Josh Brumfield, PhD
IKON Program Director at The Newman Idea
Joshua Brumfield, PhD, a native of New Orleans, is the IKON Program Director for The Newman Idea (TNI), working to imrpove the courses, curriculum, and program quality. He has assisted TNI President Dr. David Delio in developing an innovative IKON pedagogy and program, while teaching multiple in-class and online courses to college students. IKON courses are for prospective and current university students as well as faculty and institutions in higher education.
Formerly Assistant Professor of Theology and S.E. Canizaro Chair of Theology at the University of Holy Cross, Dr. Brumfield remains passionate about helping Catholic students integrate their faith with their learning through formal in-class teaching and informal tutoring akin to the Oxford model.
Dr. Brumfield has published a book on Pope Benedict XVI titled The Benedict Proposal: Church as Creative Minority in the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI, as well as essays on Dorothy Day, St. John Henry Newman, and Catholic education.
He resides in New Orleans with his wife and four children and in addition to teaching IKON courses with the Tne Newman Idea, teaches theology at Jesuit High School of New Orleans
Pope Benedict's Proposal: Catechesis for a Creative Minority
How ought the church respond to the rise of a post-Christian secular age? Should it retreat? What is the mission of the church in this context? Joseph Ratzinger’s eucharistic ecclesiology provides a model for living the relation between communion and mission, a model that provides a sound image for conceiving of and imagining the catechesis as an embodiment of missionary communion. Ratzinger argues that right worship can and does habituate Christians and equip churches to respond to the existential questions confronting modern persons, many of whom seem partially paralyzed by the anxieties of life without truth and communion.