Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

faith and learning

A Call for Articles on Faith and Fields of Study

ball point pen on opened notebook
Photo by Jessica Lewis on Pexels.com

The Emerging Scholars Network, an effort to equip rising Christian scholars in the United States, is interested in running a series this year at our blog on “______________” Through the Lens of Faith” with the blank comprising the various fields of study in the university.

The idea of this series is not an academic piece on integrating your field and your faith so much as your personal reflections on how your faith informs your thinking and practice in your research, teaching, and service. This could include:

  • How you see the presence and work of God in your field of study
  • How your faith informs the research questions you pursue
  • How your teaching and work with students has been shaped by your faith
  • How you engage with your colleagues, your department and your institution in light of your faith.

You are welcome to touch on all of these, focus on one, or discuss something else. We do ask that you limit your submission to 1500 words.  We actually consider 800-1200 words our sweet spot.

We ask that you submit articles in Word, which imports pretty seamlessly into our blog software, footnotes included, if you use them. Please include a head shot and 2-3 sentence bio. We will consider publishing anonymous articles if publishing is sensitive in your situation. Submissions should be sent to bob.trube@intervarsity.org

While we do not pay for articles, for all accepted articles, we want to acknowledge your effort by offering a free InterVarsity Press book of your choice up to $50 retail. Tell us the title and the address to which it may be sent when you submit your article.

You can be an ESN contributor! And the opportunity is to both encourage others and receive feedback on your ideas. Questions? Just email Bob at bob.trube@intervarsity.org.

Book Review: Educating for Shalom

educating for shalomEducating for Shalom, by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Grand Rapids: Wm. B Eerdmans, 2004.

Summary: This collection of essays and talks written or given over a 30 year period traces Nicholas Wolterstorff’s journey of thinking about Christian higher education, the integration of faith and learning, and his growing concern that education result in the pursuit of justice and shalom.

Nicholas Wolterstorff is an emeritus professor of philosophical theology at Yale, having previously taught on the faculty at Calvin College, a Christian college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The collection of essays and presentations that make up this collection were written or given over a 30 year period and chronicle how Wolterstorff’s conception of the task of Christians in higher education to connect faith and learning has changed over this time period. [Read more…] about Book Review: Educating for Shalom

Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Redemption

Pinturicchio, The Resurrection, in the collection of the Vatican, photo courtesy of the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America via Wikimedia Commons

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. . . . For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven (emphases added). – Colossians 1:16-17, 19-20 (NASB).

Reflection

Earlier in this series, we explored how creation and the fall affects the integration of faith and learning. We turn now to redemption. Christ’s work of redemption establishes the basis for the re-integration of Christian faith and learning. Indeed, Paul’s vision of the “cosmic Christ of Colossians” (Holmes, p. 7) pictures him not only as the Savior of the soul, but of the entire cosmos. He made all things (ta panta in Greek), upholds all things, and has reconciled all things to God by the blood of his cross. This reconciliation includes the realm of education. In Christ, genuine faith and learning are put back together again. [Read more…] about Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Redemption

Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Fall

Michelangelo, detail from The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Sistine Chapel, photo courtesy of Andreagrossman via Wikimedia Commons
Michelangelo, detail from The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Sistine Chapel, photo courtesy of Andreagrossman via Wikimedia Commons

So this I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. – Ephesians 4:17-19 (NASB)

Reflection

In the first post of this series, we discussed how faith and learning were seamlessly integrated in God’s original creation. The fall of humanity into sin, however, resulted in the disintegration of faith and learning. Out of a desire to be independent of God, autonomous, and self-legislating, human beings entered into sin, which severed our communion with God. This mutiny entailed devastating noetic and epistemic consequences. Sin corrupted our minds and confused our knowledge. Having fallen from fellowship with God, our capacity to know and understand things from his point of view was lost. We ceased to acknowledge him as the maker of heaven and earth. We failed to see him as the infinite source, ultimate reference point, and explanatory principle of all reality. We no longer recognized the world as his creation. We no longer saw ourselves as his image and likeness. We misunderstood the nature of the human predicament and constructed false solutions to essential human problems. [Read more…] about Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Fall

Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Creation

God creating the birds and the fishes, Martin de Vos, 1600-1602. Photograph by Rama via Wikimedia Commons.
God creating the birds and the fishes, Martin de Vos, 1600-1602. Photograph by Rama via Wikimedia Commons.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1: 26-28 (NASB)

Reflection

A basic biblical reason for re-integrating faith and learning is rooted in God the Trinity and based on the overarching themes of creation, fall, and redemption as the essential content of the biblical narrative. In exploring these themes, we can find a philosophical grounding for integrating faith and knowledge. This is a meditation on creation. Meditations on fall and redemption will follow on Tuesday and Thursday. [Read more…] about Navigating Purpose: Re-integrating Faith and Learning, Creation