Eduardo Frei Montalva, co-founder of the Christian Democratic Party and President of Chile, represented for Jacques Maritain, French neo-Thomist philosopher, an example of prophetic leadership in contemporary times. According to Maritain, modem democracy could not survive without a profound spiritual revolution of political leadership--the "prophetic factor" of democracy--which he observed in Frei as a public official, senator, and ultimately the Presient of the Republic of Chile (1964-1970). Under his famed "Revolution in Liberty," Frei endeavored to meld socio-economic reforms with an effort to build a more participatory democratic culture in his native land. Guided by Maritain's political philosophy, Frei's initiatives set into motion the possibility of a "third way" of politics in the Southern hemisphere. In the end, this revolution ended in political disappointment due to economic stagnation, social disruption, political infighting, and the impractical idealism of Christian democracy itself.

December 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, arguably the single most important and influential document endorsed by the United Nations. Jacques Maritain was a primary author of the religious liberty clauses of the 1948 Declaration, and the most prominent Christian philosopher ofthe twentieth century. Maritain developed a radical critique of prevailing Westem political and social thought. A persuasive critic of secular humanism and legal positivism, Maritain sought a cultural renewal of Christian Europe by means of rediscovering an integral Christian humanism. This essay explores the central ideas in Maritain's philosophical defense of universal human rights. Maritain placed the philosophical foundation of human rights in natural law, and assumed the existence of a "natural spirituality of intelligence" grasped by a connatural, pre-philosophic intuition. Yet Pope Benedict XVI challenges the central philosophical assumptions at the foundation of Maritain's defense of human rights.

As in the nineteenth century so in the twentieth, a number of laymen and women have appeared in the firmament of intellect and the arts to place the entire body of Christians in their debt. Of these, no one has been more influential in different spheres than Jacques Maritain. In political and social thought, no Christian has ever written a more profound defense of the democratic idea and its component parts, such as the dignity of the person; the sharp distinction between society and the state; the role of practical wisdom; the common good; the transcendent anchoring of human rights; transcendent judgment upon societies; and the interplay of goodness and evil in human individuals and institutions. To read him is to be forced to look, through such distinctions, from many angles of vision at once. And all for the sake of unity: To distinguish in order to unite," is a most suitable motto for his life's work. Maritain focused on the real content of democracy understood as all those common experiences, ways of looking at things, forms of consciousness, habits, and convictions that entire peoples acquire slowly, underlining the importance of Christian renewal for the transcendent grounding of human dignity and human rights as "the soul of democracy."

In this engaging APSA address, Jacques Maritain outlines the essential relationship between Christianity and democracy. In Maritain's view, it is the Gospel or the Christian leaven which has awakened the secular, temporal consciousness to supreme moral principles and the real content of democracy understood as the earthly pursuit of Gospel truths conceming the transcendent origins and destiny of man and society. Christianity teaches the inalienable dignity of every human being fashioned in the image of God, the inviolability of conscience, the unity of the human race, the natural equality of all men, children of the same God and redeemed by the same Christ, the dignity of labor and the dignity of the poor, the primacy of inner values and good will over external values, universal brotherhood, love, and justbe. Maritain distinguishes between the procedural aspects and the substantive content of democracy, but anchors the Gospel vision in the free exercise of rational and moral faculties as key to democratic self-government. He cautions that without a superior moral law by virtue of which men are bound in conscience toward what is just and good, the rule of the majority runs the risk of being raised to the supreme rule of good and evil, and democracy is liable to tum to totalitahanism, that is, to self-destruction. Maritain concludes that what has been gained for the secular consciousness, if it does not veer to barbarism, is the sense of freedom consonant with the vocation of our nature.

On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly ofthe United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a truly historic document, the full text of which is reproduced here. Following this historic act, the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." Jacques Maritain was actively involved in the drafting of the Declaration, especially its clauses regarding freedom of conscience and religious expression.

