Till We Have Faces and the Meaning of Myth

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1. “Prophet of holiness” — Timothy Larsen discusses a new edition of George MacDonald‘s Diary of An Old Soul, a slim book of poem-prayers to be read daily as a devotional aid. (30 minutes)
2. Aslan, the Christ-figure of Narnia — Alex Markos explores the transformational power of Aslan as the Christ figure in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. (31 minutes)
3. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
4. Early evangelical response to C. S. Lewis — Historian Mark Noll discusses the reasons why American evangelicals were initially slow to warm to Lewis. (15 minutes)
5. The integration of theoretical and mythic intelligence — FROM VOL. 156 William C. Hackett discusses the relationships between philosophy and theology, and of both to the meaning embedded in myth. (29 minutes)
6. “A state of divine carelessness” — FROM VOL. 121 Daniel Gabelman attempts to correct the notion that George MacDonald prizes seriousness and sobriety. (20 minutes)
7. “Reading Lewis with blinders on” — Chris Armstrong explains how C. S. Lewis’s work is grounded deeply in the Christian humanist tradition. (45 minutes)
8. On The Abolition of Man — FROM VOL. 154 Michael Ward explains why The Abolition of Man is one of Lewis’s most important but also most difficult books. (36 minutes)
9. Seeking control, in white magic and The Green Book — Alan Jacobs on C. S. Lewis’s critique of the modern pursuit of god-like control
10. Education, reason, and the Good — Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson on C. S. Lewis’s argument about natural law
11. Orienting reason and passions — In an essay titled “The Abolition of Mania” (Modern Age, Spring 2022), Michael Ward applies C. S. Lewis’s insights to the polarization that afflicts modern societies. (16 minutes)
12. An unlikely trio in life (and in death) — FROM VOL. 1Philosopher Peter Kreeft was interviewed in 1982 by Ken Myers about his book, Between Heaven and Hell. In 1992, that interview was featured on the pilot cassette tape which became the Mars Hill Tapes. (10 minutes)
13. A myth which is also a fact — Holly Ordway on the existentially resonant power of myth
14. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 155 — FEATURED GUESTS: Donald Kraybill, Thaddeus Kozinski, David Bentley Hart, Nigel Biggar, Ravi Scott Jain, and Jason Baxter
15. The Narnian as Jeremiah — Michael Ward on the bleak prognosis in C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man
16. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 154 — FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy
17. MYST and mythic guests — Game designers Rand and Robyn Miller explain how their game’s creation was influenced by their love for the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. (13 minutes)
18. Sneaking past watchful dragons — Junius Johnson describes how Hans Urs von Balthasar’s understanding of Creation resonates with that of C. S. Lewis and Bonaventure, all three of whom served as mentors in his thinking about beauty. (18 minutes)
19. Mythopoeic power — Stratford Caldecott on Tolkien’s literary achievement
20. From myth to sacramentality — Craig Bernthal: Tolkien asserts that reading fairy stories is a way to ‘recover’ the world”
21. Echoes of Middle-earth — Holly Ordway describes the overwhelming influence that J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings has had on the development of the fantasy genre in the past 50 years. (12 minutes)
22. Becoming a serious and receptive reader — David Lyle Jeffrey offers a thoughtful reading of C. S. Lewis’s account of thoughtful reading
23. Walter Hooper, R.I.P., and Christina Rossetti’s Advent poems — Walter Hooper (1931-2020) describes his first meeting with C. S. Lewis, a man he so admired and long served. In a second chapter in today’s Feature, Emma Mason explains how Christina Rossetti’s hopeful eschatological beliefs influenced the poems she wrote about the season of Advent. (21 minutes)
24. Erotic love (allegedly) conquers all — C. S. Lewis on why the “right to sexual happiness” makes totalitarian demands
25. The correspondence between Lewis and Sayers — Gina Dalfonzo chronicles the encouragement and occasional spats documented in letters between C. S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers, two very different but nonetheless mutually sympathetic Christians. (24 minutes)
