May 2010

INSTITUTE UNVEILS SCULPTURE IN PHILADELPHIA

John Jay Portrait Will Be On Exhibit at Carpenters' Hall

Philadelphia, Penn. - The John Jay Institute unveiled its latest fine art acquisition at a private reception at the historic Powell House in Philadelphia earlier this month. With gifts from its alumni, the Institute acquired renowned artist Elizabeth Gordan Chandler's bronze portraiture bust earlier this year.  Originally commissioned by the U.S. Congress in 1964, federal funding for the art was cut before the piece was completed, and it stayed in Mrs. Chandler's estate until her death in 2006. A Chandler family friend sought the Institute's help in acquiring the piece and finding a suitable home for the original casting that had never been on public display until now. Two secondary castings are in the permanent collection at Columbia University and Pace Law School. This piece was originally intended for the Lawyers Club of the U.S. Supreme Court.
 
In an elegant ceremony at Philadelphia's histroic Powell House, a sizable crowd enjoyed brief lectures about John Jay's work in America's birthplace. The Rev. Dr. Peter Lillback, President of Providence Forum and Westminster Theological Seminary, and Mr. Walter Stahr, Esq., John Jay biographer, offered insights about Jay's life and work. Present for the occassion were the Institute's Board of Governors, city leaders and several directors and members of the Carpenters' Company. The Carpenters' Company maintains Carpenters' Hall, the historic  landmark in  Philadelphia which was the site of the First Continental Congress in 1774 and where Jay entered national politics as a delegate of New York. The Jay bust will be a featured exhibit for several months at the Carpenters' Hall where more than 150,000 tourist visit every year.

JOHN JAY INSTITUTE FELLOW PROFILE: KAREN RUPPRECHT

Education: Marquette Univeristy, B.A., Georgetown University, Ph.D. (candidate)

Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Karen Rupprecht had never known a time without Christian faith as the center of her life. Raised as the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, yet, at age twenty-three Karen marked the beginning of a spiritual and intellectual exploration in comparative religions during a Peace Corps assignment in the Islamic Kingdom of Morocco, North Africa. This cross-cultural experience challenged her to closely examine alternative worldviews–Islam and the secularist philosophy of her Peace Corps colleagues. She didn’t find comparable conceptions of the Christian themes of redemption, forgiveness, and grace in either secularist ideology or in Islam. It was this insight that reaffirmed her confidence in the Christian faith. Her experience in Islamic Morocco made her ache once again for the spiritual refreshment and nourishment of true Christian fellowship in a community of scholars. Knowing that the John Jay Institute provided such an experience, Karen applied and was accepted as a Fellow in the Fall 2008 class. The value of the JJI experience of spiritual, moral, intellectual, and professional formation after two years in a spiritual desert was incalculable.

She stated it this way, "I knew Mr. Crippen from my time as a Witherspoon Fellow, which was itself a transformative experience, so the prospect of participating in the more intensive John Jay Institute Fellowship was an opportunity I could not turn down. It was clearly one of the most meaningful times of study, challenge and growth in my life."

Karen is now pursuing doctoral studies in political theory at Georgetown University. As she continues to explore God’s calling on her life, she expects that God is leading her to practical work in foreign policy and political action. We recently had the opportunity to ask her some more specific questions about her time at the John Jay Institute.  

What was the most memorable aspect of the Fellowship?

While it’s difficult to isolate any one aspect of such an integrated experience, the wonderful friendships forged during the Fellowship with other Christians committed to the pursuit of truth stand out in my memory as particularly meaningful.

What was the most challenging aspect of the Fellowship?

The reading and writing load was demanding, and balancing the rigorous academic training with community life and hospitality was a tremendously valuable learning experience for me. But I would have to say the most challenging aspect was fitting everything into each day—it was hard work.

How has the Fellowship prepared you for your future vocational plans?

The Fellowship provided a tremendous example of academic learning as an integration of faith and reason that enabled me to approach my graduate studies from a greatly enriched perspective. It also sharpened my awareness to various strains of thought running through political and moral philosophy that are contrary to Christian truths, providing me with invaluable intellectual tools for my immersion into the virulently secular world of academia.

Tell us about your future plans.

