Critical Faith

Can dead languages yield life-giving and life-guiding principles? Can we see truth in poetic creativity? This week, Mark and Danielle talk with ICS Junior Member, PhD student, and linguistics-lover Julia De Boer about her longstanding fascination with studying the dynamics and structures of language. We want Critical Faith to give you a glimpse into the everyday life of ICS. So we're talking with Senior Members, Junior Members, and friends of the Institute to hear about what got them here, what they're working on, and why it matters for them.  This week's Don't Miss This! items: Christmas concert at St. Peter's by the Park (705 Main St. E. in Hamilton) on December 15 The Facilitator's Guidebook from the CPRSE's Faith & Settlement Partnerships case study Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit www.icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

What does it take to enact forgiveness, reconciliation, and processes of social change in climates of violence and oppression? This week, Danielle and Mark talk with Junior Member and Associate Director of the CPRSE Héctor Acero Ferrer about his academic journey and his work researching the ongoing peace process in Colombia, interfaith dialogue in Canada, and our deeply human need for narrative. We want Critical Faith to give you a glimpse into the everyday life of ICS. So we're talking with Senior Members, Junior Members, and friends of the Institute to hear about what got them here, what they're working on, and why it matters for them.  This week's Don't Miss This! items: ICS's Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Seminar with Dr. Esther Acolatse: Thursday, December 6 at 3:00pm at 59 St. George Street New Yorker article by Hannah Arendt: "Remembering W.H. Auden" Winter 2019 ICS course from Junior Member Dean Dettloff: Organized Religion: Christianity and Anti-Capitalism in the U.S. and Canada Critical

How do you find your feet when walking among giants? This week, our hosts Mark and Gideon chat with Senior Member and H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy Bob Sweetman about studying Thomas Aquinas, mining your intuitions, and discerning emulatio (a spiritual practice of emulation) in the contemporary spirit of competition. We want Critical Faith to give you a glimpse into the everyday life of ICS. So we're talking with Senior Members, Junior Members, and friends of the Institute to hear about what got them here, what they're working on, and why it matters for them.  Links to this week's Don't Miss This! items: ICS Open House and Advent Concert this Saturday December 1 Wine Before Breakfast campus ministry Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

What's up with the apocalypse? This week, Junior Member hosts Danielle and Mark talk about their undergraduate years, mystery, and the hope of apocalypse with guest Senior Member in theology Nik Ansell. We want Critical Faith to give you a glimpse into the everyday life of ICS. So we're talking with Senior Members, Junior Members, and friends of the Institute to hear about what got them here, what they're working on, and why it matters for them.  Links to this week's Don't Miss This! items: ICS Open House and Advent Concert Sad Boys Literary Society poetry reading event page Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada published by Canadian Geographic Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

Critical Faith is back! For the next while, we're giving you a glimpse into the everyday life of ICS. We're talking with Senior Members, Junior Members, and friends of the Institute to hear about what got them here, what they're working on, and why it matters for them. This week, we were joined by ICS President and Senior Member Ronald A. Kuipers, who reflected on his interest in advocating for faith in the public sphere.  Links to this week's Don't Miss This! items: Get info and tickets to ICS's Open House and Advent Concert here! Take a look at Gideon's interview with Heath Carter here!   Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

Last week, we heard Matt Bernico's lecture "Decolonizing Christian Higher Education." This week, Dean Dettloff poses questions to Bernico, and so do those who were present for the talk. How do we deal with questions of the Western canon? Can we talk about universal knowledge or a shared context while also talking the language of decolonization? What can institutions do beyond just including token voices on syllabi to decolonize their educational environments? Bernico fields these and other questions during the final Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship lecture of the 2017/18 academic year. Matt Bernico is assistant professor of communication and media studies at Greenville University. Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

The Institute for Christian Studies is a unique fixture in the field of Christian higher education, contributing to academia and also trying to transform it with fideilty to Christ. Yet European Christianity has been responsible for colonizing much of the world, creating troubling patterns of social organization and epistemology. As Christians working in academia, what are we to do with this legacy of domination? Matt Bernico, assistant professor of communication and media studies at Greenville University, offers suggestions in his talk "Decolonizing Christian Higher Education." Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

