It is no secret that university culture has a tendency to erode the faith of our children.  How do we as a church body prepare the youth for this known reality?  In this workshop, Joel and Dan discuss the cultural factors that work for and against our youth at university.  We then discuss what we take as a curriculum corrective for students designed to cultivate intellectual courage alongside faith to engage the university culture with wisdom and innocence.

Hosts: Dr. Joel Oesch and Dr. Daniel Deen

Dr. Caleb Karges, military historian on the faculty of Concordia’s History and Political Thought department, discusses Helmuth von Moltke’s work The Art of War. This may sound like an obscure topic for non-specialists, but it helps make sense of the two world wars and more. Moltke was Chief of the Prusso-German Generals Staff during the Wars of German Unification. This conversation is based on the edition of Moltke’s classic by Daniel Hughes. Topics mentioned include railroads, telegraphs, Otto von Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm II, World War I, World War II, and the ideas of Philips Payson O'Brien.

For this Cui Bono plenary, Professor of English, Dr. Kerri Tom (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts) discusses characters from great literature and popular culture and the extent to which the exemplify the virtues, even when we fail to mirror their patterns of virtue perfectly.

Dr. Joel Oesch and Dr. Daniel Deen discuss death, transhumanism, and technology that's being used to try and outwit the Grim Reaper. This takes place with their joint core classes in the virtual audience. There are student questions and responses. The whole conversation reflects on this startling video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxAaVvdAEWs

Dr. Caleb Karges interviews Dr. John Condren, a Research Associate at Oxford University, on the Life and Reign of Louis XIV of France. Condren is coming out with a book on this subject: Louis XIV and the Peace of Italy: French Policy towards the Po Princes, 1659-1701 (Routlege). Sit back and enjoy this delightful historical conversation.

A panel of CUI professors discusses what it means to be part of the political process, and what it means to be excluded from that process, a century after women gained the right to vote in the United States. Gender, sex, democracy, includsion, exclusion … it’s all part of a wide ranging but relevant conversation. Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction, the only audio we were able to capture was the compressed audio from our livestream. We’ll resolve that for next week. But if you can go to school and work all week with Zoom audio, hopefully it won’t keep you from gleaning wisdom here. 

This is the first installment of our new feature series called Crosswise 30. For this episode, Dr. Joel Oesch and Dr. Daniel Deen discuss the Trump-Biden presidential debate on the same day when, instead of a second debate, the two presidential hopefuls held town halls without the other candidate present. They discuss the ways in which they try to remedy this breakdown of civil discourse through their podcast series and through the annual summer event they lead with other colleagues: the Crosswise Institute.

Dr. Caleb Karges discusses Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832) with student Jacob Lange and alumnus Sam Fluegge. This is part of a series within the Cui Bono Cast focused on military strategy and lessons for political life today.

A discussion about the contemplative tradition and prayer practices, featuring three Lutheran panelists: Pastor Bill Cwirla (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Hacienda Heights, CA), Heather Choate Davis (Spiritual Director, CSFDM, M.A. in Theology, CUI), and Pastor Dominic Rivkin (Mission and Ministry Services, PSD of the LCMS).

This took place in the courtyard of Wittenberg Hall, a Living-Learning Community at Concordia University, Irvine.

This is the second installation of our special feature series entitled “The History Suite.” This episode is a conversation between history prof, Dr. Caleb Karges (Ph.D., University of St. Andrews) and recent alumnus Josiah Popp (‘20), who is now a Marine Corps Officer candidate. Last year, Dr. Karges and Popp did an independent study course on the topic of insurgency and counterinsurgency and they are sharing their findings with you, dear listener. 

Topics Discussed

• CHAZ
• The State of Jefferson
• Mao Zedong, On Guerilla Warfare
• Clauswitz
• Che Guevara
• Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations
• Arthur Brooks, Love Your Enemies
• Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars