My dear postgrad friends, We are quickly approaching the end of this academic year, according to our secular educational calendars. In our church calendar, we’ve just celebrated the cosmos-redeeming feast of Easter. And now we also come to this final installment of our reflections this year on the relationship between Read more…
Happy New Year Paul/ette! Thank you for your courage in our seminar today! Many eager and anxious students are quick to speak up about what they think they know with certainty. You were braver today in giving voice among your peers about your questions! In fact, as I’ve come to Read more…
Dear Stephan/ie, Your question is such a good one: What difference does it make to my studies that I’m a Christian? I have also found that many churches (and even Christian ministries to students) assume that the only points of contact between scholarship and faith are evangelism and morality. But, yes, Read more…
Dear Robert/a, I’m so glad you came to see me in my office yesterday. It was good to hear how the year is going for you. It was also good to see your courage on display – it’s not easy to approach your professor with questions like the ones you’re Read more…
Some years ago now, I wrote a post about the relationship between my faith and my love for avant-garde music. One thing I pointed out was the tension between beauty and deliberate discomfort (one might even call it ‘ugliness’) in a lot of this music: I suggested that whilst moments Read more…
New and returning graduate students, Welcome to this new 2022-2023 academic year! You have come to this place and to this moment from a wide diversity of backgrounds, experiences, achievements, and challenges. But, nonetheless, one thing binds you together with a shared commonness: you have formulated a question. Your research Read more…
About six weeks ago, I had the privilege of chairing one of the series of ‘Feeding the Earth’ webinars hosted by Thinking Faith Network, exploring contemporary research into food security from a ‘values’ perspective. The opening talk, given by Dr Yoseph Araya of the Open University, was an introduction to Read more…
Easter is mysterious. This isn’t a conclusion many come to in our culture today: from a secular point of view, it constitutes only a pleasant, mostly child-oriented spring festival, while even the Christians who continue to celebrate the religious aspect tend to present it primarily as a celebration in the Read more…
The KLC Junior Scholars’ Reading Group looking at Herman Dooyeweerd’s book In the Twilight of Western Thought has begun, and our first session proved fascinating and thought-provoking for me. Besides Mike’s monthly posts going through each chapter ahead of our discussing it, we’ll also have some reflections from participants. I Read more…
As we tiptoe tentatively through the first weeks of 2022, wondering what lies ahead for us this year, I’ve been musing on an attitude which I’ve seen cropping up in a few different places recently – most obviously in the title of the rather universally panned Netflix mockumentary ‘Death to Read more…