The Mediator of Faith

Here Marilynne Robinson talks about the role of theology in forming peoples minds and lives.

"Theology has been the mediator of the primary literature of faith since antiquity. The writers of the psalms, the prophets, the Apostle Paul all interpret core belief--that God is One, the Creator of heaven and earth, and that he has made humankind in his image. Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin each gave intellectual, social and artistic form to modes of Christian life which without them are hardly to be imagined. Lately the practice of this ancient tradition has receded into the academy and learned the idiom of specialization, leaving religion increasingly vulnerable to the charge, and the fact, of vacuousness." - Marilynne Robinson

Global Warming - What Global Warming?

Colder summers and winters disprove global warming right? Wrong, as Byron explains here. And this is why climate change in Europe is affecting your summer in Australia:

To Live a Christ-formed life...

...is to flourish as a human being, argues Miroslav Volf.

The REAL Facebook World

On Wednesday I posted a map showing the connections of Facebook friends around the world. Whilst facebook's coverage seemed quite extensive, there where lots of areas that weren't lit up. You might assume that there is no people in there - no Facebook no people right? I'm pretty sure Africa and Asia have substantial numbers of people. So here is another map that sets Facebook's spread in context. What you get is a view of where social networks other than Facebook like Orkut and RenRen lead the market:

h/t Alison

Advent: A Haiku

This haiku was written by Richard Bauckham to complement an Advent Calendar. The sequence is that of the twenty-four biblical books in the Hebrew Bible. These verses are haiku in form (5-7-5 syllables), but not content.

Day 1 - Genesis
After paradise
not even Lot's wife looks back.
Memory turns round.

Day 2 - Exodus
The bones of Joseph
in their gilt sarcophagus
travel night and day.

Day 3 - Leviticus
If she is too poor
to afford a sheep, she may
offer two pigeons.

Day 4 - Numbers
Dawn in my distance,
the wise watchers will see him,
star of their searching.

Day 5 - Deuteronomy
Moses from Pisgah
overviews all. It is not
space but time he lacks.

Day 6 - Joshua
Going over Jordan
Joshua above all sees
that the ark goes first.

Day 7 - Judges
Said the trees to the
bramble, 'Come, be our ruler!'
'Wait!' said the mustard.

Day 8 - Samuel
Hannah, drunk as an
apostle at Pentecost,
magnifies the Lord.

Day 9 - Kings
She came with riddles.
His more than answers more than
took her breath away.

Day 10 - Isaiah
In the wilderness
a voice cries for centuries
seeking an echo.

Day 11 - Jeremiah
Rachel refuses
to be comforted - even
when we turn the page.

Day 12 - Ezekiel
In the end it is
all in the name of the city:
The Lord is there.
Day 13 - The Twelve Prophets
Then, as before, will
Bethlehem bear the shepherd
of the scattered sheep.

Day 14 - Psalms
If there were glory
only, praise like the last psalms,
would that be the end?
Day 15 - Proverbs
Too clever by half
are the foolish. The wise know
the folly of God

Day 16 - Job
God answered Job but
not his question. Maybe he
will do that again.

Day 17 - Song of Solomon
Yes, he will haste like
a gazelle. Nothing is more
impatient than love.

Day 18 - Ruth
Tough old Naomi
bounces a child on her knee -
her wild hope come home.

Day 19 - Lamentations
Jerusalem hurls
her desperate hopes against
God's forgetfulness.

Day 20 - Ecclesiastes
Whatever God does
and whoever else may be
who knows? The wise wait.

Day 21 - Esther
Probability
counts for nothing when Esther's
G-d is in the plot.

Day 22 - Daniel
Nebuchadnezzar
dreams of the doom of despots
and the wide world wakes.

Day 23 - Ezra-Nehemiah
After the exile
returnees did not look back
more than could be helped.

Day 24 - Chronicles
Adam, Seth, Enoch,
Noah, Abraham, David,
Zerubbabel ...

The Facebook World

From Visualizing Friendships; h/t KrishK

To The Nations

"Jesus told his apostles to disciple all the nations. The way his words are often translated, “to make disciples of all nations”, allows for a misconception to arise. It is the nations that are to be discipled, baptized and taught, not merely individuals out of the nations. The gospel will heal the nations and in the book of Revelation the nations shall walk in the light of the glory of God and bring their treasures to the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:24, 26; 22:2). This glorious result of the exaltation of the Messiah had been prophesied in the Old Testament (Isa 11:10, 12; 25:7; 49:6, 7; 52:15). All the nations, that is the peoples and their cultures, are to be Christianized by the knowledge of the triune God. Christ’s commission to his followers is to baptize the nations, to bring them under his leadership, as their Lord and their teacher." - D B Knox, D.Broughton Knox Selected Works Volume II - Church and Ministry; ed. K. Birkett p.277-282. h/t Michael

History is Precedent and Permission

"...[L]acking curiosity and the habit of study and any general grasp of history, we have entered a period of nostalgia and reaction. We want the past back, though we have no idea what it was. Things do not go so well for us as they once did. We feel we have lost our way. Most of us know that religion was once very important to our national life, and believe, whether we ourselves are religious or not, that we were much the better for its influence. Many of us know that Calvinism was a very important tradition among us. Yet all we know about John Calvin was that he was an eighteenth-century Scotsman, a prude and obscurantist with a buckle on his hat, possibly a burner of witches, certainly the very spirit of capitalism. Our ignorant parody of history affirms our ignorant parody of religious or 'traditional' values. This matters, because history is precedent and permission, and in this important instance, as in many others, we have lost plain accuracy, not to speak of complexity, substance, and human inflection. We want to return to the past, and we have made our past a demonology and not a human narrative." - Marilynne Robinson, Marguerite de Navarre, The Death of Adam, p. 206.

