Mere Orthodoxy writes and publishes multiple articles weekly, has a weekly email Digest, and a Triannual Print Journal, and a podcast (Mere Fidelity).

We seek to give intellectual, moral, and biblical substance to the renewal and resilience of a faithful Christian presence in our post-Christian culture. We seek to be thoughtful, faithful, challenging, calm, reasonable and comprehensive in bringing truth to bear on a wide array of issues. Our goal is to develop Christians who are thinkers, those who “can research a topic, reflect upon it and address it with nuance. People who can follow a logical train of thought and allow the logic to confront (and even correct) their own errors.”

We speak on and into a wide array of topics and issues including Personal spiritual formation and renewal, Church and Ministry challenges and opportunities, and culture facing issues like politics, technology, marriage and family, human flourishing, Education, art and literature, book and event reviews.

The Past and the Future

The First 10 Years

We've come a long way since being a blog for a grad student and his friends.

That's all Mere Orthodoxy was when Matthew Lee Anderson started at Biola in 2005 as a place for him and his friends in the Torrey Honors Institute to write about the things they were learning, cared about, and wanted to see in the church, family, individuals, and culture as a whole.

They decided to write about the things no one is supposed to talk about: politics and religion. The goal was always to ask good questions and pursue truth in community.

Not much has changed since then.

The Second 10 Years

Over the 10 years that Matthew Lee Anderson (MLA, for short) worked on Mere Orthodoxy, it grew from being a group blog into a formidable Christian media platform. After a decade of dedicated effort and faithful stewardship of a growing audience, MLA stepped down as the Lead Writer and passed Mere Orthodoxy off to Jake Meador.

A year into his role as Lead Writer, Jake worked hard to find ways to grow Mere Orthodoxy and make it sustainable, starting with a Patreon. By 2020, the publication had grown substantially and successfully raised over $35,000 to launch the print Journal, which launched Fall 2021.

Mere Orthodoxy had officially leaped off the screen and into the world.

In 2024, two significant things happened at the same time.

The website saw its most traffic ever to date: over 1.7 million hits.
Multiple mistaken donations worth over $100,000 was recalled.

Mere Orthodoxy almost ended. But the readers kept the dream alive.

Readers pitched in and raised significantly more than what was lost, which ended up giving Mere Orthodoxy its biggest fiscal year yet. Because of this miracle, now Mere Orthodoxy isn't led by a single person, but by a team.

The Next 10 Years

The foundation has been laid. It's time to build.

Now with more resources and leadership than at any time in its history, Mere Orthodoxy is becoming the premier place for Protestant thinking.

Mere Orthodoxy is a publication of non-profit Institute for Christianity and Common Life.

Our Team

Jake Meador

Editor-In-Chief and Chairman

Jake Meador is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose.

Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play.

He has written or contributed to several books, including In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity In A Fractured World (IVP '19), What Are Christians For?: Life Together at the End of the World (IVP '22), A Protestant Christendom? (Davenant Press), and Telling the Stories Right (Front Porch Republic Press).

Mark Kremer

Publisher and Executive Director

Mark Kremer is a graduate of the University of Northwestern St. Paul, MN. His career includes 30 years in pastoral leadership at two churches, and more than 20 years in non-profit leadership, and publishing.

In addition to leading Mere Orthodoxy, Mark consults with churches and ministries on leadership, vision, strategic planning, outreach, stewardship, and cultural engagement.

He and his wife, Donna, have six grown children and three grandchildren.

Ian Harber

Director of Communications and Marketing

Ian Harber is a graduate of Dallas Baptist University with a B.A. in Communication Theory. He has written for The Gospel Coalition, Mere Orthodoxy, RELEVANT, Digital Liturgies, his Substack, Back Again, and more.

He is the author of Walking Through Deconstruction: How To Be A Companion In A Crisis of Faith (IVP '25).

Ian has over a decade of marketing and communications experience working with nonprofits, churches, Christian podcasts, publications, and small businesses.

He lives in Denton, TX with his wife Katie, and two sons Ezra and Alastair where they are members of their local church.