Critical Faith is back in 2018! Dr. Natasha Duquette of Tyndale University joins ICS Junior Member Julia de Boer to explore Duquette's book Veiled Intent (Wipf and Stock, 2016). They discuss feminine biblical hermeneutics from the 19th Century, Kant and his female interlocutors, and Jane Austen. From Duquette’s work we are ushered into an understudied area of Christian theological history, and learned to look for scriptural exegesis in unexpected places.   Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

The Institute for Christian Studies is characterized by a conversational, exploratory approach to pedagogy, which spills into coffee shops, hallways, and meet-ups outside the classroom. This week, Junior Member Julia de Boer and ICS alum Andrew Tebbutt give us a window into that atmosphere by gathering around the microphone to talk about French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, specifically his insights into language and thought. What might it mean to think about language? Can we think without language? What do our bodies have to do with our brains? The questions might seem simple, but being a fly on the wall in this conversation reveals that the tools of phenomenology help us to rigorously investigate our most basic ways of being human. Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.

Last week, we heard Kate Hennessy talk about her writing, her life, and her grandmother, Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker. In this episode, Hennessy takes questions from Dean Dettloff and the audience, exploring Hennessy's writing process, life in the Catholic Worker, and what Dorothy Day could mean for a time like ours. Drawing from her book Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty, Hennessy gives an insider's look at one of the most exciting Christian movements to come out of the twentieth-century. Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Music by Matt Bernico.  

In a moment of political strife and complexities, Christians have no shortage of powerful examples who left behind a creative and subversive legacy. Among them is Dorothy Day, a feisty New Yorker who is currently being considered for canonization in the Catholic Church. During her life, Day founded the Catholic Worker, a ragtag group of Christian activists that is still going strong today, known for a commitment to radical hospitality and peace. Scholarly studies of Day and the Catholic Worker are easy to come by, but ICS had the privilege of hosting Kate Hennessy, Day's youngest grandchild, to hear firsthand about her life, her community, and her legacy. In this first of two episodes, Kate Hennessy talks about her book Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty. The book provides an intimate look into the story of Dorothy Day and those she touched. Vulnerable, complicated, funny, and inspiring, Hennessy's book offers a unique window into a life marked by a deep Christian faith and love for the least of

In the previous episode, Dean Dettloff interviewed DeRoo on his paper from episode one, "Material Spirituality," along with some general themes about Christian philosophy. In this episode, DeRoo takes questions from the audience, expressed by ICS student Grace Carhartt, on his paper and themes in the interview, engaging thinkers like Charles Taylor and William Cavanaugh and issues like ecclesiology and pluralism. The recording is the third and final of three parts, all from a Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Seminar hosted at the Institute for Christian Studies. Neal DeRoo is Canada Research Chair in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, and the author of Futurity in Phenomenology: Promise and Method in Husserl, Levinas, and Derrida (Fordham: 2013). Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu. Musi

In the previous episode, Neal DeRoo presented a paper on "material spirituality," considering how phenomenology might illuminate our spiritual lives. In this episode, Dean Dettloff interviews DeRoo to pull out some themes in the paper and in DeRoo's approach to faith and scholarship more generally. Ranging from questions about phenomenology to what it means to be "spiritual, but not religious," DeRoo offers a bridge between academic philosophy and everyday life. The recording is the second of three parts, all from a Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Seminar hosted at the Institute for Christian Studies. Neal DeRoo is Canada Research Chair in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, and the author of Futurity in Phenomenology: Promise and Method in Husserl, Levinas, and Derrida (Fordham: 2013). Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toro

Is spirituality one part of our lives that we experience in worship? Or does it permeate our whole being? Are we able to pull spirituality and religion apart? What would happen if we considered how our spirituality is embodied, deeply, in our world? In this inaugural episode of Critical Faith, Neal DeRoo explores these questions in his lecture "Toward a Material Spirituality: Religion and Phenomenological Expression." The recording is the first of three parts, all from a Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Seminar hosted at the Institute for Christian Studies. Neal DeRoo is Canada Research Chair in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, and the author of Futurity in Phenomenology: Promise and Method in Husserl, Levinas, and Derrida (Fordham: 2013). Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit icscanada.edu.