At the Margins of Morality

"The Church exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief."
- Hauerwas & Willimon, Resident Aliens, 1989, p. 49.

"The church in the West may have to get used to the idea that its own centre in God, from which it goes out to others in proclamation and compassion, is actually a position of social and cultural marginality. This may improve its witness to the Christ who was himself usually also found at the margins." - Bauckham, Mission as Hermeneutic, 2010, p. 7.

Chris recently blogged about Christianity being at the margins of society. As western society continues to sojourn further and further away from Christendom, the Church is decreasingly at the centre of society. The Church's social and political powerless position not only mirrors the first three centuries of Christian history; it also may help the Church be faithful to it's life and mission.

This is not an easy process for the Church. Not that it should be - we do follow a crucified Messiah. But of interest to me recently has been the way public perception has shifted when it comes to the Church and morality. Whereas once the Church was seen as a moral guardian of society (and it's members were mock for being wowsers and holy), it is now seen as an immoral, corrupting force on society. The Church - and Christians more generally - are seen to have started wars, indoctrinated children, thwarted intellectual progress and destroyed cultures the world over. The Church has constantly been on the back foot for at least the past 50 years over issues of sexuality; in debates in Australia and around the world, it is the Christians are portrayed as immoral and out of touch.

For the early church it was their refusal to observe their civic duties that landed them in hot water (sometimes literally). Like our brothers and sisters 2000 years ago, we find ourselves at the margins of morality. And like them, we are disciples of the same crucified and resurrected Lord. But what will it look like for us to cling to him in our own position of "social and cultural marginality"?

Photo: Alison Moffitt

Why Karl Barth?

So my box set of Church Dogmatics arrived this week - appropriately on my birthday.

There is a lot to admire about Karl Barth and his massive, unfinished project. I recently had the joyful experience of explaining who Barth was to someone in Manning Bar who had never heard of him. He was a theologian who called his readers to focus on Jesus. His opposition to liberalism, Nazism, and Cold War's partianship was because of what Barth knew God had done in and through Jesus Christ. When asked by a reporter how he would summarise his work after all his years of study, Barth replied "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Maybe I should have shown them this video:

The impact of Barth's scholarship during and after his life time has been far reaching. Yet far more influential than the volumes of his writing was his commitment to the gospel. After Barth died in 1968, the translators of Church Dogmatics into English - TF Torrance and GW Bromiley - made reference to this in their preface to CD IV.4:

"When the proofs of this book were still in our hands, new came in that Karl Barth was dead. God took him to his rest in the early hours of December 10, 1968, the great Church Father of Evangelical Christendom, the one genuine Doctor of the universal Church the modern era has known. It is in the Church Dogmatics above all that we must look for the grandeur of this humble servant of Jesus Christ, for the work he was given to accomplish in it will endure to bless the word for many centuries to come. Only Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin have performed comparable service in the past, in the search for a unified and comprehensive basis for all theology in the grace of God.

The Church Dogmatics represents an immense struggle for the understanding of the eternal Word of God and its rational articulation in the modern world in which the thought-forms of man are obediently and pliantly yielded to the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ according to the Holy Scriptures."

If this has whet your appetite, you might like to check out the highlight package of Church Dogmatics at Faith and Theology: Church Dogmatics in a Week. And remember to love God and keep your pipe lit.

The Brain Drain?

In case you missed it, Southern Cross (the Sydney Anglican mag) ran a two page feature this month on higher education and the Wesley Institute. Bryan Cowling argued that the newly envisioned Wesley Institute might help fill the gap of "well-informed Christian educators in the university". What Cowling imagines for the university is very similar to what I've come to see this year as I've served alongside Christian academics at Sydney University:

"We need lots of intelligent, mature articulate Christian philosophers of education who are equally skilled and knowledgeable in their academic discipline as in applied biblical doctrine and theology. We need hundreds of these academics in our public universities and colleges to nurture the next generation of visionary educational leaders (you could say the same about about each of the gatekeeping, public-policy shaping professions)." - Bryan Cowling, The Hole in Higher Education, Southern Cross: November 2010, pp 28-29.

As I've argued elsewhere, the university offers a unique opportunity to affect the world. I do have some misgivings about Cowling's conclusion (which you might like to ask me about in the comments), but I'm genuinely glad that I'm not alone in praying that the hearts and minds of academics would be shaped by Christ.

However, there is one sentiment in particular that I do find concerning. After calling for a hundred of thought-out academics in the university, Cowling goes on to argue:

"There needs to be career paths in public universities and colleges in this country if we are to avoid losing our best Christian minds to leadership positions in other countries."

