American literature offers exceptional resources for understanding the complex role religion has played in the life of the culture and in the experience of its people. In recent decades, however, the academic study of that literature has largely treated religion, in the words of a noted scholar, as an "invisible domain." In joining the rich conversations that have enlivened American culture for centuries, "Invisible Conversations" seeks to bring to light the vital role that religion has played in the literature of the United States.

In Believing Again Roger Lundin brilliantly explores the cultural consequences of the rather sudden nineteenth-century emergence of unbelief as a widespread social and intellectual option in the English-speaking world. / Lundin's narrative focuses on key poets and novelists from the past two centuries -- Dostoevsky, Dickinson, Melville, Auden, and more -- showing how they portray the modern mind and heart balancing between belief and unbelief. Lundin engages these literary luminaries through chapters on a series of vital subjects, from history and interpretation to beauty and memory. Such theologians as Barth and Balthasar also enter the fray, facing the challenge of modern unbelief with a creative brilliance that has gone largely unnoticed outside the world of faith. Lundin's Believing Again is a beautifully written, erudite examination of the drama and dynamics of belief in the modern world. In Believing Again Roger Lundin brilliantly explores the cultural consequences of the rather sudden nineteenth-century emergence of unbelief as a widespread social and intellectual option in the English-speaking world. Lundin's narrative focuses on key poets and novelists from the past two centuries -- Dostoevsky, Dickinson, Melville, Auden, and more -- showing how they portray the modern mind in tension between faith and doubt. Lundin engages these literary luminaries through chapters on a series of vital subjects, from history and interpretation to beauty and memory. Such theologians as Barth and Balthasar also enter the discussion, facing the challenge of modern unbelief with a creative brilliance that has gone largely unnoticed outside the world of faith. Lundin's Believing Again is a beautifully written, erudite examination of the drama and dynamics of belief in the modern world.

A masterpiece of religious allegory transformed into intense drama, "The Pilgrim's Progress's" style is unsurpassed, its characters superbly individualized, indelibly alive, and as memorable as the landmarks on Christian's perilous journey toward salvation. Revised reissue.

In Christ across the Disciplines a group of distinguished scholars from across the theological spectrum explores the dynamic relationship between the Christian faith and the life of the mind. Although the essays in this volume are rooted in a rich understanding of the past, they focus primarily on how Christian students, teachers, and scholars might best meet the challenges of intellectual and cultural life in a global world.This book ranges widely over the broad terrain of contemporary academic and cultural life, covering such topics as the enormous growth of political activism in late twentieth-century evangelicalism, the dynamics of literature and faith in the African-American experience, the dramatic implications of globalization for those who profess Christ and practice the life of the mind, and more!

For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life.

Five sections explore the background of a Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student's calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well.

Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning.

God. Beauty. Art. Theology. Editors Mark Husbands, Roger Lundin and Daniel J. Treier present ten essays from the 2006 Wheaton Theology Conference that explore a Christian approach to beauty and the arts. Theology has much to contribute in providing a place for the arts in the Christian life, and the arts have much to contribute to the quality of Christian life, worship and witness. The 2006 Wheaton Theology Conference explored a wide-ranging Christian approach to divine beauty and the earthly arts. Written and illustrated by artists and theologians, these essays illuminate for us the Christian significance of the visual arts, music and literature, as well as sounding forth the theological meaning and place of the arts in a fallen world--fallen, yet redeemed by Christ. Here is a veritable feast for pastors, artists, theologians and students eager to consider the profound but not necessarily obvious connection between Christianity and the arts.

The question of interpretation is as old as language itself. In today's postmodern context, however, the task of hermeneutics has become frustratingly complex. This timely collection of essays by ten leading scholars explores the diversity of contemporary Christian hermeneutical theory and practice. The format of the book consists of a major essay and a response in each of four disciplines - philosophy, English, sociology, and theology - leading to differences in definition and practice, but with the common framework of a Christian perspective. In their insightful handling of the most challenging contemporary issues and literature on interpretive theory, the authors seek to negotiate the narrow straits between absolute certainty and interpretive license. And as they chart the turbulent waters of the postmodern world, they serve as savvy guides to assist us in our difficult passage to the truth.

This book offers a broad-ranging account of contemporary American culture, the complex network of symbols, practices, and beliefs at the heart of our society. Lundin explores the historical background of some of our "postmodern" culture's central beliefs and considers their crucial ethical and theological implications.

Garnishing awards from "Choice, Christianity Today, Books & Culture," and the Conference on Christianity and Literature when first published in 1998, Roger Lundin's "Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief" has been widely recognized as one of the finest biographies of the great American poet Emily Dickinson. Paying special attention to her experience of faith, Lundin skillfully relates Dickinson's life -- as it can be charted through her poems and letters -- to nineteenth-century American political, social, religious, and intellectual history.

This second edition of Lundin's superb work includes a standard bibliography, expanded notes, and a more extensive discussion of Dickinson's poetry than the first edition contained. Besides examining Dickinson's singular life and work in greater depth, Lundin has also keyed all poem citations to the recently updated standard edition of Dickinson's poetry. Already outstanding, Lundin's biography of Emily Dickinson is now even better than before.

From reviews of the original edition

Lundin's gracefully written biography is a fine introduction for readers who know little about the life of Emily Dickinson; specialists too will profit from Lundin's portrait of her in the context of the cultural, political, and theological issues of her day and of the history of Christian thought.
-- Dorothy Huff Oberhaus in "Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin"

Lundin gives us a magnificent literary biography, massively researched, elegantly written, subtly argued. . . . A work of haunting beauty.
-- Grant Wacker in "Books & Culture"

Well written, free of the swollen jargon that obscures so much academic writing, Lundin's study ofDickinson provides a thoughtful analysis of America's greatest poet and the God who always eluded her grasp.
-- Martha Ackmann in "The Journal of American History"

Rarely do reviewers read books they wish they had written. This is one of them. . . . Lundin's biography provides a unique and succinct introduction to this enigmatic poet and the spiritual struggle at the core of her being and her work.
-- S. R. Graham in "Choice"

Dickinson may well be the finest lyric poet America has yet produced -- a fact that Lundin's learned and clear-sighted study gives us further reason to know.
-- David Yezzi in "Commonweal

'An important contribution to the study of the history of American pragmatism, modern methods of literary criticism and hermeneutics, and 20th-century Protestant theology. . . . Highly recommended.' _Choice 'Drawing on fiction and poetry, Lundin illumines the philosophical issues he explores while never losing the thread of argument. This could well be one of the more important books written in recent times, and hopefully it will receive the wide readership it so richly deserves.' _Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke University, and author of With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology 'Roger Lundin has provided a powerful 'genealogy of moral authority'.' _Christianity Today Magazine In this remarkable work, Roger Lundin seeks the source of American moral and cultural authority in the shift from nature to experience figured in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While the pragmatic tradition concludes that experience must generate the very light that will lead us out of its own darkness, From Nature to Experience returns to religion for illumination and truth. This is a story of nineteenth-century sources and twenty-first century consequences in which literature, history, philosophy, and theology are joined in order to form a truly original critique of American culture.

In this remarkable work, Roger Lundin seeks the source of American moral and cultural authority in the shift from nature to experience figured in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While the pragmatic tradition concludes that experience must generate the very light that will lead us out of its own darkness, From Nature to Experience returns to religion for illumination and truth. This is a story of nineteenth-century sources and twenty-first century consequences in which literature, history, philosophy, and theology are joined in order to form a truly original critique of American culture.