“For Christians, it can be a stimulating business nowadays to come to grips with specific social corruptions precisely because the assault upon injustice, cruelty, and poverty carries with it the public support of leading elements in our secular civilization. But the fact that it is respectable and fashionable nowadays to be socially conscious does not prove it the most urgent priority of Christian witness. It may by contrast be a forbidding task to turn from the social to the intellectual front, and to attack established modes of thought which have the backing of academic circles with their vast intellectual authority and influence; but the formidableness of the challenge ought surely not to deflect us from taking it up. Indeed the formidableness of the challenge is the measure of its importance. If the change in the temper of our culture is such that we Christians can enjoy being in the vanguard of social progress in the struggles against material injustice, it is also such that we are tempted to shrink from the mental fight, for the prospect of espousing causes which the established and fashionable intellectual circles of our time tend to regard as obscurantist and fanciful is neither attractive nor invigorating. In short, the twentieth-century Christian social gospel for the world in its practical manifestations is now in tune with powerful currents of thought outside the Church; but the Christian’s unchanging understanding of man’s nature and vocation is at loggerheads with established thinking. Is it not therefore incumbent upon us to adjust our priorities, and to strive to counter intellectual apostasy with the same buoyancy and relish with which we confront social injustice?”
—from Harry Blamires, Where Do We Stand? An Examination of the Christian’s Position in the Modern World (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1980)
Related reading and listening
- 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
- Sports in America — FROM VOL. 21 Robert Higgs looks at the history of sports in American experience and at how organized religion has interacted with that history. (12 minutes)
- Divorcing the spirit of the age — Thomas C. Oden on overcoming the theological faddism of the late twentieth century
- Developing a Christian aesthetic — In the inaugural lecture for the Eliot Society, titled “Faithful Imaginations in a Meaningful Creation,” Ken Myers addresses the question of the relationship between the arts and the Church. (59 minutes)
- Consecrating the world — Paul Evdokimov on the cosmic effects of the Incarnation
- Eternal seeds, temporal fruit — Henri de Lubac on how the Church should (and shouldn’t) make a difference in the world
- David K. Naugle, R.I.P. — Philosophy professor, author, and compassionate mentor David K. Naugle (1952-2021) explains the long history of the concepts of “worldview” and “happiness.” (26 minutes)
- Questioning the “sacred-secular” division — With the stage set by Michael Sandel, Jean Bethke Elshtain, David L. Schindler, and John Milbank, Andrew Willard Jones examines a medieval alternative to the modern liberal paradigm. (61 minutes)
- Fr. Chad Hatfield and Peter J. Leithart on Alexander Schmemann — 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)
- Not just a counterculture — Peter J. Leithart on the public (and prophetic) mission of the Church
- Assimilation or identity in Christ — Francisco Javier Martínez Fernández on the modern choice given the Church to conform or die
- The Church as a public reality — William Cavanaugh on how we must be disciples in public, not just citizens
- Cultural participation in reconciliation — Jonathan Wilson on faithfully representing Creation in the culture of the Church
- The publicly inert Christ of modernity — Dom Anscer Vonier on secularism’s confidence in its freedom from Christ
- Which story is ours? — “Instead of allowing the Bible to shape us, we may in fact be allowing our culture to shape the Bible for us.”
- The dead-end of privatized faith — T. S. Eliot on the Church’s duty to interfere with the World
- True transcendence, true immanence — D. C. Schindler on how believers can be practical atheists
- The disabling consequences of winsomeness — Stanley Hauerwas on how many modern Christians offered atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.
- Crowd Culture — Bernard Iddings Bell: “It is because the Church has thus obscured the socially prophetic note that it seems to most people to have no relevancy.”
- Who strangled God? — James Turner examines the ways in which the pursuit of “relevant” theology helped to make atheism plausible in Western culture
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 92 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jake Halpern, Stephen J. Nichols, Richard M. Gamble, Peter J. Leithart, Bill Vitek, and Craig Holdrege
