PREVIEW
Guests heard on Volume 163
Andrew Youngblood, author of Know Thyself: Classical Catholic Education and the Discovery of Self, on the rise of the classical education movement
R. J. Snell, author of Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope, on living in a chaotic universe
Nicholas Denysenko, author of The Church’s Unholy War: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Orthodoxy, on the historical background to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine
Nigel Biggar, author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, on the need for a historically informed moral accounting of the British empire
Robert McNamara, author of The Personalism of Edith Stein: A Synthesis of Thomism and Phenomenology, on the deep inner life and penetrating philosophical insights of Edith Stein
David Cayley, author of Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, on Illich’s understanding of modernity
Related reading and listening
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- Embodied knowledge —
FROM VOL. 121 James K. A. Smith advocates for a return to some pre-modern conceptualizations of the human body. (18 minutes) - Virgil and purposeful history — In this lecture from June 2019, classical educator Louis Markos examines Book II of The Aeneid to argue that Virgil had an eschatological view of history. (68 minutes)
- 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) - Bearing well the burdens of the past, present, and future — Louis Markos shows how great literature like the Iliad links us to the human story and strengthens us to live fully and well. (65 minutes)
- 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)
- Worldliness vs. otherworldliness —
FROM VOL. 38 Sociologist Craig Gay speaks of the charge that Christianity is an otherworldly religion. (12 minutes) - Augusto Del Noce’s critique of modernity —
FROM VOL. 128 Physicist and mathematician Carlo Lancellotti discusses the life and work of twentieth-century Italian philosopher, Augusto Del Noce. (25 minutes) - Faith as the pathway to knowledge — Lesslie Newbigin on authority and the Author of all being
- 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
- 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) - In praise of a hierarchy of taste — In a lecture at a CiRCE Institute conference, Ken Myers presented a rebuttal to the notion that encouraging the aesthetic appreciation of “higher things” is elitist and undemocratic. (58 minutes)
- A fearful darkness in mind, heart, and spirit — Roberta Bayer draws on the work of George Parkin Grant (1918–1988) to argue that our “culture of death” must be countered with an understanding of reality based in love, redemptive suffering, and a recognition of limitations to individual control. (33 minutes)
- 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)
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- Cleansing sea breezes — Thomas C. Oden argues that rather than being conformed to contemporary ideological trends, we should be informed by 2000 years of the Church’s wisdom. And Darrell Amundsen corrects some false claims about the early Church’s views on suicide. (27 minutes)
- Divorcing the spirit of the age — Thomas C. Oden on overcoming the theological faddism of the late twentieth century
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FROM VOL. 118 Historian Peter Brown explains that in spite of having had access for centuries to the Church fathers’ numerous writings, only recently have we come to understand the social and material context within which they lived. (18 minutes) - 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)
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FROM VOL. 98 This Archive Feature revisits two conversations, one with Roger Lundin and one with David Bentley Hart, on what makes Christian belief so implausible to non-believers. (39 minutes) - Nihilism in popular culture —
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- Biggar, Nigel — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Described as “one of the leading living Western ethicists,” Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford, where he directs the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life.
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- 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)
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- 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)
- 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)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 156 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kimbell Kornu, Paul Tyson, Mark Noll, David Ney, William C. Hackett, and Marian Schwartz
- Sources of wisdom (and of doubt) — Roger Lundin shares what he has appreciated about Mars Hill Audio conversations, and he discusses what makes Christian belief so implausible to non-believers. (32 minutes)
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- Before Church and State — Andrew Willard Jones challenges some of the conventional paradigms of thinking about political order, arguing that modern assumptions of the relationship between Church and state color how we understand history. (54 minutes
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- Convivial is beautiful — Ivan Illich on “the opposite of industrial productivity”
- We are not Cybermen — Essayist L. M. Sacasas discusses some of the ideas of Ivan Illich, whose work has influenced Sacasas’s own understanding of the anti-human dynamics of technological society. (21 minutes)
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- The loss of awe, the idolatry of partial thinking — Thaddeus J. Kozinski on reading modernity’s symptoms wisely (and wonder-fully)
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