New World Inklings is a private academic collection of Christian worldview resources. It’s maintained at a personal residence as a labour of love for the Canadian Christian community.
The collection provides a thorough perspective of Christian worldview since the Reformation, with counterpoints from other major western perspectives of the 20th and 21st century.
Core topics:
- Philosophy
- Ethics
- Critical thinking
- Knowability
- The postmodern shift
- Notable contributors to the field
- Christianity
- Philosophy of Christian religion
- History of Christianity
- Christian doctrine and belief
- Major scholarly concerns and perspectives in Christianity
- Western history, Reformation era to present
- Historiography
- Sociology and major western cultural events
- The development of social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion
- American slavery and lynching
- Law and ethics: Race, abortion, human rights, genocide
- Sexual ethics and values
European, British, and North American historical intersections with these topics are well-represented.
Cataloguing is currently in progress. Visiting times will be posted in future.
Genealogy of the Collection
The bulk of the collection is courtesy of the private library of Dr. Stewart Kelly, Department of Philosophy Chair Emeritus, Minot State University. At some point within the scope of 20th century American history, Dr. Kelly studied under Dr. Alvin Plantinga at Notre Dame University.
Dr. Kelly is the author of Truth Considered and Applied, Understanding Postmodernism: A Christian Perspective, and co-editor with Paul Copan of Christianity Contested.
The collection curator is a past magazine and fiction/narrative non-fiction editor. She has a multi-decade involvement in the Christian education community in Manitoba.
Her interest in philosophy as the foundation of cultural engagement began via work on award-winning Christian novel Konig’s Fire by Marc Schooley, a high-action wrestle with the Problem of Evil.
Purpose
The library is an excellent resource of citations and sources for communications work, including sermons, college or university papers, and podcasts.
For more casual purposes, a browse through titles and back cover summaries is an education in itself, thanks to decades of thoughtful collection by our friend Dr. Kelly. As the books are housed in a home, guests are welcome to visit by the fireside for a chat or join in gatherings.
In a culture driven by extreme dualities and propagandized soundbites in politics, education, and current affairs, preserving space for a gentler and friendlier exchange of ideas has been part of our household’s hospitality for many years. We just have more “book-friends” living here now.