Too often Christian culture retreats to insular spaces shielding themselves from critical thought, while academic spaces are increasingly unwilling to question the 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 too 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. It offers students the opportunity to engage various standpoints from a charitable, challenging, and curious perspective in a hospitable setting. It thus provides students a rare chance to deliberate together on some of the most contested topics that, when brought up on campus, receive little more than hostile or skeptical consideration.
Within the seminar, we host a visiting scholar series called Chesterton Perspectives. Chesterton Perspectives is an innovative series of interviews with Christian scholars from a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints reflecting on contemporary issues. We have had the privilege of hosting speakers to discuss topics such as gender and sexuality, economic justice, the family unit and its place in the social order, and this year our focus is on technology.
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 are expected to complete short readings and occasional short writing assignments throughout the course. The workload is equivalent to a 1-credit course per semester. Any Cornell student is eligible to participate. The Seminar presupposes most students share a broadly Christian framework but non-Christian students interested in learning more about the tradition are welcome to apply.
Meetings will be at our Chesterton House campus (111 The Knoll).
As space is limited, students will be asked to commit to attend all scheduled meetings.
Time Commitment
Meetings are select Mondays 6:30pm – 8:30pm and begin with a shared meal together. Sessions include a mix of foundational study of the classical philosophical and Christian (and anti-Christian!) texts, fundamental issues in biblical studies and hermeneutics, as well as our Chesterton Perspectives Series: a (virtual) visiting speaker series interviewing 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.
Dr Jimmy Myers
Jimmy Myers is Senior Post-Doc Academic Associate at the Chesterton House. Prior to his posting at the Chesterton House, Jimmy served as the Director of Young Adults at First Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. He completed his Th.D. in the New Testament at Duke Divinity School in May 2025, where he defended a dissertation on the relation of Luke and Paul's theology under the guidance of Prof. C. Kavin Rowe. Jimmy also holds a B.A. in philosophy from Covenant College and an M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School. Jimmy is recipient of Duke Divinity School’s Richard and Judith Hays New Testament Scholarship (2020–25), Th.D. Fellowship (2020–25), Excellence in Bible Award (2017), and Petry Scholarship (2015–17). He received first prize in both the Goodwin Prize for Excellence in Theological Writing (2020) and First Things’ premier essay contest (2015). His scholarship has appeared in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Religions, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Journal of Theological Interpretation, First Things, and Religious Studies Review. Jimmy and his wife Mary Lynn have three daughters: Lila, Kitty, and Adele.
Questions?
If you have questions or want to discuss the Logos Seminar further, please contact us at [email protected]
