Andrew Basden takes a look at some of the big questions around artificial intelligence. “The debate around AI”, wrote Toby Payne, “is desperate for a perceptive Christian contribution”. In an email from the Good News for the University initiative, he went on to ask: How might the fact of our Read more
Orthodox free-market economics, rooted in principles of self-interest, individualism, and limited government intervention, has often been criticized for its perceived divergence from Christian values. This critique stems from several key areas of conflict between the two ideologies, including the primacy of self-interest, the neglect of communal well-being, and the potential Read more
I’ve recently got back to the UK after spending a year living in Toronto, Canada, for a postdoctoral research fellowship. This was my first full-time academic role after finishing my DPhil in 2020 – a Mellon Foundation-funded fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, a Catholic research centre dating Read more
A news story currently being covered here in the UK concerns serious serial abuses by a healthcare worker. One of the questions being addressed in ongoing investigations concerns why managers of the healthcare facility where the tragic events took place didn’t intervene sooner to remove the now-convicted murderer. I have Read more
Economics is the subject I most wish I had studied earlier than I did. Although my school offered an A-level in the subject, a motivation to understand money and its growth and disappearance only arose very gradually over the following years, as I grappled increasingly with my own finances at Read more
Maybe you’ve wondered this too: how does my faith relate to my scholarship? It might be easy to affirm with the Apostle Paul that “in him [Christ] all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17, NIV). But too often, the assumptions in Western twenty-first century culture about what counts as a fact Read more
The research postdoc I’ve been carrying out in Toronto this year has enabled me to start a new project – one which has made explaining my work to friends, especially Christian friends, a little more unpredictable. When I was working on my DPhil, I could answer people’s questions at church Read more
Christopher Watkin’s new book, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, is receiving significant attention. I see it mentioned regularly in blog posts (like this one), email newsletters, and at academic and ministry conferences. With a Foreword by the late Timothy Keller, it’s Read more
Last week, the most recent Postgrad Initiative email was sent out which introduced the idea of “Cultural Apologetics for Academia.” “Cultural apologetics” as opposed to traditional apologetics was framed as “showing how academics in all disciplines can introduce the gospel in a winsome way.” This quote from Collin Hansen was included in Read more
It was at the start of this year that Ruth Perry, the headteacher of a primary school in Reading, took her own life after being informed that the school she led (and attended as a child) would be downgraded by Ofsted from “outstanding” to “inadequate”. This story, tragic on many Read more