Following the teachings of St. Newman, IKON Courses have three core elements:
Faith:
Christians must engage “religious truth”, i.e., their faith, to have a life integrated in relationships, work and holiness.
Integral Knowing:
Believers need Christian Knowledge: first principles and revealed truth found in the Creed and Christian culture that can be applied in daily living.
Personal Influence:
All Catholic Christians need in person formation. Social media, podcasts, videos, lectures and books have a role in formation, but cannot replace a real integration morally, spiritually, and intellectually.
PERSONAL INFLUENCE
Our guiding principle has been Newman's idea that the essence of the Gift of Integrity and of education is Personal Influence. One's education is partial if it is only about information delivery and assessment. Here are a few inspiring quotes from Newman that have informed our practice:
ON INTEGRAL KNOWING
University training [as Integral Knowing]... is the education which gives men [and women] a clear conscious view of their own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence
in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches them to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant.
It prepares them to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. It shows them how to accommodate themselves to others, to know their state of mind, to bring other before their own, how to influence, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them.
- Saint John Henry Newman