Freelance Christianity: Philosophy Faith and the Real World

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 Morgans 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 youve 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 philosophers 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 doesnt 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 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.