August 2014

I’m an intellectual, shackled by admin

Posted by Richard Dunning in Faith-in-Scholarship blog on Friday 22nd August 2014

As Abraham Kuyper never said: “All of life is redeemed, apart from the mundane stuff”. When Kuyper was writing the Stone lectures was he thinking about completing a bi-annual PhD progress report, doing the online fire training course again (could a fire occur in virtual space?), checking references, filing ethical permission applications, ordering paper for the communal printer or reading submission guidelines1?

How can we bring Jesus’ lordship to bear on ordinary administrative jobs2? Here our focus is on understanding the culture of administration3 to inform our response.

Tags: 
ideas for academics

A Christian worldview (3) redemption

Posted by Richard Gunton in Faith-in-Scholarship blog on Friday 15th August 2014

The third key element of the biblical worldview is redemption.  That means God buying back what was lost.  And if we take the biblical accounts of sin seriously, it’s clear that the whole created order was corrupted by the Fall.  So, building on an understanding of Creation and Fall, we see that Redemption is the way that God’s original purposes for the filling and cultivating of the earth may continue despite sin.  In other words, it’s not a Plan B, but the rescuing of Plan A:

Tags: 
Christian worldview

Football in the Kingdom of God

Posted by Richard Gunton in RealityBites blog on Tuesday 12th August 2014

Mark is away this week, so here's something you may have missed last month.

As anticipation mounted for the World Cup final, a feature about football and faith went out on 6th July on 16 local radio stations around the country: from Yorkshire Coast Radio to Cornwall's Pirate FM. Mark was a central commentator: speaking alongside Christian professional footballers Bruce Dyer and Bobby Hassell, he talked about the drama, joy and wackiness of football as one of the good things we can do in God's creation.

Tags: 
media
football

Astronomy through a Christian telescope

Posted by Anthony Smith in Faith-in-Scholarship blog on Friday 8th August 2014

One of the motivations for Faith in Scholarship is the conviction that Christian faith makes a difference to all areas of life. It’s not just the ‘religious’ areas of our lives that are affected, but, in the famous words of Abraham Kuyper, ‘There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!’

But what does that mean for my own discipline: astronomy?

Tags: 
natural sciences

Abstract mushrooms and reduced cows

Posted by Eline van Asperen in Faith-in-Scholarship blog on Friday 1st August 2014

When you look at a mushroom, what do you see? You might be attracted by its colourful hood, or by its smell. Or you may think of mushrooms in garlic butter. When I look at a mushroom, I see the fruit body of a basidiomycete. This is because mushrooms are currently a research topic for me. And whilst I see the same object as you, I have a slightly different reaction to it.

Tags: 
Christian worldview
ideas for academics