The Listening Heart

A culture built upon the ideology of individual choice is a culture of alienation, loneliness, and violence. In this provocative book, A. J. Conyers shows that Western culture was once informed by a sense of vocation, that men understood life as a response to a call from outside and above themselves. Conyers reveals with stunning insight how the quintessential institution of modernity is slavery, for the slave is the ultimate autonomous individual whose ties to family, church, and clan are dissolved. Cogently arguing for the affections that constitute real community, Conyers restores a sense of vocation and thus what it means to be human.

Author Biography

A. J. Conyers (1946-2004) was Professor of Theology at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University. His previous books include, The Long Truce: How Toleration Made the World Safe for Power and Profit (2001), The Eclipse of Heaven (1999), and The End: What the Gospels Say About the Last Things (1995).