How words are central to the human experience

Related reading and listening

• Good stewardship of language — Marilyn Chandler McEntyre discusses central themes from her 2009 book, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. ALSO: clips from 6 other programs about language. (36 minutes)
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• Diverting language from its richest possibilities — FROM VOL. 75 Steve Talbott discusses the rich capacities of language and how technology diminishes them. (18 minutes)
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• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
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• A Christian philosophy of integrated education — FROM VOL. 61 Michael L. Peterson discusses how Christianity could inform society’s understandings of education and human nature. (8 minutes)
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• Blest be the ties of language that bind us — Marion Montgomery on the precious gift of words
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• The impact of the King James Version of the Bible — Melvyn Bragg argues that the influence of the King James Version of the Bible on literature, politics, democracy, and civil rights has largely been airbrushed from history, despite its incontrovertible influence on cultural figures such as William Shakespeare. (22 minutes)
• The religion of the Logos — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on acknowledging the Source of rationality
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• George Steiner, R.I.P. — Literature scholar David Lyle Jeffrey discusses George Steiner’s life and work, focusing on his recognition of the mysterious power of language. (32 minutes)
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• Deconstructing the Enlightenment — Peter Leithart discusses Johann Georg Hamann’s insights about the nature of language and his prophetic critique of the Enlightenment. (17 minutes)
• On the meaning of gender and the truth of human nature — Margaret Harper McCarthy, one of the authors of a brief on gender submitted to the Supreme Court, discusses the philosophical and practical implications of fashionable notions of the meaning of gender. (29 minutes)
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• The Worth of Words: Preserving and Caring for Language — John McWhorter, Doing Our Own Thing), Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies), and Craig Gay (Dialogue, Catalogue, & Monologue) discuss the glorious possibilities of words lovingly and thoughtfully employed. (65 minutes)