The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education

&quotA welcome addition to recent Christian writing on higher education. While addressed primarily to the prospective student, teachers and administrators too should benefit from its discussion of Christian humanism and humanist education in a postmodern world.&quot--Arthur F. Holmes, Wheaton College In The Passionate Intellect, Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmermann take up the theme of humanism and put it into the context of changing commitments in the institution of the university from the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment to postmodernity. Citing evidence and discussion of an institution in crisis, the authors argue for the relevance of faith commitment as part of the life of the mind and of a viable humanism. This is not a &quothow to choose a Christian college&quot book or a &quothanging on to your faith through college&quot book. Rather, it offers students and educators an understanding of what is happening on the college or university campus. How did we get where we are, where values such as skepticism, secularism, consumerism, and pragmatism seem to dominate the landscape? And how does a Christian appropriately engage the intellectual life of the university without withdrawing into sectarianism? The authors emphasize the continued value of the university and seek to present a vision of what its intellectual culture should become in order to serve the greatest benefit to all students and scholars.The Passionate Intellect is written in the first instance for Christian students who may be uncertain how to affirm intellectual endeavor in general and how to negotiate the ideological terrain of the contemporary university. Other students, particularly those in the humanities or with a humanistic outlook, will also find that The Passionate Intellect provides a means of contextualizing disciplinary issues within a broader framework. A unique feature of the book is the authors’ &quotNeohumanist Manifesto,&quot a statement of faith that seeks to foster a healthier worldview and bring together an understanding of rationality, texts, and personal identity.