Multi-leveled language and active spiritual engagement

Related reading and listening

1. Treating Truth with sovereign respect — Henri de Lubac on the urgency of intellectual activity
2. Goodness, truth, and conscience — David Crawford examines Karol Wojtyła’s thought on the relationship between conscience and truth. (37 minutes)
3. 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)
4. 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)
5. 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)
6. 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)
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. 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)
10. Torrential winds of doctrine — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the “dictatorship of relativism”
11. Why liberalism tends toward absolutism — In this lecture, Michael Hanby examines what causes liberalism to become dictatorial in thought and practice. (49 minutes)
12. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
13. No neutral view of the cosmos — Ken Myers argues that Christians need to recover a “whole-earth discipleship” that enables them to think Christianly about all areas of life, including public life. (50 minutes)
14. The unintended consequences of the Reformation — FROM VOL. 114 Historian Brad Gregory discusses the unintended consequences of the Reformation, consequences which continue to trouble us. (26 minutes)
15. The peril of positivism — Owen Barfield on a popular denial of the possibility of meaning
16. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
17. Blest be the ties of language that bind us — Marion Montgomery on the precious gift of words
18. In the image of an Imaginer — Dorothy L. Sayers on the inevitability of analogical language about God (and everything else)
19. Justice and truth — Joseph Ratzinger: “Plato’s philosophy is utterly misconceived when he is presented as an individualistic, dualistic thinker who negates what is earthly and advocates a flight into the beyond.”
20. Living into focus — As our lives are increasingly shaped by technologically defined ways of living, Arthur Boers discusses how we might choose focal practices that counter distraction and isolation. (32 minutes)
21. 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)
22. Sustaining a heritage of wisdom — Louise Cowan (1916–2015) explains how the classics reach the deep core of our imagination and teach us to order our loves according to the wholeness of reality. (16 minutes)
23. Sources of wisdom (and of doubt) — Roger Lundin shares what he has appreciated about Mars Hill Audio conversations, and he discusses what makes Christian belief so implausible to non-believers. (32 minutes)
24. Is irrational freedom truly freedom? — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger argues that freedom must be understood in the context of interplay of reason and the will
25. Is religious belief really true? — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger asks if Christian faith is just lovely subjective consolation, a kind of make-believe world side by side with the real world
26. Liberal arts and the importance of truth — Listen to conversations with two guests from Volume 153, Margarita Mooney and Louis Markos, on the liberal arts and the importance of truth. (26 minutes
27. Unreason destroys freedom — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the relationship between freedom and truth
28. What is really true? Why does beauty matter? — Bishop Robert Barron talks about the necessity of persuading people that theological claims are about things that are objectively true, not just personally meaningful. (14 minutes)
29. 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)
30. Words as fulcrums — Wendell Berry on the mediating responsibilities of poets
31. Taking words into the soul — Eugene Peterson on reading as an art of chewing, savoring, and digesting
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. Justice and gender, round 2 — 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. (33 minutes)
35. A celebration of introverts — Adam McHugh and Susan Cain explain how an American culture that prizes gregariousness and “selling” oneself ends up marginalizing introverts and the gifts they have to offer, even in the Church. (36 minutes)
36. 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)
37. 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)
38. 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)
39. 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)
40. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 142 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stanley Hauerwas, Perry L. Glanzer, Nathan F. Alleman, Jeffrey Bishop, Alan Jacobs, D. C. Schindler, and Marianne Wright
41. Pastor, preacher, prophet — A gentle and generous man, Eugene Peterson (1932–2018) was not afraid of speaking prophetically — and hence pastorally — about the Church’s captivity to modern culture. This hour-long interview with Peterson was recorded in 2005. (73 minutes)
42. Words made audible, dwelling among us — Abigail Williams describes how, in the eighteenth century, the practices of reading aloud survived even as private, silent reading was becoming more common.  (19 minutes)
43. The leaning tower of gabble — Oliver O’Donovan on how authority and language connect us with reality and thus sustain community
44. The missional mandate of truth — Joseph Ratzinger on the partnership of faith and reason in the coherence of love and truth
45. Skepticism and totalitarian drift — John Paul II on how a loss of confidence in the reality of truth accentuates the will to power
46. Love and truth precede justice — James Matthew Wilson on the relationship between truth and love in Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate
47. Universalizing Dr. Faustus — Eugene Peterson on the normalization of prideful ambition
48. The witness of goodness and beauty to truth — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the apologetic necessity of holiness and great art
49. The reasonableness of love — Terry Eagleton on the myth of the disinterested pursuit of truth
50. 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)