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MEET THE SPEAKER: Ken Myers

Ken Myers did his first radio interview when he was working in college radio. He was 19 at the time, and his first guest was Johnny Cash. Although he sometimes wonders if he peaked early, he claims that sociologists, historians, psychologists, and even economists can actually be more interesting than country music singers, despite the fact that they sometimes struggle a bit more to sustain a practically insightful point-of-view.

After completing his B.A. in communications, with an emphasis in film theory, Ken Myers went to work for National Public Radio, where he edited material for the arts and performance programming which, at the time (in the mid-1970s) formed a much larger proportion of NPR’s creative work. After three years at NPR, he decided to go to seminary in order to pursue a teaching ministry. He realized how ill-prepared he was theologically to contend with the non-Christian worldviews increasingly prevalent in culturally formative institutions, and believed that thousands of other lay people were similarly ill-equipped. He thought he might be called to a vocation of teaching about culture and theology.

But having finished a Master of Arts in Religion degree at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1979, and finding no institutions committed to the sort of cultural apologetics he thought needed by the Church, he accepted an offer to return to NPR to serve as arts and humanities editor for the then-new program, Morning Edition.

A budgetary crisis in 1983 cost Myers his job, and he eventually accepted the position of executive editor at Eternity magazine, a well-established evangelical monthly. In that position, he sought to develop a form of Christian journalism that was more rigorously engaged with the specific cultural phenomena and larger cultural trends of our time.

The pursuit of that vision has resulted in his establishing MARS HILL AUDIO in 1992, after having worked on editorial projects with Richard John Neuhaus and Charles Colson. The mission statement of MARS HILL AUDIO commits the organization “to produce creative audio resources that encourage Christians to grow in obedient wisdom concerning the cultural consequences of our duty to love God and neighbor.”

Ken Myers lives and works on a large wooded lot in the rolling countryside of central Virginia, just north of Charlottesville. When he is not preparing for interviews or writing and editing an issue of the Journal, he fills the time by singing in his church choir, watching old movies, hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and keeping his bird-feeders filled (a locally resident black bear makes that job more interesting). His wife Kate, who holds a masters degree in musicology, homeschooled their two children through high school, and is now doing part-time work for MARS HILL AUDIO in between gardening, landscaping, and sewing projects. His daughter Susannah graduated from the College of William & Mary in 2008, and his son Jonathan is at the University of Virginia.

Be sure to check out Mars Hill Audio here.

This bio was taken from the aforementioned Mars Hill Audio website.

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