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On scientists: "Scientists have exceeded their bounds. They are theologically naive. But that doesn't seem to stop them from talking about beginnings and endings. The beginning wasn't a Big Bang and the end won't be a Final Freeze. But don't try telling a scientist that.

"The Hubble telescope isn't going to tell us anything new about the metaphysical world, but that doesn't stop Stephen Hawking from pretending [in A Brief History o f Time] that he can. Scientists barge in where angels fear to tread."

On the language philosophers (the school of linguistic philosophy developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein earlier this century and dominant in the universities): "Minor annoyances. I love metaphysics. But the language philosophers want to be scientists, not metaphysicians."

On the mood of the country: "Anti-intellectual."

On academics: "Hopeless."

For all his life, Adler has written, taught, and lectured on a central, classical truth: There is one, absolute unity of truth, and the philosopher's job is to discover and define it so the good life can be known to all. Now, when Adler sees scientists, scholars, and even the man-on-the-street claim that truth is merely relative, that all individuals shop for it themselves and create their own recipe, with a pinch of culture, a dash of ethnicity, and a smidgen of serendipity, Adler sees red.

Perhaps it is just this foundational presupposition—the conviction that a single truth exists—that has attracted orthodox Christians to him.

Yet, in his years of swashbuckling swagger through Columbia, Chicago, educational reform, and popular philosophical publishing, Adler has never aligned himself with, fought for, or even talked like he belonged to, Christianity.

Where does he stand, then, on the Christian faith?

It is Sunday morning at Grace Episcopal Church, just a block from historic Dearborn Station on Chicago's Near South side. This three-by-four-block area knew the bustle and joy of creative enterprise early in this century when Printers' Row, Chicago's prestigious publishing empire, flourished. When the big printing plants went south, however, the area fell to semislum status. Now it is being reborn under yuppie influence.

It is still a balkanized neighborhood—a half-block walk in any direction can take you from the land of gourmet-food stores and hair salons to low-income housing, and another half-block has you back to $300,000 condos and upscale bookstores.

Grace Church ministers to the patrons of all these communities, and on this morning, Mortimer Adler is guest preacher.

"Six years ago they asked me to preach, and I said yes," he explains. Once a year, every year, he ministers to this mixedrace, mixed-class, mixed-everything congregation of about 40.

Adler looks less imposing in church than he does in his office. At the office, he is a lion in his den, bellowing midinterview to his administrative assistant of 28 years, Marlys Allen, to bring him a copy of the Syntopicon, the introductory volume he wrote to the Great Books, distilling the 102 key ideas of Western intellectual history. In his office he sits large behind his desk, master of his domain.

In church, by contrast, he walks to the podium with a tentative, 88-year-old shuffle, he looks his 5'2" height, and he selectively participates in the Anglican liturgy, not willing to attempt even the slow cadence of the hymns.

The minute Adler finally gets to the pulpit and begins a 30minute homily, the disparity between office and church disappears altogether.

The sermon is remarkable. How many sermons have you heard recently that began with a quote from the secondcentury Latin apologist Tertullian? Adler's does.

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45