One such text is The Wisdom of Stability by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove—a book that provides, “a path to some of these issues in a more contemporary context,” relays Dr. Dill. “It helps all of us ask certain questions, and that’s really what we want to do in the course.” It is particularly fitting that Wilson-Hartgrove’s text supplements the Capstone discussion so well, because he is an Eastern alumnus, having graduated in 2003 as part of the first Templeton cohort.

In his book, Wilson-Hartgrove draws from the teachings of church fathers as well as his own experience as part of the New Monastic Movement, to suggest that being intentionally rooted in a community allows for growth and flourishing in a way that mobility does not. With these insights, says Dr. Dill, Wilson-Hartgrove “interrogates the dominant categories with which we understand work and mobility.”

This is exactly what the Capstone course aims to do—challenge the cultural assumptions that often shape our lives unquestioned. “We want to say, ‘Well, let’s wait. Let’s see if this is the narrative that we want to adopt for ourselves,’” expresses Dr. Richards. “They are continual questions, but sometimes we forget to raise them as questions at all.” In fact, the Capstone discussion and Wilson-Hartgrove’s book both drive at a central theme of the entire Templeton experience: thoughtful engagement of the culture in which we live, learn, work, and make our homes.

Article by Rebecca Burkholder, Class of 2013

A PA State Fair Queen, to be exact—and her name is Drew An Brubaker. The fall of 2011 found Drew An walking across a muddy floor toward a flatbed truck, representing her school newspaper in a pageant at her local fair. To her surprise, after giving a short introduction and answering an unrehearsed question, Drew An was named the winner. “I had started to walk away when I heard them call my name,” she remembers. “It didn’t occur to me that winning was a possibility—I was doing it as a favor for someone else.”

Drew An went on to represent her county fair at the state level, competing in Hershey against 56 other contestants. After delivering an early morning speech to a panel of judges and answering an impromptu question that evening in front of 1500 people, Drew An came out victorious and was crowned the 2012 PA State Fair Queen. Her duties as queen included traveling the state that year, speaking at 13 different fairs, and conversing with legislators about agriculture. Her lack of personal ties to farming was no impediment: “Fairs are about community,” she tells people.

Since serving her community in this unexpected way, Drew An has gone through another important transition: coming to Eastern University as a member of the THC. She sees her time at Eastern as a way to cultivate the kind of person she wants to be. “I want a life that inherently is good—not something other people label good that may not actually be so.”  In light of this, it is not surprising that she has begun a major in psychology, intrigued by the subject and excited about the challenge of allowing philosophy to enhance her studies. “I don’t have the answers,” she says, “but at least I’ve started learning the questions.”

Article by Rebecca Burkholder, Class of 2013

In light of the recent events, should we be worried about unforeseeable meteor strikes? Dr. Bradstreet replies, “Even if we could have predicted the most recent meteor, there is nothing we could have done to stop it.”

However, there may come a time when we can do something to stop similar objects from striking earth. The recent astronomical events have been the catalyst for dialogue among planetary and political scientists about the possibility of developing technology for the purpose of intercepting objects that enter the earth’s atmosphere from space, but at this point this type of technology has yet to be explored.

Article by Abbie Storch, Class of 2016

Aaron came to Eastern University in the fall of 2009 from Louisville, KY, ready to take on Templeton coursework, a major in Mathematics, and a position as the starting goalie for Eastern’s men’s lacrosse team—and all of this while undergoing chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin’s disease, a form of cancer he had been diagnosed with only a few months earlier. Revealing an enormous amount of strength, Aaron finished freshman year with his cancer in remission and a winning record on all counts.  He has continued over the past 3 years to be successful in the classroom, on the field, and as a member of the community at Eastern.

Aaron’s inspiring story has attracted a lot of media attention, including a FOX News feature filmed and aired in the fall of 2012. The filming process itself posed a challenge that Aaron had to face with fortitude. “There were so many uncomfortable and awkward scenes,” Aaron recalls, including a painful reenactment of learning he had cancer and receiving chemotherapy treatment, and “strangely reading the Bible with my finger as a pointer in an awkward hammock position.” Nonetheless, Aaron found the final product satisfying and impressive, skillfully retelling a story of hardship and courage, and even capturing an inside joke between Aaron and his close friends.

With all of that under his belt, Aaron will be graduating in the spring of 2013. Currently, he is doing programming, design and analysis work for Brown-Forman, and Aaron plans to continue working for a few years before returning to school for a higher degree, probably in Business, Computer Science, or Mathematics. Whatever the case, after four years well lived as a student, athlete, and leader at Eastern University, Aaron has a reservoir of knowledge, experience and strength to draw on as he faces the future.