This essay proposes that the crisis of the contemporary university presents a unique challenge and opportunity to re-imagine the university as a quest for truth, reflecting John Henry Newman's ideal of a "wholeness of vision" and "enlargement of the mind" in educating the whole person. Higher education can become more meaningful and relevant by combining a strong core curriculum in the liberal arts with vocational and career preparation, interdisciplinary engagement, and consilience between Athens and Jerusalem as modeled in the science-ethics-religion dialogue. A rediscovery of natural law and the moral law, universals and absolutes, which guide human aspirations for justice, fairness, and community, can counter the postmodem temptation for subjectivity and disconnection. The most cogent remedy for student boredom and faculty apathy is intellectual diversity for a renewed sense of excitement in exploring insights across the disciplines regarding ourselves and the world. This calls also for superceding the anti-liberal strictures of political correctness, rededicating the university to its essential task of free inquiry.

Martin Luther and John Henry Newman sought to re-envision university education at unique times in history. While Newman set out to architect a truly Catholic University that co-opted facets of the Protestant ethic without falling into the "heresies" of Lutheranism, Luther and his circle of gifted academics sought to craft a distinctly Evangelical concept of the university that would shield studentsfrom the corruption of worldly values thought to have infiltrated the Catholic Church, Those concemed with ethical, comprehensive education for all face similar challenges today. How do we create an educational system of universal accessibility without discarding the moral foundation provided by a faith-based model? Luther's and Newman's ideas suggest that private colleges and universities will serve students and society well where they remain true to their theological traditions, while public institutions contribute by taking seriously the challenge of moral education and taking advantage of available religious resources. If the basic dilemma in the postmodem university is the lack of balance between heart and mind—the moral and the pragmatic, "ought" and "is "—then Newman's dialectical approach in particular offers an excellent first step toward the restoration of that balance.

The evolution of scientism, relativism, and the resultant fragmentation of knowledge over the past century have led to a crisis in contemporary university education. John Henry Newman, a nineteenth-century philosopher of education, a major figure in educational theory and applied research, and author of the classic work on education, The Idea of a Univershy, faced similar problems in his time, and his work is valuable in addressing contemporary dilemmas. Newman's philosophy of mind and his vision of the unity of knowledge, which reflects an aesthetic dimension, and the resultant essential role of theology in education, are key elements for reimagining the university. An analysis of Newman's spirited Eighth Discourse anchors this retrospective and commends his work to higher education today by recalling an eariier ideal of the integration of all disciplines.

As the interdisciplinary movement gains momentum, Christian scholars need to reflect on viable interdisciplinary methods rooted in faith-learning integration. The humanities provide a starting point for such a method. The humanities were divorced from the natural sciences in the modem era and, thus, aspects of reality that the humanities represent were alienated from academic conversations. This essay compares Frank Gaebelein's approach in the modem context with William Dennison's methods in the postmodem perspective. Both sought to develop an intentional method for Christian interdisciplinary studies. By synthesizing the best aspects of Gaebelein and Dennison, the humanities emerge as a potential focal point for epistemological pluralism or "multiple ways of knowing." Such methodological openness, balanced by the unity and universality of truth, enables Christian scholars to integrate knowledge from the humanities while transcending both modem positivism and postmodem relativism.

Modern educational traditions have used empirical parameters that presume faith and learning are incommensurate. Consequently, faith commitments and academic learning must be integrated after the fact. The postmodem critique challenges all educators to interrogate these dichotomies and offers a way for educators with faith in science or religion to initiate a project to construct ways of knowing that envision quantitative knowledge as part of a larger qualitative enterprise. This essay suggests that Mennonite communitarianism, Roman Catholic sacramentalism, and Jesus' parables provide opportunities for just such a project. They offer correctives to modernistic Reformation models and authenticate ways in which certainty, ambiguity, the social construction of knowledge, and the central role of ethics in epistemology are meaningfully represented both qualitatively and quantitatively. Educators within communities of faith have a unique opportunity to draw upon postmodern insights in ways that might prove foundational to such a more broadly conceived higher education.

