Modernity

FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Youngblood, R. J. Snell, Nicholas Denysenko, Nigel Biggar, Robert McNamara, and David Cayley

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)

FROM VOL. 128 Physicist and mathematician Carlo Lancellotti discusses the life and work of twentieth-century Italian philosopher, Augusto Del Noce. (25 minutes)

Lesslie Newbigin on authority and the Author of all being

FROM VOL. 156 William C. Hackett discusses the relationships between philosophy and theology, and of both to the meaning embedded in myth. (29 minutes)

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)

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)

Thomas C. Oden on overcoming the theological faddism of the late twentieth century

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)

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)

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)

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)

In this Friday Feature — presented courtesy of Biola University — Carlo Lancellotti talks with Aaron Kheriaty about the central ideas in Augusto Del Noce’s writings. (43 minutes)

Thaddeus J. Kozinski on reading modernity’s symptoms wisely (and wonder-fully)

Stephen Gardner and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn discuss Philip Reiff’s diagnosis of how psychology replaced the social roles of religion, morality, and custom, redefining the meaning of what is public. (39 minutes)

Jesse Straight, who nurtures the life of Whiffletree Farm in Warrenton, Virginia, talks about how he decided to pursue a vocation as a farmer in an effort to discover a way of life that worked against the characteristic fragmentation so dispiriting in modern culture. (24 minutes)

Dr. Kimbell Kornu, who teaches health care ethics and palliative medicine at St. Louis University, talks about why modern medicine can’t adequately explain health or suffering, even as doctors promote health and try to eliminate suffering. (28 minutes)

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues that the spirit of the (hyper) modern world is one of relentless disposability and of denial of a transcendent order to the cosmos. (36 minutes)

Peter Leithart discusses Johann Georg Hamann’s insights about the nature of language and his prophetic critique of the Enlightenment. (17 minutes)

Thomas Howard describes C. S. Lewis’s fictional works in terms of a mythological re-presentation of the Christian and pre-modern moral and cosmic vision. (41 minutes)