Friday, July 23, 2010

We Have Cause To Be Uneasy

In C.S. Lewis' masterful tome, Mere Christianity,  he systematically burns strawmen, fishes out red herrings, and in short dismantles the foundations of unbelief.  

I've been teaching Christian students for many years now, and have found that, with few exceptions, the world-view of my students is not much different than that of the postmodern world in which we live.   In addition, too many of us have grown intellectually fat and lazy... we don't know what we know, and we don't know how to rebut when the world challenges our faith on an intellectual level.  

Too many of our students will fall away from the "faith once delivered" once they reach college.

My goal is to teach Christian students to actively engage our culture for Christ.   Once in a while, I have been criticized for including "pagan" literature in my syllabi... why on earth, wonder faithful parents, would I do such a thing, when there is much in the Western canon that doesn't feature licentiousness, debauchery, vice and so forth (I Peter 4:3, Ephesians 5:18 et al) that we as believers are clearly to avoid, not embrace?

For one, we have the example of the Apostle Paul.  

I can't say it any more clearly.    I also highly recommend the book linked below.

About Secondary Composition and Literature

Welcome!  The purpose of this blog is to communicate with high school English class at our homeschool co-op in Birmingham, Alabama.  Assignments will be posted here.  

Course Description:  This is a high-school level survey of literary and historical selections from the Fall of Rome to the immediate Post-Reformation.    The class will feature weekly reading and writing assignments.    Lesson plans and assignments for the following week will be posted at the class blog on Fridays by 6 pm:  Http://wehavecausetobeuneasy.blogspot.com  (the title is a reference from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, in case you were wondering!)

Prerequisites:  Students should have a basic understanding of parts of speech, the ability to construct cohesive sentences, and the willingness to tackle challenging material, and the willingness to put forth the effort to master it with the help of their instructor and parent teachers. 

Student Expectations:  Students should check the blog, know their assignments, be prepared to spend about four hours per week on course assignments.   They should come to class having read the material assigned and having writing assignments completed. 

Texts:   Students will need Macbeth (Shakespeare Made Easy) and selections provided below.  I will post links to them on the class blog.  

Selections:

Augustine, from The Confessions of St. Augustine
Augustine, from The City of God
Benedict of Nursia, from The Rule of St. Benedict
Tacitus, from The Early Germans
Magna Carta
Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales
Thomas Aquinas, from Whether God Exists
Thomas Aquinas, from Of Cheating and Of the Sin of Usury
Niccolo Machiavelli, from The Prince
Dante Alighieri, from The Divine Comedy
Erasmus, from In Praise of Folly
Martin Luther, from Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation
John  Calvin, from The Institutes of the Christian Religion
Convocation of the Clergy, from The Thirty-Nine Articles
Council of Trent, from The Decrees of the Council of Trent
Jacques Benigne Bousset, from Political Economy Drawn from Holy Scripture
Thomas Hobbes, from The Leviathan
John Locke, from The Second Treatise on Government
John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Voltaire, from Candide