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Sep 1, 2006 Making the most of college (first annual)

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Making the most of college: philosophy as schooled memory

Western culture runs itself by the notion that something is only good if it can “do” something—that people are to be valued on the basis of what they can do or produce. Calvin Seerveld attacks the understanding of philosophy as a “tool” with an “instrumental” value. He suggests, instead, that philosophy precedes and grounds human—including students’—thinking and talking and writing. Seerveld describes neocalvinist philosophy in these terms.

Sep 1, 2006 Making the most of college (first annual)

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Making the most of college: looking at paintings

Art is more than a weather forecast or a financial statement, which experts can interpret for us. A student of art is required to personally engage art, and Chris Cuthill suggests three interdependent methods: from one’s own worldview, from dipping into the communal experience of a work through others’ interpretations, and through the surface plays of colour and texture.

Sep 1, 2006 Making the most of college (first annual)

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Making the most of college: making friends for life (‘I want to be tangled up . . . in the thorns of love’)

col·lege (‘kä-lij) n. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin collegium, association. The students, faculty, and administration of such a school or institution. A society of scholars for study or instruction. A body of persons having a common purpose or shared duties. To know and be known, to consider one’s life in the community that is a college.

Sep 1, 2006 Making the most of college (first annual)

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Making the most of college: writing with purpose

Where art has it over life is in the matter of editing (Larry McMurtry, “‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman’ and the Movie-Less Novelists,” 1987). At its best, good writing develops good character. Today, Jeffry C. Davis suggest five ways that a faith-filled student can transform college into something worth the time, money, and effort—to the glory of God. And each of his proposals depends, to greater or lesser degrees, upon the careful use of words.

Jun 1, 2006 Reading the Bible

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Reading the Bible . . . and articulating a worldview

The story of the Bible tells us the way the world really is—a normative claim, a public truth. But it needs to be understood as one single unfolding story; if reduced to a collection of moral bits, systematic-theological bits, devotional bits, historical-critical bits, narrative bits, and homiletical bits, it can easily be absorbed into the reigning story of culture instead of challenging it. Then, of course, the Christian’s basic beliefs in the biblical story must form the blueprint through which s/he sees human existence and the cultural task. In other words, articulating a worldview is the natural answering of life’s most foundational questions. Here’s how.