Musings of a Christian Humanist

Secularism and its offspring tolerance is selective in both its secularization and toleration. Christianity is the specific target for many. Not one jot or title will remain if some have their way. They leave no stone unturned in their effort to overthrow. One professor of Medieval history who declared to his class that he refused to even mention Thomas Aquinas becuase he was too Christian. So the class was exposed to all the efforst to dimantel Thomas withoout ever reading Thomas.

      For years, I would begin my Introduction to Humanities course by trying to clear up some muddled ideas about the term Humanities. Of course, most of my students did not get the weightiness of the lecture. For them, Introduction to Humanities was merely a course in the core that was an academic requirement. In a most impassioned manner, the goal was to get the students to apprehend that the humanities was not really a discipline or set of disciplines, but a way of knowing. When fully embraced, the humanities could be a way of living and being. To provide a reference point of historical import, they would hear me implore, that "the humanities" more so than anything else they would experience at the university, would assist them in the plight to "know thyself," and if embraced as a way of knowing and understanding, would assist in the great good of seeking and obtaining wisdom.     Mortimer Adler, in A Guidebook to Learning powerfully...

Of course we all recognize that look. Sometimes it is comical. You are in a gathering of some sort and you look at another who has that droopy eyed What is intellectual somnolence Causes Cures Hope for recovery

     Studying and leading conversations on the Great Books for more than twenty years still produces that sense of awe and wonder, especially when I discover a new tool to aide in the exploration of wisdom.  Unfortunately, this excitement is often curtailed when I engage many of those within the academy. Once, an educationist from our Education Department, with arms folded humphed at me the term "perennialist" which he meant pejoratively, but which I heard as praise. More than once, I have seen the term "quaint" applied to what we do in our Great Books based programs. Of course, the secularists and dehumanized masses deem these writings down right dangerous. It is the notion of being quaint that I seek to ponder for a bit.      The term quaint, like perennialist, traditional, and related terms are often uttered with contempt today, but these terms have meaning that call for reconsideration. While quaint can be used in a dismissive manner, quaint ca...