A friend of mine who is a primary school teacher recently remarked that she loves working at a Christian school because she can teach children not only how to learn, but why to learn. Creation is a reflection of God’s glory and power and it is worth studying because it boldly declares the glory of its Maker.
As a music historian, I cringe whenever a new acquaintance asks me why studying the history of music is a valuable use of my time. As a Christian, how do I answer?
I’ve just come to the end of the second official week of my DPhil. In between all the library inductions, research workshops, and meeting new people, I’ve been doing some thinking about where I want my research to go: the kind of questions I want to ask, and work towards answering, about medieval recluses’ prayer.
The Faith-in-Scholarship working group on ecosystem services is starting to have an impact! Twelve of us started meeting back in February to work on a challenge in conservation science (read about the basic rationale). Now we’ve presented some of our work at an ecological conference in Rome and are working on journal articles. We want to substitute ‘ecosystem services’ with ‘ecosystem values’: read on to find out why.
I’m excited to tell you about a FiSch research project. The Faith-in-Scholarship Working Group on Ecosystem Services (FiSWES) draws together fourteen Christian thinkers (mostly academics) to explore new perspectives on a specific problem. We’ve already had two meetings in Leeds this year, with a third one planned.
There are few topics in theology that so readily act as a prism to refract one’s worldview and reveal various strands of one’s theological commitments as the topic of life after death. When discussing what happens at death one very quickly reveals one’s hand on a variety of issues. Three that spring to mind are the following: the value and purpose of human life, the ontological nature of the human person and the efficacy of Christ’s death on the cross.