I recently began doctoral studies in political theory and international relations with a focus on religion and politics in the international geo-political arena. Upon earning my Ph.D., I plan to pursue either an academic career teaching political theory or a government career in foreign policy.

What would you like to tell the donors who underwrote your Fellowship?

Knowing how seminal the Fellowship was for my own spiritual and intellectual formation as well as that of so many others— many of whom are already beginning to demonstrate leadership in the public square—I firmly believe that donating to the John Jay Institute is one of the best investments a Christian can make in the future cultural and political leaders of our society.

CRIPPEN VISITS ALUMNI IN SLOVAKIA
John Jay Institute Global Network Emerges

Bratislava, Slovakia - John Jay Institute President Alan Crippen visited alumni in the Slovak Republic this month. Having taught Slovak students for eleven years, Crippen was eager to see the fruit of his labors in Central Europe. At the invitation of the Ladislav Hanus Fellowship and the Collegium Anton Neuwrith (inter-collegiate leadership development organizations founded by alumni) Crippen was warmly received and inspired by what he saw. "When walking the streets of central city Bratislava I kept running into Hanus Fellowship alumni. It seemed as if they are all over the place – in the Slovak Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, the U.S. Embassy, the Central European Business and Social Initiative, LUX Television, and other print journalism media including Slovakia’s leading business weekly Trend," Crippen said. "It’s just amazing to see what young people of vision have accomplished for their country in so short a time. The spiritual, moral, economic, and political scars of communism are being erased by our alumni and their students."

Eight years ago Dr. Martin Luteran and Roman Karabelli (former students of Crippen) started the Hanus Fellowship. Now with sixteen graduated classes, there are over 200 alumni serving Slovakia in government, media, public policy think-tanks, pro-life advocacy organizations, education and business enterprises. Their service is not limited to greater Bratislava, the capital city, but alumni are also placed in other key cities including Kosice and Ruzomberok where Dr. Jan Banus teaches philosophy at a new Christian university.  Luteran’s entrepreneurial and educational vision recently has expanded with the successful launch of a new organization – the Collegium Anton Neuwirth, an inter-collegiate residential Christian study-center for university students in Bratislava. This new organization extends Luteran’s vision for the Hanus Fellowship and flows from his desire to leverage the transformative experience of residential study in Christian community. Its first class graduates next month.

The Hanus Fellowship and the Collegium sponsored several events at which Crippen spoke during his visit. The numureous opportunities included the commissioning ceremony of the most recent Hanus Fellowship class at Comenius University, a lecture on "Christianity and the American Order" for the Theological Faculty of Trnavskej University, an interview with LUX Television, a speech for the Free Market Roadshow sponsored by the Central European Business and Social Initiative, and a class session on the character of leadership with the Collegium’s students.

THE SEDUCTION OF EVA VOLK

C.D. Baker's Book Presents a Sobering Story of How Good Men Get Caught Up In Evil

A gripping yarn told from the perspective of a bucolic German village on the banks of the Mosel River in the Riesling grape growing county, C.D. Baker’s The Seduction of Eva Volk grapples with the same questions about truth, especially its grip on the darkest regions of the human heart’s capacity for self-deception. How was it that a largely Christian nation and culture like Germany and its good people could have embraced Hitler’s Nazi regime of evil? How is it that the good German people could have tolerated and even participated in a government that was directly or indirectly responsible for the slaughter of 28.5 million souls, including the systematic and technologically efficient genocide of 5.8 million European Jews? These questions have haunted historians, moral philosophers, ethicists, and everyone willing to grapple with the nightmare years of Germany’s Third Reich.

Baker has the courage to tackle these questions through the multi-dimensional characters of everyday people in everyday places, the likes of who could be our own neighbors. In doing so he offers a credible answer to the hard questions as well as a disturbing portrait of the bad politics, even deathly politics for which normal, everyday people are capable not only of tolerating, but of serving with a morally ambiguous complicity.

The Seduction of Eva Volk is a masterpiece as a moral essay about human nature in its depths of depravity, and it is simultaneously a compelling commentary on the capacity of human moral imagination to know the truth in the depths of one’s conscience and to overcome deceit and self-deception. Although the truth may ultimately set one free, it is all too often not without paying a very high price for being deceived and for psychologically sustaining self-deception by denial.

 – The Editors

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