College Crunch put together a list of twenty Christian professors that are “‘brilliant’ in the original sense of the word—they shine brightly among their peers as towering figures in the academic world. In addition, they are all Christians who do not hide their Christianity and see it as significantly impacting their intellectual work.”
- Peter Berger (Boston University)
- Ben Carson (John Hopkins University)
- Simon Conway Morris (Cambridge)
- Louise Cowan (University of Dallas)
- William Lane Craig (Biola University)
- Robert P George (Princeton)
- Donald Knuth (Stanford)
- Robert Jackson Marks II (Baylor University)
- Michael McConnell (Stanford)
- Alister McGrath (King’s College)
- Albert Mohler (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
- Martin Andreas Nowak (Harvard)
- Alvin Plantinga (University of Notre Dame)
- John Polkinghorne (Cambridge)
- Marilynne Robinson (University of Iowa)
- Henry “Fritz” Schaefer III (University of Georgia
- Charles Taylor (McGill University, Canada)
- John Suppe (Princeton)
- James Tour (Rice University)
- N.T. Wright (McGill and Oxford
I think this is a surprisingly good list, though of course I would: it appears to have been written by an evangelical, and one from the Reformed/Calvinist wing of the movement. But with thousands of brilliant Christian professors to choose from, its obviously not adequately representative of academia.
Who would you add (or remove) from the list?
(Via: Evangel)
May 7th, 2010 | 11:35 am
Adding:
David Walsh (Catholic University)
May 7th, 2010 | 11:41 am
Peter Kreeft
May 7th, 2010 | 11:54 am
James V. Schall S.J. (Georgetown)
May 7th, 2010 | 11:59 am
Yeah, where is Peter Kreeft?
And I would also add Rev. Robert Barron, Univ. of St. Mary of the Lake – Mundelein Seminary
May 7th, 2010 | 12:03 pm
Alasdair MacIntyre [Notre Dame]
May 7th, 2010 | 12:05 pm
ALASDAIR MACINTYRE {NOTRE DAME}
May 7th, 2010 | 12:05 pm
Hadley Arkes
May 7th, 2010 | 12:09 pm
Definitely Peter Kreeft.
May 7th, 2010 | 12:15 pm
How about some ‘brilliant’ scholars who are also women? Just a few that come to mind:
Jean Bethke Elshtain (University of Chicago)
Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard Law School)
Edith Blumhofer (Wheaton College)
Mark Noll’s absence is also striking.
May 7th, 2010 | 12:23 pm
Dr. Scott Hahn – Steubenville for sure.
May 7th, 2010 | 12:30 pm
Timothy Tennent president Asbury Seminary
May 7th, 2010 | 12:37 pm
From the UK, Keith Ward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ward
formerly Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and an ordained minister
May 7th, 2010 | 12:42 pm
Hadley Arkes? He’s Jewish.
Agreed that the list could be much longer. George Marsden, J. Budziszewski
May 7th, 2010 | 12:43 pm
Dallas Willard, USC
May 7th, 2010 | 12:44 pm
Napp Hadley Arkes? He’s Jewish.
Last week he joined the Catholic Church.
May 7th, 2010 | 1:06 pm
Richard Bauckham, J. Budziszewski, David Bentley Hart.
May 7th, 2010 | 1:10 pm
I would also add Stanley Hauerwas
May 7th, 2010 | 1:45 pm
The fourth on the list should be Dr. Louise Cowan, correct?
May 7th, 2010 | 2:14 pm
Dr. Bradley Birzer, the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College
May 7th, 2010 | 2:29 pm
Peter Kreeft. He has written an amazing number of books, most available from Ignatius Press.
May 7th, 2010 | 2:45 pm
How in the world did Mark Noll (Notre Dame) not make this list? The man publishes a book nearly every year and has stood as a leader in describing American Christianity, helping us to understand what and who we actually are.
May 7th, 2010 | 3:27 pm
I would add Alasdair MacIntyre and David Albert Jones.
And as I mentioned over on the Evangel blog, check out Alvin Plantinga’s photo. You know, I love both the man and his work, but that’s just not seeker-friendly.
