These programs include new and archive interviews, readings from important journal and magazine articles, lectures by important scholars, and the occasional illustrated essay about seasonal music. The ten most recent Features are available to all from our app, and the most recent one is available on our home page. Members have access to hundreds of past Features and may download them to the app for later listening.
When myth becomes fact
In this 1976 interview, Clyde Kilby (1902–1986) discusses C. S. Lewis’s critique of scientism and rationalism, his belief in the primacy of the imagination, and his mythic vision. (37 minutes)
“A Myth Retold”
Literary critic Thomas Howard explains why he considers C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces to be one of the author’s richest and most rewarding works. (18 minutes)
Christian culture and the myth of the secular
Ken Myers draws on T. S. Eliot to argue that Western civilization has broken down, not into a multiplicity of cultures, but into a “post-culture.” (47 minutes)
Disengagement from the world
Nicholas Carr encourages us to consider how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world and whether — like a good tool — they present a more inviting world or close us off from that world. (30 minutes)
A sampling of newly published lectures
Ken Myers introduces listeners to four recently released lectures, courtesy of our Partners. The lecturers are Jennifer Frey, Gary Saul Morson, N. T. Wright, and Andrew Kern. (27 minutes)
The just war tradition and whole-life discipleship
Daniel M. Bell, Jr. discusses the just war tradition, a tradition which is often invoked by figures who, upon closer inspection, tend to lack a robust understanding of its history and criteria. (57 minutes)
Divine love and human sexuality
Paul Tyson argues that views about sexuality are downstream from theological — or at least metaphysical — assumptions about human nature. (16 minutes)
The roots of J. S. Bach’s fruitfulness
Music historian Markus Rathey explains why and how J. S. Bach composed his choral works as he did. (54 minutes)
Rose without thorns
Ken Myers introduces various settings of “Ther is no rose of swych vertu,” a medieval carol that uses imagery of a rosebush to describe the Virgin Mary. (29 minutes)
Silence at the end of history
Alan Jacobs examines several literary imaginings of “the last days” and argues that such narration is profoundly inadequate and perhaps even presumptuous. (51 minutes)
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland
Ken Myers looks at the history of an Advent hymn written by St. Ambrose in the fourth century, adapted by Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, and transformed by J. S. Bach and many others in the years since. (21 minutes)
“Subtraction stories” and a longing for transcendence
In this lecture, James K. A. Smith explores key elements of Charles Taylor’s understanding of what it means to live in a secular age. (43 minutes)
Buying and selling holidays, identities, and ourselves
We present four interviews on American consumerism, with Leigh Eric Schmidt, David Lyon, Thomas Frank, and Sam Van Eman. (46 minutes)
Theology and the imagination
Jeffrey Barbeau explains what made C. S. Lewis an effective “translator” of theology for non-theologians. (21 minutes)
An icon of the whole world
Jason Baxter explains how Dante includes a panoply of characters and creatures in his Comedia, offering a prismatic view of all of Creation in its glory. (20 minutes)
A flood of images
Oliver O’Donovan describes the distinctive character of publicity in modernity, which drowns us in a flood of ever-changing representations that do not serve the common good. (37 minutes)
