Beyond Ideology with Peter Kreeft and Eugene Rivers

What is ideology? What are the consequences of an era when seemingly every human issue is viewed through an ideological lens?
In October of 2021, the Trinity Forum and Comment magazine partnered for an evening conversation to explore precisely these questions. Cherie Harder and Anne Snyder moderated a conversation with philosopher Peter Kreeft and Rev. Eugene Rivers to unpack the nature and implications of ideology’s reign in our present culture — both what it’s doing to our intellectual vitality as a society, but perhaps more urgently, what it’s doing to our civic and organizational life across sectors and geography:
“So from a Christian point of view, what's the most important and first thing we must do in order to save Western culture or Western civilization?...Well, I think the first answer is stop idolizing it. Stop making the salvation of Western civilization your summum bonum, your final end, and religion a means to it. Religion is not a means to politics.” - Peter Kreeft
This wide ranging conversation takes on the spiritual dimensions of our ideological age, and centers our hope not in politics, but squarely in the love of God in Christ. Dr. Kreeft and Rev. Rivers call us back to the first things, asking us to look afresh at our political commitments, and to see the image of God in the face of our neighbor.
This podcast is an edited version of an evening conversation recorded in 2021. Get a full transcript and watch a video of the conversation here. Learn more about Dr. Peter Kreeft and Rev. Eugene Rivers.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Christianity for Modern Pagans, by Peter KreeftThree Philosophies of Life, by Peter KreeftSuma of the Suma, by Peter KreeftIf Einstein Had Been a Surfer, by Peter KreeftThe Philosophy of Jesus, by Peter KreeftDoors in the Walls of the World, by Peter KreeftSocratesElizabeth AnscombeThe Screwtape Letters, by C.S. LewisDonald WilliamsThe Dust of Death, by OS GuinnessFrantz FanonMartin Luther King, Jr.Abraham HeschelThe End of Ideology, by Daniel BellExodus and Revolution, by Michael WalzerFrancis SchaefferCarl F. HenryJames BoyceJohn J. DiIulioAchieving our Country, by Richard RortySt. AugustineBilly GrahamAle