#143 / The Great Courses

I have just finished listening to thirty-six lectures on the topic, Why Evil Exists. This is one of the audio presentations available through The Great Courses. I recommend it.

Dr. Charles Mathewes, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, considers the nature of Evil as understood from the time of the Enuma Elish through views of 20th Century poets.

One of Mathewes' most moving lectures was his Lecture 23, "The American North and South - Holy War." In that lecture, Mathewes speaks of both Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, focusing specifically on Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address to the Nation. Mathewes' analysis of Lincoln's speech helps makes clear how much Lincoln's words, in his Second Inaugural, contain a lesson for the United States today, enmeshed as our nation is in another Holy War.