The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics — Ard Louis

Ard Louis^[1] The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics (1/29/2012) from oxfordchristianmind (52 min, 52  sec).

Description:  What does our calling to be disciples of Christ mean for our academic vocation (whether temporary as students or longer term as a career)? What are some of the promises and pitfalls of the scholarly life? How can academics and postgraduate students serve and relate to the wider body of Christ (the Church)?

Getting to know Ard Louis (Reader in Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford):  Last spring I had opportunity to connect with  Ard Louis  at a conference. I appreciated extended conversation with an InterVarsity alumnus who brought international perspective to graduate studies in the United States, was blessed by participating in an InterVarsity fellowship, and continues following Christ with passion as an academic in another country. In addition to checking out the resources available at  Developing a Christian Mind at Oxford ^[2], I also took time to soak in his excellent Veritas Forum presentations,  e.g., Does Science Make Faith Obsolete?  at Johns Hopkins University and  Science and Spirituality  at  Swarthmore College.

The Illustrated Guide To A Ph.D.:  Early in The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics,  Ard Louis refers to The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.  If you have not already done such, I encourage you to give The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.  prayerful consideration individually and with fellow believers on campus. I find the progression of pictures  providing a quite helpful lens on the “academic ladder” (or what I have at times referred to as the “academic chain of being”) in relationship to the “circle of human knowledge”.^[3]

A Theology of Higher Education: As I shared in response to  Seek the Welfare of the University, in 2014  the  Emerging Scholars Network  (ESN) will give  focused attention to the meaning/purpose of higher education and how this plays out in a  working theology of higher education. The theology will dig  a number of contexts, beginning with

• a number of the disciplines
• positions “up and down” the “academic ladder”.

Some of the next steps are fleshed out in  The Challenge of ESN’s March Madness. The first and most important is providing nominations for ESN’s March Madness ’14:

Which topics must Christians  be prepared to engage in today’s higher education?

Please share your nominations at The Challenge of ESN’s March Madness.

BONUS: Part of an InterVarsity fellowship group (undergrad, grad, faculty, focused ministry)? Please encourage their participation. How do we get this idea “into the paint”? If your fellowship “takes it to the hole” with 10 or more topics gathered through the collaboration of at least three members of your fellowship by  Sunday, February 23  midnight Tuesday, February 26 (ET)    your “team” will be entered for a prize of $100 of InterVarsity Press publications. ESN will randomly select three winners from the teams who “bring their game to the court”.

How do you submit as a team?  Include your fellowship group’s name and collaborators (first names) in the nominations submitted at The Challenge of ESN’s March Madness. AND  email your fellowship’s name/contact information to ESN. Whether or not  your team “hits the shot from downtown” with regard to the nominations prize drawing, you’ll be a part of the conversation which  extends sixteen “tickets to the Dance”. AND maybe one or more of your nominations will be announced on the February 28 Selection Show 🙂 Now that would we be fun, wouldn’t it? Let’s get our game on! To God be the glory!

’We need Christian people to work as healers: as healing judges and prison staff, as healing teachers and administrators, as healing shopkeepers and bankers, as healing musicians and artists, as healing writers and scientists, as healing diplomats and politicians. We need people who will hold on to Christ firmly with one hand and reach out the other, with wit and skill and cheerfulness, with compassion and sorrow and tenderness, to the places where our world is in pain. We need people who will use all their god-given skills, as Paul used his, to analyse  where things have gone wrong, to come to the place of pain, and to hold over the wound the only medicine which will really heal, which is the love of Christ made incarnate once more, your smile and mine, your tears and mine, your patient analysis and mine, your frustration and mine, your joy and mine’

—  N. T. Wright, For All God’s Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church  (Eerdmans, 1997, p 101).

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