Lose our best Christian minds to other countries? I find this to be unbelievably short-sighted and parochial. Instead of worrying about a brain drain, we should be encouraging our best Christian minds to use their opportunity in the academy to leave. For eu postgrads and staff, our vision is that when Christian academics finish at Sydney University, they'll go to other universities in less reached and less resourced parts of Australia in the world. Our vision is that they'll be people who - with all the energy that God powerfully works within them (Col 1.29) - will be shaping peoples lives in Christ. They'll be academics who can engage and speak the gospel into public policy and discourse. They'll be academics who know how to support campus ministry. And if they find themselves in a university where there is none, then they'll know how to start it.

Hording our academic minds is not the right response to the "marginalising of respectable Christian thinking in Australian society."* Taking every thought captive to obey Christ can't stop at the Australian coastline.

__*Is marginalisation the problem? For more thoughts on marginalisation see this from Chris.

Guest Post: High Culture

By Alison Moffitt. Also available here.

Within the last week, Matt and I have done three particularly cultured things:

1. We saw Bell Shakespeare's performance of Twelfth Night at the Opera House.
2. We visited Sculpture by the Sea.
3. We went to the Opera House again to see the Australian Ballet's Edge of Night.

Sculpture by the sea was alright, but the events at the Opera House really took the cake. Twelfth Night made me laugh until I cried, multiple times. And, amazingly, so did the ballet! The final piece, Molto Vivace, was a hilarious parody of traditional ballet set to some of Handel's most beautiful and upbeat string music. I was in stitches as an extremely tall ballerina entered the stage in the middle of the piece (obviously sitting on another person's shoulders, who was hidden under her enormous skirt) and demanded to be romanced by her male partner. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when she slipped away leaving her partner dancing with her torso-less skirt.

What a great week it was, but it has also got Matt and I thinking a lot about how consumerist high culture is. It's a hidden thing - when I think of consumerism, I think of things like Coke and Barbie dolls and ipods. But Shakespeare plays, ballet and other arts are products for consumption too, especially when they are marketed as an essential experience for the upper middle class.

I find great pleasure in these kinds of performances - dance and music performances especially. I love watching and interpreting and I love being moved by it all. I love crying when things are beautiful. I have cried at the beauty of a live performance of Handel's Zadok the Priest and I have bawled my eyes out watching the Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet. But sometimes I feel almost guilty that I experience these kinds of moments so frequently. Seeing a beautiful performance is one thing, but it's never that alone. It's a night out in a glittering city - lit by thousands of fossil fuel burning lights. It's an overpriced meal beforehand, served up by underpaid kitchen hands and waitstaff. We eat food that has travelled thousands of kilometres to sit on my plate. Are the farmers who produced this food in foreign countries getting paid enough to take their family to see Shakespeare? Is this foreign food depriving local farmers of a decent income? Can local farmers take their families to the Opera House? The curtain goes up and the stage lights turn on. Who says that this form of dancing is the highest form of dancing? What about dancing from other cultures? Would this many people pay this much money to see dancing from a different culture?

These high culture nights always seem to go the same way for me: the indulgence of a good meal, the elation of an indescribable performance and then the gnawing sensation as I leave the theatre: how sustainable is this thing that I have just done?

Even with these sobering thoughts, I don't think I want to stop going and enjoying these things. But I definitely don't want to stop thinking of the bigger ethical picture behind it all. At the moment, feeling the weight of each performance I see makes me appreciate these moments as a blessing. Maybe for now it is just a case of being thankful that I get to enjoy these things now, to acknowledge that they are not essential experiences to be a human (not even an upper-middle class human!) and to remember that they are not to be taken for granted.

Twelfth Night photo from Bell Shakespeare, Molto Vivace photo from the Australian Ballet.

Christians Flee Iraq

From ABC News.

A Model Academic

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a lot of things. A martyr. A resistance fighter. The hero of a fallen leader. He is an inspiring writer who cared about Christ and his church. Yet for all this, we rarely see Bonhoeffer as a model academic. Unless of course you are Marilynne Robinson.

Robinson's Bonhoeffer is more than this of course. But to understand Bonhoeffer you need to understand him as an academic. Earning a doctorate in theology by the age of 21, Bonhoeffer started to lecture in the University of Berlin by the time he was 22. He would go onto to teach in some of Germany's finest academic institutions of the time. And yet, unlike so many other academic contemproaries, Bonhoeffer understand the danger posed by Hitler's National Socialism. As a Christian in academia, Bonhoeffer was prepared to let his beliefs shape every part of his life, even if it lead him to the hangman's noose. Having read Robinson's homage to Bonhoeffer in The Death of Adam, I want to suggest three reasons why Bonhoeffer stands out as a model academic.

1. Christ at the Centre. The central focus point of Bonhoeffer's academic career, and indeed his life, was the Lordship of Jesus. He is the one with full authority. He is the one who is to be obeyed and trusted - in life and in death. It was his commitment to Christ at the centre that lead Bonhoeffer to shape everything around this reality. It was this reality that prevented Bonhoeffer from submitting to any other authority.
2. Religionless Christianity. I have to admit that although I've heard this phrase thrown around quite a bit, it's baffled me. Until I realized what it actually means. Often used as an excuse to stop 'stuffy, anachronistic liturgy' etc. Bonhoeffer used this phrase to challenge his culture. In a nation where everyone and everything assumed Christianity, Bonhoeffer used his place as an academic - in the university and the seminary - to call the assumed a priori of god in German society hypocrisy. His vocation as a scholar was to call Germany to denounce the Fuhrer and follow the true lord.
3. Christ at Gethsemane. These two points made Bonhoeffer an academic who was well thought-out and integrated in his faith and study, and willing to let this shape his dialogue with the world.

