Christian unity and civil society

Related reading and listening

• “Only a real world can save us” — Oliver O’Donovan explores how the “religion” of modernity lacks a coherent world in which one may participate with full human agency and moral purpose. (Lecture 3 of 3; 61 minutes)
• The demoralizing effect of pagan Roman religion — Oliver O’Donovan examines St. Augustine’s critique of pagan Roman religion in Book II of his treatise City of God and asks his audience to consider what insights Augustine’s critique has for us today. (Lecture 1 of 3; 51 minutes)
• Knowing and doing the good — Oliver O’Donovan raises several key questions and complications involved in the task of taking concrete and practical action toward a recognized moral good. (Lecture 3 of 3; 63 minutes)
• Moral knowledge of reality — Oliver O’Donovan argues that admiration is the fundamental form of knowing the world, as we cannot know fully those elements of reality (“bare facts”) that contain no significance for us. (Lecture 2 of 3; 55 minutes)
• Attentiveness to the world, the self, and time — Oliver O’Donovan uses the metaphor of waking to discuss the concept of moral sensibility as attention to the world, the self, and time. (Lecture 1 of 3; 60 minutes)
• The roots of “the indignant self-righteousness of protest” in modern politics — Alasdair MacIntyre on why unmasking nefarious motives became “one of the most characteristically modern of activities”
• It takes a character (and a village) — Herbert McCabe, O.P. on the Aristotelian, Thomistic, and MacIntyrean account of the moral life
• Manners and morals — FROM VOL. 19 Film and literary critic Alan Jacobs discusses how modern audiences relate to the manners and morals portrayed in Jane Austen films. (16 minutes)
• A more robust account of political life — FROM VOL. 138 John Milbank and Adrian Pabst on why politics needs to recognize the human soul in its depth (and what happens when it doesn’t). (51 minutes)
• Seeing Creation Anew: The Life & Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins — Dana Gioia examines Gerard Manley Hopkins‘s poetic genius and dedication to Christ in spite of his personal trials and difficult cultural context. (55 minutes)
• Hillbilly Augustinian — Ralph Wood on Flannery O’Connor’s refusal to adapt her fiction to the national temper
• Etiquette and ethics — In this essay, Judith Martin (a.k.a. Miss Manners) argues that etiquette is “civilization’s first necessity” and an indispensable societal virtue. (21 minutes)
• Against hacking babies — Oliver O’Donovan raises questions about IVF and the technologically ordered motive for efficiency
• Impact of “infotainment” on community — Neil Gabler and C. John Sommerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. (36 minutes)
• Recognizing the Puritan flavor of “America” — George McKenna on the originally theocentric vision for the American vocation
• The theological significance of current events — FROM VOL. 65 George Marsden discusses how Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) understood world history and the American experience. (14 minutes)
• Were Christian martyrs considered suicides? — FROM VOL. 36 Darrel Amundsen counters the modern myth that the early Church up until St. Augustine was accepting and even favorable of suicide. (12 minutes)
• Critiquing “empire criticism” — Allan Bevere and Peter Leithart evaluate “empire criticism,” a way of reading the New Testament with an anti-imperial focus. (36 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 163 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Youngblood, R. J. Snell, Nicholas Denysenko, Nigel Biggar, Robert McNamara, and David Cayley
• Embodied knowledge — FROM VOL. 121 James K. A. Smith advocates for a return to some pre-modern conceptualizations of the human body. (18 minutes)
• 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)
• Unmasking claims of “secular neutrality” — Lesslie Newbigin on the Church’s prophetic duty concerning public life
• The kingdom of God has public consequences — Lesslie Newbigin on the subversiveness of the Church’s message to the world
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
• 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)
• 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 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)
• Freedom as conformity to reality — W. Bradford Littlejohn summarizes the definitions of liberty offered by Richard Bauckham and Oliver O’Donovan
• Cleansing sea breezes — Thomas C. Oden argues that rather than being conformed to contemporary ideological trends, we should be informed by 2000 years of the Church’s wisdom. And Darrell Amundsen corrects some false claims about the early Church’s views on suicide. (27 minutes)
• The early Church on asceticism and almsgiving — FROM VOL. 118Historian Peter Brown explains that in spite of having had access for centuries to the Church fathers’ numerous writings, only recently have we come to understand the social and material context within which they lived. (18 minutes)
• 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)
• 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.
• We feebly struggle, they in glory shine — Church historian Robert Wilken describes how the early Church’s witness about the nature of truth challenged the assumptions of the surrounding culture. (15 minutes)
• Why kings are compelling — Historian Francis Oakley describes how the modern idea of “secular” politics is a striking departure in human history. (32 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 159 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kirk Farney, Andrew Willard Jones, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew Kaethler, Peter Ramey, and Kathryn Wehr
• 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)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 154 — FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy
• Before Church and State — Andrew Willard Jones challenges some of the conventional paradigms of thinking about political order, arguing that modern assumptions of the relationship between Church and state color how we understand history. (54 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)
• Republican freedom — and ideological flexibility — Mark Noll on the novelty of America’s Christian republicanism
• The purpose of government and God’s eternal purpose — Philip Turner on understanding the state in light of the eschatological reality of the Church
• The Church and the powers that be — Historian Mark Noll summarizes Christian ideas about political life in the last few centuries, examining how those ideas were worked out in various contexts in Western Europe and North America. (39 minutes)
• Politics in light of the Ascension — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of situating all political authority within redemptive history
• A foretaste of the kingdom of God — Oliver O’Donovan on the sovereignty of love
• 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)
• 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