Mission Statement
“There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” (C.S. Lewis)
The truth of this assertion is immediately apparent when we consider those square inches and split seconds of culture occupied by language, and by the fruit of language, literature. The first chapters of our Bible reveal that God spoke to call our universe and everything in it into being, and then to establish a unique relationship between Himself and humankind, to whom the gift of language itself also was given.
But following hard on this are the insinuations of the serpent, and the equivocations of his unhappy victims, the man and the woman in the garden: language is used deceitfully, diabolically, damnably. But God speaks yet again in sorrow, in judgment, and in the promise of redemption. And the whole of this account is delivered to us in story: richly textured in significance and deeply moving to the heart as well as the mind of the careful reader. No use of language, and particularly no literary use of it, is without its significance in the relationship between God and each of us, and in our relationships among ourselves.
Our purpose as a department is to foster our students’ knowledge of and pleasure in language, literature and literary criticism, to discern the philosophical and religious assumptions which shape all uses of language in literature, and so to turn the gift of language to uses which will honour the Lord who has given it to us.