Why communities need authority

Related reading and listening

1. 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)
2. 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)
3. The recovery of true authority for societal flourishing — Michael Hanby addresses a confusion at the heart of our current cultural crisis: a conflation of the concepts of authority and power. (52 minutes)
4. Faith as the pathway to knowledge — Lesslie Newbigin on authority and the Author of all being
5. 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)
6. When is civil disobedience necessary? — Douglas Farrow examines the relation between “the kings of the earth” and the law of Christ, particularly when governmental law is exercised without reference to natural or divine law. (49 minutes)
7. 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)
8. Freedom as conformity to reality — W. Bradford Littlejohn summarizes the definitions of liberty offered by Richard Bauckham and Oliver O’Donovan
9. Renewal of authentic political authority — Brad Littlejohn builds a case for the idea that authority makes free action possible, illustrating how that occurs within the forms of political and epistemic authority, properly understood and wisely practiced. (45 minutes)
10. 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)
11. Life without limits? — Robert Westbook on Christopher Lasch’s critique of the modern rejection of limits
12. Blest be the ties of language that bind us — Marion Montgomery on the precious gift of words
13. 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”
14. 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
15. The Symbol of Authority — In the second of two lectures given by D. C. Schindler, he explores the nature of authority with reference to the transcendental dance of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. (60 minutes)
16. The Authority of the Symbol — In this lecture presented at the CiRCE Institute national conference, D. C. Schindler presents a metaphysical description of what symbols are. (54 Minutes)
17. 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)
18. Rehabilitating authority — Authority, argues David Koyzis, is an aspect of the image of God, exercised to fulfill human vocations. (30 minutes)
19. Common good(s) and authority — Victor Lee Austin describes the ways in which human action is free and flourishing when authority is active and honored. (26 minutes)
20. Power to the people — Nathan O. Hatch on the DIY spirit of early American Christianity
21. The meaning of the modern eclipse of authority — Augusto Del Noce on the greatest modern reversal
22. Convivial is beautiful — Ivan Illich on “the opposite of industrial productivity”
23. Politics in light of the Ascension — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of situating all political authority within redemptive history
24. Democratic Authority at Century’s End — 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)
25. The problem of authority is the problem of unbelief — John Patrick Diggins on Max Weber’s struggle to imagine social order without authority
26. Equality and the (modern) dilemma of authority — Sociologist Richard Stivers explains the confused understanding in modern culture about equality, individualism, and authority. (16 minutes)
27. 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)
28. Freed from the burden of choice — Writing in the mid-1990s, Alan Ehrenhalt reflects on the relationship between authority and community
29. What authorizes authority? — Victor Lee Austin: “All authority comes from God and no thing, no being, no realm is outside his dominion.”
30. 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)
31. 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)
32. 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)
33. Loving your neighbor during a pandemic — Brad Littlejohn reflects on how best to ask and answer some of the questions raised by our current disease-ravaged circumstances, particularly questions related to Christian freedom and love of neighbor. (29 minutes)
34. Freedom and equality according to Flannery O’Connor — Three guests discuss Flannery O’Connor’s ideas: Henry T. Edmondson, III, on O’Connor’s understanding of political life; Ralph C. Wood, on O’Connor as a “hillbilly Thomist”; and Susan Srigley, on O’Connor’s sacramental and incarnational fiction. (18 minutes)
35. Christopher Lasch: “Conservatism against Itself” — In this early article from First Things, historian Christopher Lasch poses the question of whether cultural conservatism is compatible with capitalism. (42 minutes)
36. The leaning tower of gabble — Oliver O’Donovan on how authority and language connect us with reality and thus sustain community
37. Culture as legacy — Hannah Arendt on the place of authority and tradition in education
38. Learning to live within a hierarchy of goods — Richard M. Weaver on the ends of education
39. Command and liberation — Oliver O’Donovan on the freedom of living under authority
40. Keeping “the good” in the common good — D. C. Schindler on the metaphysical character of real community
41. Leaders with management skills (but no virtues) — Philip Turner on viewing authority as mere conflict management
42. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 125 — FEATURED GUESTS: Brent Hull, David Koyzis, Steve Wilkens, Roger Lundin, Craig Bernthal, and Kerry McCarthy
43. How communities remember who they are — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of tradition in sustaining communal identity
44. How the Church promotes the cause of freedom — Oliver O’Donovan: “We discover we are free when we are commanded by that authority which commands us according to the law of our being, disclosing the secrets of the heart.”
45. 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)
46. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 113 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven Shapin, Arthur Boers, Christine Pohl, Norman Wirzba, Craig Bartholomew, and David I. Smith
47. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 108 — FEATURED GUESTS: Thomas Albert Howard, Jean Porter, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hans Boersma, Felicia Wu Song, and Elias Aboujaoude
48. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 107 — FEATURED GUESTS: Victor Lee Austin, Ellen T. Charry, Anthony Esolen, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Allen Verhey, and Calvin Stapert
49. A devilish temptation — Wendell Berry explains how the modern Western ideal of the sovereign self enshrines a story of the abandonment of restrictions and restraints in the name of human freedom.
50. Joshua P. Hochschild: “Globalization: Ancient and Modern” — Joshua P. Hochschild examines the effects of globalization on local communities and argues for the need for reflection on the ends of politics given the ends of human beings. (36 minutes)