Christian Humanist Profiles
Interviews with Christian intellectuals, faithful thinkers, and other human beings writing well.
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Christian Humanist Profiles 281: Sean Keilen
For Americans, in the twenty-first century, the first association between Shakespeare and schools is obvious: we read Shakespeare in school. Whether we’re thinking of the ubiquitous Romeo and Juliet unit in ninth grade, later high-school tragedies, or perhaps even a play or two in college, in our moment the Bard shows up in school, and then some might go and see a play in a theater. In…
Christian Humanist Profiles Episode 280: Ian Hunter
I first learned about Pierre Hadot in a John Milbank book, and ever since I’ve read everything of his that I could get my hands on. Hadot’s revolutionary power resides not in a particular claim or argument but in a method: he investigates Plato and the Stoics and eventually even Wittgenstein as shapers of lives, teachers who lead disciples into new ways of life through philosophical disciplines.…
Christian Humanist Profiles Episode 279: Philip Ziegler
I’ve spent a fair bit of my professional life among devils. Dante’s gigantic Satan never was much of a talker, but Marlowe’s Mephistopheles and Goethe’s diminished version of Mephisto never shut up. Milton’s Satan lies so much he convinces himself, and the strange devil who visits Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov remains a logic-chopping favorite. But as much time as I spend with literary devils,…
Christian Humanist Profiles Episode 278: Charles E. Moore
I’ve never been in the same room as Stanley Hauerwas, but he’s been part of my life for thirty years. One of his graduate students taught me philosophy and theology, and I worked as a research assistant for one of his Yale classmates. I’ve read a shelf of his books, and he’s talked with me about a pair of those on this show, and that’s not even to tell the tale of an episode of this show about…
Christian Humanist Profiles Episode 277: David Zahl
The New Testament book of Revelation is light on scenes of battle but never hesitates to announce that God has won a battle. Whether the text implies that a battle never actually happened or just moves the battles so far out of the narrative’s zone of attention that they’re rendered unimportant, Revelation as a narrative never says that the disciples of Jesus don’t need to be killers because God…
Christian Humanist Profiles Episode 276: Gabriel Said Reynolds
Stories of spiritual origins often begin as the new way emerges against the dominant traditions of the region. Thus Siddhartha grows up among the Brahmins and Moses among the Egyptians. Joseph Smith and Elijah Muhammad, each in his own way, emerges among American Protestants. But what about the much older, Arabian Muhammad? Many stories of Islam’s rise situate Muhammad among polytheists,…
Christian Humanist Profiles 275: Nick Sorensen
When teachers complain about the ways that schools evaluate our teaching–and we do so with frequency and enthusiasm–one of the common refrains has to do with the measuring instruments and their inability to account for randomness and adjustment to randomness. Many a hallway story involves a moment when a teacher’s plans became irrelevant and the teacher responded. Sometimes in these stories we…
Christian Humanist Profiles 274: Bethany Mannon
Ask six Americans what the adjective or the noun “evangelical” means, and you’ll get as many answers. Ask six historians, and you might get twelve. But what if you ask a rhetorician? We’re going to find out today as Christian Humanist Profiles welcomes Dr. Bethany Ober Mannon to the show to talk about her book I Grew Up in the Church: How American Women Tell Their Stories. Along the way we’ll…
Christian Humanist Profiles 273: Joy Vaughan
Most of the world happens when I’m not in the room. That’s been a guiding principle for me as I’ve read and heard about all kinds of things I’ve never seen. I know some folks prefer David Hume’s assumption that anything that doesn’t resemble closely enough what one has witnessed directly is more likely delusion or deception than real testimony, and I know others would just as soon dismiss the…