Resources from the Trinity Forum
The Future of Christian Learning
An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue
By Mark A. Noll and James Turner
(Brazos Press, 2008)
Evangelicals and Roman Catholics have been responsible for the establishment of many colleges and universities in America. Until recently, however, they have taken very different approaches to the subject of education and have viewed one another’s traditions with suspicion. In this volume, Mark Noll and James Turner offer critical but appreciative reassessments of the two traditions. Noll, writing from an evangelical perspective, and Turner, from a Roman Catholic perspective, consider the respective strengths and weaknesses of each approach and what they might learn from the other. The authors then provide brief responses to each other’s essays. Thoughtful readers from both traditions will find insightful and challenging ideas regarding the importance of Christian learning and the role of faith in the modern college or university.
Paperback, 144 pages.
Category: Books by the Fellows
Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960
The Soul of Containment
By William Inboden
(Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Trinity Forum Board of Advisors member William Inboden argues that the poor response of churches to the Cold War led Truman and Eisenhower to construct a new civil religion.
The Cold War was in many ways a religious war. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and other American leaders believed that human rights and freedoms were endowed by God, that God had called the United States to defend liberty in the world, and that Soviet communism was especially evil because of its atheism and its enmity to religion. Along with security and economic concerns, these religious convictions also helped determine both how the United States defined the enemy and how it fought the conflict. Meanwhile, American Protestant churches failed to seize the moment. Internal differences over theology and politics, and resistance to cooperation with Catholics and Jews, hindered Protestant leaders domestically and internationally. Frustrated by these internecine disputes, Truman and Eisenhower attempted instead to construct a new civil religion. This public theology was used to mobilize domestic support for Cold War measures, to determine the strategic boundaries of containment, to appeal to people of all religious faiths around the world to unite against communism, and to undermine the authority of communist governments within their own countries.
Hardcover: 348 pages (publishers’ page)
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On Being Human
By Woodrow Wilson
Foreword by David Aikman
(2008)Discussion Guide Included
The future President sets out his vision for the good life in this personal essay, which also offers insight into his later policies and illustrates how a leader’s assumptions can change a nation—and the world.
As an educator—and a person of deep faith—Woodrow Wilson held strong convictions on the centrality of the humanities to human flourishing and freedom. His exultation in a broad and liberal democratic education stands in marked contrast to the current academic emphasis on hyper-specialization—and sheds some insight on his later enthusiasm, as President, for spreading democracy around the world.
The piece was written for the Atlantic Monthly in 1897, just after Wilson had achieved tenure as a professor at Princeton and thus before he assumed the burdens of public office. “On Being Human” is among the most personal of Wilson’s public writings and reveals an enthusiastic nature not often associated with the former President. While it makes little direct reference to faith, the essay opens a window on Wilson’s view of the good life, which is both hopeful and historical, drawing upon both Aristotle’s notion of “the golden mean” and Augustine’s view of the ordo amorum (the order of the loves)—specifically, that the good life consists largely in a well-balanced, harmonious ordering of one’s passions and priorities. As the reader will see, Wilson’s ideal is “the truly human man: a man in whom there is a just balance of faculties, a catholic sympathy—no brawler, no fanatic, no Pharisee, not too credulous in hope, not too desperate in purpose, warm, but not hasty, ardent, and full of definite power, but not running about to be pleased and deceived by every new thing.”
The coming decades would test Wilson’s hopes and ideals. Whether he was credulous in his hopes or mistaken in his reasoning may be debated, but the sympathies and effervescence on display in this little-known piece give insight into how the formation of a leader’s view of human nature and the world can eventually flower into large-scale initiatives, institutions, and movements. Had Wilson’s view of human nature differed, so would his conception of the League of Nations. Above all else, “On Being Human” illustrates the manner in which an emerging leader’s assumptions may be imprinted on national and international policy.
The foreword by Senior Fellow David Aikman, a journalist and professor of history, sets the reading in the context of Wilson’s life and accomplishments. A discussion guide helps the reader consider the implications and assumptions of the article and the appeal of its vision more than a century later.
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Flesh-and-Blood Jesus
Learning to Be Fully Human from the Son of Man
By Dan Russ
(Baker Books, 2008)
Dan Russ helps readers get to know Jesus Christ more fully through reflecting on his humanity.
It’s easy for most Christians to accept the Jesus who walked on water and rose from the dead. But what about the Jesus who got angry, doubted, struggled with fears, and faced tension with his mother? Flesh-and-Blood Jesus carefully examines the humanity of Jesus throughout his childhood, adulthood, death, and resurrection, exploring themes such as frailty, the need for companionship, feasting, dying, living with wounds, and responding to authority. By delving into areas of Jesus’s life that are often overlooked, you will emerge with a deeper understanding of how Jesus embraced his humanity. And you will learn how to embrace your own humanity with all its messiness and joy.
