ABOUT US

1,600 years ago, St. Augustine wrote about the relationship between the City of God and the city of man.  Today, we’re still wrestling with our dual citizenship in the kingdom of heaven and the secular world of the university classroom, the workplace, and the public square. As a student-run, interdisciplinary, ecumenical journal for Christian thought, Between Cities aims to create a public forum for thoughtful engagement between Christianity and the life of the university and to pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful in every field of study and vocation.  In the spirit of St. Augustine, we aim to bring together reason and faith, fact and value, the cities we live in now and the eternal City toward which we look in hope.

Who We Are: 

Interdisciplinary  As we seek to integrate whole lives and whole persons, the Christian faith has bearing upon every branch of human knowledge, from literature to engineering to business management. Isolated in separate departments, these fields of study can lose the perspective offered by a holistic understanding of knowledge.  By bringing together research from every discipline pursued at the University of Minnesota, Between Cities creates opportunities for wide-ranging discussion and fruitful cross-pollination.

Student-led  College shouldn’t mean four years of regurgitating lectures for tests or writing papers that no one but the TA will ever read.  The University of Minnesota’s students are capable of original and exciting scholarly work, and the best of their writing deserves a public audience.  We publish researched articles, reflective essays, and reviews by both undergraduate and graduate students.  Written, edited, and published by students, Between Cities encourages them to take responsibility for their education and pursue excellence in their work.

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Collaborative As an ecumenical project, Between Cities works alongside many Christian organizations and ministries on campus.  We aim to bring Christians from across the University together in reading and actively contributing to a journal that addresses their common vocation.

Faithful  Although we welcome dialogue with members of other faiths and those who do not belong to any religion, Between Cities is founded upon an orthodox understanding of the historic Christian tradition.  Our contributors aim to be thoughtful, winsome representatives of that tradition in each of their respective fields of study and work.  Operating within a Christian theological framework, committed to its ethics of integrity and charity, and guided by the life-giving Spirit of God, we seek to bring the gospel and its redemptive work more fully to the University of Minnesota’s academic community.