Travis Taylor | Lariat Photographer
By Sierra Baumbach
Staff Writer
Wartime is known not only for the death of men and women, but for the death of morals.
Dr. Alan Jacobs, the Clyde S. Kilby Chair Professor of English at Wheaton College, believes he might have a remedy.
Jacobs will join the Honors College in fall 2013 and present the lecture “Christian Humanism in Time of War” as a part of the Honors College Lecture Series. The lecture explores the beliefs of poet W.H. Auden, literary scholar C.S. Lewis and theologian Jacques Maritain.
The premise of the lecture is that an enriched model of Christian humanism is the greatest need in a time of global war and remodeling. This model represents a solution for moral depravity that can be found through education and Christian ideologies.
“The main thing I wanted to do was talk about the ideas that I’m thinking about and those that I think are particularly relevant to the Honors College,” Jacobs said. “These are the types of things that are relevant in the Honors College as well as the great texts programs.”
Jacobs will teach in the Great Texts program, as well as a higher level theology and literary theory class. Jacobs said one of the reasons he is excited to come to Baylor and teach in the Honors College is the intentional interdisciplinary model that exists and the ideas it will allow him to explore.
“People who were educated in one field, and have been socialized in those fields can sometimes be blind to what opening their minds can do for them,” he said. “The idea is not to get out of business or engineering, but instead, to participate in it more creatively and more effectively. Baylor is a place where people are thinking about things and a place where these ideas get a good hearing.”
These skills, Jacobs said, are something that hold value in any walk of life, but is something that our own discipline can stop us from exploring.
“I think Baylor is one of the few institutions that is trying to think about this whole business of what meaningful Christian debate and how we can do it in a way that is sophisticated and not redundant,” he said.
“We are, after all, trying to equip ourselves to be not only good citizens, but good Christians,” Jacobs said.
