Announcing the Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience

As Cornerstone University prepares to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary alongside the nation, we are excited to introduce The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience — a distinct feature of our new general education curriculum, The Cornerstone Core™.

One key pillar of The Cornerstone Core™ is a conviction that students must engage essential primary sources — great speeches, foundational documents, novels, court decisions, sermons, films, and works of art — in order to understand and learn from the brilliance and promise as well as the struggles and moral failings found in the American story.

The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience is not a nostalgic tribute nor a partisan project. It is a curated collection of 50 key primary works that illuminate the principles of America’s founding, the Biblical influences that shaped those principles, and the profound debates that have shaped our nation for 250 years.

Why Study the American Experience?

Some ask: Given the struggles and moral failings found in America’s history, why study America at all?

The Christian answer begins with both love and realism. Scripture teaches that we have a dutiful opportunity “to seek the welfare” of the political community in which we find ourselves (Jeremiah 29:7), to “love your neighbor” (Matthew 22:39), and to “think about such things” that are “true, noble, right” (Philippians 4:8). To study the brilliance and promise of the American experience is an opportunity to discern and learn about all that is “true, noble, right” about our nation. It is an opportunity to learn how to love our neighbor more effectively and to discover anew how “to seek the welfare” of our country for in its prospering, we too will prosper.

Scripture also teaches that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This realism informs our study of the American experience since America, like every nation formed by human beings, will reflect both dignity and depravity. While America is an exceptional nation in human history due to its founding and promise, it is also on par with all other nations as it relates to its moral failings.

Yet imperfection does not negate importance. America’s founding ideals — liberty, equality, government under law, religious freedom, and the inherent dignity of the human person — have inspired countless people across centuries and cultures. The American story is, in large part, the story of a nation striving — sometimes nobly, sometimes tragically — to live up to those ideals.

As Abraham Lincoln described it, the Founders set forth a “standard maxim for free society” that, though never perfectly attained, should be constantly labored for. The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience invites students into that labor: to understand, evaluate, and apply the principles that have shaped American life.

A Canon That Includes Triumph and Tragedy

The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience is intentionally comprehensive in scope and honest in tone.

Students will encounter:

• The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
• The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates.
• Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and speeches.
• The Dred Scott decision and Lincoln’s response.
• Writings from the Progressive Era that challenged the Founders’ framework.
• Selections from American eugenicists alongside works defending human dignity.
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic appeals to America’s founding promises.
• Roe v. Wade and debates over the sanctity of life.
• Films, paintings, sermons, and cultural works that shaped the American imagination.

This is not an exercise in whitewashing history. Nor is it an exercise in cynicism. Wisdom is often produced by learning from both failures and successes. Students will examine struggles and conflicts in our history where America has not lived up to her stated ideals — but they will also study the courage of those who sought reform and renewal, often at great cost to themselves.

By encountering these voices in their own words, students learn discernment, courage, and virtue.

Christianity and the American Experience

Cornerstone’s approach is unapologetically rooted in the Christian worldview.

The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience explores how Biblical ideas — human beings created in the image of God, natural moral law, the limits of power, the importance of covenant and consent — profoundly influenced the American founding and the development of religious liberty.

Christians are called to seek the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:7), to pursue justice (Micah 6:8), and to engage public life with wisdom and virtue. The Canon equips students to do just that.

Forming Leaders for the Next 250 Years

Through the Christianity and the American Experience sequence in The Cornerstone Core™, students read, discuss, debate, and apply the works in the Canon. A capstone project will ask students to apply a principle from the American experience to contemporary issues.

The goal is spiritual, intellectual, and civic formation.

We want students across every major to understand the ideas that shaped America, evaluate those ideas through a Biblical lens, and apply them thoughtfully in their chosen professions and communities. The Cornerstone Core™ and its Great Works Canon of the American Experience provides a singular opportunity for Cornerstone’s students to learn to be influencers for Jesus Christ in America and the world.

Contact admissions@cornerstone.edu or request information to discover more about The Cornerstone Core™ today.