In this opening lecture for the 2022 Budapest Conference on “Building Community in Fractured Societies: Challenges for Christians in Higher Education,” an overview is given of recent societal developments, (geo-) political, economic, ecological, sociological, psychological, and spiritual. A basic framework is presented on how to analyze today's, late-modern world. It is a world in which instrumental rationality is highly dominant. Next to this, powerful societal complexes exert deep influence on the lives of humans: political, economic, media, and medical. Over against this is posed the “real human world” of meaning and responsibility, as the key focus of Christian higher education.
BartholomewCGGoheenMW (2004) The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story. Grand Rapids (MI): Baker Publishing.
2.
BeckU (2003) The theory of reflexive modernization: Problematic, hypotheses and research programme. Theory, Culture & Society20(20): 1–33.
3.
BuijsGJ (2006) The promises of civil society. In: BlokhuisPHielemaE (eds) Civil Society: East & West. Dordt (Iowa): Dordt College Press, pp. 19–42.
4.
BuijsGJ (2008) Agapé and the origins of civil society. In: GeertsemaHPeelsRvan der StoepJ (eds) Philosophy Put to Work: Contemporary Issues in Art, Society, Politics, Science and Religion. Amsterdam: VU University Amsterdam/Christian Studies, pp. 18–50.
5.
DooyeweerdH (2012) Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular and Christian Options. Jordan Station (ON, Can): Paideia Press. (translation of ‘Vernieuwing en bezinning. Om het reformatorisch grondmotief’. Amsterdam: Brink & Co 1959).
6.
EriksonEH (1968) Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton Company.
7.
FreudenbergN (2016) Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8.
FukuyamaF (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.
9.
FukuyamaF (1999) The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. New York: Free Press.
10.
HarariYN (2017) Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. New York: HarperCollins.
11.
HorkheimerMAdornoTW (1944) Dialektik der Aufklärung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
12.
HorneyK (1937) The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. London: Routledge.
13.
HuntingtonSP (1991) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
14.
KuhnT (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
15.
MarionJL (2002) Excess. Studies of Saturated Phenomena. New York: Fordham University Press. Translated by Robyn Horner and Vincent Berraud [translation of ‘De Surcroît: Études sur les phénomènes saturés’].
16.
MilanovicB (2019) Capitalism Alone: The Future of a System that Rules the World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
17.
NiebuhrHR (1951) Christ and Culture. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
18.
PascalB (1669) Pensées (“Thoughts”).
19.
SacksJ (2005) To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility. New York: Schocken Books.
20.
SandelMJ (2020) The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?London: Allen Lane.
21.
TaylorC (1991/1992) The Malaise of Modernity (aka The Ethics of Authenticity). Boston: Harvard University Press.
22.
WachterD de (2011) Borderline Times: Het einde van de normaliteit. Tielt: Terra-Lannoo. (‘The end of normality’).
23.
WeberM (1958, Originally Published 1905) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Originally published as Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus).
24.
WeberM (1973; originally published 1919) “Wissenschaft als Beruf.“ In: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, pp. 581–613. (tr. “Science as Vocation“).
25.
WuT (2017) The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. New York: Vintage.
