The Cornerstone Core™

Christian Beliefs for Human Flourishing

Explore the fundamental doctrines of the evangelical Christian faith and their impact on human flourishing. The importance of Scripture and the Church for our relationships with God, man, self, and nature will be emphasized throughout the course. The course reviews relevant bible passages and emphasizes practical application of doctrine within the church context.

Covenant and Calling: Discovering Flourishing in the Old Testament

Survey the Old Testament literature and theology. Develop skills in reading and interpreting the Bible. Explore the overarching storyline of the Old Testament, its historical and cultural context, literary genres, and major themes. Special attention is given to the theological significance of key passages and how they reveal God’s character, covenant purposes, and redemptive plan, showing how the Old Testament fits within God’s redemptive story.

Christ and Community: The New Testament Vision to Flourishing

Survey the New Testament literature and theology. Explore the historical and cultural context of the New Testament writings, their literary forms, and their place within the overarching biblical narrative. Special attention is given to major theological themes and how these shape Christian faith and practice. Learn to interpret New Testament texts faithfully and apply their message to contemporary life within a Christian worldview.

Renewing the Mind: Philosophy, Faith, and Flourishing

Understand how to think philosophically and biblically through a Christian worldview. Explore the basic philosophical ideas that shape Western culture and cultivate the logical and biblical tools to analyze these ideas for their truth or falsity. Grow in your ability to think critically about the great questions of the ages (knowledge, God, morality) and how the Christian worldview relates to these questions. Learn to provide coherent answers to fundamental questions about reality, purpose, morality, and destiny through the biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.

Christianity and the Foundations of the Republic

Explore how Christianity grounded the founding of the American republic and changed the trajectory of history. Examine how Christianity and its doctrines changed the world by giving rise to new ideas about human dignity and equality and liberty under law. Learn the biblical, theological, and historical roots of key ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence, including the existence of a Creator, human equality, the natural moral law, unalienable rights, limited government, and the consent of the governed. Evaluate and understand the American Constitution and how it provides for both representative government and limited government. A particular emphasis is the pivotal role played by religion in the Founders’ system. Finally, compare and contrast the American Revolution with the French Revolution—why did one result in liberty and the other in tyranny?

Christian Engagement in America and the World

Starting with World War 1, examine the responsibilities of Christians in America in an age of globalization. Understand the impact of scientific materialism and social Darwinism on American politics and culture, including the eugenics crusade. Learn how America responded to the rise of Nazi and communist totalitarianism abroad and the development at home of an increasingly centralized administrative state. Examine the important role American Christians played in politics post-World War II even as traditional ties of faith, morality, and family were weakening. Consider how Christians today can be wise and active citizens, placing particular emphasis on the need for a discerning approach to mass media, political parties, voting, and public opinion. Throughout the course, you will investigate how biblical doctrines challenge cultural ideologies and guide church and civic engagement. You will be asked to revisit the principles of the American Founding and think about how they can be applied to our situation today. Through biblical and historical perspectives, the course equips students to engage thoughtfully in public life—locally and globally.

Christianity and Challenges to the Young Republic

Evaluate major challenges faced by the American republic from 1800-1914 and explore the crucial role played by Christians in addressing those challenges. Key topics covered include the ending of state-sponsored churches followed by the rise of voluntary associations led by Christians; debates over slavery and “scientific” racism that culminated in the Civil War; debates over wealth and poverty following the Civil War and the different approaches pursued by Christians to alleviate poverty; the new ideas propounded by Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche and how they began to impact America; and the rise of the Progressive movement and the fundamental challenge it posed to the constitutional system created by America’s Founders. A key emphasis includes that ideas have consequences and encourages students to evaluate conflicting ideas in American public life in light of Christian doctrines and beliefs.

Truth & Rhetoric: Communicating for Human Flourishing

Learn to communicate with excellence, truth, and beauty across oral and written modalities. Emphasizing ethical and effective communication from a Christian worldview, you will explore principles of truth-telling, persuasion, and relational intelligence. Through practice in speaking and writing, the course fosters skills for clear expression, critical thinking, and audience engagement, preparing students to communicate in ways that promote understanding, integrity, and human flourishing.

AI and the Human Experience

Discover the world of artificial intelligence and explore how it shapes, and is shaped by, human experience. Emphasis is placed on understanding human interaction, including with AI, from a biblically informed perspective, examining how these technologies influence communication, creativity, decision-making, and cultural life. Through hands-on engagement with AI tools and guided ethical reflection, you will develop AI literacy, which is the ability to use and evaluate AI responsibly (AI ethical usage) in ways that promote human dignity and flourishing.

Scientific Thinking & Analytical Reasoning

Cultivate scientific literacy within a distinctly Christian worldview. Investigate the nature of science; practice sound logic and argument evaluation; and develop core skills for reading, visualizing, interpreting, and communicating quantitative data. Through case studies in health, environment, and technology, students assess claims, distinguish correlation from causation, and argue from evidence clearly and ethically. Throughout, we frame scientific inquiry as part of faithful discipleship: creation declares God’s glory, human inquiry is real yet fallible, and wisdom requires humility, stewardship, and love of neighbor.

Foundations of a Free Society

Understand economic life through the biblical themes of image bearing, stewardship, voluntary exchange, and the moral limits of civil government. Attention is given to how Scripture frames questions of work, vocation, generosity, and governance. Develop a Christian understanding of property rights, and the emergence of markets and money. Evaluate the causes and consequences of interventionism and examine how biblically grounded principles promote social cooperation, economic flourishing, and faithful civic engagement.