Hosts of “Unashamed with the Robertson Family” are taking the college’s C.S. Lewis online course and discussing it on their podcast every Friday.

The podcast features members of the Duck Dynasty family — Al Robertson, Zach Dasher, John Luke Robertson, and Christian Huff — as they take the course, “C.S. Lewis on Christianity,” taught by Michael Ward, a distinguished fellow at Hillsdale and a leading scholar of C.S. Lewis. Their first discussion on the course was on Jan. 23. Dasher described the podcast as “kind of like Seinfeld.”

“There’s a lot of nonsense, but that’s kind of the method that we’re employing to explain the scriptures to people,” Dasher told The Collegian in an email. “There is a method to the madness.”

Previously, Hillsdale partnered with the “Unashamed” podcast to cover “The Genesis Story,” “The Exodus Story,” and “The David Story,” taught by Chair and Professor of English Justin Jackson.

Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College is a “student becomes teacher” concept that the college is piloting to see if it can bring in new audiences to the online courses learning platform, according to Vice President of Marketing Jon Hall.  

“The idea is that hosts of the ‘Unashamed’ podcast, which includes multiple generations of the Robertson family, take a course while encouraging their audience to take a course,” Hall said in an email.  “Then, on Friday’s, the podcast releases a discussion of what the hosts are learning, and the audience can follow along to help aid in their learning process as well. It’s kind of like a classroom podcast for audiences that are interested in learning from our courses.”

Senior Ashley DeVore took Ward’s one-credit course on the “Chronicles of Narnia” last fall. She said the course reinvigorated her love for C.S. Lewis’s imagination.

“‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ might look planless, but all is planned,” DeVore said. “I gained an appreciation for the entire series, whereas before I really only had a very surface-level conception of ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ as an allegory of the Gospel story. Dr. Ward showed us how medieval cosmology serves as the unifying principle for all seven books, causing readers to consider different aspects of Christ’s character with each tale.”

Dasher said the online courses have helped him gain a deeper understanding of biblical truths.

“I think that you can expect a very deep and robust discussion on Lewis’s work and the conversation was extremely meaningful, impactful, and we do break it down for the common man,” Dasher said.

Huff said he appreciated the way Jackson articulated things in a way that made it easy for people to understand.

“Even after all the lectures we’ve done, I’ve gone back and reread the stories throughout the Bible, especially David, going through the David story,” Huff told The Collegian in an email. “Then for me, watching the TV show, it’s led me into wanting to study his life so much more. So it’s really helped me and encouraged me to read the Bible more often.”

Jackson traveled to Louisiana to discuss his online courses with the Robertsons last year.

“Well, him being a literary guy, he sees things that I didn’t necessarily see in text just because of his literary eye,” Al Robettson told The Collegian, in an email, about Jackson. “So that perspective really grew my knowledge, especially of the Old Testament.”

John Luke Robertson said he has loved taking Hillsdale’s online courses, and that they are easy to follow along.

“The study guides are awesome,” John Luke Robertson told The Collegian in an email. “I print all the study guides out, and they’re definitely something I’m going to think about and keep doing.”

Hall said students can suggest other online courses that they would like to see Unashamed Academy take. Additionally, students are welcome to suggest other people they would like to see partner with Hillsdale’s online courses program.

“The audience we are scaling to teach is an audience of nearly 50 million that is primarily made of Americans that love the country, believe in God, have the conviction to stand for both, and are searching for trusted sources of learning information that can help them grow in understanding and become better leaders and citizens in their communities,” Hall said.