U.S. business schools' commitment to positive social science has led to their excluding ethics from the core curriculum. In place of ethics, management scholars have adopted either nihilism or, more frequently, a subliminal virtue ethics. The nihilistic approach has influenced some executives, contributing to the business world's moral malaise. The literature on managerial competency is an important example of the subliminal approach. The competency-based approach to teaching management has gained increasing recognition as a research paradigm and a pedagogical tool. But it omits justice from its catalogue of virtues. Justice ought to serve as the foimdation of managerial competence. Because Aristotle's approach to ethics is compatible with the existing literature, it can be integrated with the instructional model adopted in some business schools. A competency-based ethics founded on justice and natural law would integrate ethics with the business curriculum and be more effective than positivism in fostering ethical business behavior.

With the triumph of the current neo-liberal discourse, many university leaders worldwide have embraced an entrepreneurial model as the answer for change, turning the university from a public good into a commodity. Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia, has become an active participant in this trend. This essay explores how neo-liberal discourse has shaped higher education in both developed and developing countries, with a focus on Vietnam. The expansion in Vietnam of private universities, the introduction of tuition fees, and the corporatization of higher education are all developments associated with trends toward marketization. Given the pervasiveness of globalization and the neo-liberal agenda, serious consequences will follow if the traditional role of the university is sacrificed to the invisible hand of the market. This is confirmed by ongoing trends and outcomes of university reform agendas in different parts of the world, including Vietnam. There is a need to recover the idea of the university as a public good, focusing on academic freedom, autonomy, and human development

The subjects of mathematics are gifts of the mind which help humans house, heal lead, feed, comfort, protect, and inspire each other. They can facilitate faithful agreements about nature and action across ages and cultures. Since mathematics is often entangled with truth claims, technologies, and theories of reality, both trivializations and apotheoses of mathematics can deform science, degrade nature, and diminish humans. The love of life compels the search for a theology of mathematics: an understanding of mathematical activities, artifacts, and auras in their relations to existence. This essay proposes a theology of mathematics which can say both "yes " and "no" to the reign of mathematics, to guard the dignity and humility of human thought, and support the stewardship and enjoyment of nature, culture, and community. In theology, the doctrine of the Trinity reveals both aptness and limits in mathematical understanding. In mathematics, Plato's "no one ignorant of geometry enter here,can either support or subvert Christ's "no one comes to the Father except through me."

Advancement of all fonns of knowledge depends on the right to freely search for the truth and the unhindered ability to disseminate the results. For this reason, academic freedom is universally regarded as a central requirement of a free society and a prerequisite for social and scientific advancement Although college instructors are considered to have more academic freedom than high school teachers, litigation does not support this claim in the area of religious speech. There is little difference in legal rulings at any academic level. In all cases when information interpreted as favorable to a theistic worldview was presented in the classroom, the ruling went against the instructor, while in all cases critical of Intelligent Design and/or theism, U. S. courts ruled in favor of the teacher In all cases it was the teacher who appealed to the courts claiming that academic freedom was denied, not the institution. Ruling that academic freedom does not reside in the teacher, but rather in the institution, goes against the very definition and purpose of academic freedom.

The thesis of this essay is that interdisdplinary sudies hold special promise in achieving new scientific-technological breakthroughs and mapping more effective socio-economic, political, and cultural modes of interaction enhancing human flourishing. Universities are crucial to this endeavor in their multiple roles of teaching, learning, research, and service, educating youth and adults for meaningful careers, life, and participatory citizenship in a democracy. Higher education is, thus, a major transmission belt for culture. In the Third MilIennkim, interdisciplinary approaches to learning suggest new methodologies that seek dialogue and integration of research findings across the disciplines to overcome the compartmentalization of knowledge which hinders new discoveries in the natural sciences and "connecting-the-dots" in the social and behavioral sciences, while humanities are key to understanding the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of human beings. Redeeming the culture and educating the Selfie generation require the integrated knowledge and insights of all disciplines.

