To Read is Human

Study Center staff Bill Boyd met with with Dr. Thomas Pfau of Duke University to talk about the formative personal and cultural discipline that is “reading.” Listen to their conversation on SoundCloud or below.

Study center staff member Bill Boyd met with with Dr. Thomas Pfau of Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill to talk about the formative personal and cultural discipline that is "reading.” More at ncstudycenter.org/news

Authors and works referenced by Dr. Pfau:

• Julius Caesar - The Gallic Wars (Latin, De Bello Gallico)

• Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

• Henry Fielding

• Thomas Paine - Common Sense

• Joseph Andrews - first English novel in 1742, “a comic epic poem in prose”

• Tom Jones - bildungsroman and picaresque literature

• Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Kreutzer Sonata, The Death of Ivan Ilyich)

• Jane Austen - Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey

• Stendahl (Henri Beyle) - The Red & the Black (French-English tr. by Margaret Shaw)

• Gustav Flaubert - Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education

• Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols, Beyond Good & Evil

• Thomas Mann - Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain

• Seamus Heaney - Opened Ground, Death of a Naturalist, North, Field Work, Station Island

• Rainer Maria Rilke - The Duino Elegies, Letters to a Young Poet

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Poetry & Prose (Norton Critical Edition)

• William Wordsworth (stop after 1807)

• John Keats (start after 1817)

• J.M. Coetzee - Waiting for the Barbarians, Disgrace

• Vasily Grossman - Life & Fate, Everything Flows

• Czeslaw Milosz - The Captive Mind, Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition

• T.S. Eliot - Poems, 1909-1925

This season is the perfect time to go to a local bookseller and buy a “shamelessly canonical” book for a friend or family member. Celebrate the Word made flesh with words made visible in print. 🙂

Interested in more?

• Leo Tolstoy Creates a List of the 50+ Books That Influenced Him Most (1891)

• The 10 Books By Leo Tolstoy You Have To Read

Books as ladders to an invigorated imagination

Dear friends,

At the study center we are reflecting on building a library of formational books. Just as importantly, we are drawing from friends to learn what books to recommend when. Reading a good book at the wrong time might be just as bad as reading a bad book at any time. And reading a sequence of good books may be far better than jumping straight into a demanding book and only finishing the first half of it.

And, if you permit me a final thought, it may be very profitable to read a bad book at the right time -- after you have the resources to sufficiently critique it, or maybe as a way to exhaust the appeal of something so nakedly awful.

So, what books have been important to you? Was there a necessary order to reading them?

We'd love your thoughts. What follows are ways of answering.

Was there a ladder of books that you followed? Maybe you began with something familiar to your parents and ended up somewhere slightly different but also helpful. The dream would be a Great Books progression, but most of us just aren't that lucky. One such ladder for me was:

• Colson's How Now Shall We Live

• Willard's Divine Conspiracy

• Lewis' Mere Christianity

• Buechner's Telling the Truth

• Newbiggin's Gospel in a Pluralistic Society

• MacIntyre's After Virtue

While increasing levels of abstraction may be unhelpful, as our powers of reasoning and pattern recognition grow there is often a movement from familiar to unfamiliar, straightforward to what once might have been risky. No need to be fancy here — just let us know what took you where.

Or, if you are like me, books have been just as important for your emotional and aesthetic maturity. What fiction or poetry invigorated your moral imagination at just the right time? You grew up as you read and confronted various vices and virtues in a number of genres. For me Prince of Tides was invaluable. So was Brothers Karamazov. So was Lord of the Rings (which was required reading for a UNC course!). For many our students, Harry Potter was tremendously evocative and always comes to mind.

Given that we are interacting with hundreds of students who are in a crucial period of growth, what books were important in helping you grow up? Many of these probably weren't timeless, but they were helpful. A timeless and helpful book for me was Wolters' Creation Regained.

Or, maybe you are in a creative mood, and you would like to write a book recipe. Here would be one for getting over yourself that I really could have used my sophomore year of college:

• Book of Romans

• Keller's Counterfeit Gods

• Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos

• Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self

• Back 1/2 of Mere Christianity (on personality)

• Book of Proverbs

Feel free to send in your reflections to madison@ncstudycenter.org.

Happy reading this Christmas,

Madison

A brief liturgy for the end of a semester

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” —Psalm 122:1 ESV

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have offended against your holy laws.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done;

and apart from your grace there is no health in us.

Spare all those who confess their faults. Restore all those who are penitent, according to your promises declared to all people in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may now live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of your holy Name.

Amen.

Grant to your faithful people, merciful Lord, pardon and peace; that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Note the emphases on things done and undone, as well as the promise in Christ Jesus of a quiet mind; so appropriate for any of us nearing any finish line.

•

Excerpted from The Book of Common Prayer, Anglican Liturgy Press, 2019

Fall 2019 Finals Schedule

Finals season is upon us. This milestone means many things, including extended hours at the Battle House!

