Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

optimism

Hope according to Wright and Thiel

As some of you may have picked up from the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Wall, What is the Hope for Humanity? A discussion of technology, politics, and theology (1:26:47) has been receiving my attention this weekend. What is the Hope for Humanity? is a Veritas Forum featuring theologian N.T. Wright and Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal). I offer their dialogue and our own interactions with it as a helpful tool in considering/reflecting upon the source of “our hope” (individually and corporately in our various communities) as we enter the fall term with our “eyes on the prize(s) set before us”. I encourage you to watch the video with some friends (e.g., hangout for an evening in person and/or share on-line to discuss over the course of several days).

What is the Hope for Humanity? A discussion of technology, politics, and theology. A Veritas Forum featuring theologian N.T. Wright and Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal). The moderator was Ross Douthat, a conservative American author, blogger, and New York Times columnist. Photo from the Veritas Forum's event page. Accessed on 8/24/2014.
What is the Hope for Humanity? A discussion of technology, politics, and theology. A Veritas Forum featuring theologian N.T. Wright and Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal). The moderator was Ross Douthat, a conservative American author, blogger, and New York Times columnist. Photo from the Veritas Forum’s event page. Accessed on 8/24/2014.

Some questions I’ve asked myself (in the context of the larger question “In what manner does a Christian bring a unique perspective to the discussion?”) and pass along to you.

  • What is the difference between hope and optimism?
  • What is the fount (or is the image of a “deep well” more appropriate) from which we find our sense of hope springing/flowing?
  • How much have I/we been disappointed by the modernist narrative? Why?
  • Why have I/we been reluctant to engage the post-modernist “narratives”?
    • What do I/we truly have to offer in its place?
    • Is cynicism knocking on my/our door? With what do I/we resist cynicism?
  • Who do I /we consider an inspiring leaders (historical, current)? Why?
    • How do they shape my/our sense of hope?
  • What societal and/or technological change to I/we truly desire? And at what pace?
  • How do I/we care for my head, heart, and hands in a manner which truly expresses love for God, neighbor, and creation all the days of my life — whether shorter or longer than expected? How much should I/we strive to live longer “in this life”?
  • How do I/we envision the new heavens and the new earth? Is it a flashback to a previous era, similar to the current time, a futuristic vision, a unique blending together of times?
Shaping a Digital World
Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology by Derek Schuurman (IVP, 2013).

Feel free to post some responses (and additional questions). In addition, stay tuned not only for some of my reflections, but also more questions. Brainstorm: maybe I should ask some of our resource friends (e.g., interviewees to join the conversation.

Note: I came across this video while exploring the relevant blog page on the Christian Engineering Society’s website. Derek Schuurman, a computer science professor at Redeemer University College and author of the recent book Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology (IVP, 2013), posted it on his blog. Yes, this book is in the “review queue” 🙂

Searching for Utopia: Higher Education as a Panacea

In 1994, Clark Kerr reflected on his movement from guarded optimism to guarded pessimism to guarded optimism (1997, 193) and his hopeful return to the unguarded utopianism of earlier years with respect to the importance/value of higher educaiton:

[a]s society goes, so goes the university; but, also, as the university goes so goes the society. The progress of knowledge remains so central to the progress of civilization (1997, 194, 196).*

As we enter a new academic term, what do you think about the relationship of the university to the larger society (in the United States, other countries, civilization)?  In Searching for Utopia: Higher Education as a Panacea?  (a paper which I wrote for my masters in higher education), I make the below comment about the solid foundations for higher education.  I would be interested in your comments/reactions as I prepare for conversations with academics over the course of the next couple of weeks.

How do Christians extend hope for our society while still acknowledging the reality of internal and systemic sin? First, we confess that God is in charge and we are not. As long as we seek to be agents of transformation on our own, we will forget that only God changes hearts and structures. Second, we acknowledge that individuals and institutions have the capacity to offer hope because God has ordered creation in such a way that the meaning, satisfaction, wholeness, which are found in Him alone, are dimly reflected all around us. Third, we affirm that good things can come from education, e.g., verbal skills, quantitative skills, personal self-discovery, cultural identity, appreciation of the arts, opportunity, upward mobility, new knowledge.

We may even go as far as saying that common grace is dispensed as the God invested capacities are played out through the proper uses of the university. But all of this must keep in mind that sin corrupts and God’s power alone transforms and sustains.  So although higher education has much to commend it, we are not to worship it. The blessings experienced by those within and without, past and present, individual and corporate are mixed.

*Kerr, C. (2001). The Uses of the University. (5th ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Original work published in 1963).