Interdisciplinary studies has grown significantly in the last 25 years. The reductionisms of secular modernism and postmodem relativism present an opportunity for an approach to interdisciplinary faith-learning integration that provides a unifying basis for research addressing major challenges. An approach developed at Oxford Graduate School offers promise for interdisciplinary studies comprehensive enough to bridge the three cultures of the natural, social, and humane sciences in the service of bettering the world. The Learning ... to Change the World methodology proceeds through seven stages: problem clarification, literature review, faith-learning integration, interdisciplinary research, contextualization, ethical/social leadership, and lifelong learning evaluation. Grounded in a Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation metaphysical worldview, it assumes a critical realist epistemology to engage real-world challenges. The process accommodates multiple research methods and aims for a redemptive-ethical transformation of social problems.

Interdisciplinary studies is presently dominated by addressing socio-cultural questions and problems in the hope that the results of its research wilI generate a better world. As a collective group of experts addresses these issues, the specialists will perform investigative research that wilI prescribe a hopeful resolution to enhance the quality of existence. The Biblical text reveals, however, that humans have a fallen nature and that the creation has an eschatological end. In this context, the Christian interdisciplinarian has the burdensome challenge to bring temporal relief for those socio-cultural problems within the telos of Biblical revelation. The Christian's method towards interdisciplinary resolution needs to be assisted by critical thinking in a number of areas: the relationship between interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary, the relevance of tiie classic nature-grace dualism, the hemeneutical method employed in interpreting data, and the boundaries of eclectic tolerance to advance the interdisciplinary goal.

The Second Vatican Council cautioned regarding the increasing secularization of Westem societies that the greatest error of our age is the separation between faith and life. Through its history of the kingdoms of Buddhism and Hinduism, 350 years of Westem colonization and growth of Islam, Indonesia claims to place religion in high regard. Citizens are obligated to proclaim one ofthe six recognized religions. All schools allocate four hours of religious teaching weekly. Critics doubt that the teaching of religion in schools will help solve problems. Corruption is rampant and ethnic-reliigious conflicts are increasing despite the people's claim as a religious nation. The challenge, then, is to integrate religious and character education into the core as well as hidden curriculum and teach students to nurture their faith and moral sense throughout their schooling. This essay explores how religious and character education in the school curriculum endeavors to prepare young people to enhance their intellectual capabilities and form them to be people of faith and character.

This essay addresses the evidence that suggests that both the widespread presence of the two-parent biological family and Christianity are highly related to economic prosperity. The thesis draws from a variety of research studies and statistics that combing indicate their connectedness, and ofters reasons why strong families and faith may ameliorate economic growth. A growing number of economists have becmne too insular in their approach to this growth that calls for a more interdisciplinary approach to examining the forces behind healthy economic expansion. Such an interdisciplinary approach should include a variety of factors-institutions, demographics, natural resources, family dynamics, the role of faith and personal lifestyle, and other forces. A relevant case study highlights the connectton between Christianity and modernization in South Korea. The essay concludes by examining some ofthe ways that faith and family factors can be taken more seriously by economists and public policy makers

For centuries, various disciplines have tried to tackle the topic of how legitimate it is to use violence in order to solve social problems. One of the most recent interdisciplinary approaches, most successful in present-day Latin America, is the so-called "Ethics of Liberation," designed by Enrique Dussel. Based on the Theology of Liberation, this theory goes beyond the limits of theology as a discipline and pleads for three ethical criteria that every political revolution must fulfill to use violence in a legitimate way. The first is a formal criterion, which basically takes after the ideal dialogue situation endorsed by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas, and purports to be rooted in yet another discipline, linguistics. The second is a material criterion, defined as the upshot of an acceptable welfare for all citizens, thus intimately linked with the discipline of economics and political philosophy. The third is a criterion of feasibility, which makes a revolt legitimate if, and only if, it has a reasonable possibility of succeeding; hence strategic issues take a leading role. This essay contends that each of these criteria is conceptually incompatible with violence. Hence, Dussel's arguments involve multiple contradictions as he aims to justify the use of violence precisely with these interdisciplinary criteria.