Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 73

Related reading and listening

1. 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)
2. The Body Worlds exhibit and Western art — FROM VOL. 88 Michael J. Lewis explores the effects of the Body Worlds exhibits on the moral imagination of the viewer, who encounters human cadavers in a mechanistic way erased of all moral context. (26 minutes)
3. Human nature through the eyes of Lucian Freud — FROM VOL. 7 Art critic and sculptor Ted Prescott discusses the work of British realist painter Lucian Freud (notably, the grandson of Sigmund Freud). (8 minutes)
4. Depicting the human form — FROM VOL. 6 Ted Prescott explains the history of portraying the nude human body in art and contrasts it with the way the naked human form is often used in advertising. (9 minutes)
5. “Gender” as ultimate separation — In this November 2018 lecture, Margaret McCarthy explains how the predictions of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae vitae regarding the consequences of separating sex from procreation have proven true. (38 minutes)
6. Alexis de Tocqueville’s penetrating review of America — FROM VOL. 91 Hugh Brogan and Daniel Ritchie discuss Alexis de Tocqueville’s insights into American society, government, and character. (26 minutes)
7. Books worthy of a lifetime of encounters — FROM VOL. 69 Daniel Ritchie discusses why great books programs survive mainly in Christian institutions while declining in secular ones. (13 minutes)
8. Personhood, limits, and academic vocation — FROM VOL. 39 Marion Montgomery (1934–2002) offers a deep critique of the relationship of the academy to its community in an effort to diagnose how higher education has lost its way. (13 minutes)
9. Christopher Hitchens vs. G. K. Chesterton — Ralph Wood compares Christopher Hitchens‘s view of the cosmos with that of G. K. Chesterton, arguing that Chesterton succeeded where Hitchens failed. (44 minutes)
10. Prudence in politics — FROM VOL. 146 Henry T. Edmondson, III talks about Flannery O’Connor’s understanding of political life, which was influenced by a range of thinkers including Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Eric Voegelin, and Russell Kirk. (19 minutes)
11. Flannery O’Connor and Robert Giroux — FROM VOL. 147 Biographer and priest Patrick Samway talks about the relationship between fiction writer Flannery O’Connor and the legendary editor Robert Giroux. (21 minutes)
12. The dangers of the life of the mind — Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., on why Flannery O’Connor encouraged the cultivation of “Christian skepticism”
13. Remembering Miss O’Connor — Literary critic Richard Gilman shares impressions of his relationship with Flannery O’Connor
14. God is in the details — Flannery O’Connor on why stories rely on the particularities of reality
15. The artist’s commitment to truth — Fr. Damian Ference, author of Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist, explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy. (18 minutes)
16. Flannery O’Connor and Thomistic philosophy — Fr. Damian Ference explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy, as evidenced by her reading habits, letters, prayer journal, and, of course, essays and fiction. (48 minutes)
17. Only a dying civilization neglects its dead — Historian Dermot Quinn discusses the work of fellow historian Christopher Dawson (1889–1970). (15 minutes)
18. Christopher Dawson: Chronicler of Christendom’s Rise and Fall — Dermot Quinn discusses historian Christopher Dawson’s meta-historical perspective and his wisdom about what makes cultures healthy or unhealthy. (54 minutes)
19. St. Irenaeus against the Gnostics — In this reading of an essay by theologian Khaled Anatolios, St. Irenaeus is remembered for his synthesis of faith and reason. (52 minutes)
20. “Reading Lewis with blinders on” — Chris Armstrong explains how C. S. Lewis’s work is grounded deeply in the Christian humanist tradition. (45 minutes)
21. 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)
22. The sacramental vision of G. K. Chesterton — FROM VOL. 112Ralph C. Wood describes G. K. Chesterton’s imagination as especially fruitful in conveying grace and edification to his readers. (19 minutes)
23. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
24. Wood, Ralph C. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Ralph C. Wood is Emeritus Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
25. Srigley, Susan — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Susan Srigley is a Professor in the department of Religions and Cultures at Nipissing University (North Bay, Ontario, Canada). Her research focuses on ethics, imagination, and literature.