   "By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane...How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God's suffering through a life of this kind?"

   The scion of German aristocracy and one of the greatest minds of his generation, Bonhoeffer could have stayed quiet in the ivory tower of academia. He could of, but he didn't, because Christ went to Gethsemane. He would be an integrated scholar who would get involved in the world's mess. As a disciple of Christ, Bonhoeffer would stay true to his convictions. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

A brilliant mind, Bonhoeffer lived and died for what he believed in. He loved the world like his master did, and was prepared to speak up and act against injustice. And he did all this without going flaky on what lay at the centre of his life. Bonhoeffer has been an inspiration to me for over seven years now. And Robinson's reading of him has only solidified this for me. I look forward to carrying on part of his legacy in the postgrad ministry at Sydney University.

Peter Adam: When Sorry Isn't Sorry

Here a short interview calling Melbourne Anglicans to be a prophetic voice to Australia and why sorry isn't sorry without restitution. H/T Stephen Gardner.

Jeremy Begbie on Theology and the Arts

He's a flipping genius!

Book Review: Worldviews

CMS-NSW recently released the second edition of their e-journal, Landscape. This edition includes some fascinating articles, including this video that I've mentioned earlier. There's also a review that I've written of Paul Hiebert's Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change. You'll find it here.

Barth IV.1: The Scenic Tour

I've been in a reading group for the past few months. We're reading the thoroughly beautiful Church Dogmatics IV.1 by uber theologian Karl Barth. Despite the patchiness of my attendance and the density of ideas that Barth manages to fit onto one page, it's been quite enjoyable. Here are some highlights:

“The subject-matter, origin and content of the message received and proclaimed by the Christian community is at its heart the free act of the faithfulness of God in which He takes the lost cause of man, who has denied Him as Creator and in so doing ruined himself as creature, and makes it His own in Jesus Christ, carrying it through to its goal and in that way maintaining and manifesting His own glory in the world”. - Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, p. 3.

"In His Godhead, as the eternal Son of the Father, as the eternal Word, Jesus Christ never ceased to be transcendent, free, and sovereign. He did not stand in need of exaltation, nor was He capable of it. But He did as man – it is here again that we come up against that which is not self-evident in Jesus Christ. The special thing, the new thing about the exaltation of Jesus Christ is that One who is bound as we are is free, who is tempted as we are is without sin, who is a sufferer as we are is able to minister to Himself and others, who is a victim to death is alive even though He was dead, who is a servant (the servant of all servants) is the Lord. This is the secret of His humanity which is revealed in His resurrection and ascension and therefore shown retrospectively by the Evangelists to be the secret of His whole life and death. It is not simply that He is the Son of God at the right hand of the Father, the Kyrios, the Lord of His community and the Lord of the cosmos, the bearer and executor of divine authority in the Church and the world, but that He is all this as a man – as a man like we are, but a man exalted in the power of His deity. This is what makes Him the Mediator between God and man, and the One who fulfils the covenant. - Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, p. 135.

Story Telling: An Exercise

"Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching."

This will require at least 8 people. From then you you will need multiples of 4.

Number people off 1, 2, 3, 4. Then break up Mark 1.1-34 amongst the four groups this way:

1. Mark 1.1-8
2. Mark 1.9-15
3. Mark 1.16-28
4. Mark 29-34

Each person will need a pen and an A4 piece of paper - divide the paper into eight even boxes. Then each group needs to draw their section of Mark 1 (story board style) in no more than the eight boxes. Once you've done this, start telling your group's part of Mark 1 within the group (using your pictures if needed). Do this a couple of times, helping each other tell the story that is:

• clear (i.e. finding more suitable words/phrases for words/phrases the average person in your culture wouldn't understand; summarise names and places if needed, etc.)
• accurate (you can't guess the meaning to embellish the story)
• interesting (make use of body language, etc.)

OK, you're no ready to tell the story without looking at your pictures or your bible. Swap the groups around so that there is now someone from groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 in each group. Go ahead and tell the story to each other with pausing or stopping.

_________
How did you feel about hearing the bible this way? According to one set of figures, two thirds of the world are aural learners. Is this going to be an effective way to teach them the Bible? There are a basic set of of discussion questions you can use with this method (which are discussed in pairs before being shared with the whole), e.g. What did you like about the story/first impressions from the story? What questions does the story raise for you? What does the story tell us about God? What does the story tell us about humans? What are you going to change next week because of this story?

h/t To the SMBC graduate (who I can't name for security reasons) who taught this method of Bible teaching at staff equip yesterday.

