Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Time

At this Friday Forum, author and social critic Os Guinness will discuss his latest book, Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times. Guinness argues that you only live once―if then. Life is short, and it can be as easily wasted as lived to the full. In the midst of our harried modern world, how do we make the most of life and the time we have? In these fast and superficial times, Os Guinness calls us to consequential living. In strong contrast to both Eastern and secularist views of time, he reorients our very notion of history, not as cyclical nor as meaningless, but as linear and purposeful. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, time and history are meaningful, and human beings have agency to live with freedom and consequence in partnership with God. Thus we can seek to serve God’s purpose for our generation, read the times, and discern our call for this moment in history. Our time on earth has significance. Live rightly, discern the times, and redeem the day.

Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.

Os has written or edited more than thirty books, including The Call, Time for Truth, Unspeakable, A Free People’s Suicide, The Global Public Square, and Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat. His latest book, Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times, was published in September 2019