Title for a Paper That Is About What Christian Liberal Arts Mean
College. If you had to exercise your life all over once again, would you get to college? A unlike college? Do higher differently? Take it more seriously? I had a great college feel at my alma mater Virginia Tech. I changed my major a few times—from Mining Technology, to Bookkeeping, before finally settling on what they used to call "Management Scientific discipline" (which is merely another name for Information Technology). During my two years or so of indecision, I toyed with studying history and English language literature. But the siren call of student loan repayments, and the fear of ending up similar Pauly Shore's "eternal college pupil" character in the moving picture "Son in Law" compelled me to avert settling into the liberal arts. That's not a regret, because I'm satisfied with the way God has directed my path. In fact, I think that, for me at least, pursuing the liberal arts—especially the creative arts—has been more than profitable subsequently higher since I've matured as a person and become seasoned in life. Yet, I wonder what my life would have turned out like if I had chosen a Christian Liberal Arts college like Wheaton where esteemed Professor Leland Ryken teaches in the English department. So when I stumbled across a used book that has been on my reading list for a long fourth dimension that promised to scratch the itch, I snatched it upward for a cadet. Liberal Arts for the Christian Life (LACL) is a collection of essays by Wheaton professors and influential alumni that highlight the value of a devoting the college years to the liberal arts from a Christian perspective. The book is a festschrift—essays in accolade of Leland Ryken and his distinguished teaching and publishing career at Wheaton. Equally such its audience is two-fold: (1) prospective college students considering the lifelong benefits of a Christian liberal arts education, and (two) people like me who want a guide and reminder why liberal arts are worthy of our attending regardless of whether we attended a liberal arts higher or non. In this sense LACL is a kind of introduction that makes the case for devoted and sustained attending to liberal arts.
But as with whatsoever book arranged every bit a drove of essays by diverse authors, some chapters are stronger than others. But that is the dazzler of a festschrift: chapters that seems weaker to me might exist your favorites. With such a diverseness of topics discussed, such every bit music, humanities, history, natural and social sciences, theater, and the visual arts, in that location is likely something here for anybody. But those topics occupy simply one of 5 sections in the book. Thus LACL is not just an introduction to the kinds of courses offered at a liberal arts college. Rather this book is a description, explanation, and defense of liberal arts education. Its purpose is to reply the who, where, when, why, and how questions, not just the what questions. One proven method for getting an idea of what a book is about is to inspect the Table of Contents. Notice how the different sections are arranged to take the reader on a bout of the liberal arts from start to finish.
Preface/Philip Ryken
The Student's calling /Leland Ryken
SECTION 1: TERMINOLOGY AND BACKGROUND
i.The Countercultural Quest of Christian Liberal Arts /Jeffry C. Davis
2. Liberal Didactics and Volume Learning /Lisa Richmond
3. Evangelicals, Colleges, and American Nation Building /Edith Blumhofer
Department 2: THEOLOGICAL CONVICTIONS
4. Liberal Arts Education and the Doctrine of Humanity /Roger Lundin
5. True-blue Christian Learning /Jeffrey P. Greenman
6. Liberal Arts as a Redemptive Enterprise /Wayne Martindale
7. Loving God as the Key to a Christian Liberal Arts Teaching /Duane Litfin
SECTION three: HABITS AND VIRTUES
8. The Lost Tools of Learning and the Habits of a Scholarly Mind /Marjorie Lamp Mead
nine. How to Read a Book /Alan Jacobs
x. Writing for Life /Sharon Coolidge
11. Listening, Speaking, and the Fine art of Living /Kenneth R. Hunt
12. Educating for Intellectual Character /Jay Wood
thirteen. Across Building a Résumé /Stephen B. Ivester
SECTION 4: Bounded AREAS OF Study
fourteen. A Earth of Discovery through the Natural Sciences /Dorothy F. Chappell
15. Exploring a Universe of Relationships through the Social Sciences /Henry Allen
sixteen. The Humanities as Indulgence or Necessity? /Jill Paláez Baumgaertner
17. Singing God's Praise /Michael Wilder
eighteen. Learning to Perceive through Visual Art /Eastward. John Walford
xix. Theater as an Imperfect Mirror /Mark Lewis
Department five: THE Cease OF CHRISTIAN LIBERAL ARTS
20. Social Media and the Loss of Embodied Communication /Read Mercer Schuchardt
21. Learning to Live Redemptively in Your Own Torso /Peter Walters
22. Personal Formation and the Agreement Centre /James Wilhoit
23. Learning for a Lifetime /John H. Augustine
24. The Gospel, Liberal Arts, and Global Engagement /Tamara Townsend
25. Liberal Arts in the New Jerusalem /Philip Thou. Ryken
From my perspective, some of the nearly interesting chapters are "How to Read a Book," "Theater as an Imperfect Mirror," and "Social Media and the Loss of Embodied Communication." The concluding chapter, "Liberal Arts in the New Jerusalem," was the most creative and speculative as the author attempts to discern how the liberal arts will survive this world and somewhen flourish in the new heavens and the new globe. Including an orientation address by Leland Ryken to new students kicked off the book in fine fashion.
