The self-paced edition is pay what you can, once or monthly. You can pay online above and start straight away, or enrol first and ask your questions.

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