Hello friend of STGB!
I want to give you a quick snapshot of what is going on with me and Study The Great Books. I am currently waiting for my last reader on my committee to finish his read through of my doctoral dissertation before I can officially get my defense date set. Lord willing, I will be able to to defend no later than October and then be completely done with my Ph.D.! It has been quite a journey for me. I was accepted into Faulkner University’s Ph.D. in Humanities program in October of 2013 so I am coming up on 10 years from the time I started this goal. I had two false starts on my dissertation (83 pages written on a C. S. Lewis topic, 143 pages written on the Christian understanding of Platonic Form) before I landed on the topic which I would successfully complete. I have had a difficult blast over the past two years writing on virtue and the role stories play in forming virtue in human hearts (287 pages)! Doing a Ph.D. while working full time and being married with four kids was…hard. I don’t recommend it to those who have not counted the cost, but I am thankful that my family has supported me as they have, showed me great patience, and that the Lord saw fit to bring me through to the end.
I am now into my second year as Dean of the Upper School at Caritas Christian Classical Academy in Chandler, AZ. Our school is K-9 this year with plans to add a grade each year until we are K-12. We began last year with around 70 students and are now pushing into the “hundred-teens.” God has blessed us with incredible growth (and all the challenges that includes). We are on two campuses this year although we hope to be K-12 under one roof in the end. I ask for your prayers for us as we seek to make that happen. Please pray that as we grow we stay on mission and remain unwaveringly committed to Christ and a thoroughly classical model of education.
As the Upper School is growing, I am in the process of creating the History and Literature curriculum which you can see being published here on STGB. I often thank my students for being my test pilots and they have been great helpers in finding things to tweak and make better as we study great books together. Our studies in Luke and The Eagle of the Ninth are nearing an end and we will soon be in Acts for History and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for Literature. If you have not looked at the STGB Directory of Resources let me encourage you to do so. This is where you can see the study guides that have been completed, are being worked on, or which are projected for the future. There are also some articles about classical Christian education to get you started if you are new to all of this and some helps for studying Great Books.
On other fronts, in June the Beza Institute for Reformed Classical Education officially launched. Beza is all about leaning into the way reformed theology can have a distinctive and positive impact on the tenor of classical Christian education. I have the honor of being the Editor-In-Chief for Beza and our illustrious head, Lucas Vieira, recently interviewed me for the first episode of our podcast “Reforming Education”. I was able to share about my own discovery of Classical Christian Education, talk about what makes a book a “great book”, and share some tips for studying them.
For those who don’t know, I am also a regular co-host of another podcast, Tolle Lege, with my good friend and pastor, Joel Ellis. We are a bit sporadic in our recording but we are committed to continuing as we are able. We just released our 9th episode on the top five fiction books which have impacted our lives. In previous episodes we have discussed “how to read a book” and “why we should read old books” and we have talked through some great books like C. S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Besides Substack you can follow us YouTube or on iTunes or Spotify.
The long term goals of Study The Great Books are pretty big and you can learn about them HERE. It was great to be at the Repairing the Ruins conference this past summer and begin to get the word out about this new curriculum project. I have met with lots of excitement and comments about the need for this material. I am thankful for you who follow and support me as I work on things. I know I put out a lot of content, sometimes of diverse nature, not always equally interesting to all, but your continued support is incredibly encouraging to me. So whether you are here for the articles on CCE, for the study guides being serially published, the Christian Apologetics, or maybe you enjoy the very intermittent posting of chapters of the novels I am writing, thanks for hanging around!
For those of you who would like to invest in this long term project I would encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber and gaining access to PDF versions of the study guide which contain more helps and information and which can be more easily printed and used in the classroom or homeschool. Paid subscribers also have special and unlimited access to sign up for live great books discussions and CCE training events (mostly over the summer but periodically throughout the year). Your financial support will help take this curriculum project all the way to the end with physical print texts to be marketed to homeschool families and classical Christian schools all around the world. Thanks for considering being a part!
You are a fine scholar, and I assume a gentleman. Godspeed in this final charge and I pray it rewards you well.
Do you have any opinion on the Atrium courses offered by the Circe Institute? They look interesting, but I'm reluctant to commit almost $1,000 without knowing more.