In chapter 4 of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, George Marsden asks, “What difference could ‘Christian scholarship’ possibly make?” He quotes a critical reviewer who wants to know whether Notre Dame teaches “Roman Catholic chemistry” or if Calvin offers “Presbyterian anthropology”. Marsden answers with two suggestions: the analogy of a gestalt image, and the […]
ESN Book Club
Outrageous Idea 3: Rules of the Game
Can followers of Christ play by the rules of the academic game and still follow Christ faithfully? According to Stanley Fish (Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago) the […]
Outrageous Idea 2: Arguments for Silence
In chapter 2 of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, George Marsden examines three “arguments for silence” common in the university for why Christians should keep their faith out of their academic work: The argument of “science vs. religion” The argument of multiculturalism and diversity The separation of church and state In case, Marsden summarizes […]
ESN Book Club: The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship
In June, we hosted our first ESN Book Club, an experiment in online book discussion and community based around John Stott’s classic, Your Mind Matters. In October, we’re going to host our 2nd ESN Book Club, this time discussing another classic, George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. In 1996, George Marsden published The […]
Your Mind Matters 4: Acting on Our Knowledge
John Stott wraps up Your Mind Matters with “Acting on Our Knowledge.” He begins by pointing out that we avoid the swing from anti-intellectualism to hyper-intellectualism, by remembering “just one thing: God never intends knowledge to be an end in itself but always to be means to some other end.” As a corollary to the […]