Christian unity and civil society

Related reading and listening

• War and loving our enemy-neighbor — Oliver O’Donovan on evaluating the conduct of war in light of the evangelical command of love
• 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 primacy of the Body of Christ — FROM VOL. 134 Philip Turner reflects on how Christian ethics is misplaced if it has as its central concern individual moral behavior or social justice. (28 minutes)
• Moral reasoning and human flourishing — Tim McIntosh describes moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s intellectual conversion to a synthesis of Aristotelian ethics and Christianity, best embodied in Thomism. (44 minutes)
• Politics and idolatry — FROM VOL. 109 Theologian William Cavanaugh explains how the modern state is a unique kind of political entity, inviting a new kind of idolatry. (26 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)
• How communities remember who they are — Oliver O’Donovan on the necessity of tradition in sustaining communal identity
• Publicity and representative images in society — Oliver O’Donovan describes the nature of publicity as the force that mediates our communication with one another, creating common interests and then rapidly subsuming them into newer ones.(Lecture 3 of 3; 57 minutes)
• How common loves shape communities — Oliver O’Donovan discusses how communities mediate love and knowledge to their members and what challenges arise as a community’s traditions are confronted by sin, error, and plurality. (Lecture 2 of 3; 49 minutes)
• The “sovereign uselessness of moral reflection” — Calling on the wisdom of St. Augustine, Oliver O’Donovan reminds his listeners that all knowledge participates in the eternal Logos of God and is rooted in love, not disinterested moral judgement.(Lecture 1 of 3; 52 minutes)
• Modern fictional “heroes” — FROM VOL. 141 Susanna Lee discusses moral authority in the heroes of hard-boiled crime fiction. (24 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)
• Humility and moral knowledge — FROM VOL. 149 Steven L. Porter discusses The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, an unfinished manuscript (which he helped to complete) by the late philosopher Dallas Willard. (22 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)
• How the Church promotes the cause of freedom — Oliver O’Donovan: “We discover we are free when we are commanded by that authority which commands us according to the law of our being, disclosing the secrets of the heart.”
• “The search for shared ends” — Oliver O’Donovan examines whether and to what extent there might be the possibility of a unifying Christian perspective on political doctrine or policy. (59 minutes)
• Thinking coherently about politics — Ken Myers gives an introduction to political theologian Oliver O’Donovan, whose work has been instrumental in teaching many how to think about social and political life in light of the gospel of Christ. (57 minutes)
• The law of faith and of love — Oliver O’Donovan compares St. Augustine’s interpretation of Psalm 119 with that of others, revealing Augustine’s more nuanced understanding of the complexities of the life of faith that the psalmist explores. (64 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)
• “Only a real world can save us” — Oliver O’Donovan explores how the “religion” of modernity lacks a coherent world in which one may participate with full human agency and moral purpose. (Lecture 3 of 3; 61 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)
• Knowing and doing the good — Oliver O’Donovan raises several key questions and complications involved in the task of taking concrete and practical action toward a recognized moral good. (Lecture 3 of 3; 63 minutes)
• Moral knowledge of reality — Oliver O’Donovan argues that admiration is the fundamental form of knowing the world, as we cannot know fully those elements of reality (“bare facts”) that contain no significance for us. (Lecture 2 of 3; 55 minutes)
• Attentiveness to the world, the self, and time — Oliver O’Donovan uses the metaphor of waking to discuss the concept of moral sensibility as attention to the world, the self, and time. (Lecture 1 of 3; 60 minutes)
• The roots of “the indignant self-righteousness of protest” in modern politics — Alasdair MacIntyre on why unmasking nefarious motives became “one of the most characteristically modern of activities”
• It takes a character (and a village) — Herbert McCabe, O.P. on the Aristotelian, Thomistic, and MacIntyrean account of the moral life
• Manners and morals — FROM VOL. 19 Film and literary critic Alan Jacobs discusses how modern audiences relate to the manners and morals portrayed in Jane Austen films. (16 minutes)
• A more robust account of political life — FROM VOL. 138 John Milbank and Adrian Pabst on why politics needs to recognize the human soul in its depth (and what happens when it doesn’t). (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)
• Hillbilly Augustinian — Ralph Wood on Flannery O’Connor’s refusal to adapt her fiction to the national temper
• Etiquette and ethics — In this essay, Judith Martin (a.k.a. Miss Manners) argues that etiquette is “civilization’s first necessity” and an indispensable societal virtue. (21 minutes)
• Against hacking babies — Oliver O’Donovan raises questions about IVF and the technologically ordered motive for efficiency
• Impact of “infotainment” on community — Neil Gabler and C. John Sommerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. (36 minutes)
• Recognizing the Puritan flavor of “America” — George McKenna on the originally theocentric vision for the American vocation
• 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)
• Critiquing “empire criticism” — Allan Bevere and Peter Leithart evaluate “empire criticism,” a way of reading the New Testament with an anti-imperial focus. (36 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 163 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Youngblood, R. J. Snell, Nicholas Denysenko, Nigel Biggar, Robert McNamara, and David Cayley
• Embodied knowledge — FROM VOL. 121 James K. A. Smith advocates for a return to some pre-modern conceptualizations of the human body. (18 minutes)
• The fatal polytheism of late liberalism — Oliver O’Donovan on the failure that leads to social collapse, marked by conflict, suspicion, and violence
• Courtesy as a theological issue — FROM VOL. 37 Donald McCullough discusses his insights into the increasingly coarse nature of society and the theological foundations for courtesy. (12 minutes)
• Unmasking claims of “secular neutrality” — Lesslie Newbigin on the Church’s prophetic duty concerning public life
• The kingdom of God has public consequences — Lesslie Newbigin on the subversiveness of the Church’s message to the world
• 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)
• Insisting that political leaders are incapable of obeying Christ — Oliver O’Donovan on the unintended consequences of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
• The gift of objective reality — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan makes an argument for the consistency of the idea of law when it is conceived in a theological context. (40 minutes)
• Freedom as conformity to reality — W. Bradford Littlejohn summarizes the definitions of liberty offered by Richard Bauckham and Oliver O’Donovan