Freelance Christianity: Philosophy, Faith, and the Real World
Ebook
Overview
"How can you be a Christian and a philosopher at the same time?" This question has haunted Vance Morgan ever since it was posed by a good friend almost thirty years ago. Freelance Christianity is rooted in Morgan’s conviction that, far from being fundamentally opposed, truly philosophical energies and a commitment to a vibrant, lived faith are complementary, mutually supporting, and marks of a healthy quest for the divine. This book brings together his training as a philosopher and experience as a person of faith in an investigation of how the life of faith can be lived with a rigorous commitment to the pursuit of knowledge in real time.
”If you’ve ever wondered how a person can be a Christian and
also an intellectual, this is the book for you. In an engaging,
personal style, Morgan brings his keen philosopher’s insight to
work on our concepts of God and the nature of belief. In discussing
how faith works in us he goes beyond the expected areas of
attentiveness, silence, and humility, and explores courage (what do
we fear? what is worth dying for?) and beauty as the place where
the human and the divine meet. Rich with allusions to the Bible,
popular culture, and both ancient and contemporary authors, this
book is a refreshing reminder that faith is not something abstract
but is revealed in transformed lives here and now."
--Kathleen Norris, author of Journey: New & Selected
Poems and Acedia & Me
“Vance Morgan is the college philosophy teacher everyone should
wish for. In these sometimes outrageous and always imaginative
essays (e.g., an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees rendered
as beer-fueled guy-banter in a sports bar), Morgan shows how we
live in and through big ideas every day, and that faith and reason
correct and fulfill one another, even if, as in any marriage,
things get testy at times."
--Donald Ottenhoff, executive director, Collegeville Institute for
Ecumenical and Cultural Research
"Vance Morgan brings everything important to bear in these
insightful, witty, and even moving commentaries on the questions of
faith. He doesn’t stand above them, either. He is personally
generous as he adds to the mix his own pilgrimage from being
the son of a conservative Baptist pastor to being a philosopher and
teacher. Walking together, we learn along the way that the
questions of faith are questions of
faith and life."
--Eric O. Springsted, Interim Senior Pastor, Madison Avenue
Presbyterian Church, New York City; Librarian, The Center of
Theological Inquiry, Princeton, NJ
Product Details
- Title : Freelance Christianity: Philosophy, Faith, and the Real World
- Author: Morgan, Vance G.
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2017
- ISBN: 9781498299145
Vance G. Morgan is Professor of Philosophy at Providence College. He is the author of Foundations of Cartesian Ethics (1995) and Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Mathematics, and Love (2006), as well as the blog Freelance Christianity.