Christian Academia: Books

Working alongside the eu postgrads this year, I've read a couple of books to help me understand the challenges and opportunities of Christian academia. What I've found is that they has been several books published in the last 20 years about the place of Christian academics. But for the most past they seem to be largely isolated from each other. Furthermore, most of the books are American and are written for the American context (i.e. having secular and faith-based universities). Here are some of the books I've found helpful:

• The Two Tasks of The Christian Scholar, ed. William Lane Craig & Paul M. Gould, 2007. Published as a festschrift to Charles Malik, The Two Tasks has some interesting papers by Lane Craig and others. But the cash value in this book is Malik's The Two Tasks, an address he gave in 1980. It was this address which reignited a vision for university in the American evangelical scene.

• Finding God at Harvard, ed. Kelly Monroe Kullberg, 2007. A celebration of the ministry of the Veritas Forum at Harvard, FG@H is a collection of short essays and testimonies from Christians in the Harvard community. Contributors include Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Charles Malik and others. A great insight into one of the most interesting ministries to post grads and staff in the US.

• The State of the University, Stanley Hauerwas, 2006. A collection of Hauerwas' thoughts on the university and Christianity. Although the essay's become repetitive in the middle, Hauerwas has some gold in this book, and I appreciate the way he pushes back against the usual American angst about the university. There are also some beautiful chapters about tradition and institutions, and Rowan Williams.

• Shining Like Stars, Lindsay Brown, 2006. Although not specifically about Christian academics, Brown has some inspiring stories about the Christians working in the university.

• Until Justice & Peace Embrace, Nicholas Wolterstorff, 1983. This book is also not specifically about academia. However Wolterstorff has some insightful things to say to Christian post grads and scholars, and I know some people who have found him helpful.

• Christian Academia? Matheson Russell, 2010. Originally a talk given at the Post Grad day at AnCon this year, it was later republished in VERITAS. This article lays out what the university is and how it fits into the Christian worldview.

• 10 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us When We Started Graduate School, Anna Blanch, Goanna Tree, updated 2010. Helpful advice from a Christian academic.

There is also several American and British websites with some resources on them. And Kelly Monroe Kullberg has another book, Finding God Beyond Harvard, which I'd like to read at some point. Oh, there are also some theologians like O'Donovan and McGrath who have things to say about academia in several places.

Know of any other books which have something to say about the university? I'd love to know. And at some point I should share some ideas I've had about university and the doctrine of creation...

The Periphery of Intellectual Existence

Is there such a theology of the university? Or does the university fit into the Christian worldview? One of the things I've found myself doing this year as I work alongside the EU's Post Grad faculty is to read books that try to answer these questions. As I've prayed and dreamed about where this growing ministry might go in the future, there have been a number of books I've found helpful in imagining the vocation of Christian academia.

Admittedly, most of these books are American. They appear to be written out of some American angst in solving the dilemma of having both Christian and secular universities.

One name has repeatedly popped up this year: Charles Habib Malik. A former President of the UN General Assembly, Malik was himself a giant in the mid to late 20th's public forum. Malik was a brilliant thinker who studied under Heidegger and Whitehead; he also possessed a generous orthodoxy in loving and welcoming Catholics and Protestants as well as other Orthodox Christians. Amongst contemporary Christians he perhaps most famous for this quote:

"The University is a clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world. The problem
here is for the church to realize that no greater service can it render both
itself and the cause of the gospel than to try to recapture the universities for
Christ, on whom they were all originally founded. More potently than by any
other means, change the university and you change the world."

I've recently been reading Malik. Like most of what I've read about Christian scholarly witness, what I've found in Malik is a love for the God and Father of Christ Jesus that is displayed in part through a love for the university, and more generally for knowledge and learning. He had a great vision for the university as a place that is captured for Christ. He prayed for a university that would use it's wisdom that would serve Jesus. Malik believed that it would be Evangelicals who had the most opportunity to make this happen. Here is his charge to them:

The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the
whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover that you have
not won the world. Indeed it may turn out that you have actually lost the
world.In order to create and excel intellectually, must you sacrifice or neglect
Jesus? In order to give your life to Jesus, must you sacrifice or neglect
learning and research? Is your self-giving to scholarship and learning
essentially incompatible with your self-giving to the scholarship and learning
essentially incompatible with your self-giving to Jesus Christ? These are the
ultimate questions, and I beg you to beware of thinking that they admit of glib
answers. I warn you: the right answer could be the most disturbing
....
People are in a hurry to get out of the university and start earning money
or serving the church or preaching the gospel. They have no idea of the infinite
value of spending years of leisure in conversing with the greatest minds and
souls of the past, and thereby ripening and sharpening and enlarging their
powers of thinking. The result is that the arena of creative thinking is
abdicated and vacated to the enemy. Who among evangelicals can stand up to the
great secular or naturalistic or atheistic scholars on their own terms of
scholarship and research? Who among the evangelical scholars is quoted as a
normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or
psychology or sociology or politics? ...For the sake of greater effectiveness in
witnessing to Jesus Christ himself, as well as for their own sakes, the
evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible
intellectual existence.

Malik offers a caution against the anti-intellectualism that had the potential to characterise evangelicalism in the 20th century. And if we truly believe in lives transformed by Christ, we need to seek not just the conversion of souls, but the conversion minds, hearts and hands (on which see here). As I reflect on what this might look like for EU's Post Grads, my hope is that they will bring every part of their lives under the Lordship of Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. My hope is that they will be the best post grads in the university, because they're using their intellect to serve Jesus and his church and his world; because they're engaging with other academics from across the university; because they want take every thought captive to obey Christ.

