Institute for Christian Studies

REMINDER: Tomorrow night ICS is hosting a book launch for Enough is Enough by Dean Dettloff and Matthew Bernico. Join us!

Wed, June 24
630PM ET
Knox College

RSVP: icscanada.edu/enough-is-enough

Almost a century ago, John Maynard Keynes promised that avarice and usury would carry us out of the “tunnel of economic necessity” into a future of leisure. We blew past his growth predictions, yet the leisure never arrived. Bob Goudzwaard’s Capitalism and Progress asks a sharper question: once we hand our future over to the forces of economic and technological progress, can we ever take it back?

This week, Abbi Hofstede traces Goudzwaard’s answer. Our powerlessness is rooted in a faith in progress, and recovering a sense of agency means honestly facing our own deepest desires and motivations. It isn’t easy, but Goudzwaard insists it is where real hope begins.

Read the full piece, here: https://instituteforchristianstudies.substack.com/p/capitalism-and-progress-in-2026

On Saturday, April 18, we gathered in Burlington to launch Cultivating Learning Communities of Belonging by Dr. Edith van der Boom. The room was full of educators, friends, and big conversations about belonging, racial justice, Indigenous perspectives, and restorative practices.

Edith shared her vision for schools where every student is seen, valued, and free to flourish in community.

Want to keep learning together? Edith is teaching Christian Deeper Learning: From Wonder to Inquiry to Practise this Summer 2026.

For more information go to https://courses.icscanada.edu.

To register, email [email protected]. We'd love to learn alongside you!

In this week's article, Ron Kuipers sits with a promise from Isaiah 42, light for people walking an unknown road, and asks an uncomfortable question: what does that promise actually sound like to someone in the dark right now? To hunger strikers inside an ICE facility? To the thousands of parents pulled away from their kids?
With Hannah Arendt and the philosopher Byung-Chul Han as guides, Ron makes the case that hope is not a soft, passive comfort. It is restless and costly, a single candle lit in a dark room that makes the next one easier to light.

Read the full article at: https://open.substack.com/pub/instituteforchristianstudies/p/light-for-the-dark-road-ahead

The Contemplative Life in the Age of Distraction — a new six-week online seminar with Jacob Benjamins, beginning June 16. Together we'll explore digital fasting, deep reading, time in nature, and silence, alongside readings from Simone Weil, Teresa of Ávila, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Laird.

A low-pressure space for lifelong learners to think about the promise and the difficulty of contemplative life today.

Register: https://f2bf.icscanada.edu/courses

Congratulations, Class of 2026!

What a night to remember! We are so proud of every one of our graduates who walked across the stage on Friday, May 29.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to the families, friends, and faculty who made this celebration unforgettable. Your support means the world to us.

Swipe through a few highlights from the evening and to see the full celebration, read messages, see the full gallery, and relive the moment, visit:

https://icscanada.edu/congratulations-2026

Here's to the futures you'll build and the dreams you'll chase. The best is yet to come!

This summer, study Enrique Dussel and the Philosophy and Ethics of Liberation with Dean Dettloff . Thinking from Latin America, Dussel grounds ethics in the lives of those excluded by capitalist globalization, modernity, and Eurocentric thought — insisting philosophy serve the liberation of the oppressed. We’ll read his Philosophy of Liberation and Ethics of Liberation together.

Online intensive
June 8–July 13
Mondays & Wednesdays 7–9pm ET.

Full details: http://courses.icscanada.edu/2026/02/enrique-dussel-and-philosophy-and.html. To register, email [email protected].

We tend to treat contemplation and action as opposites. This summer Jacob Benjamins is offering a course through our Free to be Faithful initiative that complicates that binary, with practices like digital fasting, deep reading, and time in nature, read alongside thinkers like Simone Weil, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Laird.

The technologies competing for our attention shape not just what we think but how we think. Contemplative rhythms offer a way to push back, and maybe to inhabit the world a little differently.

Read Jacob's full reflection: https://instituteforchristianstudies.substack.com/p/the-contemplative-life-in-the-age

Enough Is Enough — a book launch & conversation.

Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. So what comes next?

Join us as we celebrate Enough Is Enough: Degrowth, Capitalism, and Liberation Theology with authors Matthew Bernico & Dean Dettloff — hosts of The Magnificast — for an evening on degrowth, climate, and what liberation theology offers a world fixated on growth.

Wednesday, June 24, 2026
6:30 – 8:30 PM ET
Knox College, Classroom 4 — Toronto
RSVP at the link below

RSVP → https://icscanada.edu/enough-is-enough

If you enjoy Dean's work, consider taking his online course entitled, "Enrique Dussel and the Philosophy and Ethics of Liberation."

Dates June 8 to July 13
Mondays and Wednesdays; 7-9pm ET

More info: http://courses.icscanada.edu/2026/02/enrique-dussel-and-philosophy-and.html

To register, email [email protected].