26. Thomas Howard, R.I.P. — Thomas Howard encouraged in many students and readers an imaginative appropriation of faith and truth. This interview — released at the time of his death in 2020 — includes his discussion of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. (55 minutes)
27. The sins of the fathers . . . and ours — Eighty years ago, C. S. Lewis warned against surrogate contrition
28. Spirits in Bondage: Lewis’s early poetry — Karen Swallow Prior and Don W. King discuss C. S. Lewis’s early poetry and the evidence therein of a “frustrated dualism.” (23 minutes)
29. How myth speaks to deep desires in the human heart — Rolland Hein explains that George MacDonald is a writer of myth functioning rightly, and that such myth affects people a-rationally, stirring something in them much deeper than intellect or emotion alone. (15 minutes)
30. Three books by Peter Kreeft — In excerpts from three interviews, Peter Kreeft discusses our “brave new world”; the importance of integrity in “creed, code, and cult”; and the reality of transcendence in our human story. (36 minutes)
31. Thomas Howard on Charles Williams — From a 1995 interview, literary scholar Thomas Howard describes the texture and depth of the “metaphysical thrillers” of Charles Williams. (16 minutes)
32. Thomas Howard: “The ‘Moral Mythology’ of C. S. Lewis” — Thomas Howard describes C. S. Lewis’s fictional works in terms of a mythological re-presentation of the Christian and pre-modern moral and cosmic vision. (41 minutes)
33. 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)
34. Man, myth, and Middle-earth — Tom Shippey and Joseph Pearce discuss the “author of the century,” J. R. R. Tolkien, and assert the power of myth to convey deep truth. (26 minutes)
35. Alison Milbank: Imaginative Apologetics beyond C. S. Lewis — Alison Milbank offers an approach to defending the Christian faith that restores the imagination as a faculty inseparable from reason. (61 minutes)
36. The genius, rhetoric, and humanity of C. S. Lewis — James Como and Walter Hooper examine the greatness of C. S. Lewis — his multifaceted genius as well as his humanity and humor. (21 minutes)
37. Further up and further in: understanding Narnia — Joseph Pearce explains how fairy stories can open our eyes to the depths of reality if we read them with the virtue of humility. (15 minutes)
38. C. S. Lewis on communities of thought — Alan Jacobs talks about C. S. Lewis’s two essays, “The Inner Ring” and “Membership” and how they explore the fact that all of our thinking is situated within relationships. (19 minutes)
39. Paul Tyson: Escaping the Silver Chair — With the help of C. S. Lewis’s story The Silver Chair, Paul Tyson explains how identifying and then escaping the ways in which we are bewitched about what is “really real” is no easy task. (68 minutes)
40. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 134 — FEATURED GUESTS: Chris Armstrong, Grevel Lindop, Michael Martin, William T. Cavanaugh, Philip Turner, and Gisela Kreglinger
41. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 133 — FEATURED GUESTS: Darío Fernández-Morera, Francis Oakley, Oliver O’Donovan, Thomas Storck, John Safranek, Brian Brock, and George Marsden
42. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 126 — FEATURED GUESTS: James W. Skillen, Christian Smith, B. W. Powe, David Downing, Roger Scruton, and Jonathan Arnold
43. Irrigating deserts — C. S. Lewis on why teachers must train the sentiments
44. 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
45. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 93 — FEATURED GUESTS: Alan Jacobs, James A. Herrick, Robert C. Roberts, J. Daryl Charles, Allan C. Carlson, and Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose
46. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 90 — FEATURED GUESTS: J. Mark Bertrand, Michael P. Schutt, Michael Ward, Dana Gioia, Makoto Fujimura, Gregory Edward Reynolds, Catherine Prescott, and Eugene Peterson
47. The Heav’ns and All the Powers Therein — Michael Ward makes a compelling case that the qualities attributed to the seven planets in the cosmology of antiquity and the Middle Ages are embodied in C. S. Lewis‘s seven books about Narnia. (68 minutes)
48. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 88 — FEATURED GUESTS: Diana Pavlov Glyer, Michael J. Lewis, Steve Talbott, Darryl Tippens, Everett Ferguson, Alexander Lingas, and Calvin Stapert
49. Alan Jacobs on The Narnian — Alan Jacobs discusses C. S. Lewis’s view of the imagination and his deep conviction that the shaping of the conscience requires the training of the imagination. (53 minutes)
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