Only I almost stopped reading after the "chapter ane" essay concluded with a somewhat ridiculous example of the career path of the author's college roommate. Seriously, I've never encountered an illustration earlier this one that was so ill-conceived. Did he mean to splash common cold h2o in the face of wide-eyed freshman? How could someone desire to pursue a liberal arts educational activity, including all of money spent and debt accumulated, subsequently considering Quinn's post-college career path?
So where did Quinn cease up, subsequently all that time, effort, and coin in the pursuit of two degrees from ii different liberal arts institutions? Today he delivers mail for the United States Postal Service in a major metropolitan urban center. That has been his career for over twenty years now. He would be the beginning to say that mail delivery does non represent his calling, nor would he say his education went to waste. To the contrary, Quinn uses what he learned every week during the 70.six hours that he spends in relationship with important people in his life, especially his best friend—his wife—and his two boys. Quinn's calling requires that he serve the people whom God brings beyond—and onto—his path each 24-hour interval, and he does that better considering of his Christian liberal arts educational activity. As he walks with a bag of mail service, traveling his daily route, making deliveries, he maintains his concrete fitness (aerobic exercise without a gym), and he keeps his mind engaged (listening to sound books and sermons). And in his gratuitous time, he actively participates in the life of his church, attends his kid's sporting events and dramas, takes care of his aged parents, and finds creative fulfillment as an apprentice inventor. [pp. 42-43]
Now please don't take this criticism every bit elitist or classist. I'k all for people working for the post role. I've had family members work there. It'due south an honest living, a skilful job for many that puts food on the tabular array and kids through college, and for some peradventure a life calling. Hither's my point: to use this illustration as an encouragement to spend years and money on a liberal arts education is just not attractive to today's high school graduate. I mean, this essay author himself didn't have a liberal arts education! But he gained one vicariously by means of bunking with someone who did. Through many sustained conversations, the author gained a satisfying semblance of liberal arts training. The moral of this story seems to be make friends with a liberal arts major and room with him/her. That way you may exist gratis to pursue your life calling also in your career—to dissever job and vocation is not good for mental health and keeps you away from your gift-mix sweetspot in God's kingdom. My two cents: if Christian colleges desire to make the instance that you should commit your mail service-high school years to studying liberal arts, and then they need to make the educational product they offer affordable and somewhat preparatory for specific vocational training/schooling afterward. There are far as well many liberal arts graduates withal saddled with crushing debt loads who mortgaged their futures for the "ideal" of four years of liberal arts college studies that never promised the ability to pay off pupil loans in the kickoff place. So what'due south an answer to this conundrum? Purposeful, self-directed study and a life of enjoying the liberal arts without ownership the line that they tin can best be experienced from a classroom. Perhaps I didn't miss out on so much after all!
Resources
Why and How We Should Value the Classics, by Leland Ryken
Read a sample of LACL (Chapter 9: How to Read a Book)
Read a sample of LACL (Chapter 2: Liberal Education and Volume Learning)
The Creative Arts, past Leland Ryken
Articles by Leland Ryken at Reformation 21
Articles by Leland Ryken at The Gospel Coalition
Articles by Leland Ryken at Monergism.com
Leland Ryken Bibliography
Leland Ryken written and sound resource at Southern Equip
Leland Ryken talks and sermons at SermonAudio
Reviews
Amazon
Digital Eatables at George Fox University
Englewood Review of Books
Gene Fant of Marriage Academy
Goodreads
Nate Claiborne
Order for Classical Learning
Warp and Woof
Source: https://dangitbill.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/liberal-arts-for-the-christian-life-book-review/
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