The Emerging Scholars Blog

Heaven - I mean, a used book shop

We’ve previously asked for your recommendations for the best books for undergraduates (which had a tremendous response) and best books for graduate students (who must be harder to shop for). Thus, it only makes sense for me to ask:

What are the best books for new faculty?

If you need help getting started, here are a few categories:

• Practical advice books
• Books to take your theology and spiritual life to the next level
• Books on “culture making” (there’s a leading category!), education, or other aspects of faculty life
• Comfort or counsel for those who are facing disappointment with their career
• Books about building relationships

Any suggestions?

Photo: Parnassus Book Services, Cape Cod, MA, by Lochaven via Flickr. Click for a larger image.

Byron Borger at Jubilee 2009

I spent the weekend at Jubilee, the annual student conference of the Coalition for Christian Outreach. Jubilee has a great reputation for emphasizing the theology of vocation – a reputation which was confirmed, by the way – but I didn’t expect the high level of fun generated by the conference. Saturday evening featured a hilarious (and moving) monologue from actress and writing Susan Isaacs (author of Angry Conversations with God) and a can’t-possibly-be-true-except-he-brought-pictures talk from Bob Goff, president of Restore International and good friend of Don Miller.

Photo: Byron Borger at last year’s Jubilee, but he looked basically the same this year. From livingjubilee via Flickr. Click for a larger image.

Occasionally, these streams of fun and vocation combined, such as the first night. In quick succession, seven speakers presented pecha kucha, a speed-presentation format of 20 slides, changing automatically every 20 seconds, whether the speaker is ready or not. The pecha kucha presenters included:

• David Greusel, an architect speaking on the connection between architecture and faith, especially what he called “the lie” that “secular work” doesn’t matter in God’s kingdom on earth (Greusel was the lead designer of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park).
• Gideon Strauss, President of the Center for Public Justice, who testified to the application of Isaiah 58 in our current society.
• Leroy Barber, president of Mission Year, speaking about Green My Hood, a program which identifies the abuse of the environment in poor urban neighborhoods and looks for ways to bring good creation stewardship into the inner city.
• Good friend of ESN Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books, who said that “part of this conference is learning to read deeply,” and reminded us that the word “disciple” means “student.”

As Benson Hines (who was also there) said on Twitter,

Lord, let me be as passionate about my calling as Byron Borger is about his.

More about Jubilee and some upcoming articles after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

A while back, I asked for your recommendations for the best books for undergrads, and you came through with a pretty impressive list. Let’s advance a few years.

What books do you recommend to graduate students, on God, on academia, or just about life in general?

There will probably be some overlap, but here are some common graduate school situations that might affect the list:

• Deeper exploration of a specific discipline or profession
• New life experiences (e.g. marriage, children, death of family and friends)
• Coping with failure and success
• The “quarterlife crisis“
• Growth and change in one’s spiritual life

What are your suggestions?

Before we get too far into 2010, let’s take a look back at our top posts for 2009, in terms of total hits. Posts from early in the year dominate because they’ve had more time to accumulate visits, but it might be good to revisit some posts you might have missed the first time around.

Photo credit: Optical illusion via Flickr

1. What’s the purpose of the university? — Wendell Berry on the university.
2. Why get a PhD in the Humanities? — Why, indeed?
3. Linguistics and Faith — Reflections on the work of a former Christian linguist.
4. Your Mind Matters 1: Mindless Christianity — The first post of our summer book club on John Stott’s classic.
5. Wendell Berry on the University — Yep, more Wendell Berry.
6. Well-Known Atheist Converts to Christianity — My April Fool’s Day post. Sincere apologies to all who were rickrolled.
7. End the University as We Know It — Conversation about a NY Times’ editorial on the future (or lack thereof) of the university.
8. Reading Lists and Primary Literature — What are the fundamental texts of your discipline?
9. Preparing for the Lenten Journey — Tom provides some resources for observing Lent.
10. Keys of Thriving (Not Just Surviving!) — Like the title says.

And two bonus posts that might be in our top 10 next year: your picks for best books for undergrads and my interview with Bobby Gross about his book, Living the Christian Year.