The Value of Being Integrated

Working in Christian ministry at a university, I'm becoming increasingly convinced of the importance of being integrated in your faith. There is a real depth and maturity in Christians who do this. Part of this involves connecting what you believe with your actions. Chris has posted a quote on this that I also find challenging and exciting.

[T]here is no question in my mind that Christians would be considered even more odd than they are today by virtue of what they believe and the morality by which they live, and yet because they are fully engaged in each sphere of life as individuals and communities of character, they would serve as a credible and creditable conscience of the overlapping communities they inhabit. Odd, to be sure, but no one would deny that they do extraordinary good in the world. Neither would anyone doubt that they serve the cities and communities in which they live very well." - James Davison Hunter, The Other Journal.

You can read more here.

Also, this isn't really connected, but I think it is worth reading anyway: The Problem of Joy: A Review of Sufjan Stevens’s All Delighted People EP

The Descaralization of Humanity

"For old Adam, that near-angel whose name means Earth, Darwinists have substituted a creature who shares essental attributes with whatever beast has been recently observed behaving shabbily in the state of nature. Genesis tries to describe human exceptionalism, and Darwinism tries to discount it. Since Malthus, to go back no farther, the impulse has been vigorously present to descralise humankind by making it appropriately the prey of unmitigated struggle. This descaralization - fully as absolute with respect to predator as to prey - has required the disengagement of conscience, among other things. It has required the grand-scale disparagement of the traits that distinguish us from the animals - and the Darwinists take the darkest possible view of animals. What has been rejected is the complexity of the Genesis account, in favour of a simplicity so extreme it cannot - by design, perhaps - deal with that second term in the Biblical view of humankind, our destiny, that is, the consequences of our actions. It is an impressive insight, in a narrative so very ancient as the Genesis account of the Fall, that the fate of Adam is presented as the fate of the whole living world. I have heard people comfort themselves with the thought of the perdurability of cockroaches, a fact which does not confute the general truth of the view that our species is very apt to put an end to life on this planet." - Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam

Does this make us distinct, exceptional? We who were created a little lower than the angels are able to end all life on earth.

Socioeconomic Snake Handling

I've started reading Marilynne Robinson's The Death of Adam. Robinson, who is a brilliant writer, has produced this collection of essays as a lament over decline in humanism and history. what is particularly concerning to her is the way history is taught now, such that we can throw round words like Calvinism or Darwinism without ever looking at a word Calvin or Darwin wrote. In response, Robinson takes us back to the original texts - texts which she claims to have foundational documents to contemporary American identity. I've read the first chapter, on Darwinism, and particularly appreciated Robinson's approach. She doesn't take issue with the science of evolution, but offers a sustained critique of the philosophy or ideology of Darwinism.

'What magic is there about the word "modern" that makes us assume what we think has no effect on what we do? Bryan wrote, "Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future." This being true, how could a cult of war recruit many thousands of intelligent people? And how can we now, when the fragility of the planet is every day more obvious, be giving ourselves over to an ethic of competition and self-seeking, a sort of socioeconomic snake handling, where faith in a theory makes us contemptuous of very obvious perils? And where does this theory get its seemingly unlimited power over our moral imaginations, when it can rationalize stealing candy from babies - or, a more contemporary illustration, stealing medical care or schooling from babies - as readily as any bolder act? Why does it have the stature of science and the chic of iconoclasm and the vigor of novelty when it is, pace Nietzsche, only mythified, respectablized resentment, with a long, dark history behind it?'

Robinson understands Darwinism as part of the larger picture. It's part of the enlightenment project of progress. It is a dehumanising idea, which, when taken and applied to politics or economics is destructive. It has enslaved to humanity to economic selfishness and ecological tragedy as we seek to exploit and take advantage of the world and each other. How much of the world has been destroyed in the name of progress?

Man in Black

Worthy of Worship

"If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence—that God would not be worthy of worship…. The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only it comes from God… My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many… in the West…. [But] it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die… [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind." - Miroslav Volf

What Australian Politics Looks Like

Make sure you turn the translator on...

My Country, Your Country

As we approach the first anniversary of Peter Adam's Australia: Whose Land? lecture, Alison has coincidentally finished her three part series: My Country, Your Country. It's worth checking out, particulary for the final post in the series. Here's an excert:

One quote made me stop in my tracks. It was a woman talking about how she had never really understood who she was because she had never been able to be with her own family in their own place. I wanted to be sick on the spot. Only fifteen minutes beforehand, I had been lost in my own memories of family, and the place that my family felt it belonged to. At what cost were these memories created!? Which Aborignal people were removed from Ebeneezer so that white people could farm? Which indigenous families were torn apart so that I could grow up safely with my own?

Under John Howard, people said that the stolen generation was not this generation's fault. Maybe that is true. I personally can't take any direct responsiblity for destoying countless Aborignal families.

But I was blind to the way that I personally have benefitted from the pain that many many others have suffered. That afternoon at Reconciliation Place, I realised. I am truly sorry.

You'll find the series here:

1. Thought 1
2. Thought 2
3. Hard Hitting Thoughts
   

Feast of the Transfiguration

Guest Post: Getting Social Policy Back on the Election Agenda

By Alison Moffitt. Also available here.

