Why It's Important to Do Work That Doesn't Address the Cultural Moment

In this episode we conclude our case study of Edmund Husserl. We discuss other lessons we can learn from his life, and lessons to learn from the faithful men and women who risked everything to save his life’s work. We also discuss the challenging work of preserving ideas that matter in a culture that prefers to forget the past.

In this podcast, we discuss:

• Why it is important to do work that doesn’t specifically address the cultural moment
• How to faithfully push back against false cultural assumptions
• The story of saving the works of Husserl and other Jewish scholars from Nazi tyranny
• Why we should honor, preserve, and build on ideas passed down from others
• The role of the next generation in taking up the mantle of Christian thought
• The art of seeking long term objectives and why it’s critical that we do

Resources and Citations:

• Hebrews 12:1-2
• Toon Horsten, The Father and the Philosopher: Saving the Husserl Archives
• S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
• Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology
• Thomas C. Oden, editor, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
• Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement
• Talbot School of Theology, Biola University