About Study The Great Books
This Substack, Study the Great Books, is devoted to Classical Christian Education and the Great Books of the Western World. Why should you subscribe to this newsletter? You should subscribe because you are a student (of any age or stage), you love learning new things, and you are interested in reading and studying Great Books from every era. Likewise you should subscribe if you are a teacher, at home or in a classroom, and you would like access to quality study guides, sample writing assignments, and helpful thoughts on classical pedagogy (teaching methods).
Study The Great Books is officially working towards the publication of a complete classical Christian humanities curriculum for 7-12th grade.
This curriculum will include:
6 years of primary source readings and study in History
6 years of primary source readings and study in Literature
3 years of classical writing training (7-9th grade)
3 years of Formal Logic (7-9th grade)
3 years of Classical Rhetoric (10-12th grade)
This curriculum is being written with the following theological and cultural commitments:
Jesus Christ is the unconditional Lord over every square inch of the universe (which includes every discipline and subject matter which students study).
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. There is salvation by no other name.
The Bible is the infallible, inerrant, and authoritative word of God. It is sufficient for Christian faith and practice.
The ecumenical Creeds of Christendom are faithful summaries of Christian doctrine (Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and Definition of Chalcedon).
The Reformed faith (as articulated in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, as well as in the Three Forms of Unity) is broadly acknowledged as a reliable expression of Christian faith and useful for thinking about the doctrines of God’s word and the Christian life.
God has ordained the church and the family to be the primary building blocks of society. Men and women are equal in value, intelligence, in salvation, and many other respects. Even so, God has clearly stated that the church and family are to be led by godly Christian men and that the roles of men and women in the church and home differ in such a way as to glorify God.
God designed man, in his image, male and female. There are no other categories for sex or gender and God never makes mistakes so as to have created anyone in the wrong kind of body.
Human sexuality is a positive good, it was God’s idea, but it is ordained to be expressed and enjoyed only within the life-long covenant of holy matrimony which is between one man, one woman and God himself.
STGB rejects all theories of race, gender, or any other categories which fall under the broader idea of Marxist Critical Theory, as godless and counter to plain reason and biblical truth.
About the Author
Jacob Allee is happily married and enjoys his four wonderful children. He has a B.A. in Christian Apologetics from Luther Rice University, an M.A. in Biblical Studies from Piedmont International University, and a Ph.D. in Humanities from Faulkner University. His doctoral dissertation was written upon the role stories play in developing the moral imagination and their power to pass on and preserve virtue in society. Jacob is the Upper School Dean at Caritas Classical Christian Academy in Chandler, AZ. He has experience teaching History and Literature via the Great Books, Formal Logic, Composition, Rhetoric, Bible, and Apologetics. He and his family are members of Reformation Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Apache Junction, AZ.
