Number 50 - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 |
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a periodical newsletter from |
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Human Cussedness, |
Your Subscription Information |
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Please review the information below and send us corrections either by replying to this e-mail or by using our online address change form. Cust No. [id#] Name and Address Subscription status: [status] (A=active, P=Invalid mailing address; please send us a correction; if C, S, X, or B please see this) Your subscription will expire with Volume [last] on [media] (C=Cassette, D=CD, B=Both, M=MP3). See this chart to find the date of your last issue. The current issue is Vol. 94, November/December 2008. If your subscription is about to expire you may renew online (using our secure server) or call us at 1.800.331.6407. For questions about your subscription please call us at 1.800.331.6407 or e-mail us at soundthinking@marshillaudio.org. |
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In his recent book on original sin, Alan Jacobs begins by noting that all religious beliefs prompt rejection. “It is the common fate of doctrines to be dismissed; you’d almost think that’s what they were made for. But not all beliefs are dismissed in the same way. Some get an airy wave of the hand; others, a thoughtful shake of the head, with pursed lips indicating a tinge of regret; still others, the stern wag of a hectoring finger. But of all religious teachings I know, none—not even the belief that some people are eternally damned—generates as much hostility as the Christian doctrine we call ‘original sin.’” The book that Alan Jacobs has written about this doctrine thought by many to be repulsive is called Original Sin: A Cultural History. Jacobs is not concerned with developing a traditional theological definition or defense of the doctrine. Rather, he explores how the idea that we not only choose sin but we inherit it has played itself out in a variety of cultural forms in the West—from poetry to movies, from psychoanalysis to the rearing of children, from liturgical prayers to the blues. And through it all, Jacobs invites us to reflect on our personal perception of the human condition. Subscribers to our Journal heard Ken Myers talk with Alan Jacobs about this book on Volume 93, but that was only a fraction of their hour-long interchange. As is often the case, Jacobs had more to say about this subject than we could fit into a Journal feature. So we’ve released a MARS HILL AUDIO Conversation with the entire interview. It’s called Deadly Legacy, it’s available on CD or MP3 download, and you can read more about it here. |
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Ken Myers to Speak to Clergy & Seminarians in Massachusetts |
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What’s Coming Your Way |
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On Tuesday, February 24, Ken Myers will give a series of talks at the Spring Pastors Forum sponsored by the Ockenga Institute at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The title of this seminar is “After Evangelism: Discipleship and the Cultural Life of Churches,” and will make the case that the Gospel is not just a message to be accepted, but a way of life that is often out of sync with the way of life our culture extols. Myers will offer a framework for assessing common cultural practices and sensibilities, arguing that discipleship requires a more prophetic stance toward the culture around us than many churches seem willing to embrace. The four talks are individually entitled: • Wise Shepherds or Winsome Cruise Directors? Lessons from Titus on Cultural Ecology • Consumer Goods: How Commodification Undermines Authority • Idol Pursuits: How Celebrity Corrupts Identity • A Way With Words: How Aliteracy Threatens Wisdom For information about attending this Pastors Forum, consult the Seminary's website. |
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Volume 95 of the Journal is currently being edited. The guests on that issue include: • Barry G. Hankins on Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America • Eugene Peterson on Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers • Craig M. Gay on Dialogue, Catalogue, and Monologue: Personal, Impersonal, and Depersonalizing Ways to Use Words • J. Matthew Bonzo & Michael R. Stevens on Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader’s Guide • William Cavanaugh on Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire • Stewart Davenport on Friends of Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians & Market Capitalism, 1815-1860
Guests slated for coming issues include: • Richard Stivers on The Illusion of Freedom and Equality • Kiku Adatto on Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op • John R. Betz on After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann • David K. Naugle on Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness |
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Mark Noll in Upstate NY |
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Mark Noll was a guest on a very early issue of our Journal (Volume 14, back when it was still called The Mars Hill Tapes), talking about his landmark book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. In a number of writings since that 1994 book, Noll has examined the subject of Christian anti-intellectualism with theological insight and remarkable historical expertise. In March, that expertise will be present in the flesh in Ithaca as the Chesterton House sponsors a Graduate-Faculty conference on the subject of “Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind.” Dr. Noll (currently Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame) will explore some specific intellectual consequences of the fact that, in Christ, all things were created and all things hold together. For more information about this oppotunity, consult the Chesterton House website. |
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Thinking Christianly about |
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Committed as we are to exploring the cultural consequences of our duty to love God and neighbor, MARS HILL AUDIO has consistently paid a great deal of attention to the unique cultural role of higher education. Today’s institutions of higher education are increasingly confused about their mission. The postmodern university is not only post-Christian, it is post-humanist, and for the same reasons. Humanism, after all, is the product of a culture that believed in the Incarnation. Because understanding the proper place of higher education in our lives and in our society is so strategically central to our mission, we decided to produce an audio version of a recent book called The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education. The book’s authors, Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmermann, argue that the Incarnation is, after all, the only reliable foundation on which to build a properly humanistic education. “Christians are supposed to be the paradigm for a new humanity founded by Christ and inaugurated by his resurrection from the dead, a decisive event signaling the reconciliation of humanity to God and anticipating the full redemption of God’s creation.” Ronald P. Mahurin, vice president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, has commended this book warmly. “Christian students and faculty will find this book an immense resource in their collective task of ‘taking every thought captive’ to Christ.” We agree, and hope you’ll read more about this book online, and consider purchasing it for yourself, for college students, or for a favorite teacher. |
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The Passionate Intellect was written primarily to inform Christian college students about the meaning of higher education. It is available on CD ($26) or as an MP3 download ($14). Learn more here. |
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