The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience
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50 Works. 250 Years. One Enduring Question: What Does It Mean to Pursue Liberty and Justice Under God?
What is the Canon?
The Cornerstone Great Works Canon of the American Experience is a curated collection of 50 foundational works that illuminate:
- The principles of America’s founding.
- The biblical ideas that shaped those principles.
- The conflicts and debates that have defined the American story.
These works include founding documents, court decisions, speeches, novels, sermons, paintings, and films. Some articulate and defend America’s founding ideals. Others challenge them. Together, they form a structured encounter with the intellectual, moral, and cultural forces that have shaped the nation.
The Canon is not exhaustive. It is formative. Students will interact directly with the voices that have shaped and continue to form the American story.
Why a Great Works Canon?
- To Encounter Ideas at Their Source
Students read original writings from historical leaders including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. to influential groups including the Founding Fathers, Federalists, Anti-Federalists, modern critics and reformers. - To Tell the Whole Story
America’s story includes courage and cruelty, faith and failure, reform and regression. The Canon examines both achievements and injustices; slavery, racial discrimination, the mistreatment of Native Americans, social Darwinism, the violation of the sanctity of human life, while also highlighting those who worked to correct those wrongs. - To Form Leaders, Not Partisans
This program does not advance a political party or platform. It studies timeless principles and enduring debates. Students are encouraged to think carefully and apply what they learn with wisdom and integrity. - To Integrate Faith and Public Life
The Canon explores the biblical roots of ideas such as human equality, natural law, limited government, religious liberty, and moral responsibility – while affirming the historic Christian understanding of the proper distinction between church and state.Christians are citizens of heaven. But we are also called to seek the welfare of the cities where we live (Jer. 29:7) and to do justice in our own generation (Micah 6:8) in the nation they find themselves in.
The Structure of the Canon
- Colonial Era to Revolution and Founding (15 Works)
From the Mayflower Compact to the Constitution, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates, and Washington’s Farewell Address, students explore the principles of liberty, equality under law, consent of the governed, and religious freedom. - Early Nation to Progressive Era (20 Works)
Here students examine the growing pains of American democracy, the rise of faith-based voluntary associations, and the moral crisis over slavery that culminated in the Civil War. Then they study post-Civil War challenges posed by industrialization and progressivism. Students encounter Douglass, Lincoln, Tocqueville, Thoreau, and others wrestling with America’s contradictions. - World War I to Present (15 Works)
Students study the challenges faced by America in an age of globalization, including the impact of scientific materialism, totalitarianism, and modern debates about human dignity, constitutional interpretation, and public morality—through speeches, literature, legal decisions, and film.