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The Historical Foundations of World Order
The Tower and the Arena
A detailed and insightful account of the history of international law.By Douglas M. Johnston
(Hotei Publishing, 2008)
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Faith-Based Diplomacy
Trumping Realpolitik
This book looks at five intractable conflicts and explores the possibility of drawing on religion as a force for peace, building upon the insights of Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft.By Douglas M. Johnston
(Oxford University Press, 2008)
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Sovereignty
God, State, and Self
By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Basic Books, 2008)
Elshtain examines the origins and meanings of “sovereignty” as it relates to the ways we attempt to explain our world: God, state, and self.
Examining the early modern ideas of God which formed the basis for the modern sovereign state, Elshtain carries her research from theology and philosophy into psychology, showing that political theories of state sovereignty fuel contemporary understandings of sovereignty of the self. As the basis of sovereign power shifts from God, to the state, to the self, Elshtain uncovers startling realities often hidden from view. Her thesis consists in nothing less than a thorough-going rethinking of our intellectual history through its keystone concept.
Based on her 2005–06 Gifford Lectures, this book is the culmination of over thirty years of critically applauded work in feminism, international relations, political thought, and religion and could open new ground for our understanding of our own culture and its past, present, and future.
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Awaken the Dragon
A Novel
This novel follows a reporter's investigation of a missing American in Hong Kong.By David Aikman
(B&H Books, 2008)
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Brain, Mind and Soul in the Theological Psychology of Donald Mackay, 1922-1987
The Intellectual Legacy of a Brain Physicist
This work seeks to present a Post-Cartesian metaphysical anthropology that is consistent with both contemporary philosophy and Reformed Evangelical Christian Theology. It does so by examining the intellectual legacy of Donald M. MacKay, arguing that his concept of complementary descriptions leads us to a deeper understanding of both modern neurophysiology and the Christian hope for personal life beyond the grave. Covering a wide range of topics from the history of philosophy and theology to logic, the philosophy of language, information theory, freedom and determinism, and the philosophy of mind, this work attempts to present an updated form of the school of thought Donald MacKay founded and ambitiously named ‘Comprehensive Realism’. 352 pages, hardcover.By David Norman
(Edwin Mellen Press, 2008)
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The Case for Civility
And Why Our Future Depends on It
By Os Guinness
(HarperOne, 2008)
A proposal for restoring civility in America as a way to foster civility around the world.
In a world torn apart by religious extremism on the one side and a strident secularism on the other, no question is more urgent than how we live with our deepest differences—especially our religious and ideological differences. Guinness makes a passionate plea to end the polarization of American politics and culture that threatens to reverse the principles our founders set into motion and that have long preserved liberty, diversity, and unity in this country.
Guinness takes on the contemporary threat of the excesses of the Religious Right and the secular Left, arguing that we must find a middle ground between privileging one religion over another and attempting to make all public expression of faith illegal. Guinness puts forth a vision of a new, practical “civil and cosmopolitan public square” that speaks not only to America’s immediate concerns but to the long-term interests of the republic and the world.
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Prayers for People under Pressure
By Jonathan Aitken
(Crossway, 2008)
A practical spiritual handbook.
224 pages, paperback.
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The Delusion of Disbelief
Why the New Atheism is a Threat to Your Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness
By David Aikman
(SaltRiver/Tyndale, 2008)
Aikman offers a reasoned response to four writers at the forefront of today’s anti-faith movement: Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens.
250 pages.
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The Rise of Global Civil Society
Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up
By Don Eberly
(Encounter Books, 2008)
A sweeping and hopeful overview of the extraordinary new forces that are prying open closed societies and cultivating democratic norms across the globe.
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The Oracle of the Dog
By G. K. Chesterton
Foreword by P. Douglas Wilson
(2008)Discussion Guide Included
A Father Brown mystery story that addresses themes of character, listening, and false assumptions.
This entertaining short story is among the best of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. In this case, by helping an eyewitness see his own evidence in a different light, the priest-detective solves the murder of Colonel Druce without leaving his desk. Common sense, Chesterton shows us, is not so common as we wish, and the story prompts us to take a fresh look at the assumptions that can cloud our vision.
The Reading features a Foreword by Senior Fellow Doug Wilson, whose career has focused on developing senior executive talent. Doug looks at lessons we can draw from the story, and particularly Father Brown’s method of questioning, for developing our own character, and fostering character in others, by learning truly to hear what others have to say.
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Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce
Many are aware of Wilberforce's role in bringing an end to slavery in Great Britain, but few have taken the time to examine the beliefs and motivations that spurred him on for decades. In this concise volume, John Piper tells the story of how Wilberforce was transformed from an unbelieving, young politician into a radically God-centered Christian, and how his deep spirituality helped to change the moral outlook of a nation. As world leaders debate over how to deal with a host of social justice and humanitarian crises, a closer look at Wilberforce's life and faith serves as an encouragement and example to all believers.By John Piper
Foreword by Jonathan Aitken
(Crossway Books, 2007)
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