Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education

Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education
Author: Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2017-01-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268101299

Over the last two decades, the American academy has engaged in a wide-ranging discourse on faith and learning, religion and higher education, and Christianity and the academy. Eastern Orthodox Christians, however, have rarely participated in these conversations. The contributors to this volume aim to reverse this trend by offering original insights from Orthodox Christian perspectives that contribute to the ongoing discussion about religion, higher education, and faith and learning in the United States. The book is divided into two parts. Essays in the first part explore the historical experiences and theological traditions that inform (and sometimes explain) Orthodox approaches to the topic of religion and higher education—in ways that often set them apart from their Protestant and Roman Catholic counterparts. Those in the second part problematize and reflect on Orthodox thought and practice from diverse disciplinary contexts in contemporary higher education. The contributors to this volume offer provocative insights into philosophical questions about the relevance and application of Orthodox ideas in the religious and secular academy, as well as cross-disciplinary treatments of Orthodoxy as an identity marker, pedagogical framework, and teaching and research subject.

The Greek Orthodox Church in America

The Greek Orthodox Church in America
Author: Alexander Kitroeff
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2020-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501749447

In this sweeping history, Alexander Kitroeff shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. Kitroeff digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the "mother church," the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.

Christian Higher Education

Christian Higher Education
Author: David S. Dockery
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2018-12-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433556561

Our world is growing increasingly complex and confused—a unique and urgent context that calls for a grounded and fresh approach to Christian higher education. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, curriculum, student life, administration, and governance that is rooted in the historic Christian faith. In this volume, twenty-nine experts from a variety of fields, including theology, the humanities, science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, the arts, and professional programs, explore how the foundational beliefs of Christianity influence higher education and its disciplines. Aimed at equipping the next generation to better engage the shifting cultural context, this book calls students, professors, trustees, administrators, and church leaders to a renewed commitment to the distinctive work of Christian higher education—for the good of the society, the good of the church, and the glory of God.

The Soul of the American University Revisited

The Soul of the American University Revisited
Author: George M. Marsden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2021-04-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190073330

The Soul of the American University is a classic and much discussed account of the changing roles of Christianity in shaping American higher education, presented here in a newly revised edition to offer insights for a modern era. As late as the World War II era, it was not unusual even for state schools to offer chapel services or for leading universities to refer to themselves as “Christian” institutions. From the 1630s through the 1950s, when Protestantism provided an informal religious establishment, colleges were expected to offer religious and moral guidance. Following reactions in the 1960s against the WASP establishment and concerns for diversity, this specifically religious heritage quickly disappeared and various secular viewpoints predominated. In this updated edition of a landmark volume, George Marsden explores the history of the changing roles of Protestantism in relation to other cultural and intellectual factors shaping American higher education. Far from a lament for a lost golden age, Marsden offers a penetrating analysis of the changing ways in which Protestantism intersected with collegiate life, intellectual inquiry, and broader cultural developments. He tells the stories of many of the nation's pace-setting universities at defining moments in their histories. By the late nineteenth-century when modern universities emerged, debates over Darwinism and higher criticism of the Bible were reshaping conceptions of Protestantism; in the twentieth century important concerns regarding diversity and inclusion were leading toward ever-broader conceptions of Christianity; then followed attacks on the traditional WASP establishment which brought dramatic disestablishment of earlier religious privilege. By the late twentieth century, exclusive secular viewpoints had become the gold standard in higher education, while our current era is arguably “post-secular”. The Soul of the American University Revisited deftly examines American higher education as it exists in the twenty-first century.

Turning to Tradition

Turning to Tradition
Author: Oliver Herbel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199324956

This book examines Christian converts to Orthodoxy who served as exemplars and leaders for convert movements in America during the twentieth century.

The Resilience of Religion in American Higher Education

The Resilience of Religion in American Higher Education
Author: John Arnold Schmalzbauer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Education, Higher
ISBN: 9781481308717

The Resilience of Religion in American Higher Education documents a surprising openness to religion in collegiate communities. Schmalzbauer and Mahoney develop this claim in three areas: academic scholarship, church-related higher education, and student life. They highlight growing interest in the study of religion across the disciplines, as well as a willingness to acknowledge the intellectual relevance of religious commitments. The Resilience of Religion in American Higher Education also reveals how church-related colleges are taking their founding traditions more seriously, even as they embrace religious pluralism. Finally, the volume chronicles the diversification of student religious life, revealing the longevity of campus spirituality.

Orthodox Christians in America

Orthodox Christians in America
Author: John H. Erickson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2010-04-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199951322

Although there are over 200 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, 4 million of whom live in the United States, their history, beliefs, and practices are unfamiliar to most Americans. This book outlines the evolution of Orthodox Christian dogma, which emerged for the first time in 33 A.D., before shifting its focus to American Orthodoxy--a tradition that traces its origins back to the first Greek and Russian immigrants in the 1700s. The narrative follows the momentous events and notable individuals in the history of the Orthodox dioceses in the U.S., including Archbishop Iakovos' march for civil rights alongside Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Orthodox missionaries' active opposition to the mistreatment of native Inuit in Alaska, the quest for Orthodox unity in America, the massive influx of converts since the 1960s, and the often strained relationship between American Orthodox groups and the mother churches on the other side of the Atlantic. Erickson explains the huge impact Orthodox Christianity has had on the history of immigration, and how the religion has changed as a result of the American experience. Lively, engaging, and thoroughly researched, the book unveils an insightful portrait of an ancient faith in a new world.

The Orthodox Reality

The Orthodox Reality
Author: Vigen Guroian
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493415646

This is a book about the struggle of Orthodox Christianity to establish a clear identity and mission within modernity--Western modernity in particular. As such, it offers penetrating insight into the heart and soul of Orthodoxy. Yet it also lends unusual, unexpected insight into the struggle of all the churches to engage modernity with conviction and integrity. Written by one of the leading voices of contemporary Orthodox theology, The Orthodox Reality is a treasury of the Orthodox response to the challenges of Western culture in order to answer secularism, act ecumenically, and articulate an ethics of the family that is both faithful to tradition and relevant to our day. The author honestly addresses Orthodoxy's strengths and shortcomings as he introduces readers to Orthodoxy as a living presence in the modern world.

Christian Higher Education

Christian Higher Education
Author: Perry L. Glanzer
Publisher: ACU Press
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2023-11-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 168426863X

Utilizing a common set of objective institutional markers as a compass, this book guides readers through the terrain of various Christian institutions. The Christian higher education landscape confuses many people. Future students, parents, staff, and even faculty often do not understand the important subtleties and nuances. They need a guide that empirically explores the ways Christian universities operationalize their Christian identity. This book will guide them through the field of Christian higher education and introduce our Operationalizing Christian Identity Guide (OCIG), which identifies the major ways Christian colleges and universities use their Christian identity to make mission, marketing, membership, curriculum, cocurricular, and other decisions (an online spreadsheet of OCIG scores for all the Christian colleges and universities in North America updated in real-time will be available to readers). These markers are identifiable by anyone, no matter their religious or nonreligious background. The OCIG is then employed to provide readers a tour of Protestant, historically Black, Catholic, evangelical/multidenominational, and Eastern Orthodox institutions in the United States and Canada. Parents, students, staff, and faculty will be equipped to engage Christian higher education with a clearer understanding of these key elements and their importance to the mission and purposes of individual institutions and Christian higher education at large.