Religious pluralism & the calling of Christian intellectuals

Related reading and listening

• A “cosmological omnibus” — George Grant recounts the fascinating history of Hernando Colón’s attempt in the 16th century to curate a universal library of the world’s knowledge. (41 minutes)
• The beauty of truth and goodness — FROM VOL. 141 James Matthew Wilson talks about how cultivating the desire to perceive the interior life of things sustains the basic human capacity for recognizing truth, pursuing wisdom, and contemplating beauty. (23 minutes)
• Heaven and earth are full of His glory — Gerald R. McDermott examines the typological tradition of the Church, particularly through Jonathan Edwards’s thought, and he argues for a recovery of the Christian understanding of the universe as an “immense Trinitarian symbol.” (61 minutes)
• A false dichotomy — In this conversation from 2009, Dallas Willard (1934–2013) discusses the truth of spiritual knowledge and its epistemological validity. (63 minutes)
• The establishment of nonbelief — FROM VOL. 10 George Marsden explains how and why American universities became places where religious concerns are excluded. (10 minutes)
• Nervousness about the shape of religion in America — Thomas Albert Howard discusses European perspectives of eighteenth-century American religious life. (21 minutes)
• The vocation of the life of the mind — FROM VOL. 117 Jeffry Davis and Philip Ryken explain why the liberal arts ought to be recognized as a calling that enriches Christian living. (26 minutes)
• What we can know about God’s nature — Bruce McCormack outlines the history of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. He shows how early Christians’ understanding of the nature of God moved from a focus on His oneness to a more full apprehension of His Triune nature. (66 minutes)
• Christian unity and civil society — Oliver O’Donovan introduces listeners to Dutch lay theologian Hugo Grotius, arguing that the questions he tackled relate to perennial concerns about the relationship between divine and human agency, and between civil and ecclesiastical authority. (Lecture 2 of 3; 57 minutes)
• The demoralizing effect of pagan Roman religion — Oliver O’Donovan examines St. Augustine’s critique of pagan Roman religion in Book II of his treatise City of God and asks his audience to consider what insights Augustine’s critique has for us today. (Lecture 1 of 3; 51 minutes)
• Seeing Creation Anew: The Life & Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins — Dana Gioia examines Gerard Manley Hopkins‘s poetic genius and dedication to Christ in spite of his personal trials and difficult cultural context. (55 minutes)
• The theological significance of current events — FROM VOL. 65 George Marsden discusses how Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) understood world history and the American experience. (14 minutes)
• Were Christian martyrs considered suicides? — FROM VOL. 36 Darrel Amundsen counters the modern myth that the early Church up until St. Augustine was accepting and even favorable of suicide. (12 minutes)
• The need for robust Christian intellectual life — In this lecture, Robert Benne surveys the contemporary landscape in which Christian scholars attempt to integrate their faith and their intellectual life. (43 minutes)
• Treating Truth with sovereign respect — Henri de Lubac on the urgency of intellectual activity
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 163 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Youngblood, R. J. Snell, Nicholas Denysenko, Nigel Biggar, Robert McNamara, and David Cayley
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
• No neutral view of the cosmos — Ken Myers argues that Christians need to recover a “whole-earth discipleship” that enables them to think Christianly about all areas of life, including public life. (50 minutes)
• The life was the light of men — Robert Jenson reflects on the relationship that should be sustained between the Church and those of her members with an “intellectual” vocation.
