Loving relationships in community

Related reading and listening

• The fatal polytheism of late liberalism — Oliver O’Donovan on the failure that leads to social collapse, marked by conflict, suspicion, and violence
• Courtesy as a theological issue — FROM VOL. 37 Donald McCullough discusses his insights into the increasingly coarse nature of society and the theological foundations for courtesy. (12 minutes)
• Insisting that political leaders are incapable of obeying Christ — Oliver O’Donovan on the unintended consequences of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
• The historian’s communal role as storyteller — FROM VOL. 127 Historian Christopher Shannon discusses how American academic historical writing presents a grand narrative of progressivism, which it defends by subscribing to an orthodoxy of objective Reason. (21 minutes)
• The gift of objective reality — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan makes an argument for the consistency of the idea of law when it is conceived in a theological context. (40 minutes)
• Friendship and life together — In a lecture at Providence College, Ken Myers explores how the concept of friendship, which used to be central to political philosophy, was banished from considerations of public life as the state was exalted over society. (53 minutes)
• Freedom as conformity to reality — W. Bradford Littlejohn summarizes the definitions of liberty offered by Richard Bauckham and Oliver O’Donovan
• The sovereignty of love — In this 2022 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan explains the historical background — and present consequences — of the assertion by Jesus of two great commands. (67 minutes)
• Blest be the ties of language that bind us — Marion Montgomery on the precious gift of words
• The academy’s deconstruction of both person and community — Marion Montgomery on cultivating “a deportment of intellect governed by a continuing concern for the truth of things”
• O’Donovan, Oliver — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Oliver O’Donovan held teaching posts at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Wycliffe College Toronto before becoming Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford in 1982.
• Community, the giver of freedom — Thomas H. Naylor and William H. Willimon on why suspicion about big government shouldn’t take the form of autonomous individualism
• Why kings are compelling — Historian Francis Oakley describes how the modern idea of “secular” politics is a striking departure in human history. (32 minutes)
• Christology and human relationality — Joseph Ratzinger on how the longing for eternity expressed in human love is an analogue of Trinitarian love
• Conscience seared with a red-hot iron — Oliver O’Donovan on the convicting role of a good conscience
• Culture in light of Easter — Oliver O’Donovan rejects a gnostic reading of redemption
• Welcoming one another — Christine Pohl describes the practice of hospitality in Church history and the particular challenges to hospitality we face in our era. (30 minutes)
• The basic act and order of things — David L. Schindler (1943–2022) insists that the reduction of love to a matter of private and personal sentiment, piety, or good will — is one of the fundamental disorders of modern culture. Christians should know better. (39 minutes)
• Religion within the bounds of citizenship — In a 2006 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan argues that the conventional way of describing Western civil society creates obstacles to the participation of believers (Muslim, Christian, and other). (68 minutes)
• The purpose of government and God’s eternal purpose — Philip Turner on understanding the state in light of the eschatological reality of the Church
• Convivial is beautiful — Ivan Illich on “the opposite of industrial productivity”
• Politics in light of the Ascension — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of situating all political authority within redemptive history
• Thinking Christianly about the body — Theologian and ethicist Gilbert Meilaender discusses some of the themes he explores in two of his books: Body, Soul and Bioethics; and Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. (19 minutes)
• A foretaste of the kingdom of God — Oliver O’Donovan on the sovereignty of love
• Knowledge transformed by love — David K. Naugle on the reordered thinking of the redeemed
• Redefining gender — In this article from Communio, Margaret Harper McCarthy demonstrates that the attempt to eliminate the givenness of sexual difference rests on a denial of the created person’s origin in and ordination toward relations of love. (68 minutes)
• Marva Dawn on spiritual formation and being Church — This Feature presents an interview with Marva Dawn from Volume 38 of the Journal, during which she talks about concerns discussed in two of her books, related to the spiritual formation of children and a more holistic understanding of sex and intimacy. (23 minutes)
