
Some friends and I are beginning to plan a multi-day seminar on Christian humanism to be given to a group of scholar-teachers from across the country next spring. As we consider themes that might prove both interesting and helpful to such a group, I’ve framed some elements (still well short of an outline) as follows:
Nascent learning outcomes
- Definitions: What, simply defined, is Christian humanism (hereafter, “CH”)?
- Warrants
- Scriptural warrants: What are some key scriptural foundations of CH?
- Doctrinal warrants: In what key Christian doctrines has CH been grounded?
- Chronological scope, depth in the tradition: How has CH been present and active in all periods of Christian history?
- Patristic roots and forms: How were the Church Fathers Christian humanists?
- Medieval roots and forms: How were the scholastics and renaissance thinkers Christian humanists?
- Reformation roots and forms: How were the Reformers Christian humanists?
- 20th century: CH as a tradition reclaimed during times of crisis: What social circumstances and intellectual contexts led WW II – era thinkers to attempt to reclaim facets of CH for their time? Are there parallels between the crisis of that era (to which some thinkers responded by looking to re-excavate CH) and our own moment of multifaceted crisis?
- 21st century: Application today: If CH is appropriately considered as a “crisis philosophy” that has something to say to our moment, then do we need to recapture CH today – particularly in contemporary North American culture?
Thanks, Da Vinci Code . . . for sending us back to Christianity’s founding fathers
Once in a while, a book or movie comes along that presents its own twisted version of the Christian faith or of events from Christian history, and the faithful rise up to object. And sometimes, the faithful also dig into our history to find out “what really happened.” This was the case with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003:
Thanks, Da Vinci Code …
… for sending us back to Christianity’s “founding fathers”—and the Bible we share with them.
Chris Armstrong
It’s been a while since Christian History got an online response to rival the emails that poured in after last week’s “Behind the News”. We enjoyed reading your responses to staff writer Collin Hansen’s fact-checking piece on Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.
Anything that leads people back to those dynamic early centuries of the church can only help the Christian cause. Obviously no human untruth can obscure the truth of the Gospel. And the first thing you notice when you read the early “church fathers” is that they are completely convinced Jesus is God himself. I’m talking about those bishops and teachers from the 100s and 200s too—long before the Nicean council (Brown claims) enforced on the church the supposedly minority position of Christ’s divinity. Continue reading →
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Tagged Ancient Christian Commentary Series, Bible, canon, Church fathers, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, Greek philosophy, Torah