Resources from the Trinity Forum
But Not Through Me
Seven Steps to Facing Up to the Challenge of Evil and Suffering
By Edited by Os Guinness with Peter Edman
(2004)
Evil and suffering are the very deepest challenges in life, but many in the modern, comfortable West have found it easy to downplay the problem. Even though we have just come through the most evil and destructive century ever, commercial, technological, and intellectual developments can make the problem of evil seem dull, remote, and abstract. September 11 brutally shattered such illusions and more and more of us are again confronting such hard questions as “why bad things happen to good people.”
A Trinity Forum seminar curriculum directed by Dr. Os Guinness, But Not Through Me takes us through classic and contemporary readings and sets out seven steps to help us honestly address the challenges posed by evil and suffering—and to consider our own responsibility. The readings are selected to open conversation on the deepest questions and issues we face as human beings.
The readings are demanding but not depressing—for those who go to the end. We begin by exploring the roots of evil and suffering—in our bodies, nature, and other humans—and listening to the questions suffering raises. We then turn to looking at the ways the modern world has transformed our experience of evil and suffering, magnifying its effects and diffusing individual responsibility. We look at the strongest explanations for evil and suffering from different times and cultures and turn to the necessary practical responses of confession, forgiveness, and resistance. After a treatment of the inherent mystery of evil, we address some of its “silver linings” and conclude by reflecting on the possibility of our individual response in our own spheres of influence.
This curriculum is available for Trinity Forum events and sponsored events only.
Category: Curricula (No. 7)
Pride and Perjury
The first part of Aitken's two volume autobiography detailing his political and spiritual journey.By Jonathan Aitken
(Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003)
[Details]
A Jonathan Edwards Reader
This authoritative anthology includes selected treatises, sermons, and autobiographical material by early America`s greatest theologian and philosopher.By Harry S. Stout, John Smith and Kenneth Minkema, eds.
(Yale University Press, 2003)
[Details]
The West and the Rest
Globalization and the Terrorist Threat
Roger Scruton examines the cultural differences between the West and other civilizations, specifically the Muslim world, as they relate to our defense against terrorism.By Roger Scruton
(ISI Books, 2003)
[Details]
A Public Faith
Evangelicals and Civic Engagement
The essays in this volume take another look at the role of evangelicals in American civic life, examining their beliefs and activity on topics ranging from bioethics to race relations and welfare reform to international human rights.By Michael Cromartie
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003)
[Details]
Reasons of the Heart
Recovering Christian Persuasion
By William Edgar
(P & R Publishing, 2003)
While affirming the importance of reason in answering unbelief, Edgar invites us to make full use of the diverse forms of persuasion aimed at the unbelieving heart by exploring the “deeply human side” of Christian apologetics.
[Details]
Religion Returns to the Public Square
Faith and Policy in America
By Wilfred M. McClay
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003)
A collection of essays by scholars on differing aspects of religion’s public presence.
Paperback: 408 pages (Woodrow Wilson Center Press) Co-Edited with Hugh Heclo.
[Details]
Great Souls
Six Who Changed a Century
By David Aikman
(Lexington Books, 2003)
Profiles of the lives of Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II, Elie Wiesel, and Mother Teresa.
[Details]
The Celestial Rail-Road
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Foreword by Os Guinness
(2003)Discussion Guide Included
This story addresses the question of the truth-claims of religious faith in the face of the pressures of the modern world.
Since the Enlightenment many religious leaders have attempted to “improve on” God, to make God “relevant” to the times. In his Foreword, Os Guinness makes a passionate case for truth in the face of the actions of the Episcopal Church (USA) in the summer of 2003. Hawthorne’s story, he argues, raises questions about the authority and public dimensions of faith that are vital not just for Episcopalians or even for Christians, but for all the citizens of the United States and the West at large. This selection is sure to provoke thought and discussion.
[Details]
Leaf by Niggle
By J. R. R. Tolkien
Foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald
(2003)Group Discussion Guide Included
This charming and haunting story, which Tolkien used to demonstrate what he meant by the “mythopoeic” power of fairy-stories, addresses the question of life’s purpose and the legacy we leave behind us.
Not only does the story illustrate Tolkien’s personal struggle with his writing process—his vivid imagination, painstaking and all-consuming detail, desire for perfection, and neglectful procrastination—but it speaks to the deeper life issues that haunt us all—life and death, purpose, relationships, and preparing for eternity.
[Details]
The Question of God
C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life
By Armand M. Nicholi Jr.
(The Free Press, 2002)
Nicholi uses Lewis and Freud to articulate their competing world views in this balanced encounter that touches on life’s deepest questions.
While Freud and C.S. Lewis never actually met, the atheistic theories of the psychoanalyst and well-known unbeliever are pitted against those of the Christian don in this readable book based on the popular Harvard course. Nicholi is a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor who has taught a class on the theological writings of Freud and Lewis for more than 25 years. In this accessible study, he outlines the lives of the two thinkers, both preoccupied with the question of God’s existence, and compares how the two approach questions of conscience, happiness, pain and death.
Hardcover: 304 pages
[Details]
Renovation of the Heart
Putting on the Character of Christ
Renovation of the Heart lays a foundation for understanding the ruin and restoration of humanity, by discussing human nature and its components, how they operate, and how they are renewed.By Dallas Willard
(NavPress Publishing Group, 2002)
[Details]
Tending the Heart of Virtue
How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination
In this elegantly written and passionate book, Guroian offers parents and teachers a much-needed roadmap to some of our finest children's stories.By Vigen Guroian
(Oxford University Press, 2002)
[Details]
Meditations on Modern Political Thought
Masculine/Feminine Themes from Luther to Arendt
Jean Bethke Elshtain's feminist perspective on post-Reformation political and social thought.By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002)
[Details]
Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy
A Life
An account of Jane Addams’s legacy, her embrace of “social feminism” and challenge to the usual cleavage between “conservative” and “liberal,” and the growth of Chicago’s famed Hull House into a thriving cultural and intellectual center.By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Basic Books, 2002)
[Details]
