Mark Coppenger (BA, Ouachita; PhD, Vanderbilt; MDiv, SWBTS) retired in 2019 as Professor of Christian Philosophy and Ethics at SBTS, having also taught full time at Wheaton (IL) and MBTS and as an adjunct at Elmhurst. He’s been a pastor and an infantry officer, and he posts at markcoppenger.com.
How did you get into philosophy?
My dad (PhD, Edinburgh) was teaching Bible, theology, and church history courses in a small Christian college that needed a philosophy teacher. They drafted him to fill the gap, so he took some summer courses at GWU and UC-Boulder to get up to speed. The family accompanied him on these trips, and I began to pick up on intriguing references to “dialectical materialism,” “John Dewey,” etc. I admired my dad, and the bug bit, so I chose to major in philosophy when I got to college. Before long, I was getting acquainted with the Pre-Socratics, loving aesthetics, and stumbling through Sartre and Gide in French. Behind it all was the sense that this would be a good mission field in the tumultuous 60s.
Were there any “ah-ha” moments in grad school?
I was looking forward to my Plato seminar, where I would take great notes so I could pass along my knowledge to college students. In preparation for my first class, I’d bought the big, assigned collection of dialogues and letters, only to find myself dismayed at the prof’s treatment of a single page in the Theaetetus. I did the math, and I couldn’t begin to see how we’d make it through the text that term. But a week or so into the course, it dawned on me that we weren’t just surveying what old guys said so we could talk about it. We were doing philosophy, taking even ancient arguments seriously, as if these thoughts were on the table for hammer-and-tongs treatment. And, so, I became more dialogical than custodial.
Of course, there were other gratifying discoveries (such as the charms of empiricism), but one quote has served me again and again as I’ve been enlisted to teach three dozen different courses through the decades: My philosophy of law professor recounted a conversation between two of his colleagues at the university. One asked the other, “Do you know Sanskrit?” The reply: “No, I’ve not taught it yet.” And, so, it is often the case: You get the request/assignment, and then you get busy preparing to answer the call.
What’s your best APA memory?
In March of 1978, as I headed to the Western (now Central) Division meeting in Cincinnati, I was a bit nervous about reading my paper (an analogy between judgments of “redness” and “aesthetic goodness”) and then facing pushback from a respondent and the audience. But the big preoccupation was formation of the Society of Christian Philosophers. The notion had come upon us suddenly, and we had no idea who might show up.
William Austin, the chairman at Illinois, had undergone a spiritual crisis. While on a study leave in England, he found direction from a wonderful Anglican priest, and he came back to the States a vibrant Christian. Right off, he suggested that we form a society of believers within the APA, and we were pleased to pitch in. Heretofore, the main gathering of this sort was at Wheaton’s annual philosophy conference, but we’d now be venturing into someone else’s territory. So, we cranked out some flyers (in purple “ditto” print as I recall) and sent them around.
When the time came for the experiment, we’d set up around thirty chairs, hoping to at least fill the majority of them. To our astonishment, over eighty showed up, some forced to peer through the door. Whether or not they were in the room in Cincinnati, the original cohort included such profs as Bob Adams (UCLA), Keith Yandell (Wisconsin), George Mavrodes (Michigan), Alan Donagan (Chicago), Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Calvin), Ralph McInerny (Notre Dame), Philip Quinn (Brown), William Hasker (Huntington), and my Wheaton colleagues, Arthur Holmes and Steve Evans. And who knew, at the time, that the SCP would be going, with a journal, going on 50 years later?
What is your favorite film of all time? (Or top 3).
I often asked my aesthetics students what three they’d take (with a player) onto a desert island if they knew they’d be stranded for a year. Since I typically taught at Christian schools, the most common answer was some combination of features from the Lord of the Rings series. In that vein, I right off think of Chariots of Fire. But I also love a good comedy, and I know I’d treasure copies of Three Amigos and Napoleon Dynamite. Maybe Nacho Libre.
What do you like to do for outside work?
I love to pastor, preach, and take short-term mission trips, which can be a bit perilous. On one trip to deep Brazil along a tributary to the Amazon, I caught hepatitis A from some pudding that thoughtful, innocent villagers brought to us as we built a church in their neighborhood. Years later, biking up the Nile, I suffered a rat bite in bed in a $4 hotel. (My teammates suggested that the rat died.) And then there was the SE Asia missionary who persuaded me to have a taste of dog—a one-off. These aren’t ordinary lifestyle choices, but it’s good to work out on the edge from time to time, to associate with the challenges of the Early Church… and with much of the current, Global Church.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
Back in the 1980s, I did a casebook in bioethics for Prentice-Hall, and through it, I fell in love with linking court opinions to philosophical issues. And then I grew to appreciate maps as philosophical analogues. The study came together in a 2019 book, one in which I used 22 cases (e.g., Brancusi re art; Meiwes re civil liberties; Kitzmiller re intelligent design; McGuinn re personal identity) and 23 maps (e.g., London Tube re pragmatism; New London Channel re the Golden Mean; Strip Map re Kant’s phenomenal realm; T-and-O re medievalism). In retirement, I’ve used it in four adjunct courses.
What are you working on right now?
I was the child of integrationists in the segregationist Jim Crow South. I was thrilled to see a live, b/w broadcast of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I’m now working on a book I call “I Heard a Dream,” which examines the fortunes of the “colorblind” ideal, which I still cherish.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Jessica Castellani
Jessica Castellani had a unique high school experience attending Toledo School for the Arts, where she played in a percussion ensemble and steel drum band for six years. She earned her dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Religious Studies from the University of Toledo. Her primary focus was ‘the Self’ and the mystical experience of losing it. She earned her Master of Art in Philosophy from the University of Toledo as well, with a specialization in Comparative Philosophy, Eastern Studies, and Continental Philosophy. She has taught World Religions and Introduction to Philosophy at The University of Toledo both in person and virtually. She is a member of the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, tutors students, and has worked in the service industry for over a decade. In her free time likes to spend time outside and with her pets, friends, and family.
