1517
Christian History Almanac
A short daily podcast that takes one thing that happened on today’s date — a council, a hymn, a death, a squabble — and tells it in about ten minutes, usually with a poem at the end. Dan van Voorhis presents; the archive runs to well over a thousand episodes.
Why this is listed
Church history usually arrives as a nine-hundred-page textbook nobody finishes. Ten minutes a day builds the same furniture over a couple of years, and the presenter is a trained historian, so the anecdotes are checked rather than repeated.
How to start
- Open 1517.org (opens an external site) and read what 1517 says about itself before you read anything else.
- Confirm the cost and level fit: free, introductory, over ongoing.
- Note the tradition — Lutheran. It will shape what you are taught, and that is worth knowing going in.
- Put the first session in your calendar now. The gap between reading about study and doing it is a calendar entry.
Close to this
- Church historyVerified
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
A free full-text library of public-domain Christian writing: the Ante-Nicene and Nicene fathers in full, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin’s Institutes and commentaries, the Puritans, Wesley, and the creeds. Everything is readable in the browser and downloadable.
- Cost
- Free
- Time
- Ongoing
- Where
- Online
- Format
- Library · Advanced
Last verified September 8, 2026
- Church historyProvisional
Luther (2003)
Eikon Film / Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
A feature-length biographical drama with Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther, from his early crisis of conscience as a monk through the Ninety-five Theses, Worms and the Peasants' War. It was partly funded by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and released in US cinemas in 2003.
- Cost
- Paid
- Time
- One-off
- Where
- Online
- Who for
- Adults · Film
Last verified October 24, 2026
- Church historyProvisional
Ryan Reeves church history lectures
Ryan M. Reeves (YouTube)
Full lecture courses on YouTube from a historical theologian who taught at Gordon-Conwell: Ancient and Medieval Church, Reformation and Modern Church, Luther and Calvin, and Tolkien and Lewis. Each lecture runs about half an hour and is written for a general audience.
- Cost
- Free
- Time
- Months
- Where
- Online
- Format
- Course · Intermediate
Last verified October 24, 2026

