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Modernity Course

This recommended reading list is based on two assumptions: first, that the class meets twice a week, with more time to read and prepare available for the first discussion than the second. Secondly, this course assumes two 18-week semesters. Educators may tailor these recommendations to fit their own schedules.

Because our mission is to apply the Christian worldview to the great conversation, we begin each year by assigning books designed to encourage students to better understand and apply the Christian worldview. These first few weeks establish an important foundation for students, reminding them that they are responsible for taking every thought captive for Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Required Resources

1. A History of the American People

2. A Kierkegaard Anthology

3. Amusing Ourselves to Death

4. Basic Writings of Nietzsche

5. Billy Budd

6. Book of Mormon, The

7. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

8. Candles Behind the Wall

9. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

10. Classic Mystery Stories

11. Compact Guide to World Religions, The

12. Cost of Discipleship, The

13. Death of Ivan Ilych, The

14. Democracy in America

15. Emerson's Prose and Poetry

16. Essential Works of Lenin

17. Existentialism and Human Emotions

18. Gambler, The

19. God Who is There, The

20. God's Politician: William Wilberforce's Struggle

21. Grand Illusions

22. Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, The

23. Hard Times

24. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

25. Letter from Birmingham Jail

26. Life of Johnson

27. Man Who Was Thursday, The

28. Man's Search for Meaning

29. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

30. Natural Theology

31. Origin of Species

32. Philosophy: Basic Readings

33. Plague, The

34. Poor Man's Earl, The

35. Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons

36. Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems

37. Robespierre: Selected Speeches

38. Screwtape Letters, The

39. Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure

40. Shelley's Poetry and Prose

41. Transcript of the Scopes Monkey Trial

42. Turning Points

43. Understanding the Times

44. Up from Slavery

= Study Guide available

Reading List

Week 1
The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer.
Compact Guide to World Religions by Dean Halverson.
-read " Marxism" chapter
Week 2
Understanding the Times by David A. Noebel.
-read the "Conclusion"
Compact Guide to World Religions by Dean Halverson.
-read "New Age" chapter
Week 3
Life of Johnson by James Boswell.
-read pp. 864-953
Life of Johnson by James Boswell.
-read pp. 1374-1402
Week 4
Robespierre: Selected Speeches
"Against Capital Punishment" (May 30, 1791)
"Against Granting the King a Trial" (Dec. 3, 1792)
"If God did not Exist" (Nov. 21, 1793)
"Defence of Terrorism" (Feb. 5, 1794)
"At the Festival of the Supreme Being" (June 8, 1794)
"Last Speech" (July 26, 1794)
Turning Points by Mark Noll.
-read Chapter 11
Week 5
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham.
-read chapters 1-4, 10 (sections 2-4), 13
Philosophy: Basic Readings by Nigel Warburton.
-read Immanuel Kant, excerpted in chapter 11
Week 6
Natural Theology by William Paley.
-read chapters 1-2
Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
-read "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Week 7
God's Politician by Garth Lean.
-read the Introduction and chapters 1 & 5
God's Politician by Garth Lean.
-read chapters 7-9 and chapter 18
Week 8
Shelley's Poetry and Prose by Percy Shelley.
-read Author's Introduction and "Prometheus Unbound" Act I
Shelley's Poetry and Prose by Percy Shelley.
-read "Prometheus Unbound" Act III
Week 9
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.
-read the Author's Introduction, Volume One: part one: 2-4, part two: 6-7
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.
-read Volume Two: part one: 1,2,5,6 and 8
Week 10
Democracy in America.
-read Volume Two: part two: 1,2,4; part three: 3, 8-12
Classic Mystery Stories by Edgar Allen Poe.
-read the short story: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
Week 11
Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith.
-read Introduction, 3 Nephi: 11, 15, 27, 28
Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons by Ron Rhodes.
-read chapter one-p. 43, pp. 87-90, ch. 6 and ch. 14
Week 12
Emerson's Prose and Poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
-read "The Over Soul"
Emerson's Prose and Poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
-read "Circles" and "Brahman"
Week 13
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau.
-read " Civil Disobedience"
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau.
-read "Life Without Principle"
Week 14
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy.
The Poor Man's Earl by John Polluck.
Week 15
Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
-read Book One: chapters 1-9
Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
-read the rest of Book One through Book Two: chapter 5
Week 16
Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
-read rest of Book Two
Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
-read Book Three
Week 17
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.
-read chapters 1-10
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.
-read chapter 11 through the Appendix
Week 18
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson.
-read Part Four
FINAL EXAM
Week 19
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
-read Introduction and chapter 14
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
-read chapters 1-8
Week 20
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
-read the rest of The Gambler
A Kierkegaard Anthology ed. Robert Bretall.
-read the editor's Introduction and Training in Christianity
Week 21
A Kierkegaard Anthology ed. Robert Bretall.
-read "The Unchangeableness of God"
Billy Budd by Herman Melville.
-read chapters 1-11
Week 22
Billy Budd by Herman Melville.
-read chapters 11 to the end of book
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
-read chapters 1-2
Week 23
Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
-read Beyond Good and Evil the Preface, Part 1 except # 20-22, and all of Part 3
Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
- read Beyond Good and Evil Part 7 #219-221, 225-231, and Part 9 #257-260, 265
Week 24
Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.
-read chapters 1-6
Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.
-read chapters 7-10
Week 25
Grand Illusions by George Grant.
-read chapters 4 and 6
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.
-read chapters 1-4
Week 26
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.
-read chapters 5-11
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.
-read the rest of book
Week 27
Essential Works of Lenin, ed. Henry Christman.
-read The State and Revolution chapters 1 and 5 in
Transcript of the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Week 28
The Plague by Albert Camus.
Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean Paul Sartre.
-read essay "Existentialism"
Week 29
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
-read Part I
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
-read pp. 21-64
Week 30
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
-read rest of Part I
Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure by Langdon Gilkey .
-read chapters 1-3
Week 31
Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure by Langdon Gilkey .
-read chapters 4-8
Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure by Langdon Gilkey .
-read rest of book
Week 32
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
-read chapters 1-21
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
-read the rest of book
Week 33
The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
-read vol. 1, chapters 1-2
The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
-read chapters 3-4
Week 34
"Letter from the Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
-read chapters 1-3
Week 35
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
-read chapters 4- 7
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
-read the rest of book
Week 36
Candles Behind the Wall by Barbara von der Heydt
-read Introduction, chapters 8 and 9
FINAL EXAM

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