Below are a number of audio samples that we’re happy to provide for free to listeners. You’ll need to register for a Visitor’s Pass to hear the complete programs.
Browse the titles and summaries below and you’ll find readings from important journal and magazine articles, recent and archive interviews, lectures by thoughtful scholars, and a full Journal volume.
By signing up for an Affiliate Membership with any of our Partners, you can get access to more free audio content.
Roger Kimball: “Leszek Kolakowski and the Anatomy of Totalitarianism”
September 4, 2006
Roger Kimball summarizes the diagnosis of modernity’s ailments offered by philosopher Leszek Kolakowski. (35 minutes)
Deadly Legacy: Alan Jacobs on Original Sin
April 1, 2009
Alan Jacobs discusses his book, Original Sin: A Cultural History, (2008) a survey of how beliefs about sin have affected literature, politics, music, education, and other spheres of human culture. (60 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 112
December 1, 2011
FEATURED GUESTS: Christian Smith, David L. Schindler, Sara Anson Vaux, Melvyn Bragg, Timothy Larsen, and Ralph C. Wood
Roger Kimball: “Josef Pieper: Leisure and Its Discontents”
April 26, 2012
Roger Kimball introduces listeners to Josef Pieper’s arguments about the nature of leisure, which are claims about the nature of philosophy and of human well-being. (34 minutes)
Fr. Chad Hatfield and Peter J. Leithart on Alexander Schmemann
May 3, 2019
Alexander Schmemann’s book asks a set of questions about “Christianity and culture” that typically don’t get asked, questions that re-center our lives in gratitude and worship. (20 minutes)
James Matthew Wilson: “T. S. Eliot: Culture and Anarchy”
June 25, 2019
James Matthew Wilson examines T. S. Eliot’s cultural conservatism and religious conversion in light of his intellectual and familial influences. (79 minutes)
Dana Gioia on poets and poetry
September 6, 2019
In this collection of interview excerpts, poet and essayist Dana Gioia comments on the literary significance and distinctive voices of Longfellow, Donne, Hopkins, and other fellow poets. (25 minutes)
When masks obscure faces
August 21, 2020
Portrait painter Catherine Prescott discusses what is lost in communication when faces are obscured by masks. (20 minutes)
What is at stake for us in a self-driving future?
April 30, 2021
Matthew Crawford vividly details the “personal knowledge” acquired in interaction with physical things, their mecho-systems, and the people who care for them. (16 minutes)
Redefining gender
June 18, 2021
In this article from Communio, Margaret Harper McCarthy demonstrates that the attempt to eliminate the givenness of sexual difference rests on a denial of the created person’s origin in and ordination toward relations of love. (68 minutes)
Loving relationships in community
July 9, 2021
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)
Democratic Authority at Century’s End
October 29, 2021
Jean Bethke Elshtain summarizes mid-twentieth-century concerns of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) about the growing suspicion about the very idea of authority. (41 minutes)
Remembering Roger Lundin (1949-2015)
November 12, 2021
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)
What is really true? Why does beauty matter?
December 3, 2021
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)
Aspects of our un-Christening
January 21, 2022
In this Friday Feature — presented courtesy of Biola University — Carlo Lancellotti talks with Aaron Kheriaty about the central ideas in Augusto Del Noce’s writings. (43 minutes)
Beyond proof-texts
February 25, 2022
Mark Noll argues that the distinctly American practice of interpreting the Bible through proof-texting hampered the abolitionist movement’s effectiveness. (41 minutes)
Religion within the bounds of citizenship
May 6, 2022
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)
We Hold These Freedoms: Modern, Postmodern, Christian
July 8, 2022
An essay by John Betz explores the theological grounding of real freedom. He argues that human freedom cannot be understood apart from divine freedom. (36 minutes)
Freedom on Holiday: The Genealogy of a Cultural Revolution
September 2, 2022
In this second of three essays, John Betz argues that freedom for the sake of conforming to the Good has been replaced by freedom as the space to choose whatever we want. (52 minutes)
Music without emotivism
February 10, 2023
Julian Johnson discusses how novel, historically speaking, is the idea of complete relativism in musical judgment. (33 minutes)
Light from Neither the East nor the West
June 30, 2023
Ken Myers reads an essay by theologian John Betz titled “Light from Neither the East nor the West.” It is the third of three essays by Betz in which he distinguishes a Christian understanding of freedom from the conventional modern definitions. (41 minutes)
Everything about everything comes from God
October 5, 2023
Theologian Andrew Davison discusses how the idea of participation informs our understanding of God, of Creation, of being, of knowing, of loving, of law, of economics, etc. (28 minutes)
Conscience and its counterfeits
October 20, 2023
A 2014 lecture by theologian Reinhard Hütter examines “Freedom of Conscience as Freedom in the Truth: Conscience according to Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman.” (64 minutes)
Light is more powerful than darkness
December 1, 2023
An essay by medieval scholar Nicholas Babich explores works by priest and novelist Robert Hugh Benson that have been eclipsed by his more popular Lord of the World. Ken Myers presents an unabridged reading of Babich’s essay. (30 minutes)
A prophetic pilgrim
May 3, 2024
Historian Eric Miller charts Christopher Lasch’s intellectual journey in search of a vision that could direct Americans toward the higher hopes and nobler purposes that might lead to a flourishing common life. (57 minutes)