A Rhetorician's Faith. II
Aug 21, 2026 · 23 min · 8 segments
Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe returns to the project of exploring her faith through rhetoric. Full transcript available at…
Aug 21, 2026 · 23 min · 8 segments
Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe returns to the project of exploring her faith through rhetoric. Full transcript available at…
M. Elizabeth ThorpeHostA few weeks ago, I shared with you how I see my faith and my intellectual life intersecting.
When I did so, I focused pretty much entirely on ancient and classical theorists.
A listener reached out to me and said he really enjoyed it, which I appreciated.
But, he said, he'd be interested to hear if there were any current or at least somewhat more modern applications.
What he was asking was are there any later theorists, post-classical, who can help me understand my faith? And I thought that was a great question and worth thinking about.
Who are the people who can help me make sense of my faith beyond the classical period? It's actually a very interesting question because, as it may not surprise anyone, the farther you go in any field's training of reasoning, the farther away from Christianity you get.
Science, the humanities, logic, they're all comfortably nestled in the church in the Middle Ages.
And then in the Enlightenment, the way we think about things starts separating from Christianity.
There is a greater emphasis on rationality and human reason and progress.
That lasts for a long time, until we get to the 20th century, and then all bets are off and we reject it all.
So looking at my faith through more modern lenses is tricky, because modern theory would generally tell me to reject it.
So here again, I admittedly am being creative and possibly cherry-picking, but I guess we do that when we need the world to make sense.
A few weeks ago, I shared with you how I see my faith and my intellectual life intersecting.
When I did so, I focused pretty much entirely on ancient and classical theorists.
A listener reached out to me and said he really enjoyed it, which I appreciated.
But, he said, he'd be interested to hear if there were any current or at least somewhat more modern applications.
What he was asking was are there any later theorists, post-classical, who can help me understand my faith? And I thought that was a great question and worth thinking about.
Who are the people who can help me make sense of my faith beyond the classical period? It's actually a very interesting question because, as it may not surprise anyone, the farther you go in any field's training of reasoning, the farther away from Christianity you get.
Science, the humanities, logic, they're all comfortably nestled in the church in the Middle Ages.
And then in the Enlightenment, the way we think about things starts separating from Christianity.
There is a greater emphasis on rationality and human reason and progress.
That lasts for a long time, until we get to the 20th century, and then all bets are off and we reject it all.
So looking at my faith through more modern lenses is tricky, because modern theory would generally tell me to reject it.
So here again, I admittedly am being creative and possibly cherry-picking, but I guess we do that when we need the world to make sense.
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