This sermon study begins with reflections about Newman’s frame of mind at the time of his thirteenth University Sermon—“Implicit and Explicit Reason” (1840). For Newman, the time was the beginning of an intellectual and spiritual conversion, while the sermon itself described the powerful interplay of reason and faith in Christian believers and presented the rudiments of an epistemology that would later influencehis An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870).

Newman’s explicit presentation of the ideal type, “the gentleman,” appears first and foremost in his Oratory papers of 1847 and 1848, and appears only secondarily, and then but partially, four and five years later in his Dublin Discourses of 1852 (The Idea of a University). This essay traces lines of similarity and of difference between these successive portraits and distinguishes both from the attractive, better-known sketch Newman presents as Lord Shaftesbury’s, the “beau ideal” of the man of the world.

Although the second and third University Discourses in Newman’s Idea of a University are well known for according theology a place in a university education by showing the relationship of theology to the other sciences, this essay points out that Newman was also arguing against the “natural theology” of British thinkers like William Paley, Lord Brougham, Sir Robert Peel, and Bishop Edward Maltby, who maintained that the study of the natural sciences would necessarily lead to religion; Newman objected that this kind of “natural theology” could easily lead to deism or pantheism.

This essay examines the role that fasting played in Newman’s spirituality as an Anglican: [1] the intellectual, spiritual, and historical factors that led Newman toconcentrate on this ascetical practice; [2] his theology of fasting as it appears in his Parochial and Plain Sermons and his Letters and Diaries; and [3] the role of fasting in his personal spiritual journey.

This study depicts Newman’s fourteenth Oxford University Sermon as a creative response to two controversial events in his life: the first involved the Tamworth Reading Room—Newman’s satirical critique of Robert Peel’s view of education and religion; the second concerned his advocacy of the compatibility of Anglican and Roman Catholic doctrines which he articulated in his divisive Tract 90.

This essay—originally a presentation at a symposium on “The Idea of a University in the Third Millennium: Revisiting Newman’s Vision of the Academy” at McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana, February 15–16, 2008—reflects on intellectual freedom and religious commitment at modern American universities in light of Newman’s novel Loss and Gain.

This essay first considers the Benedictine monastic schools and their educational philosophy in relation to the writings of John Henry Newman on education and then provides a comparison with the curriculum at the Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University with particular emphasis on their respective views of Scripture and its use in academic and formational contexts.

This essay—originally a presentation at the annual meeting of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, September 28, 2007, in Washington DC—uses the concept of a “power of assimilation” from Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine toshow how the Christian intellectual exercises this power in encountering the surrounding non-Christian culture.