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.
We are not “stochastic parrots”
In this essay, Talbot Brewer argues that our understanding of the nature of words and their relationship to human nature is “teetering” due to artificial intelligence chatbot systems and large language models (LLMs). (42 minutes)
God at the center of all
George Marsden discusses the unique philosophical and theological insights Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) had into his own era. (35 minutes)
Necessary introspection
Ken Myers introduces listeners to liturgical music for traditional Holy Week services, music that encourages deep introspection and contemplation of sorrow. (27 minutes)
On disposable experience
Todd Gitlin argues that we simultaneously resent and crave the experience of media saturation, and that it ultimately cheapens our lives. (33 minutes)
How tech is making us less human
Christine Rosen argues that we must reckon with serious moral and ethical questions raised by the acceleration of “artificial intelligence” into almost every area of life. (31 minutes)
Nietzsche, technology, and desire
Steven Knepper and Robert Wyllie discuss philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s thought on Nietzsche and on the effects of digital media on concepts of freedom, desire, and receptivity to others. (14 minutes)
The desire for truth
In this article, Romanus Cessario, O.P., recounts the life, theology, and influence of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–1274). (38 minutes)
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)