What others are saying

"Mere Orthodoxy is unique in the world of journals and journalism. First, it is committed to historic Protestant orthodoxy. Indeed it sees, rightly, far more resources in the work of early Protestant thinkers than modern evangelicalism does. Yet, secondly, it uses that orthodoxy to reflect on, critique, and engage with the most contemporary cultural developments. Third, it deploys many great younger Christian scholars whose voices are so important now. Mere O is important for Christians to read and support."

Tim Keller: Founding Pastor Redeemer Presbyterian Church

I find myself wondering whether the loss of grip on Christian morality and Christian ethical reflection that are so evident in pastoral ministry is simply one side of a loss of grip on theology… The ordained clergy are often, as it were, on the back foot themselves, in an important way, not resourced to cope with the sort of world they face in their parish… Given the provisions we make for them I’m not sure what else we can expect. That sounds a bit gloomy, doesn’t it? Well they can always subscribe to Mere Orthodoxy, and that will give them a little bit of help along the way.

Oliver O'Donovan: Fellow of the British Academy and professor emeritus of Christian ethics and practical theology at the University of Edinburgh.

I have five Christian websites pinned on my home screen, and Mere Orthodoxy is one of them. It’s also the one whose articles I spend the most time reading, thanks to the blend of biblical, historical and cultural insight, the clarity and charity of the writing, and the theological vision it represents. Also, if I’m honest, I just love reading people who are much smarter than I am discussing things that matter. Bravo, Mere O.

Andrew Wilson: Teaching pastor at King’s Church London

In an era when the culture of online engagement tilts less towards the establishment of truth and more towards the scoring of points, Mere Orthodoxy is a place where intellectual engagement with pressing theological and cultural issues is pursued in a manner self-consciously connected to Christian character. It does not reduce thinking to soundbites, clickbait, or tribal signaling. Instead it seeks to promote thoughtful discussion on pressing topics that conduces to the peace, unity, and edification of God's people. Even when I disagree with the views expressed, I always find my own thinking challenged and sharpened. If you believe that the goal of Christian intellectual interaction is that we should grow both in truth and in character, Mere Orthodoxy should be on your regular reading list.

Carl Trueman: Professor: Grove City College, Fellow: Ethics and Public Policy Center

What Guides Us

We are committed to the Nicaean orthodoxy as well as the orthodox teachings of Scripture and the church concerning sex and gender.
We adopt postures that equip us to defend Christian orthodoxy in Christian ways. We are not aggressive or apologetic, but candid. We are not anxious or fearful, but hopeful and confident in the providence of God.
We produce media that is orthodox and resistant to radicalization and extremism. We call our audience to reflection, patience, and simple faithfulness, NOT rage, recklessness, or compromise.
We are not tribal or partisan, but instead dedicated to the pursuit of truth before all else.
We write, speak, think, read, and reflect on the things of God publicly and privately across a print magazine, website, email, podcasts, and video. In a digital age, we know that online content is one of the primary ways that people’s moral imagination, intellectual understanding and beliefs is formed.
We equip our readers to fulfill the great commandment to love God and neighbor -doing so in sincerity and wisdom. We believe that there is an actual reality we all share with our neighbors, that God calls us to love our neighbors with that shared reality, and that one we do that is by being firmly committed to reason, persuasion, and conversation as genuine social goods that we want to promote and preserve.
We believe and equip people to see the world as God made it real, objective, coherent and beautiful and that when we go against the way the world works, we crash against hard reality. But because the world works that way, we also believe it is possible to think, converse and even argue together as we journey toward the good.
We are not respecters of people or titles. We don’t care about your credentials or your platform. We care about our writer’s commitment to the truth and their ability to pursue the truth with elegant, delightful, and clear speech. With readers, supporters, leaders, etc. we don’t care about their money or their influence. We care about their commitment to the pursuit of the truth and to the irenic, commonly shared pursuit of what is true.
We believe that God has called us not to vanquish our enemies or change the world, but to be faithful to the commands he gives us in scripture and to trust Him with the rest.

The Christian story is one of unexpected and unlooked for resurrection. As we seek to follow Christ, we work with the hope of final resurrection, and yet also with hope that God might breathe new life into the west’s dry bones. It is with that hope that we go about this work.

Over 20 Years of

Disruptive Renewal