26. At the trailhead of a long trek — Jessica Hooten Wilson on the discovery of a literary remnant
27. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 160 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jessica Hooten Wilson, Kyle Hughes, Gil Bailie, D. C. Schindler, Paul Tyson, and Holly Ordway
28. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 159 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kirk Farney, Andrew Willard Jones, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew Kaethler, Peter Ramey, and Kathryn Wehr
29. On Earth as it is in Heaven — FROM VOL. 108Hans Boersma — author of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry — explains why Christians should reject the modern separation of Heaven and Earth and recover a “sacramental ontology.” (26 minutes)
30. Promethean medicine? — Stanley Hauerwas on medicine and limits
31. 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)
32. Suffering and the vocation of medicine — Stanley Hauerwas on why the elimination of suffering is an inadequate (and unrealistic) goal for medicine
33. 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)
34. Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 156 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kimbell Kornu, Paul Tyson, Mark Noll, David Ney, William C. Hackett, and Marian Schwartz
35. Human dignity, cosmic hierarchies — Political scientist Robert Kraynak on how Christianity opposes worldly hierarchies with hierarchies of its own
36. Challenging the “gospel of democracy” — Robert Kraynak argues that assumptions many modern Christians hold about liberal democracy are rooted in some false ideas about the nature and purpose of civil government. (46 minutes)
37. Recognizing a frayed tapestry — Hans Boersma summarizes the theological concerns shared by the members of the nouvelle théologie movement
38. Parsing the intellectual vocation — Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmermann demonstrate that some form of humanism has always been central to the purposes of higher education, and insist that the recovery of a rich, Christocentric Christian humanism is the only way for the university to recover a coherent purpose. (39 minutes)
39. On moral authority and medicine — Continuing our time travel back to 1992, we hear two more interviews from the pilot tape for the Mars Hill Tapes, with sociologist James Davison Hunter and bioethicist Nigel Cameron. (28 minutes)
40. God is not Zeus; you are not Prometheus — Ron Highfield addresses those who doubt Christianity’s goodness, especially as regards modern assumptions about identity, freedom, and dignity. (24 minutes)
41. “Broken Bodies Redeemed” — Today’s Feature presents a reading of a 2007 article by Gilbert Meilaender that explores the significance for bioethics of the mystery of human being as body and soul. (39 minutes)
42. The consequential witness of St. Patrick — Thomas Cahill describes how the least likely saviors of Western heritage, the Irish, copied all of classical and Christian literature while barbarians rampaged through the rest of Europe. (16 minutes)
43. Remembering the networks of giving and receiving — O. Carter Snead on the disabling assumptions of expressive individualism in public bioethics
44. Art and the truth of things — Joseph Nicolello explains the origins and themes of his imaginary dialogue between Jacques Maritain and Flannery O’Connor. (28 minutes)
45. The mysteries and glory of Christmas and its music — Ken Myers presents examples of music from five centuries that captures some sense of the astonishing fact of the Nativity of our Lord. (26 minutes)
46. How should we then die? — Stanley Hauerwas asks how the fear of death shapes the practice of medicine
47. Thinking Christianly about the body — Theologian and ethicist Gilbert Meilaender discusses some of the themes he explores in two of his books: Body, Soul and Bioethics; and Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. (19 minutes)
48. Equality and the (modern) dilemma of authority — Sociologist Richard Stivers explains the confused understanding in modern culture about equality, individualism, and authority. (16 minutes)
49. “A roaming unrest of the spirit” — Theologian Reinhard Hütter argues that the contemporary plague of pornography is a symptom of a deep spiritual apathy. (28 minutes)
50. Why churches should be more attentive to space — Eric O. Jacobsen discusses New Urbanism with a Christian perspective, imagining how we might organize places in which life may be lived at a human scale and in which real community is nourished. (26 minutes)