May 7th, 2010 | 5:02 pm
Ronald Tacelli, SJ (Boston College)
And, of course, Peter Kreeft (Boston College)
May 7th, 2010 | 5:32 pm
Love him or hate him–John Milbank.
May 7th, 2010 | 6:28 pm
This might not count, but anyway: Ralph McInerny, R.I.P.
May 7th, 2010 | 6:44 pm
How can you leave Peter Kreeft off the list?
May 7th, 2010 | 7:35 pm
Napp, Hadley Arkes is Catholic – converted.
May 7th, 2010 | 8:16 pm
yes, Peter Kreeft (Boston College)
Merold Westphal (Fordham University)
Don Carson (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
May 7th, 2010 | 8:24 pm
Robert Enright, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison
May 7th, 2010 | 8:25 pm
Brad Wilcox, Ph.D., University of Virginia
May 7th, 2010 | 9:52 pm
Stephen M. Barr. A true gift to our faith.
May 7th, 2010 | 10:29 pm
The late Hugh Nibley, Berkeley and Brigham Young University. Amazing man.
May 7th, 2010 | 10:50 pm
Two for inclusion:
1. Dr. Jean Bethke Elshtain … an exceptional scholar (University of Chicago)
2. Dr. Nathan Hatch, an exceptional historian and leader (President of Wake Forest).
May 8th, 2010 | 12:04 am
Many of the most brilliant evangelicals I’ve met are not academics, but, in the spirit of the list, a few others not yet mentioned:
1. Sarah Coakley, Cambridge University.
2. Bruce McCormack, Princeton Theological Seminary.
3. Rodney Stark, Baylor.
I have to agree with the others above who suggested Peter Kreeft, Alasdair MacIntyre, Mark Noll, David Bentley Hart, and John Milbank.
May 8th, 2010 | 12:34 am
Father Robert Spitzer at Gonzaga University should be included.
May 8th, 2010 | 2:14 am
Ah…ok folks…where did Jesus ever say it was important to be brilliant? Poor in heart, peace loving, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, remember that list? Brilliant? Not there. Have I missed that moment where Jesus turned to one of the learned Sadducees and said, “My oh my, what a brilliant argument in that fourth collection of scrolls you had copied out and distributed last year. I’m so impressed.”
Why don’t we have a blog here for the country’s greatest Christian carpenters? Or food service workers? Here’s a story Paul Holmer—who was the Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale (and isn’t than an impressive hook to hang your name on) told about C.S. Lewis.
Holmer studied with Lewis when Lewis was in Cambridge (he sat in on the lectures that became the “Discarded Image” and was perplexed by how such great and witty talks could be turned into what he thought was such a dull book). Holmer was known to evangelicals back in the states; when he was a young professor at the University of Minnesota Billy Graham sought out his advice about Northwestern Bible College where he had been appointed president. Now that Holmer was at Cambridge, a group of American evangelicals approached him and to see if he would agree to introduce them to Lewis. They wanted Lewis to come to the states and speak on the “problems of the Christian intellectual.” Lewis would speak at colleges and churches in the US. Things were still being rationed in Britain and the Americans had already raised a speaker’s fee that Holmer, in the context of the day, described as princely. Holmer agreed to set up the meeting.
They met in Lewis’ college rooms. Lewis set his “scout” out for tea, and after initial pleasantries the Americans made their pitch. Lewis sat there, puffed on his pipe, and very nicely asked if the Americans had set up a speaking tour on the “problems of the Christian carpenter. ” The Americans were a bit stunned, and said no, they hadn’t. Lewis smiled, said that carpenters had problems too and turned the conversation to something else. After a decent interval tea was finished and the Americans said their goodbyes. Lewis didn’t come to America.
Holmer wasn’t surprised at Lewis’ question and his refusal to go on the speaking tour. Lewis had two objections to the plan. First, the problems Christianity creates aren’t intellectual problems; there isn’t a particular calculus that makes Christianity problematic. The problems are problems of the heart–pride, fear, stubbornness, arrogance. Everybody has them. Even arrogance—which can be seen as a big intellectual problem—is the carpenter’s problem too, with perhaps the only difference that the carpenter maybe realizes his arrogance more easily than the intellectual. Lewis thought it was a bit comic, intellectuals thinking that they had some sort of special problem with Christianity that could be addressed by a speaking tour.
