ESN likes to share opportunities for Christian scholars. Today a friend in the Harvey Fellowship program describes her experience and invites ESN members to apply.Read more…
Writing Exercises My Respect Muscles (Writing As a Spiritual Discipline Series)
In South Africa where I lived for many years, the basic “hello” greeting, sawubona, translates literally, “I see you.”Read more…
Reimagining the Sacred & the Cool: A Literary Symposium (Highlighting Community)
Missing Books and Culture? Want to have awesome conversations about literature and faith? Wishing you could hang out in a cool Christian study center this spring? Our friends at Upper House, a Christian study center in Madison, Wisconsin, have a way to address all three of those longings. Read more…
Highlighting Community: Spring Lineup at Center for Christianity and Scholarship (North Carolina)
Since 2012, the Center for Christianity and Scholarship has worked with students and faculty at Duke University and around North Carolina’s Research Triangle to create and sustain a community of scholars interested and engaged in discovering what it means to think as Christians about the workings of the physical world, social structures, history, art, philosophy, and other fields of study. Read on for spring events. Read more…
Resources for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, ESN Staff prays for the ongoing grace to seek justice and practice mercy, to stand with the vulnerable, and to celebrate the vast diversity of people represented in God’s Kingdom. Here are a few resources the ESN blog has shared over the past few years related to the work of Martin Luther King Jr.Read more…
Campus Carry, Civic Conversations, and Public Intellectuals
It is my expert opinion as a Christian who has lived through three mostly disastrous decades of Christian engagement with politics that we do not best convert people through political issues when we seek to pronounce the Christian position on it, when we use politics as medium for the gospel. Second, it is my opinion as an emerging scholar in rhetoric that my field speaks to all people and also has deep ties to Christianity. And as a “public scholar” I note those two facts while urging a collective, democratic approach to issues at hand.Read more…
Journalism Notes: Spiritual Growth Through Reading and Writing News
The story isn’t about me; it’s about others. It’s about serving others. If I have any gift or talent to do this job, it’s only because of God’s glory and generosity.Read more…
Journalism Notes: Elephants, donkeys and media scapegoats
In case you missed it, it’s election season. Candidates are stumping, campaign managers are spinning, and the talking heads can’t stop talking. It’s also a convenient time for the general public to complain about how biased and sensationalized the news media is (as if “media” were a monolithic singular noun).Read more…
Risky Love
I encourage you not only to give C.S. Lewis on Love a slow, reflective read, but also to share it with others in word and deed. Furthermore, I invite you to join me in prayer for healing in places, communities, and individuals (which can include yourself) whose hearts have been broken by a lack of love for God, neighbor, vocation, and/or creation. Today let us resolve not to lose sight of and express Loving God in the Flesh in the Real World with head, heart, and hands.Read more…
Book Review: The Gospel in the Marketplace of Ideas
The Gospel in the Marketplace of Ideas: Paul’s Mars Hill Experience for Our Pluralistic World By Paul Copan and Kenneth D. Litwak My rating: 4 of 5 stars Relevance and faithfulness. Any teacher of any religious tradition is faced withRead more…
“The Lordship of Christ” (Richard J. Mouw)
On Sunday, Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church (the local congregation of which I am member) and the Emerging Scholars Network hosted philosopher, scholar, and author Richard J. Mouw as part of a developing Christian Scholar Series. Richard J. Mouw preached on The Lordship of Christ — follow theRead more…
Interview with Jennifer Wiseman, Part 2
Jennifer Wiseman is an astronomer who studies star forming regions of our galaxy using optical, radio, and infrared telescopes. Her career has involved oversight of national astronomical facilities as well as public science policy and discourse. In 1987 she co-discoveredRead more…
Interview with Jennifer Wiseman, Part 1
Jennifer Wiseman is an astronomer who studies star forming regions of our galaxy using optical, radio, and infrared telescopes. Her career has involved oversight of national astronomical facilities as well as public science policy and discourse. In 1987 she co-discoveredRead more…
In God We Trust: A July 4th Conversation on the Historian’s Vocation & the Church
So, Wen, given the prevalence of the whole “Christian America” ideology in American churches today, what has been your experience in the church as a historian of American religion? How do you navigate conversations about America’s history in church? Read more…
Summer reading: “Welcome to the [Wright] Revolution!”
(N.T. Wright sings “Genesis” at Hearts and Mind, https://vimeo.com/4214987) 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 NewRead more…
Deploying Vocational Power: Four Pathways
Amy Sherman begins her exploration of power in chapter 8 of Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good with a bang!Read more…
What do “the righteous” look like in higher education?
What do you consider the characteristics of the righteous, particularly in the area of vocation? How do you envision, glimpse, even embody righteousness on campus?Read more…
Kingdom Calling in the New Year
In kicking off a new year, let’s prayerfully consider, discuss, work toward, learn to embrace (& even be embraced by) Kingdom Calling.Read more…
Correspondence theory & Updike’s “Seven Stanzas of Easter”
When considering the correspondence theory of truth in Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical Practice (Christian Worldview Integration Series. InterVarsity Press. 2011), David Lyle Jeffrey and Gregory Maillet refer to John Updike’s Seven Stanzas at Easter (1960).* Enjoy thisRead more…
‘The Dying God Myth’ & the Inklings
Promotional Video for Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel. In Chapter 7 of Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel (Ignatius Press. 2010), David C. Downing (R.W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College, PA, & C.S. Lewis ScholarRead more…
A few minutes with Updike’s “Seven Stanzas at Easter”
Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall. — John Updike. Seven Stanzas at Easter. 1960. AccessedRead more…
Brief Reflection on “The Great Sin”
Just finished reading C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy with one of my girls. What did she learn? To listen to the Lion, i.e., God Beware of pride How about these as Lenten lessons? In my April 1 reading of The BusinessRead more…
Permit us … Convince us …
Permit us not, O Lord, to hear your word in vain. Convince us of its truth, cause us to feel its power and bind us to yourself with cords of faith and hope and love that never shall be broken. We bind to ourselves today, you our God: your power to hold us, your hand to guide us, your eye to watch us, your ear to hear us, your wisdom to teach us, your word to give us speech, your presence to defend us, this day and every day; in the name of the blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and forever. Amen. — St. PatrickRead more…
Lenten Wrestling w/God, Natural Disaster, Suffering, Good, Evil
I’ve found the reflections of the Eastern Orthodox scholar and First Things contributor a timely Lenten follow-up not only to “After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken” (Kent Annan. IVP. 2011), but also an extended discussion of “How Could A Good God Allow Suffering” (Chapter 2 of Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God: Belief in An Age of Skepticism.” Dutton/Penguin. 2008).Read more…