Alexis de Tocqueville’s penetrating review of America
Human dignity, cosmic hierarchies
Political scientist Robert Kraynak on how Christianity opposes worldly hierarchies with hierarchies of its own
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)
Republican freedom — and ideological flexibility
Mark Noll on the novelty of America’s Christian republicanism
The tasks, conditions, and limits of democratic politics
Excerpts from three interviews with Jean Bethke Elshtain about her concern that democracy might not be able to survive widespread distrust or the dynamics of identity politics. (37 minutes)
Conventional “charismatic” speech, in service of the Zeitgeist
Richard Stivers on how the rhetoric of democracy invites tyranny
Post-liberalism of an earlier generation
Allan C. Carlson discusses an anthology of articles from Free America, a magazine published between 1937 and 1947 whose writers believed that political democracy could only survive if coupled with decentralized economic democracy. (26 minutes)
Skepticism and totalitarian drift
John Paul II on how a loss of confidence in the reality of truth accentuates the will to power
Civil religion and other forms of cultural captivity
Oliver O’Donovan on the danger of accommodating the demands of the Gospel to the expectations of society
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 99
FEATURED GUESTS: Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Paul A. Rahe, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew J. Cherlin, Dale Keuhne, and Alison Milbank
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 97
FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, Stanley Fish, James Peters, Scott Moore, and Makoto Fujimura
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 96
FEATURED GUESTS: David A. Smith, Kiku Adatto, Elvin T. Lim, David Naugle, Richard Stivers, and John Betz
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 91
FEATURED GUESTS: John Witte, Jr., Hugh Brogan, Daniel Ritchie, Daniel Walker Howe, George McKenna, and Patrick Deneen
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 79
FEATURED GUESTS: Carson Holloway, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hadley Arkes, Ben Witherington, III, Christopher Shannon, and Roger Lundin
Russell Hittinger on Church, State, and Catholic Social Teaching
Dr. Russell Hittinger discusses the development in 19th-century Catholic social thought of the idea of society as a spiritual and cultural reality. (60 minutes)