• Freed from the burden of choice — Writing in the mid-1990s, Alan Ehrenhalt reflects on the relationship between authority and community
• Why communities need authority — Alan Ehrenhalt argues that real community can only be sustained when three things are assumed: the goodness of limits, the necessity of authority, and the reality of personal sin. (13 minutes)
• The eclipsing of happiness — Reinhard Hütter on the Christian recognition that happiness is only intelligible in light of the end for which we were created
• Merciless moralism bereft of moral reasons — Dallas Willard explores how moral passions on campuses — and elsewhere — are now immune to rational examination or critique
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 149 — FEATURED GUESTS: Dru Johnson, Steven L. Porter, Reinhard Hütter, Matthew Levering, David Lyle Jeffrey, and Christopher Phillips
• The first virtue of citizenship: Taking the law seriously — Oliver O’Donovan reflects on how the reality of the Kingship of Christ must be affirmed as a present reality
• Reasoning about values — Revisiting a 1974 text that examined the mutual animosities of the 1960s
• “Whose kingdom shall have no end” — Oliver O’Donovan and his mentor, George B. Caird, offer lessons from the book of Revelation for thinking about politics
• The social context of freedom — Brad Littlejohn talks about the necessity of a more expansive understanding of freedom, one which recognizes that we are really only free within the social experience of shared meaning and mutual recognition. (17 minutes)
• The Bruderhof’s Christ-centered community — Clare Stober discusses the book she edited of stories of the Bruderhof, a network of 26 community settlements around the world. (30 minutes)
• The Sixth Commandment and the obligation to protect public health — Ethicist Gilbert Meilaender explains why our experience with COVID-19 has made it difficult for many — citizens and officials — to honor a proper obligation to protect public health. (17 minutes)
• Impact of “infotainment” on community — From 1999 Journal interviews, Neal Gabler and C. John Summerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. Ken Myers also reads related excerpts from George Steiner and Oliver O’Donovan. (33 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 147 — FEATURED GUESTS: R. Jared Staudt, Jason Peters, D. C. Schindler, Craig Gay, Mary Hirschfeld, and Patrick Samway
• The Kingdom of God and the kings of the earth — In a 90-minute conversation with Matthew Lee Anderson and Ken Myers, Oliver O’Donovan explains some of the central themes of his work in political theology. (91 minutes)
• Learning about the meaning of government — In a telephone conversation during COVID-19 lockdowns, Oliver O’Donovan talks about lessons we can learn about the proper role of government from our experience of pandemics and quarantine. (51 minutes)
• Ethics as Theology, Volume 2 — Drawing from St. Augustine and figures such as Aelred of Rievaulx, Oliver O’Donovan describes how the Church, communication, community, and friendship all significantly contribute to how we understand the role of love in both ethical and political reflection. (52 minutes)
• Ethics as Theology, Volume 1 — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan discusses the first two volumes of his three-volume set, Ethics as Theology. Among other topics, he reflects on the significance of the thinking moral subject as well as what form of moral inadequacy the “life of the flesh” suggests. (58 minutes)
• Lessons from quarantine: Making do with tinned fruit — In this audio reprint of “Wendell Berry and Zoom,” Front Porch Republic editor Jeffrey Bilbro reflects on two metaphors that can help put our new-found “dependency” on web-based video conferencing into perspective: tinned fruit and a prosthetic limb. (17 minutes)
• Loving your neighbor during a pandemic — Brad Littlejohn reflects on how best to ask and answer some of the questions raised by our current disease-ravaged circumstances, particularly questions related to Christian freedom and love of neighbor. (29 minutes)
• The inevitability of escalating public animosity — With excerpts from books and lectures by Alasdair MacIntyre, Oliver O’Donovan, and Wendell Berry, Ken Myers argues that modern political theory has guaranteed increasing levels of public conflict. (19 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 138 — FEATURED GUESTS: John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Glenn W. Olsen, Rupert Shortt, Oliver O’Donovan, David Bentley Hart
• Oliver O’Donovan on ethics as theology — Oliver O’Donovan explains how moral deliberation always occurs in anticipation of the eschatological fulfillment of redemption. (9 minutes)
• The leaning tower of gabble — Oliver O’Donovan on how authority and language connect us with reality and thus sustain community