Comic, like this list. You can make lists of talky types who publish books, host seminars, posts on blogs like this, but a list of the most brilliant Christian professors? Or of the country’s most skilled Christian bartenders? As if it’s important in the Divine economy for a professor to be brilliant. Or a bartender to mix the perfect martini. Ah, not so much probably.
Let’s not add anyone to the list. Let’s remove the list. And have a good laugh with Lewis.
May 8th, 2010 | 2:29 am
Ah…ok folks…where did Jesus ever say it was important to be brilliant?
Here is how the article defines “brilliant”:
And in response to your question:
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 5:14-16
Why don’t we have a blog here for the country’s greatest Christian carpenters? Or food service workers?
Because this is not a blog about carpentry or food service. There is nothing wrong with making such lists, of course, but it would be as out of place for “Christian Carpenters Magazine” to post about academics as it would be for the blog of an intellectual journal to post about carpenters.
No one is saying that academics are more worthy than other professions. But they are also not unworthy of praise and admiration.
As if it’s important in the Divine economy for a professor to be brilliant.
Actual, it is important. It is important for everyone to use their God given vocations to their fullest for His greater glory.
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but it appears you are proffering a form of reverse snobbery. Carpenters are as worthy as academics. But the reverse is also true—academics are as worthy as carpenters. I’m not sure why we should not esteem those who are serving the Lord to the best of their abilities.
May 8th, 2010 | 2:59 am
Definitely Ralph McInerny: #1.
Also Robert Sokolowski
May 8th, 2010 | 7:45 am
Richard A. Baer, Jr. (Cornell University) — retired from teaching, but brought a brilliant Christian worldview to his Natural Resources courses
May 8th, 2010 | 7:51 am
Mary Glendon, of Harvard.
May 8th, 2010 | 8:55 am
DAVID BENTLEY HART & FERDINAND ULRICH
May 8th, 2010 | 11:21 am
Gloria Wiese from Bethel University.
May 8th, 2010 | 1:05 pm
I wonder, who, exactly, would “esteem those [carpenters] who are serving the Lord to the best of their abilities” if it is “out of place for … the blog of an intellectual journal to post about carpenters”? Is it really plausible to relegate that duty to a “Christian carpenters magazine” or even think that such a publication might exist, given the non-academic nature of the profession? I mean, really. The intellectuals are the ones in the position to esteem and be heard by others because of their God-given verbal abilities and educational training. Yet they persist in tooting their own horns because it would be “out of place” to toot someone else’s. I have come to expect that sort of rationalization among my secular colleagues, but I would have thought that a Christian intellectual journal that claims to be serving the whole church would be a little less self-absorbed. And by the way, the better analogy is not between a Christian intellectual journal posting about Christian carpenters vs. a Christian carpenters journal posting about Christian academics, but between a Christian intellectual journal posting about Christian Carpenters vs. Christian carpenters building houses for Christian intellectuals.
May 8th, 2010 | 1:24 pm
. . . if it is “out of place for … the blog of an intellectual journal to post about carpenters”?
I should have clarified that better. I don’t mean that it would be “out of place” as in inappropriate for us to post about carpenters, but rather that it would be out of place for us to be so presumptuous to think we could know who the most “brilliant” carpenters are.
Also, I think there are plenty of carpenters who would be able to write such an article. It doesn’t exactly require an intellectual to create such a post. And if there are magazines for Christian carpenters I think they would be in a much better position not who should be praised. I also suspect they’d be quite competent to write such an article. There’s no reason someone couldn’t be both a carpenter and a writer.
May 8th, 2010 | 1:51 pm
Dear JB in CA: I really don’t see anyone here “tooting their own horns.” They are recognizing the Christian contributions of others who are also academics.
By the way, there is a website for the United Brotherhood of Christian Carpenters of America. I don’t think they’ve posted anything lately about Plantinga (which is, you have to admit, a bit irritating). :)
May 8th, 2010 | 2:46 pm
I agree with everyone who said Peter Kreeft should be on this list.
He is also on my list of most brilliant Christian authors of the present time period.