For further information about FOX’s feature of Aaron, visit: http://realwinningedge.bigcartel.com/product/episode-409

Article by Rebecca Burkholder, Class of 2013

“I want to talk a little bit about memory. Recently I’ve been remembering all sorts of hymns from my childhood, and one hymn in particular–I can’t get it out of my head—called “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” The last verse says: “When from Mt. Pisgah’s lofty height / I view my home and take my flight / these robes of flesh I’ll drop and rise / to take the everlasting prize.” We tend not to notice how much the Bible talks about vestments and robes and clothes. The idea of “robes of flesh,” or what the Fathers called “the garments of skin” (Genesis 3:20), is critical for understanding human nature because what we are now is not natural. In fact, we are unnatural in the sense that we are not suited for life. Prior to the Fall, we were oriented to God, and we had a body suitable for immortality. Adam fell by looking away from what God ordered him to do, and viewing the world in complete abeyance of God as creator. Thus “the garments of skin” that Adam receives are actually a suiting of mortality. . . . They were God’s provision for us, so that we could now survive.

Fasting existed prior to the Fall. What does God say? “Every tree of the garden you may eat, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” So fasting is one of the first commands, not because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn’t good, but because it wasn’t meant for Adam at that moment. In other words, he had to realize that he could not live by what he wanted to do, but instead by God’s instruction. In this regard, when we fast during Lent, we are trying to, as it were, get back to Paradise.

What exactly was Adam vested with in Paradise? The Church Fathers talk about Adam being naked, but they also talk about him being robed with glory—glory which now is gone because we have put on corruptibility and mortality. The loss of glory brings shame: Adam reacts by getting fig leaves! But God instead gives him a body suited for the mortal world, and in this regard God has made us animalistic. We live as animals in that we now partake of the animalistic cycle of life, and are cut off from the immortal. The only way to obtain immortality is to again attain the robes of glory. And this, of course, is what we believe: we believe we obtain these robes of glory when we put on Christ.

So what is then fasting, having put on Christ? Why do still need to fast?

First, fasting teaches us that we do not live by bread alone. And so we see one of the beginning narratives of the Gospels: Christ, following his baptism, goes into the desert and confronts Satan. Unlike Adam, who is confronted in the garden, Christ goes into the desert and there he fasts. What does it mean to live “by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4)? Essentially, it means that I should not order my life around my stomach or around my passions.

Second, Christians fast because [as long as?] fasting is not an end in itself. I don’t fast just to fast. Ultimately, I don’t even fast to discipline my body, even though it is a very good discipline. Instead, fasting is a reorientation of how I think about life. Thus fasting is not about food: as St. John Chrysostom warns us, “You abstain from food only to eat each other.”

St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that we “groan . . . not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” In this image, Paul is talking to us about how we, as Christians, are in this mortal body. Too often we think that our bodies are evil, but this is not what the practice of fasting teaches us. Instead, fasting means reorienting how I think so that my body can be ready for immortality. We realize in fasting that this world is incomplete because it is insufficient for union with God. When we fast, then, we are putting on clothes for immortality.

Putting on Christ is not a metaphor for being happy. Nor is it merely some sort of legal transaction. Putting on Christ means that I gain immortality; it is given to me because it is what I was created for. In that I am created for it, I can no longer desire my own ends. I must figure out God’s purpose and see the world as God asks me to see it; and I do this by repentance. Repentance is far more than just being sorry for my sins. In repentance, I come to a new relationship with God. I am completely changing the internal eye of my soul so that I no longer look at the world as an end in itself. I no longer see food merely as that which sustains me to my next meal. I now look at my wife as someone who with me is going to be a saint. I see others as people who need me to get to Heaven, and whom I need to get there too.

Ultimately what repentance means, what fasting means, is nostalgia for heaven. The first time I heard that it immediately struck me, of course, how can we be nostalgic for someplace we’ve never been? And of course the answer is that we have been there. I get nostalgic for Baltimore, because it was always home. And although Baltimore will never be my home again, there’s something else for which I’d rather be nostalgic. There’s something else that I am longing for. When we think about all sorts of ideas that float around the world, some of the brutally murderous ideas that have floated around the world—people’s ideas of utopia at the end of a gun—what is repentance telling us? What is fasting telling us? It’s telling us “I can never hope—or more aptly I should never expect—justice and fairness, and probably not even happiness, real happiness in this world.” Now, I’m not telling you to go around being glum. We cannot be! Christ commands us: “When you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites, . . . but anoint your head and wash your face” (Matthew 6:16-17). Why? Because you’re not doing this to torture yourself. You’re doing this in order to orient yourself towards eternity, to orient yourself towards God. This is what the life of repentance is, this is what fasting is about—that we don’t live by bread alone, but by the word of the Father.”

The Benjamin T. Carr Memorial Award was established in 2011 to honor Benjamin Carr, who graduated from the Templeton Honors College in 2006, and sadly died in September 2007.

