The topic of a recent cover story in Christianity Today is shaking up not only the world of missions, but also academia. The World the Missionaries Made is a report on the work of Robert Woodberry, a sociologist currently researching at the Political Science Department of the National University of Singapore. CT’s Executive Editor Andy Crouch calls it the CT cover story of which he is most proud. Its thesis and Woodberry’s work support a remarkable conclusion – that a generation of “conversionary protestant missionariesâ€[1] laid a foundation for democracy around the world. In effect, missions in the 19th and 20th centuries may be one of the most significant factors, and certainly one of the most overlooked, in what CT calls “the health of nations†today: [Read more…] about Missionaries Changed the World Once – Can they do it again?
andy crouch
Imagebearer: Flourishing
I confess being quite excited to board Amtrak at 5:17 am in Elizabethtown, PA, to travel to the Big Apple to hear Andy Crouch, Executive Editor for Christianity Today, present material from his new InterVarsity Press release Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. As some of you know, the Emerging Scholars Network has not only highlighted Crouch’s earlier InterVarsity Press publication Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (2008) in various posts, but also featured Culture Making as the focal point for the launch of a South Central PA Christian Scholars Network through a Christian Scholars Series.[1]
At Imagebearer: Your Part in God’s Plan for Creativity, Justice & Flourishing (Q Session, September 17-18, 2013), Crouch walked participants through his understanding of . . .
- The good news about culture.
- The good news about who we are as created in the image of God.
- The bad news about our world.
- The heart of the bad news.
- How is God active in the world through us in bringing reconciliation and healing through providing particular examples of concrete human institutions and being a leader.
What Books Should We Suggest at Urbana 12?
In only 15 days, ESN will be joining 18,000 of our closest friends at Urbana 12, InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference. As in years past, we’ll have an exhibitor table, and I’ll be hosting a seminar on “Serving Christ as a Professor.”
One of my favorite things about conferences is learning about new books — or, even better, old books that I somehow hadn’t known about. Most of the attendees at Urbana are undergraduates, so the conference is a great opportunity to send them away with a fresh reading list for the new year.
What books about the life of the mind, the academy, and spiritual formation should we recommend? Here are the ones we suggested at Urbana 09. Do you have any to add?
Note: Several of the books below feature links to Amazon, but we strongly recommend you order from “friend of ESN” Hearts and Minds Books or the local bookstore of your choice.Â
[Read more…] about What Books Should We Suggest at Urbana 12?
Best Books on Calling and Vocation?
I recently wrote about themes of calling and vocation in Chaim Potok’s My Name Is Asher Lev. This got me to thinking:
What are the best books on calling and vocation?
Here are a few that occur to me. What books would you add to the list? These below are all Christian nonfiction books, but novels, secular guides, poetry, anything, is welcome as suggestions.
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life One of the classics on calling and vocation, this book is made up of many short, reflective chapters that make for good meditative reading. It also features a passage that I’ve quoted more than probably anything else I’ve read:
Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia).
Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. We can therefore properly say as a matter of secondary calling that we are called to homemaking or to the practice of law or to art history. But these and other things are always the secondary, never the primary calling. They are “callings†rather than the “calling.†They are our personal answer to God’s address, our response to God’s summons. Secondary callings matter, but only because the primary calling matters most. (The Call, p. 31)
Gordon Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential. If Guinness is reflective, I would characterize Smith as analytical. I go to Smith when I’m looking for a good definition for a concept, or a discussion of some specific issue, such as matching your personal calling with the corporate calling of an organization or business.
Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. The two books above deal directly with an individual’s personal calling. Crouch’s, in contrast, deals the questions of human calling in general: Why do we work? How do we approach culture? Do the artifacts of human culture have eternal value? Editor’s note (12/7/2013, 6:18 pm): Click here for a post focused on Culture Making.
Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior. Someone — I think it was David McNeill — gave me this book when I transitioning from college to career, and it had a profound influence over my life for many years. Garber explores the issue of living a consistent life, in which our actions, decisions, career, etc., match what we say we believe. This integrity is central to understanding calling and vocation.
Those are a few of my choices. What books would you add? Please add your recommendations to the comments.
Headed to Graduate School: A Time of Re-imaging
In my prior post I encouraged students who are headed toward grad school to begin their journey with a lofty end-point in mind: to grow into a person. In the Biblical sense, personhood has to do with fulfilling one’s potential as a creature who is created in the image of God. So if I stop and ask myself, Who am I? – that is, who am I at the core of my existence, the answer from scripture is that I am a representation of God, a mirror image of his being. Unfortunately, this “image†has been damaged by the Fall, yet it remains in me and is being rebuilt, gradually, through the life-long process of discipleship.
I’d like to suggest to you that grad school should be seen as a cool adventure in Âre-imaging. Of being reshaped back into the image of God. The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “We . . . are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory“ (2 Cor 3:18).
Here are two practical ways such re-imaging can take place in the academy, regardless of where you are in your matriculation (or teaching): [Read more…] about Headed to Graduate School: A Time of Re-imaging