Reflection Recently I found myself reading excerpts from James Sire's book, Apologetics Beyond Reason. (You can read ESN's review here). As someone with a literature background myself, I found Sire's description of the purpose of literature, and an aesthetic experience through great literature as a pointer to the transcendent, very interesting. Sire says “When we read great literature’we are lifted out of ourselves into another world.” When we have an aesthetic experience through such literature, we have “direct … [Read more...] about Aesthetic Experience and the Existence of God (Scholar’s Compass)
James Sire
Developing your Mind for God’s Global Mission: Greg Jao at Urbana 2015
Global poverty, inter-faith engagement, church planting: what do these require besides a prayerful spirit, a willing heart, and an available body? Greg Jao answers this question in this afternoon's seminar, Developing your Mind for God's Global Mission. From Dec 27 - Jan 1, volunteers with our network of early career Christian academics are liveblogging seminars at the Urbana conference, a mission-focused student gathering of 16,000 Christians from across North America and the world. This post was co-written by Elsie … [Read more...] about Developing your Mind for God’s Global Mission: Greg Jao at Urbana 2015
Book Review: Apologetics Beyond Reason
Apologetics Beyond Reason: Why Seeing Really Is Believing By James W. Sire My rating: 4 of 5 stars There is everything. Therefore there is a God. Either you see this or you don't. This epigraph at the beginning of James W. Sire's latest book captures the “apologetic” for the Christian faith that Sire proposes. In the course of the book, he rings the changes on this syllogism, substituting for “everything” the terms “literature” and “the music of Johann Sebastian Bach” among others. What he addresses … [Read more...] about Book Review: Apologetics Beyond Reason
Nature as a Christian Apologetic: The Open Secret
Introduction In previous blogs, we've seen that God reveals himself to man through nature and through scripture and we've been addressing questions about how man's interpretations of these revelations can be reconciled. In the next two blogs we are going to address a different question: can nature be used as a Christian apologetic? In other words can Christians use nature in some way for evangelism? The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth … [Read more...] about Nature as a Christian Apologetic: The Open Secret
Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?
Probably. Last week, I addressed the question of whether graduate school was a path to certain doom. In the comments of that post, John questioned my use of statistics to show that people with Ph.D.s had relatively good job prospects in this economy. He shared a personal experience with trying to find a tenure-track faculty position in the humanities. Now that is a completely different matter than simply getting a job, and the outlook isn't nearly as bright. James K.A. Smith has written a series of posts offering … [Read more...] about Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?