• 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)
• The early Church on asceticism and almsgiving — FROM VOL. 118Historian Peter Brown explains that in spite of having had access for centuries to the Church fathers’ numerous writings, only recently have we come to understand the social and material context within which they lived. (18 minutes)
• Divine demonstration — Robert Louis Wilken on the folly of arguing for God’s existence apart from the reality of Christ
• Philosophy and loving the Logos — Robert Louis Wilken on early Christians and the pursuit of a virtuous life
• Let saints on Earth in concert sing . . . — In this audio reprint of an article from First Things, Church historian Robert Wilken describes how the lives of virtuous Christians became models for imitation.(46 minutes)
• We feebly struggle, they in glory shine — Church historian Robert Wilken describes how the early Church’s witness about the nature of truth challenged the assumptions of the surrounding culture. (15 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 159 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kirk Farney, Andrew Willard Jones, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew Kaethler, Peter Ramey, and Kathryn Wehr
• Welcoming one another — Christine Pohl describes the practice of hospitality in Church history and the particular challenges to hospitality we face in our era. (30 minutes)
• Fuller and truer ways of being — Zena Hitz on some of the blessings of the love of learning
• Trails, furrows, and bookish virtues — Zena Hitz offers some rich reflections on the remarkable feature of human life that is the love of learning. (16 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 152 — FEATURED GUESTS: Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Jeffrey Bilbro, Zena Hitz, James L. Nolan, Jr., Bishop Robert Barron, and Jason Blakely
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 148 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven D. Smith, Willem Vanderburg, Jeffrey Bilbro, Emma Mason, Alison Milbank, and Timothy Larsen
• The Cross in artistic expression — Richard Viladesau examines how the Passion of the Christ has been depicted artistically and aesthetically throughout Church history. (21 minutes)
• Why culture won’t prevent anarchy — James Matthew Wilson explains how T. S. Eliot presented a compelling alternative to Matthew Arnold’s belief that the arts and literature could sufficiently replace religion’s function in modern society. (11 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 141 — FEATURED GUESTS: Grant Wythoff, Susanna Lee, Gerald R. McDermott, Carlos Eire, Kelly Kapic, and James Matthew Wilson
• History of the Church in 100 objects — The Cave of the Nativity, the Holy Grail, and the Wittenberg Door: all objects representing a chapter in the history of the Church. (16 minutes)
• Robert W. Jenson: “How the World Lost Its Story” — Theologian Robert W. Jenson describes how a postmodern world is characterized by the loss of a conviction that we inhabit a “narratable world” that exists coherently outside of ourselves. (40 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 124 — FEATURED GUESTS: John Fea, Robert F. Rea, John C. Pinheiro, R. J. Snell, Duncan G. Stroik, Kate Tamarkin, and Fiona Hughes
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 110 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kevin Belmonte, David Lyle Jeffrey and Gregory Maillet, Mark Noll, Alan Jacobs, and Jonathan Chaplin
• 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 88 — FEATURED GUESTS: Diana Pavlov Glyer, Michael J. Lewis, Steve Talbott, Darryl Tippens, Everett Ferguson, Alexander Lingas, and Calvin Stapert
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 86 — FEATURED GUESTS: Roger Lundin, Lawrence Buell, Harold K. Bush, Jr., Katherine Shaw Spaht, Steven L. Nock, Norman Klassen, and Jens Zimmermann
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 82 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stephen Gardner, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Wilfred McClay, David Wells, James K. A. Smith, and Robert Littlejohn
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 79 — FEATURED GUESTS: Carson Holloway, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hadley Arkes, Ben Witherington, III, Christopher Shannon, and Roger Lundin
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 78 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Bauerlein, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Sam Van Eman, Thomas de Zengotita, Eugene McCarraher, and John Witte, Jr.
• Technology’s deeper resonances — An issue of The New Atlantis provides evidence that it is the most instructive and insightful publication examining the many facets of the relationship between technology and culture.
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 65 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stephen G. Post, Glenn C. Altschuler, Mark Oppenheimer, Johnny Cash, George Marsden, and Julian Johnson
• Sources of Ancient Wisdom — Excerpts from two books about pre-modern Christian understanding: Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, by Christopher A. Hall, and Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, by D. H. Williams. (95 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 41 — FEATURED GUESTS: Harry Blamires, David Healy, Paul Gutjahr, Christine Pohl, Francis Fukuyama, Paul Corby Finney, and J. A. C. Redford
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 20 — FEATURED GUESTS: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Roger Lundin, Wilfred McClay, Andrew A. Tadie, Robert Jenson, Ted Prescott, and Ted Libbey