According to British scholar Conor Cunningham, the debate today between religion and evolution has been hijacked by extremists: on one side stand fundamentalist believers who reject evolution outright, and opposing them are fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin’s theory rules out the possibility of God in Darwin’s Pious Idea.

The interview may be streamed or downloaded here.

This morning at 7.50am (GMT) and 8am on Sunday morning, Simon Oliver will be speaking about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK for the beatification of John Henry Newman. He will be on the BBC’s Radio Nottingham.

Out today in the latest issue of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (#99), Ken Myers interviews Alison Milbank, discussing her book Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real.

Alison Milbank, on how the fantasy writings of G. K. Chesterton and J. R. R. Tolkien are intended to reconnect readers with reality.

The latest issue of the Mars Hill Audio Journal may be found here (subscription or individual purchase required), and also contains interviews by Ken Myers with Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Paul A. Rahe, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew J. Cherlin, and Dale Kuehne.

Michael Mack, “Spinoza and Freud, or how to be mindful of the mind”

Anthony Paul Smith, “The Ethical Relation of Bodies: Thinking with Spinoza towards an Affective Ecology”

Out today in the latest issue of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (#98), Ken Myers has interviews with Stanley Hauerwas and David Bentley Hart. From the issue description:

Stanley Hauerwas, on the public witness of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and on why Neuhaus abandoned his 1960s radicalism to become a leading ‘theoconservative’.

David Bentley Hart, on the feeble and confused arguments of the recent crop of outspoken atheists and on how a misunderstanding of the nature of freedom is at the heart of their revulsion at religion.

The latest issue of the Mars Hill Audio Journal may be found here (subscription or individual purchase required), and also contains interviews by Ken Myers with Clarke Forsythe, Gilbert Meilaender, Jeanne Murray Walker, and Roger Lundin.

Some photographs, as well as an entire audio recording in MP3 format of this event can now be found here.

From the University of Nottingham Podcast webpage:

Dr Angus Paddison and Dr Adrian Pabst

In this podcast we hear about a major conference at the University, based on a hotly debated book by Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger.

Experts from around the world are gathering to debate major questions arising from the book, chiefly the concept of Jesus as an historical figure, Christ of faith, or both.

More information is available here and here.

Click here to listen to the podcast [audio/mpeg, 13.6 MB, 14:27 mins]

Christian Socialism

The long goodbye is almost over as Tony Blair steps down as Prime Minister this week. There has been much analysis since he announced his resignation as to the influence his faith has had on his politics. In fact some have suggested that he has been the most overtly Christian Prime Minister since Gladstone.

Like many Labour members before him, his politics and beliefs have found a unity in the principles of Christian Socialism. Indeed Tony Blair is still a member of the Christian Socialist Movement. But what is Christian Socialism and does it have a future?

The modern world seems bent on its own destruction. A theological movement called “Radical Orthodoxy” believes it has uncovered the roots of the modern mistake. David Cayley talks to the movement’s founders and leading writers, John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock.