For Your Consideration

On September, 14th, the Christian Study Center hosted a kick-off event to launch the fall semester. As part of the event, Dr. Richard Horner, our executive director, presented a talk titled, “What Frames What?—One More Time.”

The talk revisits a critical diagnostic question, which Dr. Horner has been ask for nearly two decades. Through this question Dr. Horner explores the defining features of modernity and the point to which they have now brought us. It is an exploration not so much of post-modern culture, but of modern culture fully realized.

This talk also sets up a reading group Dr. Horner will be leading throughout the semester beginning this Friday, September 24th. The group will meet every other week at noon at the study center and will read some of the key thinkers that have shaped Dr. Horner’s understanding of the modern world. This Friday the group will be discussing the first four sections of Descartes’s Discourse on Method.

Subscribers to this newsletter should note that our plan is to continue to use this platform to distribute occasional audio, like this lecture, and also to publish a monthly installment with an essay, links, and information about the study center.

For more information about our program this semester be sure to visit our website.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

During the summer months the newsletter will be mostly on hiatus, but we will be posting a series of interviews with scholars and writers whose work we believe will be of interest to our listeners. In this installment, I’m delighted to share my conversation with Grace Olmstead.

Grace is a journalist and writer whose work focusing on farming and localism has appeared in the New York Times, the American Conservative, Christianity Today, and the Wall Street Journal. Most recently, she is the author of Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left. The book is part memoir, part history of an Idaho farming town, part reflection on place, community, and food. I hope this conversation entices you to pick up Uprooted for yourself. There’s much that I learned through the book that we did not get the chance to touch on during our conversation. Grace is also the author of a monthly newsletter, Granola, to which you can subscribe here.

During our conversation, Grace referenced two recent papal encyclicals. You can find them here: Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti. She also mentioned the work of Norman Wirzba, professor of theology and ethics at Duke University. Naturally, the work of Wendell Berry was also pertinent to Grace’s work and our conversation. Virtues of Renewal: Wendell Berry's Sustainable Forms by Jeffrey Bilbro serves as a terrific introduction to Berry’s work and vision.

I hope you enjoy this conversation. You can look forward to others like it in the coming weeks.

Peace,

Michael SacasasAssociate Director

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This semester, our associate director, Michael Sacasas, gave three lectures on the thought of the 20th-century Christian scholar and social critic, Ivan Illich.

The third lecture, “Reclaiming the Senses: Ivan Illich and the History of Perception,” was delivered as a Zoom webinar on Wednesday, March 24th. The audio of that lecture is included here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

In this installment, you can listen to the tenth and penultimate session of Dr. Horner’s director’s class for this semester, “Reading the Gospels: The Road to the Cross.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

[Programming note: Over the past week, we encountered technical difficulties uploading audio files. All seems to be in order now, and we are resuming our regular posting with last week’s classes.]

This is the eighth and final session of Mike Sacasas’s director’s class on the life and work of Ivan Illich. The topic of this class is Illich’s interpretation of the relationship between Christianity and the modern world as presented in The Rivers North of the Future.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

In this installment, you can listen to the ninth session of Dr. Horner’s director’s class for this semester, “Reading the Gospels: The Road to the Cross.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

This is the seventh session of Mike Sacasas’s director’s class on the life and work of Ivan Illich. The topic of this class is Illich’s last book, In the Vineyard of the Text. This week’s audio includes a time of Q&A.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

In this installment, you can listen to the eighth session of Dr. Horner’s director’s class for this semester, “Reading the Gospels: The Road to the Cross.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

This is the sixth session of Mike Sacasas’s director’s class on the life and work of Ivan Illich. The topic of this class is Limits to Medicine and the art of suffering.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

This semester, our associate director, Michael Sacasas, is delivering three lectures on the thought of the 20th-century Christian scholar and social critic, Ivan Illich.

The second lecture, “Conspiratorial Friendship: Ivan Illich and the Politics of Conviviality,” was delivered as a Zoom webinar on Wednesday, March 3rd. The audio of that lecture is included here.

Introduction: 00:00 - 02:25Lecture: 02:26 - 43:50Q&A: 43:51 - 01:01:36

The third lecture, “Reclaiming the Senses: Perceiving the World with Ivan Illich,” will be presented on Wednesday, March 24rd at 8:00 p.m. (EST). Use the link below to register.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com