Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 154

Related reading and listening

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. What is lost with labor-saving devices — Romano Guardini on what is lost when cultural pursuits eclipse natural order
3. 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)
4. The fatal polytheism of late liberalism — Oliver O’Donovan on the failure that leads to social collapse, marked by conflict, suspicion, and violence
5. Self-knowledge versus “selfism” — FROM VOL.10 Psychologist Paul Vitz argues that the modern focus on self-actualization makes the self the highest good in the cosmos. (7 minutes)
6. Technology and the kingdom of God — FROM VOL. 63 Albert Borgmann (1937–2023) believes Christians have an obligation to discuss and discern the kind of world that technology creates and encourages. (12 minutes)
7. 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)
8. The gift of meaningful work — In this lecture, D. C. Schindler argues that genuine work is inherently meaningful and facilitates an encounter with reality and therefore, ultimately, with God. (36 minutes)
9. The physical beauty of music — Music can be likened to a cathedral, says professional guitarist Gordon Kreplin, when it creates through silence and sound a meditative space into which one may enter and encounter God. (14 minutes)
10. Music and the meaning of Creation — In this 2018 lecture, Ken Myers advocates for a recovery of the pre-Enlightenment idea of the intelligibility of music. (61 minutes)
11. Counterpoint as a “spirited discussion” — In this essay, John Ahern explains the beauty and order of counterpoint, the accumulation of multiple melodies that come together in a harmonious whole. (20 minutes)
12. 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)
13. Diverting language from its richest possibilities — FROM VOL. 75 Steve Talbott discusses the rich capacities of language and how technology diminishes them. (18 minutes)
14. 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)
15. Why liberalism tends toward absolutism — In this lecture, Michael Hanby examines what causes liberalism to become dictatorial in thought and practice. (49 minutes)
16. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
17. 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)
18. Automation and human agency — FROM VOL. 150 Philosopher and mechanic Matthew Crawford laments the losses of human skill that correspond with gains in mechanical automation. (21 minutes)
19. Is liberalism compatible with religious freedom? — D. C. Schindler relies on two Thomistic axioms to illustrate why liberalism — which claims to offer a minimalist conception of the common good — is ultimately incompatible with a Catholic understanding of religious freedom. (34 minutes)
20. Forms as portals to reality — Ken Myers explains the ancient classical and Christian view that music embodies an order and forms that correspond to the whole of created reality, in its transcendence and materiality. (54 minutes)
21. “A state of divine carelessness” — FROM VOL. 121 Daniel Gabelman attempts to correct the notion that George MacDonald prizes seriousness and sobriety. (20 minutes)
22. A theology of eating — FROM VOL. 113 Theologian Norman Wirzba examines the relationship between food and faith. (24 minutes)
23. 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.
24. How music reflects and continues the created order — Musician, composer, and teacher Greg Wilbur explores how music reflects the created order of the cosmos. (55 minutes)
25. “Reading Lewis with blinders on” — Chris Armstrong explains how C. S. Lewis’s work is grounded deeply in the Christian humanist tradition. (45 minutes)
26. 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)
27. 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
28. Education, reason, and the Good — Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson on C. S. Lewis’s argument about natural law
29. 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)
30. Rejecting “two-tiered” Thomism — FROM VOL. 155 David Bentley Hart on how “two-tier Thomism” deviates from historic Christian understanding of the relationship between God and Creation. (42 minutes)
31. Martyrdom and music — To mark the feast day of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, we offer an interview from 2004 with composer J. A. C. Redford and poet Scott Cairns about their work together on an oratorio based on the story of Polycarp’s death. (15 minutes)
32. Song, Felicia Wu — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Felicia Wu Song is a cultural sociologist who studies the social effects of digital technologies on community and identity in contemporary life.
33. McCarthy, Kerry — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Kerry McCarthy is a musician and author known for her work on the English Renaissance.
34. Political community and the good — D. C. Schindler on why political life is inevitably “a particular interpretation of the highest human good”
35. In the image of our devices? — In light of the history of the meaning of intellectus, D. C. Schindler questions the use of the word “intelligence” to describe systems employing large language models. (18 minutes)
36. Ward, Michael — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Michael Ward is an Associate Member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hillsdale College.
37. Wirzba, Norman — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Norman Wirzba pursues research and teaching interests at the intersections of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies.
38. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 160 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jessica Hooten Wilson, Kyle Hughes, Gil Bailie, D. C. Schindler, Paul Tyson, and Holly Ordway
39. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 159 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kirk Farney, Andrew Willard Jones, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew Kaethler, Peter Ramey, and Kathryn Wehr
40. Life, liberty, and the defense of dignity — In a 2003 interview, Leon Kass discussed his book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. The unifying theme in the book’s essays is the threat of dehumanization in one form or another. (36 minutes)
41. Schindler, D. C. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Dr. Schindler’s work sheds light on contemporary cultural challenges by drawing on the resources of the classical Christian tradition.
42. 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)
43. 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)
44. The surrender of culture to technology — FROM VOL. 6Neal Postman discuses the ways in which how we think about the world has been influenced by communications technology, even in its earliest forms. (11 minutes)
45. A.I., power, control, & knowledge — Ken Myers shares some paragraphs from Langdon Winner‘s seminal book, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (1977) and from Roger Shattuck‘s Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (1996). An interview with Shattuck is also presented. (31 minutes)
46. Philip Cushman on Constructing the Self — FROM VOL. 16Psychotherapist Philip Cushman explains how individual well-being becomes a goal, rather than a by-product of living in communities with a shared sense of purpose. (14 minutes)
47. Maximalist music — FROM VOL. 8Dominic Aquila explains how — unlike the minimalist composers John Cage and Philip Glass — Arvo Pärt uses purity and simplicity to point beyond the created world to the transcendent Creator. (6 minutes)
48. 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)
49. Technology and social imaginaries — In this interview from 1999, cultural historian David Nye insists that societies have choices about how they use technologies, but that once choices are made and established, a definite momentum is established. (19 minutes)
50. Living into focus — As our lives are increasingly shaped by technologically defined ways of living, Arthur Boers discusses how we might choose focal practices that counter distraction and isolation. (32 minutes)