Some of the audio we distribute has been provided by partnering organizations. These Bonus Features include lectures and “audio reprints” — readings from magazines, journals, and blog posts.
To return to the source
D. C. Schindler explores the difference between revolution as negation and revolt and revolution as a radical return to deeper origins. (50 minutes)
No place left onstage for hope?
James Matthew Wilson explores the tragic vision of the world in Shakespeare’s plays, revealing the often-overlooked and somewhat hidden hints of grace and of Christ that point to a more hopeful view of the cosmos. (59 minutes)
The holy fool in Russian culture
Storyteller Nicholas Kotar speaks of the role of the “idiot” in Russian fairy tales, one whose simplicity and humility lead to wisdom and the transformation of those around them. (48 minutes)
“A revolution prevented, not made”
Darrell Falconbourg explains the tensions inherent in the word “revolution,” which in the classical sense meant a return to an origin and in modernity means a total rupture with the past. (41 minutes)
“Ecce homo”
In this lecture, Orthodox theologian John Behr draws from the book of Genesis and early Church Fathers Irenaeus, Ignatius, Maximus to answer the question, What is a human being? (53 minutes)
The construction of the empty self
Angela Franks explains the history of the modern concept of identity as a project and shows how it falls short of a holistic Christian view of the self. (minutes)
The mystery and dignity of the human person
Jens Zimmermann reflects on why a defense of personhood is a crucial task for the future of humanity. (47 minutes)
Implications of an “absent” God
David L. Schindler (1943–2022) explores the implications for a civilization that discards the reality that being is grounded in God. (minutes)
The unmasking of self-fictions
Glenn Arbery describes what the genre of tragedy reveals about human experience and how it does this work of revelation. (63 minutes)
“The secret at the heart of poetry”
Glenn Arbery explores how lyric poetry works to reveal essential insights into human and transcendent experience. (47 minutes)
Quiet misanthropy vs. Christian humanism
Bishop Robert Barron explores the misanthropic and inherently unstable anthropology at the heart of the modern university and offers an alternative for human flourishing. (46 minutes)
“We become what we behold”
Peter Crawford explores how a sacramental education involves helping students to behold a world saturated with signs that point to Christ — and then to act as faithful stewards. (68 minutes)
The “two-foldness” of human nature
In this lecture, Marc Barnes critiques the current reigning system of gender for its ironies, internal inconsistencies, and failure to satisfy or “work” on its own terms. (32 minutes)
The nature of things
In this 2026 lecture, Mary Harrington explores modernity’s “Thomophobic epistemological straitjacket” that bans serious inquiry into the nature of things. (41 minutes)
The reclaiming of authentic liberalism
John Médaille examines the Christian roots of liberalism and how liberalism might be recovered from the heresy of secularism. (51 minutes)
Catechesis in “Screentopia”
In this lecture, Brad East builds a case for why he believes digital technology is the greatest threat facing American Christians today. (57 minutes)
