It will surely have escaped no reader’s attention that we are now less than a week away from Easter, that happiest of all days in the Christian calendar. This is the central celebration of our faith. It’s a time when we remember the staggering, unthinkable sacrifice that Jesus made for Read more
In the past few months, I’ve noticed increasingly regular mentions, in various places, of the concept of ‘imposter syndrome’ as a common problem within academia – especially for postgraduates or early-career researchers. I’m sure many reading this will already have come across the term, or have experienced something of it Read more
This week’s post takes the form of a brief book review, my first as a blogger here (but hopefully not my last; I’ve got a few other books in mind that I’d really like to share with you). I thought I’d start with one of my favourite books on the Read more
A couple of months ago, fellow FiScher Alicia Smith wrote a fascinating blog post on the relationship of her PhD studies with her faith. I’d like here to attempt something similar in relation to my own field. This post is going to ask more questions than it answers, for space reasons, but Read more
The month to come will be a busy one for universities across the UK. Much attention will doubtless (and deservedly) be focussed on the numerous young people who are preparing to make what is often the most significant journey of their lives to date, leaving their family home and starting Read more
This post is the next in our series ‘The Whole of (Academic) Life for Christ’, looking at Andrew Billington and Mark Greene’s thought-provoking collection of Bible studies. The question of purpose is a pressing one in academia. Many who spend their hours working in universities around the world find themselves torn between Read more
Following on from last week’s introductory post, we begin our look at Mark Greene and Antony Billington’s brilliant little book with the idea of a ‘whole-life gospel’ – the subject of their first study. The starting-point here is Colossians 1:15–23, which paints a breathtaking picture of Jesus as supreme above all, Read more
This post is the second of a short series summarising the three main talks given by Jonathan Chaplin and Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin at the Faith-in-Scholarship conference in February. (Summary of Jonathan’s first talk.) Adrienne’s talk, on ‘Faith, Truth and Experience’, drew in particular on her own expertise in the field Read more
What role does the aesthetic aspect of reality play in everyday life? As a musician, this question is obviously close to my heart. Herman Dooyeweerd identifies the intellectual virtue associated with the aesthetic as ‘harmony’, while Calvin Seerveld, an thinker in the same tradition who wrote extensively on art, prefers ‘nuance’ Read more
Have you ever thought of clarity as a virtue? In the last post, Roy Clouser started our series on intellectual virtues by explaining the importance of the ‘logical’ or ‘analytical’ aspect of reality for scholarship. Clarity is a norm (a kind of goodness) that presupposes the norm of distinguishing logically; Read more