Archive for the ‘sociology’ tag
Week in Review: Awe-Inspiring Blizzard Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
Photo Credit: Philadelphia’s Swann Memorial Fountain, blizzard-style, from Walking Philly via Flickr. Click for a larger image.
1. Is there a place in the academy for the Christian worldview? (Jesus Creed) RJS, a regular guest blogger at Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog and a science professor at a major research university, shares a recent conversation with a friend about the role of the Christian worldview in the university. A brief except:
If one accepts methodological naturalism consistently as the basis for academic inquiry and rational thought, it follows that Christianity and religious belief have no place in the university, or in rational discussions, except to do autopsy on them. We must concede that a scientific-historical understanding of Christianity must be built with no reference to the possibility that He rose from the dead. We must accept that our own beliefs must be explained in evolutionary and neurological terms, without reference to the possibility that they are true.
The whole thing (and the ensuing conversation) is worth reading. Read the rest of this entry »
Are Christian Professors Politically Conservative?
American Flag at William Jewell College
On Friday, our week in review linked to Patricia Cohen’s article about political liberalism in the academy, “Professor is a Label That Leans to the Left.” The article was based on the work of sociologists Neil Gross (U. British Colombia) and Ethan Fosse (a PhD candidate at Harvard, where Gross worked until recently), who propose that academic liberalism is due to typecasting, similar to how nursing is considered a “woman’s job” by most Americans.
The academic profession “has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors,” they write in the paper, “Why Are Professors Liberal?” (PDF) That is especially true of their own field, sociology, which has become associated with “the study of race, class and gender inequality — a set of concerns especially important to liberals.”
Photo Credit: bbaltimore via Flickr
