In Acts 17: 16-34 the apostle Paul is in Athens. In these passages he speaks from the Areopagus, “the hill of Ares.” He encounters people from various Greek schools of thought; Epicureans and Stoics are specifically mentioned. Paul mentions to the assembled throng that he has observed in Athen an altar dedicated to “an unknown god.” He proceeds to instruct the Athenians that this unknown god is the one God, the creator of all things. God is not a material thing to be worshipped, not “like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.”
The Areopagus is sometimes latinized into “Mars Hill,” Mars being the Roman complement to the Greek god Ares, the god of war. Many Chrisitan organization have adopted the moniker of Mars Hill, wishing to reference the notion of Christianity encountering the world. Chief among these is one of the wonders of the modern world, Mars Hill Audio Journal.
Hosted by the indomitable Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio (MHA) is a more than three-decade effort to bring the best of scholarship to the attention of thinking Christians. As Myers often notes, the project started as the Mars Hill Tapes. That’s just what it sounds like. They’d send cassette tapes of shows to subscribers. It eventually graduated to compact disc, then digital downloads, and now to streaming. Material is now most easily accessed through the Mars Hill Audio app.
Calling Mars Hill Audio a journal is accurate. It is like opening a good learned journal. A typical Journal consists of six to eight interviews of about fifteen to twenty-five minutes each. A typical volume (that’s what each production is called) comes in at around two hours. You could say that Ken Myers was podcasting before Steve Jobs had even imagined the iPod.
Myers has consistently stated that the mission of the Journal is to engage the modern world, to come to a greater understanding of the times in which we live, especially how Christians encounter our modern world. Guests typically come from the fields of philosophy, theology, history, literature, and politics. Myers has a particular interest in the arts, especially sacred art and music. These are also often topics. As an example, Volume 161, released this past March, contains six interviews: Andrew Wilson on the post-Christian West, Kyle Edward Willaims on the corporation and corporate personhood, Andrew Spencer on the relationship of humans with Creation, Landon Loften on Owen Barfield, Esther Lightcap Meek on encounters with reality, and Andrew Davidson on E.L. Mascall (these are MHA’s own descriptions of the interviews).
The Journal is released about three to five times a year. Over time, supplemental material has risen while the number of formal Journals has decreased. Myers now produces a “Friday Feature” most every week, usually a one-off interview with a scholar on one of the subjects listed above, often taken from the MHA archives. MHA now has an app that has many products produced over the years, such as various Bonus Features (longer discussions on a discreet topic) and Mars Hill Audio Reprints (Myers reading an article that might be of interest to Mars Hill listeners).
While some of the material is free with the app, full access requires a subscription. I started subscribing with Volume 105, which my app tells me was released on November 1, 2010. I can say unequivocally that this is some of the best money I have ever spent. I note that a gift subscription is the perfect gift for that intellectually minded loved one.
What makes MHA so valuable? It starts with Ken Myers. It helps that Myers has a voice made for broadcasting. They say of some singers, “I’d listen to her sing the phonebook.” Ken Myers is the same with his voice. I’d listen to him read the phonebook. When I described Mars Hill Audio Reprints you might have thought, “How interesting can a guy reading an article be?” Very interesting when that reader is Ken Myers. Further, Myers has a dizzying amount of knowledge in his brain. He is spectacularly well read and able with seeming ease to recall specific pieces from years past. Myers is a master interviewer, getting the most out of his guests. I’ve listened to no podcast that matches MHA for depth of knowledge and compelling listening.
MHA is second to none in shaping my own worldview. In the fourteen years or so I’ve been listening to the Journal I’ve encountered ideas and thinkers that have expanded my mind in ways I could never have imagined. Another one of Myers’ strengths is his impeccable editorial vision. He consistently books guests who are erudite and who bring great insight into important matters. It is Mars Hill that proved to me that being a Christian and being an intellectual are not contradictions. Although not every guest is a professed Christian, MHA introduced me to a whole world of Christian scholarship in various fields.
The Mars Hill Audio Journal has the rare combination of giving listeners intellectual conversation at the highest level without being pretentious or obscure. I can’t imagine my life today without it. Each volume of the Journal starts with an Introduction that contains a snippet from one interview and then Ken Myers listing the interviewees and the subject matter of that Journal. He concludes each introduction with a line that has become music to my ears: “This is Volume XXX of the Mars Hill Audio Journal….I’m Ken Myers.” May there be many more volumes to come.