Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

Vinoth Ramachandra

Book Review: Gods That Fail, by Vinoth Ramachandra

Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission (revised edition). Vinoth Ramachandra (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016).
Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission (revised edition). Vinoth Ramachandra (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016).

Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission (revised edition). Vinoth Ramachandra. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016.

Summary: A consideration of how the false gods of late modernity both undermine human flourishing in a globalizing world and render ineffectual the witness of the church in that world, set in contrast with the biblical narratives of creation, the nature of evil, and the unique, transformative power of the cross.

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Engaging the whole university for Christ

Terence C. Halliday on Engaging the whole university for Christ.

Are we going to treat the campus as a whole as our mission field?
What if Christ really, truly engaged the whole university? This is a great, bold and magnificent vision. May we be worthy of it. — Terence C. Halliday

To continue the train of thought inspired by NY Times: Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy and Book Review: The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism, let’s “get back to basics” and give attention to Terence C. Halliday‘s Engaging the whole university for Christ. As you may know, Terence is a specialist in globalization and law. The below presentation was given at a regional International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) conference in Ghana and I find it inspirational with regard to our labors as part of not only InterVarsity-USA, but also the larger IFES movement.

Engaging the whole university for Christ from IFES World. [Read more…] about Engaging the whole university for Christ

Engaging the University

Ready to get serious about Engaging the University? Then let’s return to Vinoth Ramachandra, who serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.

Engaging the University: Vinoth Ramachandra from IFES World.

What does Engaging the University look like on your campus? How can dialogical ministry be more fully developed on your campus? How can the Emerging Scholars Network assist you in incarnational ministry? Please let me know of particular online resources which can be of assistance (encouragement, equipping, academic mentoring/networking, discerning the Presence of Christ).

Note: You may remember that in Fall 2013 we gave significant attention to Ramachandra’s .

A Dialogical Campus Ministry

Dr Vinoth Ramachandra serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.

“I’m still waiting to read a scientific paper that gives a biological explanation of the emergence of biological science among us human beings, also a naturalist account of what motivates people to become evolutionary psychologists and why others are impressed by their explanations.” — A taste of the pointed wit which draws one into Part 3 of  Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (22:04). As you my remember from Part 2, the recording cut off as he began a “defense of the human.” Ramachandra focuses on resisting the biological reductionism which combines neurological imaging of the human brain with “the popular pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology.”

Biological reductionism requires much more consideration than that given to it by Ramachandra. What better way than a dialogic university ministry, i.e., “a ministry which takes the university seriously on its own terms”? But can we as members of the campus community truly take up Ramachandra’s challenge to embrace university ministry as “a distinctive calling, not simply an extension or parallel of church based ministries”? Can we support a ministry which “listens as well as speaks . . . seeks to stimulate respectful conversations both within and across academic disciplines, and with Christians and non-Christians alike”? [Read more…] about A Dialogical Campus Ministry

A Mission to the University: Part 2 of Engaging the University

Dr Vinoth Ramachandra serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.

Part 2 of Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (21:22) is packed. After exploring the broad topics of funding’s push toward instrumentalism, the fragmentation of campus academic life by global communication, and the lack of “any coherent master narrative for a central point of reference . . . to evaluate the relationship of . . . parcels of knowledge to other parcels or to weigh their relative importance,” Ramachandra considers three challenges which Christians face in engaging the university:

  • Evangelistic/pastoral challenge: “There are many outstanding thinkers in our university with a global influence who have never been exposed to a robust Christian faith which they can respect intellectually either because they’ve never come across Christians in their universities who love God with their minds and engaged them in serious thinking about God or they have never been exposed to the best Christian learning in their particular academic field of study.”
    • Comment: As a campus minister for the past seventeen years, I found Ramachandra’s exploration of Jonathan Rowles’ loss of faith during World War II particularly convicting. Please continue to share with the Emerging Scholars Network how we may pray for, encourage and equip you (and your colleagues) in this area by email and/or commenting below.
  • Raising a Christian voice not only with intellect, but also with charity: [Read more…] about A Mission to the University: Part 2 of Engaging the University