Too often Christian culture will retreat to insular spaces shielding themselves from critical thought. While academic spaces are increasingly unwilling to question the new dogmas of the new reigning ideological monoculture. Instead of trying to shelter students from encountering challenging views, the Logos Seminar provides spaces to explore topics to charged to discuss on the main campus.
What is the Logos Seminar?
The Logos seminar is an award-winning introduction to the classical Christian tradition and its critics. Providing students the opportunity to approach both from a charitable, challenging, and curious perspective in a hospitable setting.
It offers students a rare chance to deliberate together on some of the most contested topics. Topics that when brought up on campus often find themselves in a skeptical or even hostile environment.
Within the seminar, we host a visiting scholar series called Chesterton Perspectives. Chesterton Perspectives in an innovative series of interviews with Christian scholars from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives reflecting on contemporary issues. We have had the privilege of hosting speakers to discuss topics such as gender and sexuality, and economic justice, and this year our focus is on the family unit and its place in the social order.
The Logos Seminar made difficult, intellectually rigorous material become real, connect in a deep personal way that is relevant for our tangible concrete lives of faith, and not just classroom abstractions. It has so many real world applications for our lives, and it was a unique space where we could ask both intellectual and personal questions about our faith without being overly concerned about the difference. It is totally unique as an educational experience, in that very few spaces allow us to combine both pastoral and intellectual concerns in an analogous way that physicists might strive to combine both theory and experiment.
Joe Dill, Applied Physics Ph.D Candidate, Logos Participant
Course Work
Students will be expected to complete short readings and occasional short writing assignments throughout the course; a workload equivalent to a 1-credit course per semester. Any Cornell student is eligible to register. The Seminar presupposes most students share a broadly Christian framework but non-Christian students interested in learning more about the tradition are welcome to register.
Meetings will be at our Chesterton House campus (111 The Knoll).
As space is limited, students will be asked to commit to attending all scheduled meetings.
Time Commitment
Meetings are select Mondays 7:30-9pm (exact dates within registration link). Sessions will be a mix of foundational study of the classical Christian (and anti-Christian!) texts, fundamental issues in Biblical studies and hermeneutics, as well a our Chesterton Perspectives Series: a (virtual) visiting speaker series including a variety of Christian scholars who apply these traditions to today’s complex world.
Dr. Vivek Mathew
Dr. Vivek Mathew (B.S.E. Princeton University, M.Div Princeton Theological Seminary, B.Phil Oxford, Ph.D Cornell) is the executive director of Chesterton House. He worked for eight years in quantitative finance at Morgan Stanley. While in New York he attended Redeemer Presbyterian Church which led him to interest in philosophy and theology. He came to Cornell in 2013 where he spent the next 6 years doing doctoral work at the intersection of metaphysics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, cognitive science, and history of philosophy. He was one of five nationwide fellowship recipients for cross-training grants given by the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Templeton Foundation.
Rev. Dr. Ryan O'Dowd
Rev. Dr. Ryan O’Dowd (B.S. U.S. Air Force Academy, M.A. Reformed Theological Seminary, PhD Liverpool) began his support of Chesterton House in 2010 and now serves as Chesterton House Academic Director and assisting priest at Bread of Life Anglican Church in Ithaca, NY. Over the last 30 years, Ryan has balanced work as a pastor, an Active Duty and Reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force, and a scholar in a wide variety of academic settings. His doctoral research explored the relationship between biblical wisdom and law, and, over the last 15 years, he has examined these subjects alongside the study of moral theology and religious and secular ethics. He has also developed and taught several courses on work and vocation (calling). Ryan and his wife Amy have three grown children and live with their youngest daughter in Ithaca, NY. In his free time, Ryan loves to bake, read, cycle, run, and swim. His books include The Wisdom of Torah: Epistemology in Deuteronomy and the Wisdom Literature (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht); Old Testament Wisdom Literature: A Theological Introduction, with Craig Bartholomew (Apollos); Proverbs (Zondervan); Proverbs (Crossway, in press); and Numbers Through the Centuries (Wiley-Blackwell).
Questions?
If you have questions or want to discuss the Logos Seminar further, please contact us at [email protected]
