Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 156

Related reading and listening

1. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 163 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Youngblood, R. J. Snell, Nicholas Denysenko, Nigel Biggar, Robert McNamara, and David Cayley
2. Cosmetic surgery and human perfectibility — Elizabeth Haiken examines the shift that occurred in 20th century America from a focus on developing character to a focus on developing “personality” and achieving physical perfection. (19 minutes)
3. Embodied knowledge — FROM VOL. 121 James K. A. Smith advocates for a return to some pre-modern conceptualizations of the human body. (18 minutes)
4. Paradoxical attitudes toward plastic — Jeffrey Meikle traces the technological, economic, and cultural development of plastic and relates it to the American value of authenticity. (15 minutes)
5. From shadows to the light of reality — FROM VOL. 153 Louis Markos argues that Plato needs to be recognized for his unique and serendipitous role in preparing the world for Christ. (24 minutes)
6. 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)
7. Science’s need for philosophy and revelation — D. Stephen Long explores a consistent theme in the work of theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: the relationship between Christianity, modernity, and secularity. (46 minutes)
8. The roots of American disorder — In this reading of an article from 2021 by Michael Hanby, the critique of Marxism in Augusto del Noce’s work is compared with texts from the American Founders. (79 minutes)
9. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
10. 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)
11. 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)
12. “Muscular Christianity” and sport as language — In light of this summer’s Olympic Games, we present two sports-related archive interviews: Clifford Putney on Protestant emphasis on fitness at the turn of the 19th century; and Andrei S. Markovits on Americans and soccer. (23 minutes)
13. Theological realism — Kevin J. Vanhoozer discusses theologian T. F. Torrance’s understanding of the positive relation between science and theology. (52 minutes)
14. America’s not-so-Christian past — In a conversation from 2012, historian John Fea discusses the idea of America as a Christian nation. (27 minutes)
15. How Christianity crossed the Atlantic — FROM VOL. 55 Mark Noll describes the different form that the Christian faith and the life of churches took when Christianity migrated to North America. (16 minutes)
16. An unwitting agent for the secularization of America — Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden explain how a prominent Christian Founding Father added momentum to the secularization of America
17. From democracy to bureaucracy — Historian John Lukacs on the challenges of living at the End of an Age
18. Ideas and historical consequences — Historian John Lukacs (1924–2019) discusses the relationship between institutions and character, popular sentiment versus public opinion, the distinction between patriotism and nationalism, and the very nature of studying history. (36 minutes)
19. 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
20. Discerning an alternative modernity — In a lecture from 2019, Simon Oliver presents a summary of the cultural consequences of the comprehensiveness of the work of Christ. (28 minutes)
21. Lessons from Leviticus — The book of Leviticus may be assumed to be irrelevant for charting a way through the challenges of modernity. Theologian Peter J. Leithart disagrees. (22 minutes)
22. Tyson, Paul — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Dr Paul Tyson is a Senior Honorary Fellow with the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is an applied philosophical theologian.
23. Scholarship’s silos and the eclipse of meaning — Paul Tyson on how the modern academy avoids engagement with Reality
24. Noll, Mark — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Mark Noll is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Notre Dame and Wheaton College. A prolific author, Noll’s publications cover a wide range of topics of interest to evangelicalism.
25. Schwartz, Marian — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Marian Schwartz has published over 100 volumes of Russian fiction and nonfiction.
26. Kornu, Kimbell — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Kimbell Kornu is the inaugural Provost’s Professor of Bioethics, Theology, and Christian Formation at Belmont University and is a Palliative Care physician.
27. Hackett, William C. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: William C. Hackett is a Roman Catholic philosopher, novelist, and translator.
28. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 160 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jessica Hooten Wilson, Kyle Hughes, Gil Bailie, D. C. Schindler, Paul Tyson, and Holly Ordway
29. Christian scholars and the secularized academy — Mark Noll on why Christian intellectual vitality requires a vision for the universality of Christian truth
30. The future of Christian learning — Historian Mark Noll insists that for Christian intellectual life to flourish, a vision for comprehensive and universal social and cultural consequences of the Gospel has to be assumed. (18 minutes)
31. Freedom from the nature of things? — Leon Kass on the pressure exerted by the authority of science to embrace reductionistic materialism
32. 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)
33. Among Oppenheimer’s company — James L. Nolan, Jr., the author of Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, discusses the Manhattan Project as a case study in the dangers of technological enthusiasm outpacing wisdom and caution. (27 minutes)
34. Alice von Hildebrand centennial — Today’s Feature presents a recording of remarks made by Alice von Hildebrand at an event celebrating her 90th birthday, where she spoke of gratitude and the gifts of God in her life. (17 minutes)
35. Once there was no “secular” — Carlos Eire on the metaphysical assumptions championed in the sixteenth century
36. Deconstructing the myths of modernity — In order to counter modernity’s fragmentation, Paul Tyson argues that we must recover a foundation of reality based on meaning and being. (35 minutes)
37. Promethean medicine? — Stanley Hauerwas on medicine and limits
38. On medicine and the meaning of suffering — Guests Susan Bergman and Christopher Shannon discuss the meaning of suffering and how we might suffer well with Christ. (19 minutes)
39. Resituating discussion of “science” and “religion” — Peter Harrison argues that modern Western culture’s partitioning of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ into distinct spheres is a novel categorical conception in history. (58 minutes)
40. Suffering and the vocation of medicine — Stanley Hauerwas on why the elimination of suffering is an inadequate (and unrealistic) goal for medicine
41. Health and personhood — Dr. Kimbell Kornu explains how the training of medical professionals should be shaped by a recognition of a Christian understanding of personhood. (22 minutes)
42. Science, the only reliable leader (but to where?) — Stephen Gaukroger on the replacement of political, social, and cultural goals with scientific, technological, and economic ones
43. Recovering natural philosophy — Science teacher Ravi Scott Jain discusses natural philosophy, the “love of wisdom in the realm of nature,” as the overarching discipline in the sciences. (21 minutes)
44. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 155 — FEATURED GUESTS: Donald Kraybill, Thaddeus Kozinski, David Bentley Hart, Nigel Biggar, Ravi Scott Jain, and Jason Baxter
45. Postmodern man in search of a soul — Christopher Kaczor argues that celebrity psychologist Jordan Peterson asks important, forgotten questions as a “fellow traveler” to Christianity. (27 minutes)
46. Beyond proof-texts — Mark Noll argues that the distinctly American practice of interpreting the Bible through proof-texting hampered the abolitionist movement’s effectiveness. (41 minutes)
47. Republican freedom — and ideological flexibility — Mark Noll on the novelty of America’s Christian republicanism
48. The Church and the powers that be — Historian Mark Noll summarizes Christian ideas about political life in the last few centuries, examining how those ideas were worked out in various contexts in Western Europe and North America. (39 minutes)
49. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 152 — FEATURED GUESTS: Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Jeffrey Bilbro, Zena Hitz, James L. Nolan, Jr., Bishop Robert Barron, and Jason Blakely
50. How should we then die? — Stanley Hauerwas asks how the fear of death shapes the practice of medicine