Worldview

For so many people, reading isn't just a hobby or a way to pass the time--it's a lifestyle. Our books shape us, define us, enchant us, and even sometimes infuriate us. Our books are a part of who we are as people, and we can't imagine life without them.I'd Rather Be Reading is the perfect literary companion for everyone who feels that way. In this collection of charming and relatable reflections on the reading life, beloved blogger and author Anne Bogel leads readers to remember the book that first hooked them, the place where they first fell in love with reading, and all of the moments afterward that helped make them the reader they are today. Known as a reading tastemaker through her popular podcast What Should I Read Next?, Bogel invites book lovers into a community of like-minded people to discover new ways to approach literature, learn fascinating new things about books and publishing, and reflect on the role reading plays in their lives.The perfect gift for the bibliophile in everyone's life, I'd Rather Be Reading will command an honored place on the overstuffed bookshelves of any book lover.

In Not By Accident: The Improbability of Life Itself, Dean Overman discusses the inadequacy of historic and current scientific understandings of the origin of life.

Dr. Paul McHugh, who teaches psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, talks about the ways in which therapists allow themselves to be highjacked by trendy ideas, and leave behind the disciplines of their science.

Guests on Volume 110: Kevin Belmonte, on how G. K. Chesterton embraced a "defiant joy" in spite of the cynical pessimism of many of his contemporaries; David Lyle Jeffrey & Gregory Maillet, on why Christians cannot afford to regard literature as a mere entertaining diversion; Mark Noll, on what motivates anti-intellectualism among Christians and why it is a theologically indefensible prejudice; Alan Jacobs, on W. H. Auden's understanding of the vocation of "poet" and on the spiritual and historical background to Auden's 1947 book-length poem, The Age of Anxiety; and Jonathan Chaplin, on the outlines and sources of the social and political thought of Herman Dooyeweerd and on his understanding of the relationship between theology and Christian philosophy.

Guests on Volume 76: D. H. Williams, on the Church's rootedness in its Tradition, why some Protestants remain suspicious, and on the excluding character of Christian conversion; Catherine Edwards Sanders, on the spiritual hunger behind the rise of modern witchcraft; Ted Prescott, on changing images of beauty and the human figure in 20th century art; Martin X. Moleski, on the life, times, and remarkable insights of Michael Polanyi; Stephen Prickett, on George MacDonald and the tasks of imagination; and Barrett Fisher, on the relative artistic assets of film and literature.

Guests on Volume 97: Mark Noll, on how Christian higher education is aided by a commitment to something like "Christendom," a commitment to the assumption that the Gospel has consequences for all of life and all of social experience; Stanley Fish, on how university professors should refrain from bringing their own political, philosophical, and religious commitments into the classroom; James Peters, on how Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Pascal, and many others had an understanding of the nature and purpose of reason quite different from the common modern understanding; Scott Moore, on cultivating an understanding of politics that goes beyond mere statecraft, and on the limits of the notion of "rights"; and Makoto Fujimura, on how his work as a painter is enriched by writing, why artists need to cultivate an attentiveness to many things, and how visual language expresses experience.

Guests on Volume 123: Nicholas M. Healy, on some of the practical and theological weaknesses in the writings of Stanley Hauerwas; Christian Smith, on the spiritual lives of emerging adults raised within the Roman Catholic Church and taught at Catholic schools; James K. A. Smith, on Charles Taylor's explanation (in The Secular Age) of how modern culture came to unlearn the theistic assumption of the West; Esther Lightcap Meek, on why pitting "objectivity" against "subjectivity" in describing the nature of knowledge isn't helpful, and on why all knowing involves making a commitment; Richard Viladesau, on the relationship between formal, propositional, academic theology and the theological expressions found in works of art and music; and Jeremy Begbie, on why theologians should be more interested in how music and modernity have interacted.

1. Introduction to Volume 130 2. Jacob Silverman on the hidden costs of social media 3. Carson Holloway on political science and revelation 4. Joseph Atkinson on a theology of the family 5. Greg Peters on lessons from monasticism 6. Antonio López on gift and the meaning of freedom 7. Julian Johnson on music and the spirit of modernity

Excerpts from two books explain how and why a greater familiarity with the forms of faithfulness of our spiritual predecessors is an important resource for twenty-first century Christians. An excerpt from Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, by Christopher A. Hall, explains how commentaries on biblical texts from the first six centuries of the Church can provide much-needed perspective for contemporary believers. A chapter from Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, by D. H. Williams, summarizes how it is a misreading of Scripture and of the history of Protestantism to insist that revelation and tradition are antithetical concerns of the Church. 

The history of the development in 19th century Catholic social thought of the idea of society as a spiritual and cultural reality is one of the themes in this MARS HILL AUDIO Conversation with Dr. Russell Hittinger. In addition to the contribution of Pope Leo XIII and the revival of Thomistic thought to Catholic social thought, Hittinger also discusses the centrality of our ideas about marriage to our thinking about society, the limits of the idea of social contract, the effect of an increasing proportion of Muslims on European social thought, and how modern democracies have abandoned the project of understanding public life in moral terms.

Guests on Volume 101: James Davison Hunter, on how the most prominent strategies of Christian cultural engagement are based on a misunderstanding about how cultures work; Paul Spears, on why Christian scholars need to understand their disciplines in ways that depart from conventional understanding; Steven Loomis, on why education needs to attend more carefully to nonquantifiable aspects of human experience; James K. A. Smith, on how education always involves the formation of affections and how the form of Christian education should imitate patterns of formation evident in historic Christian liturgy; Thomas Long, on how funeral practices have the capacity to convey an understanding of the meaning of discipleship and death; and William T. Cavanaugh, on the distinctly modern definition of "religion" and how the conventional account of the "Wars of Religion" misrepresents the facts in the interest of consolidating state power.

Guests on Volume 67: Eric O. Jacobsen, on urban churches and taking the concrete realities of community seriously; Allan C. Carlson, on the family in American culture and in government policy; Terence L. Nichols, on a sacramental view of Creation as an alternative to naturalism; R. R. Reno, on spiritual lethargy and sloth and the need for a more heroic vision for spiritual possibility; David Bentley Hart, on a Christian understanding of beauty rooted in the reality of the divine gift that is Creation; and J. A. C. Redford & Scott Cairns, on the making of “The Martyrdom of Polycarp.”

Guests on Volume 87: John Witte, Jr., on law and religion in the Western tradition; Steven Keillor, on God’s judgments and history; Philip Bess, on New Urbanism and natural law; Scott Cairns, on words and poetry’s work; and Anthony Esolen, on literary critics and Christian belief.

Guests on Volume 81: Nigel Cameron, on the lack of ethical reflection in public policy on technology; Joel James Shuman, on beliefs about God's nature and purposes informing how we think about sickness and medicine; Brian Volck, on embodied life, stories, and how medical practice involves attending to the stories of the bodies of patients; Russell Hittinger, on the modern state giving rise to modern Catholic social thought; Mark Noll, on learning to think about law and politics from earlier Christians who lived in very different political circumstances; and Stephen Miller, on the factors that sustain the art of conversation, and why it's a dying art.