To find a series of books that join up the dots in whole swathes of one’s previous education is a wonderful experience. That’s my experience of the writings of philosopher Marinus Dirk Stafleu, which I first discovered a year ago. His multi-volume project Philosophy of Dynamic Development flows from his career as a Christian studying physics and Read more
Christianity and the University Experience should be read by everyone concerned with ministry to students. It’s the outcome of a project in 2009–2012 across thirteen English universities, investigating patterns of religious commitment among undergraduates identifying themselves as Christian. And perhaps the most striking finding of all was that 51% of all respondents identified themselves Read more
When God’s Spirit brings about a movement of change, it often seems to begin in disparate places and diverse ways through people who don’t know each other. For example, a remarkable number of broadly Evangelical organisations for cultural engagement seem to have sprung up in England in the 1980s – of which Thinking Faith Network Read more
We like to advertise other initiatives that share a similar vision with Faith-in-Scholarship, and today I want to tell you about the Society of Christian Scholars. Actually this organisation hasn’t been officially launched yet: it’s due to come into existence tomorrow, on 1 March. This initiative’s purpose is prominently stated on Read more
For anyone seeking an overview of Western philosophy from a Christian perspective, Bartholomew and Goheen’s latest book will be a welcome starting point. Written in an accessible and entertaining style, it takes us from the Pre-Socratic philosophers to the present day with illuminating commentary that reveals the authors’ wide-ranging expertise as philosopher-theologians in the tradition Read more
Reflecting on what Advent might mean for my work, I ended up looking at the connection between teaching and research. About half of this Advent wraps up my first semester of teaching (in a job I recently began), and the other half will give a little more time to pursue research tasks until Christmas is fully Read more
In Cambridge just over a week ago an audience of postgrads and other researchers gathered to think about the relationship between “Revelation and Reality”. This was the title of the 6th annual Forming a Christian Mind conference, co-organised this year by the Jubilee Centre, Christian Heritage, KLICE, UCCF and Cambridge’s own Christian Graduate Society. While the talks were helpful at Read more
Where does science come from? Historically, the predecessor of what we now call the sciences was natural philosophy, which was, evidently enough, a branch of philosophy. But when we study science at school and university, it’s rare to hear much mention of any continuing dependence on philosophy. We seem to Read more
For the last 18 months I’ve been a research fellow on a project about financial stability that’s run by a small consultancy firm. Since I was trained as a biologist and have done nearly all my academic work so far in ecology, and in universities, this has been both a steep Read more
Knowledge is a special kind of belief, and the science of statistics provides one approach to gaining knowledge. So does faith have any direct connection to statistics? [1] A couple of months ago Andi Wang wrote about his interest in statistics as a Christian, and now I want to share something of mine. Read more