As class comes to an end, let us con­sider test­ing the Chris­t­ian Rev­o­lu­tion hypoth­e­sis on a micro-cultural scale.  In other words, we have seen con­sid­er­able evi­dence of how Christ has pos­i­tively changed things across time and cul­tures in gen­eral.  I pro­pose con­sid­er­ing how Christ makes a dif­fer­ence in micro-cultures–the var­i­ous groups of peo­ple who form what would be iden­ti­fied as their own sub­cul­ture within a larger cul­tural con­text.  For instance, prison life would be such a micro-culture.  What does the sci­en­tific data say on Chris­t­ian faith-based help in the pris­ons?  For­tu­nately the evi­dence has been sur­veyed by pro­fes­sional soci­ol­o­gist, Bryon John­son in his new book by Tem­ple­ton Press enti­tled, More God, Less Crime.  The title of the book rep­re­sents the con­clu­sion of years of soci­o­log­i­cal study.

Here is a link to a short men­tion of the book by Chuck Col­son, of Prison Fellowship.

More God, Less Crime  (click to view)

The last major com­po­nent of our class has con­sid­ered the Rise of Mod­ern Sci­ence.  Thanks to Todd Austin for his ses­sions on fram­ing an under­stand­ing of the his­tory of the con­flict between Sci­ence and the Church.  Here is a delight­ful lec­ture by James Han­nam given to the Royal Soci­ety on the topic of “Sci­ence and the Church in the Mid­dle Ages.”   It has some good slides and is around 43 worth­while minutes.

Han­nam Lec­ture  (click to hear and view)

More from James Hannam

Here is the pow­er­point from David Boyd’s lec­tures on the Influ­ence of Chris­tian­ity on Music.

Influ­ence of Chris­tian­ity on Music no imbeds

akousate (early greek music)

Melos Archaion (early Greek music)

ambrosian chant \“Kyrie\”

Gre­go­rian chant \“Agnus Dei\”

O Pas­tor Ani­marum, Hilde­gaard Von Bingen

\“Aguns Dei\” from Le Messe de Notre Dame Guil­laume de Mauchant

\“nunc Dimit­tis\” Gio­vanni Palest­rina per­formed by Tallis Scholars

\“vig­i­late\” William Byrd Tallis scholars

Sanc­tus in D J S Bach

\“Sanc­tus from B minor Mass\” J S Bach

\“all we like sheep\” from Mes­siah G F Han­del  (need to hear the last bars of this one for the pathos start­ing about minute 2:50)

\“I know that my Redeemer liveth\” From Messiah

\“in Par­adisum\” Requiem Gabriel Faure

Tom Bostom’s two part arti­cle on the often neglected con­text for the cru­sades.  For eas­ier read­ing might con­sider print format.

Jihad Begot the Cru­sades Part 1

Jihad Begot the Cru­sades Part 2

Time­line for Jihad and Cru­sades (click to view)

“The Michael Ram­sey Prize is intended for the­o­log­i­cal writ­ing which, by fresh­ness and orig­i­nal­ity, some­how changes the the­o­log­i­cal land­scape, and also serves the needs of the Church …  ”  We are glad to see con­fir­ma­tion of our high rec­om­men­da­tion of David Bent­ley Hart’s book,  Athe­ist Delu­sions, by its win­ning the 2011 Michael Ram­sey Prize last month.

Michael Ram­sey Prize 2011 (click to view)

So what if I don’t have time this sum­mer to read the artis­tic and engag­ing Athe­ist Delu­sions? (Which you may recall is actu­ally a book set­ting our civ­i­liza­tion in the con­text of its his­tor­i­cal roots–doing the home­work of trac­ing what is owed to the trans­form­ing influ­ence of Chris­tian­ity.)  You can get the gist of the book by the short sum­mary below by C Bur­rell.  Note the four ways men­tioned of how Chris­tian­ity trans­formed society.

Hart: Athe­ist Delu­sions (click to read)

Jim made avail­able his lec­ture on the cru­sades here:

What About the Crusades_Part 1 (Click to read)

Sug­gested read­ing to sup­ple­ment Jim’s teach­ing today are the following:

Onward Chris­t­ian Sol­diers? Chris­t­ian Per­spec­tives on War (Click to read on site)

Chris­t­ian Paci­fism: Early Chris­t­ian Views of War (Click to read on site)

Reflec­tive of a strong cur­rent of paci­fism in our tra­di­tion, here are two arti­cles with a dif­fer­ent perspective:

Ben Witherington\‘s poem and com­ments on war (click to read on site)

Paci­fism: The Case for Chris­t­ian Non-Violence (click to read on site)

Here are the links to the four film clips we watched in class in case you want to review them.  We hope these enrich and show that the class theme is sup­ported on the high­est aca­d­e­mic lev­els.  For instance  1) Jim’s class pre­sen­ta­tion on self crit­i­cism as an aspect of Chris­t­ian her­itage is sup­ported by Judge’s obser­va­tions on Humil­ity, and 2)  Lance’s class on the Chris­t­ian her­itage of  “peace as a method–making peace rather than revenge”–is like­wise corrobortated.

Three clips by the Cen­tre of Pub­lic Chris­tian­ity (CPC) are inter­views of the Cam­bridge trained clas­si­cist Edwin Judge.  The other CPC clip is an inter­view with David Bent­ley Hart, the Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia trained the­olo­gian and cul­ture critic who wrote one of the the books for our course, Athe­ist Delusions.

Judge on the Good the Bad and the Ugly of Chris­tian­ity (click to view)

Humil­ity: a Chris­t­ian Legacy (click to view)

Nos­tal­gia for a Pagan Past (click to view)

Constantine\‘s Legacy (click to view)

Please find here some shorter pieces that grant access to Schmidt’s book, which is one of our texts for this course.

Schmidt inter­view (click to view)

The Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion of Human Life by Alvin Schmidt (click to view)

Chris­t­ian Book Sum­mary of How Chris­tian­ity Changed the World (click to view)  Great Overview

Here is a won­der­ful Time Line Chart cre­ated by Mark Barry who works with the Aus­tralian Fel­low­ship of Evan­gel­i­cal Stu­dents.  Thanks to Mark for his per­mis­sion for For­est Home to use it.

Early Church His­tory Time Line (click to view)