Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

ESN Book Club

Emerging Scholars Network Fall Book Club

The Emerging Scholars Network Book Club is back!

This fall, you are invited to join other ESN members in a discussion of Chris Rice’s From Pandemic to Renewal. The book club will meet Wednesday evenings for an hour at 8 pm ET from October 11 through December 6 (skipping the Wednesday before Thanksgiving). For those who sign up for the book club, we will send you a free copy of the book.

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in profound changes and disruptions to all of our lives. Anxiety rates are at record highs as is the use of mental health services on campus. How we work, learn, and teach has changed. Our society has been polarized over a variety of issues and we face another national election in a year. The pandemic has underscored global economic disparities in access to vaccines and health care. And many walked away from the church during lockdowns and haven’t returned.

Chris Rice believes that all these and other challenges also present opportunity for renewal for the followers of Christ and opportunities to have a transforming presence in society. Here are the chapter titles of his book that will give you an idea of the topics we will be discussing:

Introduction: Renewing a Shaken World
1. Bearing Joy for a World of Frantic Anxiety
2. Centering the Vulnerable for a World of Rising Disparity
3. Being Peacemakers for a World of Surging Polarization
4. Redeeming Power for a World of Political Mediocrity
5. Making Transnational Disciples for a World of American Blinders
6. Pursuing Private Integrity for a World of Public Validation
7. Cultivating Moral Imagination for a World of Unprecedented Dangers
8. Renewing the Church for a World Longing for Hope
Epilogue: Rest for Restless Hearts

Many in our society have just wanted to “get back to normal,” or “move on” (or drudge on seems more like it for many). We will explore both the practices that renew us and the opportunities before us to bring that renewal into our contexts.

To join the book club, all we need is for you to complete this short Google Form no later than September 30 (and earlier is better) so we can have the book sent to you. Hope you can join us!

3 Fall Reading Groups for Christian Grad Students & Faculty (Online)

Colorful Leaves In Autumn, Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colorful_leaves_in_autumn.jpg

3 Fall Reading Groups for Christian Grad Students & Faculty (Online)

ESN is delighted to present 3 fall online reading group options. You can choose your area of interest and time commitment level: Scripture engagement (10 weekly meetings), faith & work for scholars (6 meetings, mostly in October), or environmental restoration (4 monthly meetings). Learn more and sign up to receive further details below!

Option 1: The 30-Minute Bible

Have you read the Bible and are not sure what it’s all about or how the pieces fit together?  The 30-Minute Bible introduces the big story in thirty readings that take 20-30 minutes to read. This reading group will cover three readings per week for ten weeks on Wednesdays from September 15 to November 17. The group will be offered at two times on Wednesday, 12pm ET and 8pm ET. We will meet for one hour.
If you are interested:
  • Email Bob Trube at bob.trube@intervarsity.org and let him know which group you wish to join. He will send you a zoom link you may use to join the book group.
  • Go to this link to request a free copy of The 30-Minute Bible. [This link will be good until September 15]

The reading group will work best for all if you can commit to joining us all ten weeks. We will learn best not only from our discussion of the book but the insights and questions each of us bring.

Ned Bustard, Booklet Designer

Option 2: Scholar’s Compass: Connecting Faith & Work for Academics (Limited Ed. Booklet)

Sign up here for more info (5 min)

Commitment: 6 meetings (4 weekly meetings in Oct, 1 meeting early Nov, 1 early Dec)

Audience: Grad Students, Postdocs, & Faculty in all fields

Group Leader: Hannah Eagleson

Description

How can you flourish as a Christian and a scholar? Scholar’s Compass is a guide, a wayfinder that distills years of experience from Christian academics into short reflections to help you connect faith and your academic life. InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network has published over 150 short online reflections distilling years of wisdom from the daily life of Christians in the university. This limited edition booklet gathers a semester of those readings. We’ll explore 6 of them together in this reading group. Discuss themes such as faith and your field, thriving in difficulty, and finding daily flourishing. Beautifully crafted by noted liturgical artist Ned Bustard, this limited edition booklet is designed to help you grow (there may be some geographic limitations on shipping). The group is especially geared toward pre-tenure scholars, and we also welcome some more experienced participants willing to share their wisdom!

