Behold, the Lion

Christians throughout millennia have debated what it means for God to be the creator of the Heavens and the Earth. What does this label say about our understanding of God, as part of His Creation? How do we interpret Biblical texts like Genesis that detail the creation story? From the controversial discussion of theistic evolution versus young-earth creation to understanding how we, as humans, ref...

In this episode, we look at the first confession of faith in the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty.” This statement of monotheism – the credo – finds parallels in the shema and the shahada , the respective confessions of Judaism and Islam. What are the similarities and differences in how these three Abrahamic religions conceive of God and His relation to humanity? Is the Chr...

It has been a great semester as The Good Fight discussed the spring readings on the Literature Humanities syllabus. From Augustine to Morrison, this spring has been a wild ride, but this week The Good Fight takes a step back to tie this whole semester together. Tune in to the last episode of the 2021-2022 academic year for an all-star discussion covering all your favorite major texts. The Good Fig...

Columbia's LitHum syllabus has changed significantly in the last couple decades, largely in response to contemporary political and social trends. The course recently added Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison to address what some considered a lack of diversity in the syllabus. The work is hailed as a landmark in African-American literature and its biblical themes tie nicely with the LitHum syllabus. T...

Modernity brought many changes to society, and with those came a change in literature. This week The Good Fight dives into 20th century literature with Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse , a book where the characters are far more alive than the story. As these characters experience life, our hosts will discuss how the novel's portrayal of time and relationship can inform a Christian life. Resource...

It's a long episode this week, and perhaps you'll say it doesn't have a conclusion. As much has been said of the writing of Franz Kafka, an early 20th century Bohemian novelist. As The Good Fight looks at his short work The Metamorphosis this week, they'll discuss what metamorphosis the novella depicts and how metamorphosis fits in the Christian life.  Resources for this episode: The text fro...

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment does not end with last week's discussion of guilt but with an apparent change in Raskolnikov's heart. But what exactly is going on with this apparent "resurrection"? The Good Fight brings back Crime and Punishment for the second episode of this two week exploration, this time focusing on the novel's epilogue and Sonya's recitation of John 11. Resources for this ep...

Any discussion of Western literature would be incomplete without at least one Russian classic. While choosing between Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky is no easy matter, LitHum opts for Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment . The novel follows a young former student as he attempts to transcend his moral conscience and ultimately finds it much harder than he thought. In this episode, The Good Fight is...

What makes a good romance? Lovable characters, and a heart-wrenching plot. Jane Austen nails both in her most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice . Along the way, she manages to include a healthy dose of criticism for the society she finds herself in. Why Pride and Prejudice has proved such a loved book over the last 200 years is only a mystery to those who have yet to read it. Join The Good Fight...

With Miguel de Cervantes, the modern novel enters the LitHum syllabus. Noted for its hilarious parody of popular chivalric stories, Don Quixote is sure to put a laugh in any reader. The storyline is so famous that we've created an adjective from the main character's name (check the title)! This week, The Good Fight explores what this crazed(?), wannabe-knight errant can tell us about storytelling,...

Who hasn't heard of Shakespeare? Acclaimed as the most influential playwright in English history, William Shakespeare wrote so many of the classics whose names we all remember from High School literature: Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Tempest , etc. Fittingly, Columbia does not leave him off the syllabus, so this week The Good Fight is taking a look at Shakespeare's perhaps most race-conscio...

Michel de Montaigne was a 16th-century French Renaissance philosopher and aristocrat. His famous work Essays is a collection of writings exploring humanity, and especial one human in particular - Montaigne himself. The work, though criticized for its style at the time, was influential in making the essay (lit. "trial") a popular form of writing. This week, The Good Fight will explore Montaigne's s...

Dante Alighieri gained a lot of attention last year as we marked 700 years since his death. In the middle ages, the Italian poet composed his Divine Comedy , an epic poem depicting an imagined journey through the three spiritual realms of Catholic teaching. Accordingly, his Inferno depicts Hell, the place where the souls of the condemned are placed in eternal punishment. This week, The Good Fight...

Augustine's Confessions is perhaps the most well-known literary work by an early Church father, except maybe Augustine's more philosophical work City of God. In this episode, The Good Fight explores the doctrine of original sin, which Augustine is famous for formalizing and popularizing, especially as it relates to Augustine's comments about infancy in book I. Are infants guilty? If so, of what? I...

It has been a long semester, and The Good Fight has looked at numerous texts from the foundations of Western literature. From Homer, to Vergil, to Moses and the Gospel writers, we've seen it all. This week, we return to ask, what is it all for? Why read these books, or why read at all? 

Perhaps no books have been more influential in world history than those contained in the Christian New Testament. At the heart of this influence is a story about a man, Jesus. Four authors write about the 'good news' he brings, or his Gospel. This week, The Good Fight takes a look at two of these Gospel stories, perhaps the two more unique among the four: Luke and John. These two are particularly...

Job had what everyone wants: 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. And then he lost it all. The book of Job is one of the most direct theological responses in the Bible against the problem of theodicy: Why do bad things happen to good people? This week, The Good Fight breaks down the argument of the book and discusses its answer(s?) to that question.

There is much to be thankful for this year, so let's give thanks!

"In the beginning..." Those words start a canon of theological writings that, in many ways, have defined the Western literary tradition since the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Genesis, the first book of the Torah and Bible, presents the story of beginning, both of the universe by the creative words of God, and of the Israelites as the book follows the lineage from Adam to Jacob (Israel...

Arma virumque cano - thus begins the greatest work of Latin literature, Vergil's Aeneid . The story follows a survivor of Troy, Aeneas, as he escapes the city at its fall and travels the Mediterranean to fulfill his destiny: to lay the foundations of what would become Rome. The epic poem plays on Homeric plots and themes, but also comes across as distinctly Roman. This week, Ardaschir and Timothy...

Plato is the most influential philosopher of all time, bar none. But, perhaps contrary to what one expects, all of his writings are in the form of dialogue. One of those dialogues recounts a symposium - an Athenian drinking party - in which Socrates and some of Athens' most famous men give speeches on eros , love. Why is this work on the LitHum syllabus, and what can we extrapolate from its often...

Greek tragedy is one of the earliest and most influential forms of theatre, and no discussion of Western classics could be complete without looking at one (at least!) of the extant plays from the 3 great Athenian playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This week, listen to a discussion of the Oresteia , by Aeschylus, which depicts the demise of Agamemnon when he returns from the Trojan...

It's a story so tied to adventure that its name means journey in English: Homer's Odyssey . The story follows on the heels of the Iliad as Odysseus, the cleverest of the Achaean generals, finds his way home. Along the way are some of the most famous encounters in literary history with monsters, deities, and men. But for all that the story lives on in our culture, why does it? What can we still lea...

Homer's Iliad is one of the oldest works of literature from the Western world. It has been a staple in education among the Greeks and Romans, in the Medieval ages, the Renaissance, and Enlightenment, and in modern liberal education. What has made this story so captivating for so long? Moreover, what can we learn from it across the ages and cultures? (Note: a free PDF translated by Alexander Pope c...

As the Fall semester starts at Columbia University, you will find many undergraduate freshmen reading works like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , or Vergil's Aeneid . These works form the core of an education founded on 'the classics' and are popular reads for people of all ages and backgrounds. But what makes something part of 'the classics'? Moreover, what is the value in reading them, many of which...