Updated Job Announcement: https://blog.emergingscholars.org/2015/10/job-announcement-history-at-bethel-university/. Application is open. The position will now begin Fall 2016. [Read more…] about Opening: History Dept, Full-time faculty position (Bethel U)
Archives for March 2015
Navigating Justice: Defender of the Accused (Scholar’s Compass)
Drawing on her experience as lecturer and head of the Mission department at West Africa Theological Seminary in Lagos, Nigeria, Chinyere Priest contributes to our Lent justice series with a reflection on pursuing justice as a Christian academic. She shares a story from a forthcoming paper, “Why Nigerian Christians Accuse People of Witchcraft,” then meditates on God’s justice as a theological scholar.Â
When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. -Â Isaiah 19:20b
Narrative from Chinyere’s forthcoming paper: Uche, a mother, was tormented and beaten severely by her husband due to her failure to bear a male child. So, she found an additional wife for him to marry with hope that this wife would give him a son to end the torture she experienced. In fact, the co-wife (Nkechi) also bore him female children. Ten years later, Uche bore a male child while Nkechi did not. Their husband experienced a poor harvest; within eight days, four young men died in that family via accidents and other means. Conflict ensued between the wives. Nkechi accused Uche of being a witch who is responsible for the poor harvest, Nkechi’s failure to bear male children, and for all the concurrent deaths in the family. The husband and some other family members believed her and tortured Uche in a very cruel manner. [Read more…] about Navigating Justice: Defender of the Accused (Scholar’s Compass)
Miracles: When Miracles are Against the Law, Only Outlaws Will Perform Miracles
This is the second in a 5 week series exploring the relationship between miracles and science. See this Science Corner post for a prelude, and this post for part 1.
Last week, we started our exploration of miracles by looking at the roots of Israel’s monarchy in 1 Samuel 8. We considered how that transition would drastically shape both that nation and the Bible. In that story, we are told that God cautioned his people on the implications of their choice of government. I proposed that God had two main concerns. First, allegiance to their human king could become a higher priority for the Israelites than their existing commitments to God. Second, human kings would provide poor models of kingship, leading us to make incorrect inferences about what God is like as a king.
Metaphors are central to God’s efforts to make himself known to us. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament illustrates various aspects of God through metaphors from nature and human experience. Jesus explained the kingdom of God through parables. Jesus himself came so that, by knowing him, we could know God. God cares which metaphors we use to know more about him. [Read more…] about Miracles: When Miracles are Against the Law, Only Outlaws Will Perform Miracles
Failing Faithfully: The Futility of Medicine (Scholar’s Compass)
It was stunning news. I listened with disbelief as my colleague described how a patient of ours, in whom we had uncovered a host of serious diseases over a few years, was now newly diagnosed with cancer after an incidental scan. In addition, his social supports had been eroded and I thought about what it would be like for him to die from a vicious terminal disease while alone and homeless. He would not be the first patient for me to watch die in such a way.
To be a physician is, in many ways, an exercise in futility. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. describes it as a “duty dance with death,†and how can one argue otherwise? It is not as if we fail some of the time or even most of the time. Every human suffers. Every human dies. If we define the success of a physician as the alleviation of suffering and the postponement of death, then every physician, though occasionally and transiently triumphant, is ultimately a failure. [Read more…] about Failing Faithfully: The Futility of Medicine (Scholar’s Compass)
Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 2
Boston Public Library
Last time I explored how important it is to have a supportive community while writing. Here I move on to lessons 2 and 3 from my dissertation process:
2) Be realistic about how much time good writing takes.
I mentioned before that I’m an ENFP and find it extremely hard to focus. I’m also very social and tend to get depressed if I spend too long in the library researching and writing. One of the initial challenges for me in making progress on the dissertation was developing what historian Heiko Oberman calls the “sitting muscles†necessary for doing good scholarship. Everyone’s a little different on this score, but over time I’ve found that I really can’t make any good progress in writing without at least three hours of uninterrupted time to work. Part of it has to do with the rhythm of writing. I spend the first hour distracted by other projects, life logistics, and so on. The second hour I finally get down to business and lose myself in the writing process. The third hour I’m wrapping up, completing footnotes, tying up loose ends in the writing and jotting down thoughts that I need to follow up on in the next session. [Read more…] about Five Things I’ve Learned from Writing a Dissertation, Part 2