The Policy Unit released a report yesterday that is getting tons of coverage, which is very exciting for us. Nothing like a political media release in the middle of an election campaign. Unfortunately the kinds of issues it raises are not issues that the pollies are engaging with this time around. None of them have talked extensively about social policy or looking after marginalised, until Julia Gillard's announcement today about a new disability insurance scheme.

The report we released focused on three groups in society who are particularly vulnerable:

• people who access Emergency Relief (food, clothing, bills assistance etc);
• African refugees, many of whom struggle to settle because of housing problems; and
• ageing parent carers, that is, older people who are looking after adult children with disabilities. Many of these parents are ageing and developing their own health issues, which makes their caring responsibilities even harder.

So many outlets have run with the story. It's been rad. The best two I have seen so far are:

1. This article from the Sydney Morning Herald (If you don't read anything else, make sure you read this one.)
2. The news story put together by ABC TV, which aired at midday today and hopefully will be on air on tonight's news too. (My colleagues and I are in it!)

Other places to pick up the story include Channel 7, 2UE radio, ABC radio and Sydney Anglican Media.

If you can, please check out the report. These are very important issues to think about, especially if you live in Australia. You can find it here. There is a link to download the report at the bottom of the page.

How to Listen to the World

H/T Byron.

A Regional Refugee Processing Centre in...?

For the past fortnight public discourse in Australia has been dominated by the location of a potential regional processing centre for refugees. The Federal Government proposed Timor-Leste as their preferred location (a somewhat surprising move, least of all to the Timorese Government); the Opposition has promoted Nauru, home of the Howard Government's Pacific Solution.

But I would like to propose a third location for a regional processing centre: Canberra.

As one of the G20 nations, Australia is uniquely placed within our region to host a facility like this, much more so than either Timor-Leste or Nauru. Canberra is also an attractive location because of the Federal Government's executive power in the ACT.

Building a regional processing centre in Canberra would make an excellent contribution to other Government policies. Particularly what I have in mind is the Nation Building program that is currently underway. Canberra's refugee centre would clearly fulfill the goal of the economic stimulus plan: boost local infrastructure and support jobs. This is a win for Australia and the Federal Government. By building in Canberra, we would be supporting the local economy and saving "Aussie jobs" from being moved overseas.

And as a temporary site until the centre is constructed, the Government could use The Lodge. I've heard that's going to be empty until after the next election...

Death in America

According to Stanley Hauerwas, Protestantism in America is dying. Uniquely, America is the "exemplification of constructive Protestant social thought"; the first country where Protestantism did not need to define itself against Roman Catholicism. Bonhoeffer described this as "Protestantism without Reformation."

Which is why Hauerwas believes we are now witnessing the death of American Protestantism. Protestantism has been closely linked to the American national identity, "For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country." This has project has been very successful - too successful according to Hauerwas, so that it is dying of it's own success.

"More Americans may go to church than their counterparts in Europe, but the churches to which they go do little to challenge the secular presumptions that form their lives or the lives of the churches to which they go. For the church is assumed to exist to reinforce the presumption that those that go to church have done so freely. The church's primary function, therefore, is to legitimate and sustain the presumption that America represents what all people would want to be if they had the benefit of American education and money...It is impossible to avoid the fact that American Christianity is far less than it should have been just to the extent that the church has failed to make clear that America's god is not the God that Christians worship. We are now facing the end of Protestantism. America's god is dying. Hopefully, that will leave the church in America in a position where it has nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. So I am hopeful that God may yet make the church faithful - even in America." - Stanley Hauerwas, The Death of America's God

Hauerwas is very pessimistic about the affect of American synthesis between evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. I'm not sure if this is what will come to pass, but there would be ramifications not only for American Christians, but for the church universal. America has been a powerhouse for Christianity for several decades now. Most missionaries around the world come from the US. Many resources (academic and popular) are produced in the US. Would a demise in American Christianity adversly affect world wide Christianity? Or would it provide the church in the Global South with the opportunity to step-up, and as Hauerwas hopes, grow the American church in faithfulness?

Thoughts?

Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

Here is an extract from Clarke and Dawe 's take on asylum seekers. You can read the transcript or watch it here.

BRYAN DAWE: Well we might leave that one and move on I think. What percentage of the world's asylum seekers applications were made last year to Australia?

JOHN CLARKE: 98 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No that is incorrect.

JOHN CLARKE: 87 per cent?

BRYAN DAWE: No it was 0.5 of one per cent, Iggy.

JOHN CLARKE: Gee

BRYAN DAWE: Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

JOHN CLARKE: First!

BRYAN DAWE: No, think about this Iggy, half of one per cent of the applications made in the world were made in applications to come Australia. So where did that rank us amongst world nations?

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah, Second!

BRYAN DAWE: No, 33rd

JOHN CLARKE: Oh well a lot of countries are richer, you know, the rich countries can take lots of migrants.

BRYAN DAWE: No, no, Iggy if you take the GDP into account we're actually 70th. OK, what percentage of Australia's immigrants come by boat?


JOHN CLARKE: Oh about 98 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: No, down a bit

JOHN CLARKE: 83 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: Down a fair bit.

