Farewell and thank you Alasdair MacIntyre

Tracing the impact of an intellectual giant on my life and thinking. Also, Narnia @ 75 at the Hay Festival and my upcoming AI appearances

I was saddened to hear today about the passing of a giant of a thinker and philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–2025).

I still remember first encountering MacIntyre’s thought around 20 years ago. I was on the train back from Cambridge, listening to a recording of a talk about ‘Apologetics Communities’ by Ranald Macauley, who started the English branch of L’Abri Fellowship. He quoted the end of MacIntyre’s influential book After Virtue, in which MacIntyre argues that we are facing a turning point similar to the decline of the Roman Empire and start of the Dark Ages (emphasis mine):

A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead—often not recognizing fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness.

If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us.

... This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been among us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.

This struck me powerfully. I went on to read After Virtue for myself, of course. It deepened my commitment to the importance of community as an apologetic for the Christian life. MacIntyre's thought gave a framework for a deeper understanding of virtue, culture and formation that's been fruitful for my thinking and writing since.

This has been a seed that has powerfully shaped my thinking: my interest in intentional community such as L’Abri; my sense of seeking to anticipate what life beyond maintenance of the “imperium” of the current Western capitalist society might look like; my interest in Christian moral and community formation for the long-term good of humanity. I don’t put it in the forefront, but it’s there behind the scenes of my exploration of Imaginative Discipleship, which presupposes the importance of the virtue as part of the formation of our imaginations.

My MA dissertation on Tolkien and T. H. White drew on MacIntyre's account of virtue ethics to contrast the two models of 'growing up' in The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings and The Once & Future King. MacIntyre helped me see how fragmented the modern, Freudian-inflected view of childhood is (which is basically White’s framework), in contrast to the older Aristotelian tradition of virtue as something developed across one’s whole life (which Tolkien is still tapped into).

MacIntyre's impacted not just my thinking, but my life too: I’ve been trying to find ways of living out ‘Benedict Option’-style thick Christian community ever since, long before Rod Dreher's book was written or published, particularly taking inspiration from L’Abri Fellowship. It’s part of the reason I’m in a ‘missional community’-style church plant now, here in Pontypridd.

It’s amazing the ripple effects of a thinker like MacIntyre. Ideas do indeed have consequences, and his ideas have been consequential for me in many helpful ways. May the ripples long continue.

(By the way, I’ve wanted to start a L’Abri-style Christian ‘apologetic community’ in Wales, ideally in or close to Cardiff, ever since — one day, I pray, it might become a reality! Let me know if this is a project that excites you — I’d love to connect with anyone else who might want to do something on these lines…)

The Hay Festival and Narnia at 75

Tomorrow (Saturday 24th May) I’ll be helping out with a Narnia trail to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Hay-on-Wye, to coincide with the Hay Festival!

Bethesda Church are organising a roadside event on the way between the Hay Festival site and the town itself. If you happen to be at Hay, do stop by to say hello and chat about C. S. Lewis and the Narnia stories. Poster below, and you can also read more about my appreciation of Narnia, written for the 60th anniversary of C. S. Lewis’s death:

The AI discussion continues: upcoming podcast and Keswick Unconventional workshop

This week I recorded a podcast conversation with Tim and John Wyatt for Premier Radio’s Matters of Life and Death podcast, based on my recent post on AI. Listen out for it next month — I’ll be sure to post a link!

I will also be running a workshop on AI at Keswick Unconventional, the arts and creativity stream of the Keswick Convention Christian summer festival, 3pm on Monday 28th July. Come along to wrestle with the ongoing question of how to respond to AI, especially in the context of creativity!

Watch out for my upcoming post 12 Rules of AI for Creative Thinkers…