The Emerging Scholars Blog

This morning Russia Licenses Faith Healers topped my new mail. The one who forwarded it to me commented, They are soooo far ahead of us.  Read the rest of this entry »

As a member of the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science, I’m participating in an Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists versus God and Religion (Karl Gibersonand Fr. Mariano Artigas, Oxford University Press, 2006) reading group.  I thought some of you would have an interest in considering how the Oracles of Science(i.e., Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Edward O. Wilson), influence contemporary understandings of reality, origins, science, and religion.  So tighten your seat belt, bring your communication system on-line, and let me know what you think about the concept of the Oracles of Science. ... Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I posted Favorite Books of 2008.  Below are two which I’m reading alongside the Word of God as the people of God journey through Advent and Christmas.  Do you have materials which you return to again and again to enable you to focus upon the meaning of the season in the midst of the end of the term, the holiday festivities, and the beginning of a new year?  Read the rest of this entry »

I enjoyed skimming Mr. Wilson’s Bookshelf: Favorite Books of 2008. Out of his recommendations, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East. Africa, and Asia—and How It Died by Philip Jenkins sits on my to read pile.  I will pick up The Lost History of Christianity sometime in the new year.  If you are not familiar with Jenkins’ material, I’d suggest visiting his Penn State Department of History and Religious Studies page. His thought-provoking work, which spans a great range of topics, provides great conversation starters ;-)  Note: The link to Mark Noll’s review in the November/December Books & Culture can be found here.

As you know, I’ve read and enjoyed a number of books in 2008 including Culture-Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling and The Last Lecture.  How about you?  In 2008, what 2-3 books were you not able to put down and/or find yourself talking/writing about? Read the rest of this entry »

Faith and Culture Devotional

New from Zondervan, A Faith and Culture Devotional
seems custom-made for ESN members. Edited by Kelly Monroe Kullberg (of the Veritas Forum, Finding God at Harvard, Finding God Beyond Harvard, and, most recently, InterVarsity’s Women in the Academy and Professions) and Lael Arrington (host of the radio show “The Things That Matter Most”), the devotional is designed to be read daily for 15 weeks. Each week, there is one reading from seven different subject areas: theology, history, philosophy, science, literature, arts, and contemporary culture.

If that doesn’t interest you, here are some of the authors of those daily readings: Read the rest of this entry »

In case you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to visit the C.S. Lewis blog. The blog, officially part of HarperOne’s C.S. Lewis site:

offers original work on and about C. S. Lewis from scholars who have written far and wide about his stories, his theology, and his world.

I was particularly excited to see the most recent post, Parables for Pilgrims, excerpted from a work by David Downing. Over the past several years, I’ve gotten to know Downing, R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and value the insights which he has to share.  As you may know he has written two pieces for InterVarsity Press:  The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith and Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis

  

P.S. He also has an excellent piece on the Ransom Trilogy, see here  Why is the Ransom Triology so ignored?

Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight’s new book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, maps out a method of reading the Bible that recognizes both its authority as inspired Scripture and our contemporary context. McKnight observes that we all “pick and choose” the passages of Scripture that we focus on. The keys, he argues, are reading the Bible within its overall Story (picked up from McKnight’s earlier book, Embracing Grace), listening to the person of God speak through the Bible, and trusting both the Spirit and the Great Tradition of the church to help us discern the proper interpretation and application of specific passages. McKnight helpfully distinguishes between reading the Bible through Tradition (which fossilizes the interpretations of the past and elevates the Tradition to authority over Scripture) and reading with Tradition (which honors and listens to the Tradition, but also challenges it when appropriate). Read the rest of this entry »