Friday, January 20, 2006

20th Century Christian Writers Course

Last night was the first class meeting of the new one-semester course I am teaching at Grace University, 20th Century Christian Writers. Asked by Grace officials just last month to design and then teach a literature survey, I was pleased to accept the challenge but it was a pretty hectic race (given everything else going on) to get the thing ready on time. Well, it's on its way.

8 students signed up for the ride which I'm told is a good number at Grace for an upper-level elective course in this field. I'll be able to tell better next week when we start open discussions, but the group seemed lively, interested and responsible. And, since the course emphasizes reading and discussion over lecture and exams, I'm pretty sure they'll enjoy themselves.

And, let's face it, who wouldn't enjoy a course where you read G.K. Chesterton, Walter Wangerin, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, T.S. Eliot, Randy Alcorn, and C.S. Lewis?

We start next week discussing several of GKC's poems, essays and the Father Brown story, The Oracle of a Dog. Then we'll follow that up the next week with a coffee go-round over GKC's delightful novel, Manalive.

I'll keep you informed of our progress as the semester goes along.