Tom connects with Prof Mike, an ESN Mentor, at Urbana

In my longer conversations with students and faculty at Urbana 09*, I’ve asked

How can the ESN blog best serve you in 2010?  What are some topics you’d like to see receive attention, or more attention?

Below you’ll find some of the responses I’ve received.  What are your thoughts?  Feel free to list several topics and give them an order of priority.  Note:  The big picture of what guides our posts can be found here.

• How does one transition from undergrad to grad?  What should I be sure to read/know to prepare?  What unique roles do race, ethnicity, gender, faith, relationships (e.g., married, parent) play?
• How does one apply/adjust/enter graduate school after being out of higher education for awhile?
• How does manage time in higher education?  E.g., Can one be married, let alone have children in graduate school (or beyond as a researcher/professor), who is invested in one’s faith and family?  Testimonials/interviews would be of great encouragement.
• How do race, ethnicity, gender, faith, relationships (e.g., married, parent) factor into acceptance by, one’s sense of acceptance by, or one’s ability to feel accepted/respected by the academic community along the path of higher education?
• More book reviews and/or discussions on must reads, e.g., Best Books for Undergrads: Your Picks
• More on the sciences
• Testimonials/interviews of followers of Christ who have made it and are unashamed of who they have been created to be by God (Note: includes race, ethnicity, gender, faith, married, parent).
• What are the +/-’s of taking some (or even all of) your graduate classes on-line?

*Note:  If you’d like to keep up with ESN at Urbana follow Mike’s tweets.  If you’re at Urbana 09, don’t miss this afternoon’s ESN reception.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my request for the best books for undergrads! Here are the recommendations that we received on the blog, from Facebook, and via email. Tom and I received an amazing variety of responses. Here were some interesting trends:

• C. S. Lewis was recommended more than any other author, but not a single book of his was mentioned more than once!
• Only three books were recommended more than once: Augustine’s Confessions, J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, and Tim Keller’s The Reason for God
• Other highly recommended authors included Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, and Os Guinness.

Photo credit: net_efekt via Flickr

I have tried to group the recommendations to make it easier to read and compare, but all such classifications fall short of the ideal. I have also given C. S. Lewis a category all to himself. Most of the links below are affiliate links to Amazon.com, but I’ve tried to note when the book is available for free online.

A final note: I have not edited the recommendations in any way! If we received a recommendation, I’ve included it below. Disagree with a choice? Think we left out something obvious? Let us know in the comments.

The full list appears after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

In a mere 12 days(!), Tom and I will arrive in St. Louis for Urbana 09, InterVarsity’s triennial student missions conference. Most of the 20,000+ conference delegates are undergraduate students, and we’ll be talking to them about ESN, vocation, and loving God with your mind.

It’s impossible for me to talk to students about ESN without recommending at least half a dozen books. I have my favorites, but enough about me — what are your favorites?

What books do you recommend to undergraduates, on God, on academia, or just about life in general?

First Sunday in Advent in November 29

Here at the ESN blog, one of our main topics is spiritual formation in the academy: Christian practices like prayer and Bible study that shape us more and more into the image of Christ. The stress of Christmas may seem to be an unlikely time for spiritual growth, but for centuries, Christians have set aside the season of Advent as a time of spiritual preparation.

Last week, I interviewed Bobby Gross, recently appointed director of InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries about his new book, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, to learn more about the meaning of Advent and how Christians in the academy could benefit from its observance. Bobby has served InterVarsity in many capacities: as a campus staff worker at the University of Florida, a staff supervisor in Florida, the Southeast, and New York/New Jersey, and, most recently, as a national field director based in Atlanta. You can download the introduction by Lauren Winner and the first chapter from IVP’s website.

Photo by Per Ola Wiberg via Flickr

Bobby Gross: I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and then worshipped in a variety of evangelical churches, but was never part of a church that was particularly liturgical or did anything with the Christian year. In my second year of marriage, my wife Charlene and I moved to Miami and we looked for a church together. She grew up Catholic, and we were wide open to any number of churches – we wanted our church to be smaller rather than larger, multiethnic, spiritually alive, Bible-centered. The church that caught our attention, from an ad in the paper, was a small Episcopal church. We went to visit, and it met all our criteria.