Ben arrived on campus in 2002, bounding with energy and searching for adventure. He was excited and eager to meet people, tenacious in his search for truth, and exuding a thirst for knowledge. He used involvement with the Waltonian (the student newspaper of Eastern University) to keep acutely aware of the pulse of Eastern University, which he zealously wanted to see prosper. More than anything on earth, he cherished his friends and family. He went to extremes to find time to visit, to encourage, to help, and to discuss whatever was important with them. He led by working alongside others, no matter where they were in their journey. Ben died in a drowning accident in September 2007, and his family and friends have remarked that they “will dearly miss him and will look forward to meeting him again in the coming Heavenly Kingdom.”  Recipients of the Carr Prize should exemplify a love of seeking the truth as demonstrated by effort, persistence, and potential in journalism or creative non-fiction.

The Benjamin T. Carr Memorial Award is an annual $500.00 award that is available to any full-time Eastern University undergraduate student who is involved in the Waltonian or another publication. Applicants should submit a published article or a copy of a newspaper or other publication you have edited or been involved with over the previous twelve months/calendar year (January 2012 to January 2013). If you are an incoming student, this can be from your earlier experiences. Preference will be given to writing that honestly represents various different viewpoints and helps the reader of the article to understand the issues and take action. Also, please write an essay of approximately 400 words relating your interest in journalism/creative non-fiction, and how you hope to use this interest in your life. Applications should be submitted in hardcopy by Wednesday, March 13, at 5:00pm at the Templeton Honors College office in Fowler Hall, Room 217. The winner of the Carr Award will be announced in an April issue of the Waltonian. In years where a qualified applicant cannot be identified, the prize will not be awarded.

This award has been created and will be administered by the Templeton Honors College, and the Dean of the Honors College will, in consultation with a panel of readers, determine the recipient.

Click here to read his article.

Dr. Yonan welcomes Dr. Putnam to the Templeton Honors College.

With a doctorate in Biblical Studies from the Annenberg Research Institute, Dr. Putnam has taught with a focus on Old Testament, Biblical Languages, and Wisdom Literature, at a number of seminaries and colleges, including Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Westminster Theological Seminary, Bethel University, and his undergraduate alma mater, Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU).  His research interests include Moral Philosophy, Pedagogy & Education, and Discourse Analysis of biblical poetry and narrative.  His delights are broadly and deeply humane, and an overview of his leisure extends from fencing and marksmanship to early music, gardening, and Shakespeare.

He has published several reference works and textbooks on Classical (Biblical) Hebrew. He is working on a two-book set on biblical theology based on the metaphors of Scripture, with further projects of monographs on the interpretation of biblical poetry and a Christian view of education.

Dr. Putnam is looking forward to being at Eastern, and joins Templeton with enthusiasm for “its textually-based, interdisciplinary curriculum, seminar-based pedagogy, and Christian framework.”  “Since c. 1990,” he writes, “my pedagogy has become increasingly Socratic … focused on working together to a better understanding of this text that lies before us; it has always been interdisciplinary (even before I knew the term), based on the conviction that anything that exists is somehow related to every other aspect of the created order, so that all things illuminate all other things in some way and to some extent, since everything is the work of a personal God who reveals himself in and through all of creation, including the Bible.  All Christian education should assume this essential unity, even as we celebrate the accidents that yield the diversity of existence.”

Putnam introduces himself.

“My main passion in all this – whether in a formally constituted class … or in a ‘co-curricular’ conversation on any subject – is to foster an atmosphere in which men and women feel free and able to begin to become themselves, to become ‘who they already are’ (Josef Pieper), and so begin to realize the purposes of God in and for their own existence.”

Dr. Putnam is an ordained minister; he and his wife, Emilie, have three daughters, all of whom live in southeast Pennsylvania.  With building anticipation, we look forward to Dr. Putnam’s gracious, pastoral, and lively presence in our community, and to the blessing we know he will be in the classroom as he teaches OT and NT seminars in Templeton and will be available to teach upper division Biblical Studies courses in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Listen to Dr. Putnam’s thought’s on great education, or watch his introductory lecture.

Dr. McGuire leading a course on political ideologies.

Students will examine the history of, and attempt to define, personhood through the readings of texts by several philosophers and sociologists, including Aristotle, Descartes, and Plato, as well as several legal cases and novels such as Huxley’s Brave New World and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Students will also be required to write multiple posts on a communal blog in order to enhance their understandings of both the assigned texts and the definition of “personhood.”

The course will not limit the study of personhood to the classroom. At two points during the semester, students will get together for dinner and a movie. The films will tie into material being discussed in class, and after each viewing the students will discuss the questions and issues each film raises. Towards the end of the semester, the class will also visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art in order to explore the history of personhood as depicted in artwork.

Professor McGuire will offer the course during the Spring 2013 Semester, and registration will open during the Fall 2012 Semester. It will be a 300-level class that will meet twice a week, and will be open to all undergraduate students regardless of their major.