Courtesy as a theological issue

Related reading and listening

1. Embodied knowledge — FROM VOL. 121 James K. A. Smith advocates for a return to some pre-modern conceptualizations of the human body. (18 minutes)
2. 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)
3. The Bully Pulpit: Presidential Rhetoric and True Leadership — Elvin Lim talks about the decline of the content of presidential rhetoric and its consequences to democracy. (49 minutes)
4. When language is weaponized — FROM VOL. 52 Jeffrey Meyers explains George Orwell‘s understanding of how language can be used as a weapon in totalitarian movements and regimes. (10 minutes)
5. The Decline of Formal Speech and Why It Matters — John McWhorter examines the reasons behind the decline in articulate speech and writing in the late 20th century, and the implications of this change across many areas of culture. (55 minutes)
6. Multi-leveled language and active spiritual engagement — FROM VOL. 95 Eugene Peterson talks about how Jesus spent most of his time speaking normally and conversationally, and how the Spirit infused this normal speech. (14 minutes)
7. How words are central to the human experience — FROM VOL. 95 Craig Gay reflects on the essential linguistic nature of humanity: how our growth (or decline) in life is tied to words. (18 minutes)
8. Diverting language from its richest possibilities — FROM VOL. 75 Steve Talbott discusses the rich capacities of language and how technology diminishes them. (18 minutes)
9. Is American culture now story-less? — From our archives, Michael Kammen compares popular and mass culture, and Philip Fisher analyzes the idea that new cultural forms inevitably dissolve old ones. (26 minutes)
10. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
11. A fearful darkness in mind, heart, and spirit — Roberta Bayer draws on the work of George Parkin Grant (1918–1988) to argue that our “culture of death” must be countered with an understanding of reality based in love, redemptive suffering, and a recognition of limitations to individual control. (33 minutes)
12. Only a dying civilization neglects its dead — Historian Dermot Quinn discusses the work of fellow historian Christopher Dawson (1889–1970). (15 minutes)
13. Christopher Dawson: Chronicler of Christendom’s Rise and Fall — Dermot Quinn discusses historian Christopher Dawson’s meta-historical perspective and his wisdom about what makes cultures healthy or unhealthy. (54 minutes)
14. 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)
15. 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)
16. “How deep the problems go” — FROM VOL. 103Eric Miller discusses the late historian and social critic Christopher Lasch’s intense commitment to understand the logic of American cultural confusion. (20 minutes)
17. The peril of positivism — Owen Barfield on a popular denial of the possibility of meaning
18. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
19. Blest be the ties of language that bind us — Marion Montgomery on the precious gift of words
20. 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”
21. 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
22. In the image of an Imaginer — Dorothy L. Sayers on the inevitability of analogical language about God (and everything else)
23. Engaging the sound of ancient wisdom — Monique Neal explains how learning an ancient language as a spoken, living one enriches one’s experience of reading original texts. (21 minutes)
24. 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)
25. On moral authority and medicine — Continuing our time travel back to 1992, we hear two more interviews from the pilot tape for the Mars Hill Tapes, with sociologist James Davison Hunter and bioethicist Nigel Cameron. (28 minutes)
26. Convivial is beautiful — Ivan Illich on “the opposite of industrial productivity”
27. Remembering Roger Lundin (1949-2015) — Today’s Feature presents our first and last interviews with frequent guest Roger Lundin (1949-2015), in which he shares his love of language and discusses a Christian understanding of desire. (34 minutes)
28. Loving relationships in community — In conversation with moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan, and with readings from his book, Entering into Rest, Ken Myers explores a central theme in O’Donovan’s work: that we are created to enjoy loving relationships in community. (27 minutes)
29. Words as fulcrums — Wendell Berry on the mediating responsibilities of poets
30. Freed from the burden of choice — Writing in the mid-1990s, Alan Ehrenhalt reflects on the relationship between authority and community
31. 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)
32. Reading with our whole might — Marilyn McEntyre on engaging texts receptively
33. 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)
34. 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)
35. 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)
36. 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)
37. 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)
38. On reading and “Englishing” Dante — Jason Baxter, Rod Dreher, and Robert Pinsky discuss the age-old appeal and power of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy to awaken our souls to Divine beauty. (25 minutes)
39. 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)
40. Keeping “the good” in the common good — D. C. Schindler on the metaphysical character of real community
41. How communities remember who they are — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of tradition in sustaining communal identity
42. The disabling consequences of winsomeness — Stanley Hauerwas on how many modern Christians offered atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.
43. The Good City: Community and Urban Order — Architects, historians, activists, and clergy discuss how loving our neighbors can and must take shape in how we order the material aspects of shared life. (100 minutes)
44. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 113 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven Shapin, Arthur Boers, Christine Pohl, Norman Wirzba, Craig Bartholomew, and David I. Smith
45. 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)
46. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 108 — FEATURED GUESTS: Thomas Albert Howard, Jean Porter, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hans Boersma, Felicia Wu Song, and Elias Aboujaoude
47. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 101 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Davison Hunter, Paul Spears, Steven Loomis, James K. A. Smith, Thomas Long, and William T. Cavanaugh
48. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 100 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jennifer Burns, Christian Smith, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, P. D. James, James Davison Hunter, Paul McHugh, Ted Prescott, Ed Knippers, Martha Bayles, Dominic Aquila, Gilbert Meilaender, Neil Postman, and Alan Jacobs
49. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 99 — FEATURED GUESTS: Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Paul A. Rahe, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew J. Cherlin, Dale Keuhne, and Alison Milbank
50. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 96 — FEATURED GUESTS: David A. Smith, Kiku Adatto, Elvin T. Lim, David Naugle, Richard Stivers, and John Betz