PROGRAMS
Come learn with us
Our programming offers opportunities to explore the intellectual and cultural resources of the Christian tradition through stand-alone events, multi-week reading groups, as well as more sustained communities of intellectual and moral formation for students and faculty.
All of our programs embody our commitment to hospitality, generous conversation, and the integration of faith and life.
Classes
Director's Class
Taught by Mike Sacasas
Wednesdays January 29 - April 2, 11:45 a.m. - 12:35 p.m.
In the CSC Classroom | For undergraduate and graduate students | Lunch provided
"The Politics of Apocalypse: Reading the Book of Revelation"
The last book of the Bible has been the subject of passionate but often fantastical interpretations. Alternatively, it has been quietly ignored. This class will offer a reading of Revelation as a work of political theology written in the context of Roman imperial rule, critiquing the structures of earthly powers and calling Christians to faithful witness. Our reading of the text will locate the book within the apocalyptic literary genre and in continuity with the Hebrew prophetic tradition. These perspectives will help us read Revelation with confidence and clarity exploring how this ancient text continues to inform the Christian political imagination today.
Guest Lectures
Sara Hendren
Lectures on Thursday, March 6th at 7 pm & Friday, March 7th at 7 pm
"The Virtues of Dependence: Design and Disability" - Public Lecture
Thursday, March 6th at 7:00 p.m. at the Christian Study Center
Prosthetics, assistive technologies, and accessible architecture all bridge the gaps between our many bodies and the built world, forming a creative legacy of flexible, generative design. But the paradox of disability under technocratic modernity presents a mixed picture of both the body and personhood. In this talk using stories and examples from all scales of design, Sara Hendren helps us to ask: What is the nature of the dependent body, assisted by its many tools and extensions? How does disability shape all our lives, and the meaning we make in both giving and receiving help?
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"Life is a Gift: Constraints and Liberations" - Public Lecture
Friday, March 7th at 7:00 p.m. at the Christian Study Center
Rituals of gift-giving and receiving are global, ancient practices that tell us something important about being human: Not all of life can be organized as transactions or as projects. The gift economy — freely offered goods, graciously received and passed along in a repeating pattern — exceeds those everyday bounds. But when and how might we think about our dependencies, our needs and weaknesses, as gifts? In this talk, Sara Hendren draws examples from anthropology, history, and design to offer a vision for life as a gift that both liberates our possibilities and constrains our choices.
Reading Groups
Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West
Led by Chipper Flaniken
Tuesdays February 4 - March 4 at 8:00 a.m.
Reading Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West by Andrew Wilson
Join us as we consider a series of developments arising from events in the year 1776 that have shaped the modern West into a WEIRDER society (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic). In doing so, we will examine how the wake of these events shapes the present and potentially helps us discern what lies ahead. Discussions will pay special attention to understanding the shape of Christian faithfulness in such waters, especially given the complicated role of Christianity itself in influencing many of these events.
Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine
Led by Ethan Williamson
Mondays March 3, 10, 24, 31, & April 7 at 6:00 p.m.
Reading Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine by Khaled Anatolios
This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, and Anatolios offers a profound, historically informed study of how the doctrine of the Trinity evolved and came to define Christian life. Through the perspectives of key theologians like Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, we’ll explore how the development of trinitarian theology remains relevant to us today.
Public Theology Reading Group
Led by Drew Cistola
Fridays February 7 - April 11 11:45 a.m. -12:35 p.m.
Reading articles from Comment Magazine
Public theology is not an easy topic to engage with or to discuss. However, Christians are asked to envision and advocate for a redeemed world on behalf of both our neighbors and our broader world. Public theology asks how our understanding of the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ impacts not only our individual lives, but also the common life we share with our diverse communities.
This group consists of a regular hourly meeting (Friday UF lunch hour) that hosts a discussion on a given article from Comment Magazine. This discussion will be focused on engagement and exploration as opposed to textual critique or assertion of a desired conclusion. This is designed to allow for consistent, but flexible engagement with others on the topic of public theology. A selection of articles will be announced at the beginning of the semester, with openings available for those to be provided from those participating.
Triumph of the Therapeutic
Led by Juan Alcala
Saturdays 2/15; 3/8, 29; 4/19; 5/3 at 9:00 a.m.
Reading Triumph of the Therapeutic by Philip Rieff.
“In a highly differentiated democratic culture, truly and for the first time, there arose the possibility of every man standing for himself, each at last leading a truly private life, trained to understand rather than love (or hate) his neighbor. Within such privacies, can a man feel well?” In The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Philip Rieff makes the case that the answer is, "No," and that the post-Freudian spirit of clinical care is a movement toward and within such "privacies." Join Juan Alcala—former CSC student, Pascal's Coffeehouse manager, and current doctoral student in clinical psychology—for a reading through this prescient book, which he considers to be a serious indictment of the profession he's training to enter and a piercing premonition of the "therapeutic" culture to which all of us have become habituated.
Special Events
Spring Classical Concert
MasterWorks Festival performance presented by June Xu, Executive Director of Marker and Pioneer ICEC.
Friday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Peijun "June" Xu is a “String Artist & Arts Advocacy Champion.” She is currently a DMA Candidate at the University of Florida, studying Viola Performance with Dr. Lauren Burns Hodges and Music Entrepreneurship with Dr. Jose Valentino Ruiz. Peijun is a co-founder and executive director of MAP-ICEC, a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization named Marker and Pioneer International Culture Exchange Center, hosting the MAP International Music Competition from 2021 to 2024, which has rapidly become a leading global online music competition with MasterWorks Festival.
In this performance, Peijun will be accompanied by the Associate Concertmaster and Principal Cellist of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.
Please arrive at 7:00 p.m. for the reception before the performance begins at 7:15 p.m..
Barista Fellows Program
Barista Fellows learn to see life, work, and faith as intricately intertwined and deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, as they intentionally grow in the core values of community, craft, and hospitality.
Applications are currently closed, but will reopen in mid-March.
Walker Percy Fellows Program
The inaugural Percy Fellows cohort will continue meeting this spring for the first year of the curriculum, focused on the cultivation of the Christian Mind.
During this year, students will receive a grounding in the biblical story and in a Christian understanding of the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.
Year two will consider the Christian Life, and year three will explore the Christian Imagination.
