This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them. I'm Albert Mueller your host and

president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Alan Jacobs is distinguished professor of the humanities in the honors program

at Baylor University. He serves as a contributing

editor of the New Atlantis and is the author of several books including the Book of

Common Prayer, a biography, the pleasures of reading in an age of distraction, and the Narnian, the pleasures of reading in an age of distraction and the Narnian the imagination of

C.S. Lewis. His most recent essay appeared in Harper's magazine and is titled

The Watchman, what became of the Christian intellectuals?

Professor Alan Jacobs, welcome to thinking in public.

Writing recently at Harper's magazine,

Professor Alan Jacobs of Baylor wrote, quote,

half a century ago, such figures existed in America serious Christian

intellectuals who occupied a prominent place on the national stage. They are gone

now he writes it would be worth our time to inquire why they disappeared, where they went, and whether, should

such a thing be thought desirable, they might return."

Professor Jacobs behind an article like that

article filled with a great deal of passion. There is something that explains how that article came to be.

Can you tell us that story?

Sure.

Interestingly enough, it was a request from an editor at Harper's magazine, which is very surprising to me.

Christopher Beha, uh, who wonderful editor, a very fine writer as well. And someone who, I think, has felt for some time that Harpers as a kind of a general interest monthly

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