"daring to discuss the important and the amusing"

NEWSLETTER #7

WINTER 2002

At the turn of the twentieth century, Christianity faced the challenges of materialism, skepticism, and collectivism. It was for this reason that Chesterton wrote Heretics and Orthodoxy. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the cultural and philosophical landscape has shifted, and the main challenges to Christian faith include pluralism and, more suddenly, evil and suffering. Fortunately, we again have first-rate Christian thinkers helping us navigate a faithful course through the confusing currents.

Take D.A. Carson on pluralism, for example. Philosophical pluralism is the view that all knowledge is severely bounded by interpretive communities. In this view, particular religious commitments become mere communal values that can have no more accurate a correspondence to external reality than competing commitments, which explains why some people take evangelism to be a form of oppression. Although it is all the rage in some Christian circles to denounce postmodernism and deconstructionism (often in 100 words or less), Carson has argued at length that "confessional Christianity cannot wholly embrace modernity or postmodernity, yet it must learn certain lessons from both; it must vigorously oppose many features of philosophical pluralism, without retreating to modernism." This is complex stuff that one should not address in an email newsletter. More sufficient to the task is Carson's 600-page The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Zondervan, 1996). "For those who espouse radical religious pluralism," Carson writes, sounding very Chestertonian, "there is no longer any heresy, except perhaps the view that there are heresies."

Dr. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and author or editor of over 40 books, will be the first of two Chesterton House advisory board members we will be hosting this semester. Dr. Carson will provide a weekend conference entitled Who Is This Jesus? Studies in John's Gospel. The conference, February 1-3, will begin with a free Friday night lecture at Cornell's Anabel Taylor Hall auditorium, and will continue all day Saturday and Sunday morning at Bethel Grove Bible Church. Registration, directions, and other information are available at http://www.bg.org/.

Just one week later, on Sunday evening February 10th, we will be equally privileged to host noted philosopher and Chesterton House advisory board member Eleonore Stump. Dr. Stump, who has been invited to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen later this year, will be providing a Graduate InterVarsity roundtable discussion with her husband Don, a professor of English and Renaissance literature, and daughter Monica, a Cornell undergraduate. The Stumps will speak about their experience as a Christian family in academia.

In addition to her writings in medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics, Dr. Stump contributed an interesting essay on evil and suffering to God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason (Oxford, 1994). Following Ecclesiastes, Stump argues that evil functions as a mirror that "shows us ourselves," and that can lead us to God. In response to the evil around us, Stump writes, we can try to forget about it, we can dwell on it, or we can take the long road of seeing through the mirror of evil and tasting the goodness of the Lord. Realizing that even evil and suffering are in His hands yields a hobbit-like contentment that strips evil of its power to crush us, and explains how quiet cheer and the enjoyment of small pleasures can exist alongside suffering. Like a woman in childbirth, our pains of the moment "are encircled by an understanding that brings peace and joy." Or, like a child being weaned (Psalm 131), who learns contentment from the painful process of shifting his focus from his own desires to his mother's love, so it is with us. "For the author of Ecclesiastes, and for me, too, the ghastly vision in the mirror of evil becomes a means to finding the goodness of God, and with it peace and joy."

Needless to say, this space does no more justice to Stump's essay than to Carson's book; suffice it to say these are Christian scholars very well worth hearing. We hope you will come out to hear them, in which case we will see you soon.

Below you will find information on events in February, our new Mars Hill Audio Forum, a one-day conference with Dr. Lamin Sanneh of Yale in April, and a little item from our wish list.

As always, thanks for your interest and support.