Sample Devotionals in This Booklet: 

Navigating Beginnings: Glory-Seeking Ministry in the Academic Life

Navigating Beginnings: Learning Scholarly Virtues from the Iliad

Navigating the Rapids: When It Doesn’t Go As You Expect, Part 1

 

Option 3: Liturgies of Restoration (Ecology & Environment Group from Au Sable)

Sign up here

Commitment: 4 monthly meetings Sept-Dec (2nd Thurs, 8pm ET)

Audience: Grad Students & Early Career Professionals in Ecology & Environment Related Careers

Description

How can Christian scholars respond faithfully in a world of noise, distraction, and news of ecological destruction? What practices can sustain our partnership with God to restore his good creation? We recommend this reading group organized by our friends at the Au Sable Institute. Au Sable inspires and educates people to serve, protect, and restore God’s earth. This year, Au Sable is offering a reading group based on the Liturgies of Restoration Workbook, published by Au Sable and written by InterVarsity Press author Liuan Huska. We have been sharing excerpts of the workbook at the ESN blog, and you can read more and receive a copy here: https://www.ausable.org/liturgies-gradfellows

Summer reading: “Welcome to the [Wright] Revolution!”

(N.T. Wright sings “Genesis” at Hearts and Mind, https://vimeo.com/4214987)

how god became king.jpg
"How God Became King" cover

Last week Mike asked what’s on our various summer reading lists. I’m going to be reading some works by the story-telling minstrel Rt. Rev. N.T. (Tom) Wright, Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. As some of you know Rt. Rev. N.T. (Tom) Wright has recently blessed a number of groups with singing as part of his speaking tour. On Saturday, I had the privilege of hearing him share “Genesis”* and  Bob Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In” at Hearts & Minds Books, Dallastown, PA. Thank-you to Byron for hosting the garden party and keeping me “on top of” N.T. Wright’s publications through posts such as this one! I’m starting my summer reading with Tom’s Targum and then will move to the controversy regarding How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (HarperOne, 2012).**

What do you think of the “Wright’s revolution?” Will you be reading some of his work this summer? Any interest in an on-line book discussion? Feel free to start making comments here 🙂

(N.T. Wright sings Bob Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In”, https://vimeo.com/42149870)
[Read more…] about Summer reading: “Welcome to the [Wright] Revolution!”

Outrageous Idea 6: Building Academic Communities

Students and Faculty at 2008 Faculty Ministry Symposium
Students and Faculty at 2008 Faculty Ministry Symposium

The final chapter in George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Academic Communities Christian Scholarship [Oops! – Ed.] proposes that even the most impressive work of individual Christian scholars is not enough; Christian scholarship needs “a strong institutional base.”

Scholars, like everyone else, depend on communities. If like-minded academics do not form their own sub-communities, then they will be dependent entirely on the communities that already exist. These, of course, have little place for inquiry concerning faith and learning. If such inquiry is to grow as a recognized part of contemporary academia, it must depend on institutions and networks which can sustain that enterprise. (101)

Before getting to Marsden’s ideas, let me throw out a few discussion question: Have you experienced or witnessed successful communities of Christian scholars? What have been the outcomes? On the hand, have you seen failed or stunted attempts to build communities among Christian scholars? What went wrong?

Recognizing that, for a variety of reasons, evangelical Christians have failed to create research universities that can compete with the best secular universities, and that, to put it mildly, “the obstacles are formidable” to creating such a university, Marsden suggests some other ideas for institutional support. Some of these are already established, while others are just beginning. Marsden’s ideas are after the jump.

[Read more…] about Outrageous Idea 6: Building Academic Communities

Outrageous Idea 5: The Positive Contributions of Theological Context

Are there positive contributions to be offered by a theological context?

George Marsden responds with a hearty yes.  Why?  Because he believes (or should I say thinks, understands, or perceives):

Scholars do not operate in a vacuum, but rather within the frameworks of their communities, traditions, commitments, and beliefs.  Their scholarship, even when specialized, develops within a larger picture of reality.  So we must ask:  What is in that larger picture?  Is there a place for God?  If so does God’s presence make any difference to the rest of the picture? … (p.83).

Marsden warns the Christian scholar not “to reduce our subjects to just their theological dimensions.  (By theology here I do not mean primarily the discipline of theology, but rather any serious thought about God and God’s revelation according to a particular religious tradition)” (p.83).  According to Marsden, when Christians take “theological principles” as “just one point of reference,”

[they] can do the bulk of their academic work according to the standards and perspectives of their discipline, just as long as they are willing to keep in the mind the context of theological concerns and be open to reflecting on their implications for larger questions (p.83).

Any thoughts/reactions?

Marsden devotes the rest of the chapter to developing how “some of the most common Christian points of doctrine” speak into the assumptions and conclusions of academic disciplines:

  1. Creation
  2. The Incarnation
  3. The Holy Spirit and the Spiritual Dimensions of Reality
  4. The Human Condition

Any thoughts on how these doctrines speak into the academic world?  Any other Christian doctrines which you would desire to highlight?

Stay tuned for more on how Marsden fleshes out the application of these doctrines. …