Faith-in-Scholarship
God with us (in the lab)
It’s hard to predict how I will feel at the end of the Christmas break. Will I be refreshed and eager to get back to work? Or will the thought fill me with dread? Or both? It can be especially Read more
Faith-in-Scholarship
Review: “Engaging God’s World”
One of the things we are aiming to do through Faith-in-Scholarship is to direct Christian postgraduates (and others) to helpful resources and initiatives. This week I wanted to draw your attention to a book that helped me understand the academic Read more
RealityBites
Secularism, Blockbusters and Soaps (2)
Soap operas (soaps for short) are radio or television drama series following people’s daily lives. They were so named because they were first sponsored in the US in the 1930s by soap manufacturers. In the UK, of course, I mean Coronation Read more
Faith-in-Scholarship
No square inch… Abraham the Great
When I moved from the Netherlands to the UK, I discovered that many British Christians knew the names of two Dutch Christians from the past: Corrie ten Boom [1] and Abraham Kuyper. However, though many had read some of Corrie Read more
Faith-in-Scholarship
Why Faith-in-Scholarship? (2) for everyone
Academic scholarship prides itself on rigour and objectivity. Science is considered the most reliable body of rational knowledge about the natural world, while the arts and humanities pursue unbiased investigation of social phenomena, penetrating what it is to be human. Let Read more
RealityBites
Secularism, Blockbusters and Soaps (1)
We live in an age when the Western world is dominated by secularist worldviews, secularist big stories. The dominant secularist big stories are those of materialism in both senses of that key word: that physical nature is all there is, Read more
Faith-in-Scholarship
Environmental sciences: creation, fall, redemption
Although I was trained as an archaeologist, over the years I have slowly moved towards research that can more accurately be described as palaeoecology or palaeoenvironmental science, i.e. ecology and environmental science applied to the past. As with archaeology, one of Read more
RealityBites
‘Pick-up’ artist Julien Blanc and how we are failing our young people
Men pay upwards of £1000 to listen to the ‘wisdom’ and ‘insight’ of ‘pick-up’ artist Julien Blanc. His worldview boils down to this: objectify women and use them for your pleasure. Videos of Blanc preaching and ranting can be found online under the Read more
Faith-in-Scholarship
The death of an idea: dealing with failure
Research is an adventure into the unknown. As such, it’s risky business. What happens when things go wrong? Sometimes a project you’ve been working on for long hours turns out to lead nowhere. You’ve poured your energies into a big Read more
RealityBites
US Presidents and Astrology
In my last blog I explored the impact of astrology upon the emperor Tiberius. Consider this contemporary story of a president who followed the stars! In 1981 the astrologer Joan Quigley made Nancy Reagan a believer in astrology by showing Read more