From Porch to Pit: Reflections from a Recent Grad

On a morning walk with Amber Younger, the Director of Christian Life at the NC Study Center, she shared with me a small word of wisdom that shaped my remaining semesters at UNC. At the time, I was half-way through my junior year, feeling overwhelmed. I shared with Amber that I felt weary at the prospect of stewarding everything well. She pointed me to the Lord’s Prayer, where Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for bread for one day at a time. With that language as my model, I too was to ask the Lord only for the wisdom and grace needed to handle each day as it found me.

That wisdom has personally served me well over the past year and a half, but it also reflects a mentality the Study Center embodies. Amidst all the hospitality, events, and life-changing programs, the mission of the organization is never lost, as its activities strategically meet the intellectual, spiritual, and vocational needs of students wherever they are.

The Study Center does not host activity for activity’s sake, but approaches every event as an opportunity to serve God and love people.  Several events and programs stick out to me as remarkable from the last few years. Thanks to the Wilberforce Conference and faith and work lunches like one from Nathan Clendenin, I’ve learned about lives shaped by our vocation to work well and for God’s glory. A talk by Bethany Jenkins directed my discernment in navigating internship decisions, and Tish Harrison Warren taught me about my place in the global church.

In addition to hosting amazing events and programs, the center partners with student efforts to bring thought and creativity to campus. I’ve led multiple student-run organizations that flourish from the support of the study center. We’ve received space, guidance, and expanded reach thanks to the Battle House. I have seen the center bring good ideas to fruition that otherwise might not have the resources to take off. As a result, students are provided with the pragmatic and relational tools to grow holistically.

Probably most important to me, in the quiet moments of each day, the Battle House staff continue to prioritize caring for the soul of every individual student.  Amber exemplified this in her willingness to meet with me regularly, making time to routinely hear me unload my burdens. We sit on the Carolina blue rocking chairs that decorate the porch, sipping complimentary coffee from one of the Battle House’s quirky mugs. She is never rushed or hurried. Instead, in our time together, she seems to offer her heart and time fully to me.

Each day is full of its own programs, interpersonal conversations, and cups of coffee. And each day, the Battle House resolves to steward all parts of it well. I cannot understate the spiritual, vocational, and personal growth I’ve experienced because of the Battle House and the mentorship I’ve received from the staff. As I approach graduation, I can’t imagine my college experience without the North Carolina Study Center.

–Holly Harris, Class of 2019

2018-19 Year in Review Slideshow

Summer is off to a great start here at the Battle House! Our grad and faculty reading group partnering with InterVarsity is in full swing. Summer Bible studies kicked off last week. And the space has been a restful (literally, with quite a few couch naps!) and nurturing, studious place for students taking summer classes.

Below, enjoy a brief look back at all that happened this year at the Battle House. Thank you to every student, volunteer, and supporter who helped bring it to life!

Interested in what else we have going on this summer? Check out our Events page for more!

Regent College x NC Study Center: Summer Course

Over the past few years, several of our staff, board members, students, UNC faculty and volunteers have travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia during the summers to participate in Regent College’s much acclaimed summer school program, taking courses in Scripture, theology and Christian ethics. These week-long Regent courses have shaped the teaching caliber of our staff, the vocational discernment of our students and the faith-work integration of board members and friends.

This inspired us to explore the possibility of hosting Regent faculty members to teach week-long courses in Chapel Hill during the summers so that more students, faculty, alumni, and community members could have access to this opportunity. After several conversations with Regent’s President Jeff Greenman, we’ve discovered that Regent is not only open to this idea, but is highly enthusiastic about it.

We are offering a course this summer, hosting Dr. George Guthrie the week of Monday, July 29 – Friday, August 2 to teach on the book of Hebrews. Dr. Guthrie is a respected New Testament scholar, a gifted teacher, an author of several books and commentaries and has served as a Consultant/Reviewer of the book of Hebrews for the English Standard Version translation of the Bible. He comes highly recommended by friends as a lecturer and as someone who we will enjoy spending time with.

The course will run from 9am - 12pm each morning, Monday, July 29 - Friday, August 2. There will likely be opportunities for participants to gather for optional evening meals and lectures. There are two options for participation:

• Audit the course — Participants would not be asked to write papers. Auditors will pay $50 to cover course costs.

• Take the course for credit — Credit students must complete all assignments and will be graded. These credits can go toward a diploma or degree. Each credit hour corresponds to approximately 45 hours of work in the form of class lectures, readings, and assignments. Participants will pay $395 to receive credit.

There will be optional lunches and fun afternoon activities, as well as an evening lecture. Details on those those will be announced later this summer.

For now, you can REGISTER HERE!

We are thrilled to have this opportunity for Christian education for our community. We’re also grateful for Chapel Hill Bible Church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church of Chapel Hill, and InterVarsity Grad + Faculty Ministries and their enthusiasm to partner with us on this new venture.

This course is open to all, so please share the information with anyone who may be interested!

Feel free to contact Matt Hoehn (matt@ncstudycenter.org) with any questions.