Addenda
A monthly e-mail newsletter from MARS HILL AUDIO
December, 15 2005 v Number 22
"Morality is man's participation in the created order. Christian morality
is his glad response to the deed of God which has restored, proved,
and fulfilled that order, making man free to conform to it."
-- Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics
Update on Volume 77 (November/December 2005)
MHAJ Volume 77 (November/December 2005) has just been delivered to the mailshop and will be in the mail late this week or early next week. A listing of Volume 77's guests is available online.
The CD bonus track, available online in mp3, features Alan Jacobs discussing his book The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis. To listen for free, see our CD bonus page and scroll down to the bottom. (For those of you keeping score at home, Jacobs has been our most frequent interviewee on the Journal, having appeared 17 times since 1993.)
Books Ken Missed the First Time
Almost all of the guests I interview on the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal are authors of recently published books. We rarely interview someone about a book more than a year old, not because such books are no longer of interest to readers, but because they aren't of as much interest to their writers. By the time a book has been published, the author is often preparing to move on to a new project. Talk to them three or four years later, and their memories might not be as fresh, their comments on their own work not as engaged. So it's not as easy to persuade authors to take the time for an unrecompensed interview.
But we often discover books that we think our listeners would like to know about. They are mentioned in the listeners' guide that accompany each issue of the Journal, and many of them are mentioned on our web pages. One of those is Alister McGrath's The Reenchantment of Nature: the Denial of Religion and the Ecological Crisis.
I talked with Dr. McGrath in 2002 about the first part of his three volume work, A Scientific Theology. At the time, I knew that Alister McGrath held doctorates in both molecular biology and theology. I didn't realize that he had just completed a wonderful book on how orthodox Christian thought provides a basis for regarding Creation in a stewardly rather than exploitative way. One of the benefits of McGrath’s The Reenchantment of Nature is that it not only discusses a theology of Creation, it also outlines the ways in which modern Western thought has become hostile to the idea that Creation has meaning, purpose, and intrinsic worth. It is as useful in building a case against scientism as it is in explaining the basic theological rationale for environmental concern.
For a link to a review of The Reenchantment of Nature, see our Alister McGrath webpage.
Board of Directors Changes
The MARS HILL AUDIO board of directors held its annual meeting in November. In addition to discussing the regular affairs of business, it bade farewell to two of its longstanding members, James Davison Hunter and Michael Cromartie, and elected Douglas Minson and Wilfred McClay to fill the vacant positions. Minson is the associate rector of The Witherspoon Fellowship in Washington, DC, a fraternity that, since 1997, has offered both academic and professional training for young Christians bound for civic and cultural leadership. McClay, a guest on multiple issues of the Journal, is a professor history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and a member of the National Council on the Humanities.
Board member Skip Burzumato recently resigned his as executive director of the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, Virginia and moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he has been appointed rector of St. Andrew's Church (Independent Episcopal). If you live in or near Savannah, or are traveling through the area, please stop in.
Almost a Podcast!
One of the guests on Volume 77 of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal is Eric Miller, assistant Professor of History at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and the author of a recent essay on Christopher Lasch contained in the anthology, Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past. As is often the case, the interview contained more interesting material than we could fit in its slot on the Journal, so in the spirit of the Season we have produced an mp3 file available for free of some of our outtakes (not, need we say, a blooper reel). Feel free to share this file with friends who are not yet familiar with the Journal. (This mp3 file can also be found on the Eric Miller interview page; scroll down to the bottom of the page.)
By the way, if you are interested in Lasch's work, we recently discovered an article from last December's First Things called "Christopher Lasch and the Limits of Hope," by Patrick J. Deneen. It is available online at the First Things web page.
Two Items Now on mp3-CD
On volume 76 of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal during an interview with Martin Moleski we mentioned a report we did a few years ago called Tacit Knowing, Truthful Knowing: The Life and Thought of Michael Polanyi. Originally produced on cassette, we have now made it available on a single mp3-CD for just $10 plus shipping and handling.
Also on Volume 76 during the interview with D. H. Williams of Baylor University we mentioned a MARS HILL AUDIO Anthology entitled Sources of Ancient Wisdom. This too is now available on a single mp3-CD for just $7 plus shipping and handling.
Both of these items can be ordered online on our "Recent Additions" page, by using the card that was enclosed with Volume 76, or by calling us at 1.800.331.6407.
Talk for as Little as 5.5 Cents per Minute
For just over a nickel a minute you can give someone on your Christmas list the gift of conversation. Until the end of the year a six-issue gift subscription to the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal on cassette is 5.5 cents per minute, or 7.7 cents per minute on CD. (That translates to $30 for six issues on cassette or $42 on CD.) In addition, if you give a gift subscription, you may take advantage of these discounted rates for your own new subscription or renewal. This special offer is good through Dec. 31, 2005.
Each gift subscriber will receive Vol. 77 (November/December 2005), along with a Christmas card noting you as the gift-giver. We will continue to process orders right on up to Dec. 23, but the sooner you act the better your chances of having the first issue and gift card arrive before Christmas.
To place an order online (including multiple subscriptions), see www.marshillaudio.org/xmas (use the promotion code XMEM05 in order to receive the discounted rates). To order by phone call us at 1.800.331.6407. Or you may download a printable gift order form and mail it to us at the address below, or fax it to us at 434.990.9090.
Various Details, Disclaimers, Etc.
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Copyright 2005 MARS HILL AUDIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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MARS HILL AUDIO
P.O. Box 7826
Charlottesville, Virginia 22906
Call 1.800.331.6407
Fax 1.434.990.9090