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To subscribe to the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal call 1.800.331.6407 or order online
Download a free MP3 sample of the Journal Request a demonstration issue on cassette or CD
“I only have the time to read or listen to a few extra things each month or two. One of the few things I can claim as my best treasure is the bi-monthly MARS HILL AUDIO Journal. The depth of each issue sharpens my ability to think more clearly with a Biblical mind, and helps me to understand the cultural air I and my congregation are breathing.”
—Pastor Michael Philliber, New Life Presbyterian Church, Midland, Texas
II. Dualism in literature, business, and sports
III. Discipleship in cultural context
IV. Discerning the spirit of the age
V. The duties of faithful shepherds
You can listen for free to the bonus tracks (more than 40 of them) of the CD version of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal by clicking here. Topics include: the current debate on technology and ethics; the music of Mozart; why the Church should be more welcoming toward the elderly; the life and imagination of C. S. Lewis; and, how colleges and universities can help students grow into adulthood.
Click here to read some of the letters that Ken Myers has sent to MARS HILL AUDIO listeners. Topics include the nature of Christian hope and the link between the humanity of Jesus and our own.
Cultural forms often convey deep assumptions about reality. Sometimes they become dominant in a culture because of what they implicitly affirm, sometimes they become dominant for economic or other pragmatic reasons, but the meaning they bear is often absorbed subconsciously in our souls.
Church leaders need to learn to be wiser about the fact that some cultural patterns of living—some cultural forms—do more justice to the kinds of creatures we are and the kind of world we live in than do others. Sometimes our society adopts cultural habits that distort or eclipse or misrepresent important aspects of our human nature. In extreme cases we might call these forms “dehumanizing,” but even in lesser cases they diminish our dignity and honor as bearers of God’s image. They distract us or prevent us from living as well as we might, even in a world under the curse. They undercut human well-being, human flourishing. In such cases, it is the duty of the Church to recognize what is at stake, to name disorders for what they are, and to encourage patterns of living that are more fitting.
The mission statement of MARS HILL AUDIO reads: To produce creative audio resources that encourage Christians to grow in obedient wisdom concerning the cultural consequences of our duty to love God and neighbor. While many organizations provide resources that enable Christians to cope with and exploit the current cultural status quo for the sake of a narrowly private and dualistic piety, we are committed to advancing the cause of a more thorough Christian faithfulness. We work toward this end in a distinctive way:
• We focus theologically informed attention on a wide range of cultural subjects, not just a narrow band of special issues.
• We explore the historical trajectory along which long-term cultural trends have been traveling, not just the superficial attributes of current fashions.
• We feature the insights of Christian and non-Christian thinkers, striving to amplify the wisest and most penetrating voices available to the Church.
• We integrate concern for ideas with a commitment to encourage everyday practices that can re-humanize our lives and those of our neighbors in an increasingly dehumanizing cultural moment.
• We recognize that, in philosopher Josef Pieper’s words, “The natural habitat of truth is found in interpersonal communication. Truth lives in dialogue, in discussion, in conversation.” Our principal mode of communication is not the lecture or the essay, but the conversation. We hope thereby to provide a model for our listeners of how Christians can talk intelligently with each other and with others about our shared cultural life.
Our mission statement speaks of “obedient wisdom.” It could as easily refer to “wise obedience.” The letter of St. James provides a key to our vision in assuming that the consequences of faith become evident in how we live. Even as St. James insists that true religion requires an engaged caring for the suffering (represented in James 1:27 by widows and orphans), he makes it clear that our lives must be unstained by worldliness. The Church is always against the world, for the world, committed to pursuing human flourishing in all aspects of life while resisting the dehumanizing tendencies of cultural forms that misrepresent the shape of Creation and of human nature.
— Ken Myers
June 2008
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MARS HILL AUDIO
Ken Myers on Configuring Church and Culture
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© 2008 MARS HILL AUDIO