We must listen with all our might, with all our will to discern, laying aside our very human desire to be right with a prayer that we may be faithful. - Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009 Reflection The air conditioner's white noise makes my meeting with my dissertation advisor dreamlike, as if the discussion we are having isn't real, as if my legs' adherence to the sticky metal folding chair is a discomfort that I would vaguely remember when I wake up. I'm … [Read more...] about Releasing the Helm: Letting Theory Critique My Faith (Scholar’s Compass)
Navigating Knowledge
Speaking the Truth in Love (Scholar’s Compass)
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. Ephesians 4:15 (NIV) Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around. - Attributed to Frank A. Clark Reflection As Christians and as scholars, we value truth, but when we encounter what we believe to be untruth, how should we respond? It is wise to remember that very few positions, whether in our field or in religion, are totally bereft of … [Read more...] about Speaking the Truth in Love (Scholar’s Compass)
Navigating Knowledge: Catching Truth (Scholar’s Compass)
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32 (NIV) Reflection Science is too often taught as collection of facts to memorize and spit back on the test, leaving students with no idea how those ideas came to be accepted as truth. Yet, to modify an old aphorism, if you give a man a truth, he will have it for a day. If you teach him how to catch truth, he will have it for a lifetime. Most of the things we consider facts are actually inferences. In all my science classes I teach … [Read more...] about Navigating Knowledge: Catching Truth (Scholar’s Compass)
Navigating Knowledge: What is Truth? (Scholar’s Compass)
Dr. Gerald Rau shares his perspective on understanding God's truth, shaped by his experience of reflecting on theology while teaching science. All these questions had received admirably drafted answers – answers admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were the outcome of official labors. ’ Such questions, ’ -- questions which without the convenience of the official machine do not and cannot get solved for centuries – received clear and convincing … [Read more...] about Navigating Knowledge: What is Truth? (Scholar’s Compass)
“Animals and Atoms”: The Creative Imagination and the Body of Christ (Scholar’s Compass)
So spacious is [Christ], so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies. -- Colossians 1:19-20, The Message Reflection I discovered my favorite subject during my sophomore year of college in Ms. Gaines' survey of British literature class. I didn't know why at the time, but Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley … [Read more...] about “Animals and Atoms”: The Creative Imagination and the Body of Christ (Scholar’s Compass)