In September 2013, Dr.Ralph Wood gave a lecture at the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, Virginia. The title of the lecture, “Christopher Hitchens & G. K. Chesterton: New Atheist versus Old Convert,” underscores Dr. Wood’s assertion that the two writers had completely different narratives about the nature of reality and the cosmos. Beginning with an explanation of Christopher Hitchens’s “program,” which was to promote his belief in a closed, self-referential, and purely material cosmos, Wood argues that the atheist failed on two key points. First, he was unable to support his argument that most human misery derived from religion; and second, he was unable to account for the dignity and worth of human life. By contrast, Chesterton’s writing was — and continues to be — persuasive in its argument for “final” causes in the cosmos, viewing life as a gift, and the worth of the human person.
What makes Christian belief so implausible to non-believers? In this Archive Feature, we revisit two conversations from Volume 98 of the Journal. First, Roger Lundin, author of Believing Again: Doubt and Faith in a Secular Age, explains how the disenchantment of the world led to new forms of doubt and self-expression. Then David Bentley Hart discusses his book Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. Hart describes these delusions as a sense that the human race has been emancipated by agents of reason and tolerance. This is popularized atheism’s founding myth, he says, and it’s captivating and easy to follow. Hart’s book exposes the falseness of this revisionist and self-serving modern myth in vivid detail.
Marion Montgomery (1934–2002) offers a deep critique of the relationship of the academy to its community in an effort to diagnose how higher education has lost its way. (13 minutes)
This Archive Feature revisits two conversations, one with Roger Lundin and one with David Bentley Hart, on what makes Christian belief so implausible to non-believers. (39 minutes)
David Bentley Hart describes how the Christian understanding of Creation as beauty and gift, as the outward expression of the delight the Trinity has in itself, reveals a vision of reality different from the pagan or fatalist vision of reality. (12 minutes)
Ralph C. Wood describes G. K. Chesterton’s imagination as especially fruitful in conveying grace and edification to his readers. (19 minutes)
Mechanism and the abolition of meaning — On the occasion of philosopher Daniel Dennett’s death this week, Ken Myers presents an archive interview with David Bentley Hart in which he explains how pure naturalism leads to the un-doing of rationality. (37 minutes)
Biographer Kevin Belmonte on how G. K. Chesterton embraced a “defiant joy” in spite of the cynical pessimism of many of his contemporaries. (16 minutes)
Bemused by joy — Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., on G. K. Chesterton’s awareness of the reality of both evil and joy
God also was a Cave-man — G. K. Chesterton on the convergence of omnipotence and impotence in Bethlehem
Seeing the Christian story for what it is — Dale Ahlquist discusses a new edition of G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, to which he contributed an introduction, notes, and commentary. (34 minutes)
The infinity of beauty in Bach — David Bentley Hart on why Johann Sebastian Bach is the greatest of Christian theologians
David Bentley Hart on how “two-tier Thomism” deviates from historic Christian understanding of the relationship between God and Creation. (42 minutes)
Wood, Ralph C. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Ralph C. Wood is Emeritus Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
Human dignity, cosmic hierarchies — Political scientist Robert Kraynak on how Christianity opposes worldly hierarchies with hierarchies of its own
Challenging the “gospel of democracy” — Robert Kraynak argues that assumptions many modern Christians hold about liberal democracy are rooted in some false ideas about the nature and purpose of civil government. (46 minutes)
Recovering a sacramental imagination — Hans Boersma argues that we need to recover the pre-modern view that Creation not only points to God, but that it participates in the very being of God — that in God we live and move and have our being. (29 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 155 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Donald Kraybill, Thaddeus Kozinski, David Bentley Hart, Nigel Biggar, Ravi Scott Jain, and Jason Baxter
God is not Zeus; you are not Prometheus — Ron Highfield addresses those who doubt Christianity’s goodness, especially as regards modern assumptions about identity, freedom, and dignity. (24 minutes)
Aspects of our un-Christening — In this Friday Feature — presented courtesy of Biola University — Carlo Lancellotti talks with Aaron Kheriaty about the central ideas in Augusto Del Noce’s writings. (43 minutes)
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 roaming unrest of the spirit” — Theologian Reinhard Hütter argues that the contemporary plague of pornography is a symptom of a deep spiritual apathy. (28 minutes)
Shrinking sources of causality — David Bentley Hart on the loss of a recognition of inherent meaning in the natural world
Freedom, ancient and modern — In a brief excerpt from David Bentley Hart’s book Atheist Delusions, and a longer excerpt from an Areopagus Lecture by D. C. Schindler, the modern view of freedom is contrasted with the understanding of freedom present in ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Roman thought. (27 minutes)
Freedom and equality according to Flannery O’Connor — Three guests discuss Flannery O’Connor’s ideas: Henry T. Edmondson, III, on O’Connor’s understanding of political life; Ralph C. Wood, on O’Connor as a “hillbilly Thomist”; and Susan Srigley, on O’Connor’s sacramental and incarnational fiction. (18 minutes)
Fischer, Hart, and Highfield on freedom — Three past guests on the Journal explore the meaning of freedom and some common modern misunderstandings of the concept — errors with real consequences. (22 minutes)
Virtue and myth in Middle-earth — Ralph C. Wood and Bradley Birzer discuss Christian wisdom, virtues, and the strength of myth in J. R. R. Tolkien’s created world of Middle-earth. (33 minutes)
Six recent books worthy of note — Ken Myers shares a summary of six recent books that we want our listeners to know about but whose authors we won’t be interviewing. (15 minutes)
Chesterton and Tolkien as theologians — Alison Milbank discusses how both Chesterton and Tolkien restore reason to fantasy and help us to see things as we were meant to see them. (20 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 138 — FEATURED GUESTS:
John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Glenn W. Olsen, Rupert Shortt, Oliver O’Donovan, David Bentley Hart
What they saw in America — Sociologist James Nolan describes the perception of American culture of four distinguished foreign travelers: Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, G. K. Chesterton, and Sayyid Qutb.(5 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 137 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 118 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, Ron Highfield, Mark Mitchell, Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Helen Rhee, and Peter Brown
Who strangled God? — James Turner examines the ways in which the pursuit of “relevant” theology helped to make atheism plausible in Western culture
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 112 — FEATURED GUESTS: Christian Smith, David L. Schindler, Sara Anson Vaux, Melvyn Bragg, Timothy Larsen, and Ralph C. Wood