Bobby Gross, Director of InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries

Charlene was immediately at home and more or less knew what to do in the service. I was lost for some months, really, but I stuck it out and slowly began to appreciate the beauty and the power of the liturgy as framing our weekly worship. Then, in the course of being in the Episcopal tradition, I learned about the Christian calendar and the way that liturgical rhythm, over the whole year, can give shape and meaning to our spiritual lives and reflections.

Working for a broadly evangelical organization, I found myself many times frustrated and saddened by the lack of awareness, even interest, of many churches and many Christians in this tradition and practice that goes back to within a few hundred years of Christ’s life. So I was motivated to write a book that could bridge from the liturgical world over to those who are not part of those kinds of churches. I wanted to make the bridge easy for evangelicals to walk across so that it would feel inviting and helpful to them.

MH: We have similar backgrounds. I grew up Southern Baptist as well and then worshipped at an Anglican church while I was in Canada for my master’s degree. Many people from Baptist or other non-liturgical backgrounds are often suspicious of adopting practices for which we don’t see direct Biblical connections. What are the benefits of observing the Christian year?

BG: First of all, let me point out the Biblical underpinnings for this practice. What’s striking in the Old Testament is that God himself, for his people, instituted a calendar with regular festivals, including pilgrimage. The Jewish year was oriented around certain festivals and certain points of remembrance. The most important, of course, was the remembering of the Exodus by celebrating the Passover. For Jesus, this was part of his life – the festivals, the pilgrimages, the Passover meal, as well as worship in the synagogue. Read the rest of this entry »

This was the top hit on my Creative Commons' search for "Bible study." Insert your own metaphor!

Today, I’ve been invited to a faculty Bible study at Northern Kentucky University, and I hope that my schedule will let me attend. InterVarsity is committed to building “witnessing communities of students and faculty,” and group Bible studies are an integral part of those communities. With our upcoming ESN Book Club discussion of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, we’ll have more opportunities to talk about communities of Christian scholars. (Spoiler! Chapter Six is titled “Building Academic Communities.”) The ESN Book Club starts on Wednesday with a post from Tom. If you still don’t have your copy of Marsden’s book, search your local library or download the Kindle edition. (Did you know there is a free Kindle iPhone app? But I digress…)

Photo: Bible Study BBQ by amanky via Flickr

ESN’s partner, InterVarsity Faculty Ministry, has created a number of Bible study resources for faculty, and I think graduate students would benefit from them as well. Faculty Ministry has collected a few Bible studies written specifically for faculty. On Friday, FM published a new Bible study on 1 Peter, along a daily quiet time guide and several essays related to 1 Peter by Bruce Winter, Miroslav Volf, and Gilbert Meilaender.

If you’ve had good experiences with on-campus Bible studies, how did they help you? What did you study? And, if your experience have been, er, less than great, what were the problems? Did you encounter barriers specific to the academic context?

James Lang's Life on the Tenure Track

I have a terrible confession to make: I’ve been giving away copies of a book that I had never read. For the past two summers, we’ve surveyed ESN members about their past year, and members who had made a recent career transition – earned a degree, started a new job, received tenure – have been offered the free book of their selection. I included among our offerings a book, James Lang’s Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year, based on the high recommendations of others, and I promptly (18 months ago) ordered my own copy. I’ve even been known to carry extra copies in my bag to give away spontaneously, yet it’s been sitting on my own “to read” shelf for well over a year.

But my shame has been lifted. This afternoon, I finished reading the final chapter. Even better: I’m glad that I’ve been giving it out.

Lang’s book is not meant to replace the myriad other advice books that are available to young and aspiring faculty. While Lang has studied the art and science of teaching, his book is primarily a memoir of his first year as an assistant professor of English at Assumption College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Worcester, Mass. The book takes the reader through the entire first year, with each month matched up with a dominant theme of academic life from that time period: teaching, grading, writing, and so on. While Lang includes general advice to new professor, he mostly focuses on his own experiences of learning how to teach a full schedule while trying to fulfill service and writing commitments, balancing his work with the needs of his young family, navigating relationships with faculty colleagues, and learning his way around a small college in an unfamiliar city. Read the rest of this entry »