May 8th, 2010 | 2:51 pm
I think JB in CA raises a good point. Elsewhere on the blog we talk about the need for more anonymous faithful versus celebrated Bonos, and here we’re ranking intellectual Bonos. (Bonoes?)
Not to mention, by ranking Christian intellectuals, are we tacitly accepting and encouraging the incorrect notion that a thinking person is rarely a believing person?
I’m embarassed, anyway.
May 8th, 2010 | 3:26 pm
I suggest:
– Prof. Timothy J. McGrew, Western Michigan University, Anglican (I guess my most favourite philosopher)
– Prof. Richard G. Swinburne, Oxford University, Greek Orthodox
– Prof. James Franklin, University of New South Wales, Roman Catholic
All probabilistic philosophers.
May 9th, 2010 | 3:17 am
So, Joe, you write: “I’m not sure why we should not esteem those who are serving the Lord to the best of their abilities.” Ok. How you know that they are serving the Lord to the best of their abilities? And which abilities? All of them? Three out of five? Seven out of twenty?
I kinda think that nobody is serving the Lord to the best of his or her abilities. And I can’t think of anybody mentioned in the Bible who did either (I’m a Protestant, so Catholics might disagree about this here and speak of Mary).
I’m not opposed to Christian intellectuals, or Christian academics, I just think we’re generally a pretty unimportant lot and can be a bit taken up with self-importance: admission to elite schools, academic degrees, professorial titles – and folks telling you that you’re “brilliant”, all that can turn a fool’s head. Vanity lists like this are inaccurate, unnecessary and unhelpful. They do nothing to promote the virtue of modesty and can only inflame pride. And pride is a big problem. That was Lewis’ and Holmer’s point, or part of it. It was a fisherman who the Lord chose to lead the apostles. And of course Jesus was a carpenter. When God came to earth he got a job as a carpenter. Not as an intellectual, brilliant or not. A carpenter (and there’s no record whether or not he was a particularly good one). I think that’s what’s called a hint.
May 9th, 2010 | 8:11 am
Peter Leithart of course!
May 9th, 2010 | 10:39 am
It seems to me that the whole Lewis thread introduced above is an exercise in missing the point. Lewis seems to have been dismissive, or at least found humorous, the fact that a group of American Christians would problematize the relationship between Christianity and the life of the mind.
A list is posted of some folks ideas about Christians who excel at demonstrating a faithful life of the mind in Christian terms and the CS Lewis story is used to problematize the list?
My guess was that the irony is unintended so to misquote the Princess Bride. I don’t think that story means what you think it means.
May 9th, 2010 | 1:29 pm
Eamon Duffy has singlehandedly turned our conceptions of the Reformation on its ear, and not in the sort of Romantic way that Huizinga did so long ago. His work also points the way or charts a course for those who will write the critical analyses of the destruction of popular piety after Vatican II.
John Bossy deserves an Honorable Mention in this field, but he is dwarfed by Duffy’s greatness.
May 9th, 2010 | 10:41 pm
Frank Beckwith
May 9th, 2010 | 11:50 pm
Professor Thomas Hibbs, now at Baylor, for important work on film and cinema as evangelization of popular culture combined with first rate work on Aquinas. Also, being named as the first Catholic to head a school at a Baptist university (and a big one at that) is no small accomplishment.
May 10th, 2010 | 5:43 am
John Finnis (Oxford and Notre Dame Law School)
May 10th, 2010 | 9:58 am
Scott Moringiello, Villanova University
May 10th, 2010 | 1:51 pm
Missing from this list are:
Žižek
Adam Kotsko
Anthony Paul Smith
Kim Fabricus
Ben Meyers
Halden Doerge
Needing to be expunged from anyone’s list (and perhaps the face of the earth): John Milbank.
Thank you, that is all.
May 10th, 2010 | 2:34 pm
George Marsden, historian at Notre Dame
Vern Poythress, Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia)
May 11th, 2010 | 10:18 am
Mada Okstok: Žižek is a brilliant Christian professor? I think you’re a little confused.
May 12th, 2010 | 1:02 am
I know, I know Zizek is an “atheist,” but really hid atheism is the truest form of theism as he kills the gods of metaphysics and liberates us to serve the cruciifed god of Holy Saturday.
Also, Milbank sucks.
That is all.
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