Recently I wrote about a webinar with Francis Su in which he discussed his career and the wisdom he has shared with students and peers. He mentioned the idea of finding the levers in your field, the opportunities to effect change. Last week, NIH Director and BioLogos founder Francis Collins announced that he would no longer accept invitations to conferences with all-male panels. Even though it will likely require minimal effort on his part, given his position he can likely apply significant leverage with a decision like that. Of course, that’s exactly how levers are supposed to work.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: Finding the Levers in Biomedicine
gender
Science Corner: The Prizes are in Bloom
Last fall I wrote about the Abel Prize ceremony because I was intrigued by the maze constructed for the occasion. I didn’t intend to cover every winner, but I thought that Karen Uhlenbeck becoming the first woman to receive the honor warranted attention. Her work laid the foundation for a whole new branch of mathematics–geometric analysis–and she also provided critical tools to mathematical physicists for working with the Yang-Mills equations, which are central to the Standard Model of particle physics. Beyond her mathematical contributions, she also mentored other women mathematicians and was involved in developing new programs for educators and mathematicians to train and collaborate.
[Read more…] about Science Corner: The Prizes are in Bloom
People of Color, Outward Appearances, and Academia: Lessons from 80s Pop Culture
In the late 1980s, there was a popular television show called 21 Jump Street. Johnny Depp and friends portrayed cops in their twenties. Because they were too young looking to be taken seriously, they went undercover in high schools to take down drug dealers, gangs, etc. By today’s standards, the show was painfully bad—a guilty pleasure which few people will admit to having watched. (Personally I, um… only heard about it from a friend.) Still, it raised some interesting questions about the importance we place on outward appearance and first impressions. [Read more…] about People of Color, Outward Appearances, and Academia: Lessons from 80s Pop Culture
The Best Christian Book of All Time: One Year Later
About a year ago, we announced our call for nominations for the Best Christian Book of All Time, and you — our readers — responded with great enthusiasm. From a nomination pool of over 140 worthies, we first narrowed the bracket to 64 contenders, voted out lesser lights (such as Luther, Calvin, Chesterton, Aquinas — I hope they make something of themselves some day!), and crowned our winner: Augustine’s Confessions, the Best Christian Book of All Time.[1] You may have heard of the runner-up, a short tract by C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity.
Tom asked me to return to the blog to share my reflections about the tournament. As I read through the bracket and reflected on the process, here are a few things that occurred to me.
Authors Included, Authors Excluded
The bracket was dominated by white European and North American men. This largely reflects the Christian church over its first 1,900 years, as well as (I wager) the reading habits of ESN members. For most of the church’s history, the education and theological opportunities for women were limited, and until 1900 or so, Christianity was centered in Europe and North America. The situation has changed dramatically over the last hundred years, however, as Christianity has exploded in South America, Africa, and Asia. Simply witness the phenomenon that is the Argentine Pope Francis for the most visible sign of this change.[2]
Looking through the bracket from last year, I was also struck by the small number of women writers represented, and they mostly in literature and devotionals. Seven of the eight women in the bracket were in those two brackets. Only Dorothy Sayers appeared in Christian Life & Discipleship, and not a single woman appeared in Theology and Apologetics.The increasing presence of women in leadership of the church, as well as the globalization of Christianity, leads to my next reflection.
How many of these books will still be read a century from now? If we re-ran the bracket this year, I bet it would largely come out the same. But a century ago, a far different group of contenders would have faced off. If we had blogged about this in 1913, I bet that Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur would have put in a strong showing in the literature bracket. Among devotional and theological writers, Charles Spurgeon and D.L. Moody would probably have been nominated. Augustine has been influencing generations of Christians for 1,500 years, so I don’t foresee him being neglected. In the Best Christian Book tournament of 2113, though, will C.S. Lewis still be as popular, or will he be seen as a uniquely 20th (and 21st) century voice? [Read more…] about The Best Christian Book of All Time: One Year Later
Which Bible do you use?
At church on Sunday, a friend leaned over and asked me what Bible I was using. It happened to be the ESV Study Bible; she asked because of the many (and long) footnotes, margin references, etc., but this is only one of the Bibles that I use on a regular basis.
In my experience, academic types tend to have strong opinions about their Bibles, especially on a few key points. Then again, maybe this is just me:
- Which translation (if any)? Bible translations come in many varieties, with several different translation philosophies governing their production. I’ve known people who use only “literal” or “word-for-word” translations because of a concern for accuracy, and I’ve known people who use only “loose” or “thought-for-thought” translations…because of their concern for accuracy. If you hang out with Biblical studies types, you’ll probably also know a few people who read directly from the Greek and/or Hebrew, even for their personal devotions.
- Good footnotes…? Being academically oriented, we like thorough citations and as much additional information as we can get. And a bogus interpretation or poor reference will turn us off instantly.
- …or no notes at all? Then again, because we know that study Bibles only scratch the surface (and maybe we own several commentary sets as well), maybe we want the source text and nothing else.
- How good is the paper and binding? We’re also the type to mark up our Bibles, especially if we had a strong InterVarsity foundation in manuscript study. The paper has to be good enough to take pencil marks and highlighting. The binding also has to last because we’re going to have the book open quite a bit (aren’t we?). Just this morning, I had a Bible fall apart in my hands because of cheap binding.
Currently, there are two Bibles that I use regularly. I call them “the Odd Couple.” (Okay – actually I don’t call them that, but it would make a good name for them.)Â [Read more…] about Which Bible do you use?