-Karl E. Johnson

Friday-Sunday, February 1-3
Institute for Biblical Studies: "Who Is this Jesus? Studies in John's Gospel"
D.A. Carson
Friday: Anabel Taylor Hall, 7:30pm (Free)
Saturday & Sunday AM: Bethel Grove Bible Church
For more info: http://www.bg.org/

Monday, February 4, 8:30pm (and every Monday following)
Mars Hill Audio Forum

Sunday, February 10, 7:00 pm
Graduate Christian Fellowship Roundtable: "The Delicate Balance of Raising a Family in the University Environment"
Eleonore, Don, and Monica Stump

Thursday, February 21, 7:30pm
RQ Forum
We will be discussing Karl Johnson's "Six Days Shalt Thou Labor, More or Less: Busyness and the Business of Heaven," available at http://www.regenerator.com/

Friday, February 22, 10:00 pm
Movie Night: "The Decalogue" (selections)

All Chesterton House events are open to the Cornell and Ithaca communities. Unless otherwise noted, all events are held at the Crossroads Life Center, 604 E. Buffalo St. The Chesterton House Resource Room is open and staffed on Friday afternoons when Cornell is in session, from 1:00-5:00pm. For a complete schedule of events for Spring 2002, please visit our website at http://www.chestertonhouse.org/. For those interested in Chesterton House's mission of integrating faith and learning, you will also find the following conferences of interest:

March 7-9
Westminster Theological Seminary's 11th Annual Contemporary Issues Conference:
"The Earth is the Lord's: Christian Reflections on Ecology."
Calvin DeWitt and others
See http://www.wts.edu/

March 16
Jonathan Edwards Institute
"God in the Dark: The Triumph of Truth"
Os Guinness and others
See http://www.thejei.org/

April 18-21
Center for Christian Study (Charlottesville, VA)
"Music and the Spheres: Music, Faith, and Culture in America today
Jeremy Begbie and others
See http://www.studycenter.net/

MARS HILL AUDIO FORUM
"What's a Mars Hill Audio Forum?" Glad you asked! Last semester, Cornell undergraduates Steven Pinckney and Kira Moriah started a new group to encourage Christian undergraduates to think well about contemporary issues--a suspiciously familiar project! We decided on a format of listening to and then discussing a recent segment from the Mars Hill Audio Journal, and the experiment was a great success with lively conversation among both Christian and non-Christian students. Chesterton House and this new undergraduate organization, called Veritas, will continue these meetings every Monday night during the Spring semester. Stop by Monday nights, or for more information, contact Steven at sbp24@cornell.edu.

LAMIN SANNEH TO SPEAK
"Suddenly, everyone's listening." So says Dr. Lamin Sanneh of his lifelong work in Islamic studies. Sanneh grew up the son of a Muslim cleric in Africa, converted to Christianity as a teenager, and now serves as Professor of Missions & World Christianity at Yale University. On Saturday, April 13th, Dr. Sanneh will provide the Upstate New York InterVarsity Faculty and Graduate Conference, entitled "Christianity and Islam: World Religions in Tension," to be held at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and World Affairs, Syracuse University. Dr. Sanneh will also provide a roundtable on Sunday evening, and a public lecture on the Cornell campus Monday afternoon. Mark the date; more information will be forthcoming in the next newsletter.

WANTED: LCD PROJECTOR
One of the more popular and effective initiatives at Chesterton House is our movie night series. The reasons for this are several, including the fact that Hollywood is currently our culture's source for epic stories that suggest meaningful frameworks for life, that students find thoughtful Christian engagement with visual culture refreshing and compelling (perhaps because it is less common that it ought to be), that resident film critic Steve Froehlich is so suave and winsome, and the list goes on. In any case, the factor that most limits attendance at these events is our television screen. If you have ever seen a film on DVD projected from an LCD projector, you know that the technology and quality of theater films are now portable. An LCD projector would allow us to provide an image several times larger, with higher quality image and sound. Best of all, we'd be able to accommodate more students. If you are upgrading your LCD projector and need to get rid of the old one, or if you are interested in donating the funds for a new one (units begin at about $2000), please let us know. In addition to the tax deduction, we'll send you an illustrated, hardcover boxed set of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, a "must re-read."

"There is not an inch in the whole area of human existence of which Christ, the sovereign of all, does not cry 'It is mine.'"
-Abraham Kuyper