JOHN CLARKE: 66 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No down from 2 per cent

JOHN CLARKE: About 50 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No. I think this next question could help you Iggy. How do most people who emigrate to Australia arrive?

JOHN CLARKE: Oh they come in boats, sort of really small boats with a quite a high front.

BRYAN DAWE: No, the vast majority arrive by plane.

JOHN CLARKE: No they don't they come in boats I've seen them on television they're in little boats with quite a high front, they're sort of low in the water.

BRYAN DAWE: Hey Iggy have you ever seen an aeroplane on television?

JOHN CLARKE: Well, yeah I've been on an aeroplane.

BRYAN DAWE: And when was that Iggy?

JOHN CLARKE: When I came to Australia.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct!

JOHN CLARKE: Oh good I've got one right.

BRYAN DAWE: Which group has the highest rate of success in establishing that they are genuine immigrants: the ones who come on planes or the ones who come in boats?

JOHN CLARKE: The ones who come in planes.

BRYAN DAWE: No the ones who come here on boats.

JOHN CLARKE: Oh do they? I did well then.

BRYAN DAWE: You did very well. Final question Iggy. What's the point of moving the big processing centre for the boatpeople from Christmas Island to East Timor?

JOHN CLARKE: I've got no idea.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct and after that round you are still living in a country which was invaded in the first place and in which you've overstayed your visa.

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah well we won't be having any more of that will we?

BRYAN DAWE: No.

JOHN CLARKE: Not now I'm here.

H/T Byron Pictures: (1) From the ABC 7.30 report website; (2) www.syndesmos.net

On Scarcity and Generosity

"Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never "enough." But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need. Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need. The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared. The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations." - Stanley Hauerwas, Can Greed Be Good? from the newly launched ABC religion website.

On the Need for Science to be Human

"Science needs to remain human in that sense, to be self-aware of itself as human science, aware of incompleteness, aware of the joy of non-fulfilment. And at that level at least, science is bound to be operating with an image of humanity itself as a life form attuned to truth and to growth. Metaphysics, perhaps, or even worse, faith; and yet it is hard to see how the real life of the scientific enterprise can be sustained without that image of what is properly and joyfully and fulfillingly human. Recognised or not, the resonance of this with the life of faith is worth noting. Faith, our Christian faith, presupposes that we are indeed as human beings attuned to truth and to growth, made by a God whose love has designed us for joy, and discovering that this directedness towards joy mysteriously comes alive when we look into the living truth, the living wisdom, of the face of a Christ who drives us back again and again to question ourselves so that we stay alive."

- Rowan Williams, A Homily for the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society.

Philosophy Readings?

My friend Tim Smartt is running a seminar at AnCon on Christianity and Philosophy.

He's looking for recommendations on what to read for the seminar.

I think you should head over to his impressive blog - insane angels - and make a recommendation.

IFES and Evangelicalism

Several church history books I've read recently have commented on the remarkable resilience of the worldwide evangelical movement. The notice that evangelicalism was particularly strong following World War Two, but was predicted to die out by the 1980's with the rise of western/liberal culture. Instead, evangelicalism seems to have grown and strengthened. The historical commentators usually give several reasons for this, but one that is often overlooked is IFES, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

IFES is the global association of national movements which in turn are constituted by groups like the EU. IFES was formed by 10 national movements in 1947; it now has more than 150 national members. According to Billy Graham:

"Everywhere I go I meet Christian leaders whose lives have been touched by IFES' emphasis on biblical evangelism and discipleship.”

I've been preparing a prayer meeting for IFES at AnCon. The more I've read about IFES, the more I've realised that they have a strong claim for a growing and influential evangelical movement. There are over 500,000 students connected to IFES groups. According to the 2008 IFES Annual Report:

World Vision estimates that up to 90% of their leaders worldwide have been formed through an IFES affiliated movement. In some countries in French speaking Africa, for example, up to 80% of church leaders say the same.

If you want to know more about IFES, I recommend you read the short and accessible book by Lindsay Brown, Shining Like Stars.

A Letter to Kevin

Dear Kevin,

It was a surreal experience to watch you in tears on television today. It reminded of a day in '91, when another Labor PM cried at press conference having being ousted by his party.

You came to my attention a few months before you toppled 'Bomber' Beazley when you wrote about Faith in Politics. You lauded Dietrich Bonhoeffer for resisting totalitarian power and offered a vision of Australia that matched his integrity:

'The time has well and truly come for a vision for Australia not limited by the narrowest of definitions of our national self-interest. Instead, we need to be guided by a new principle that encompasses not only what Australia can do for itself, but also what Australia can do for the world.'

Little did we know that you would soon be in a position to make Australia the light on a hill you dreamed it should be. I was in Parliament House the day you became the Opposition Leader, and started you meteoric rise to power. Your high numbers in the polls was matched by the higher moral authority you took in the campaign, annihilating The Coalition.

Your election on my 23rd birthday seemed to offer Australia a fresh start, as we emerged from several long years under the Howard Government. Kevin07 very quickly turned into Kevin 24/7, as your punishing workload delivered: an apology to the stolen generation; ratifying Kyoto; workplace reform; a briefly more humane response to refugees; leading the nation through the GFC; attempted tax and health reform; an 'education revolution'; withdrawing troops from Iraq; social inclusion; an increased regard in the community of nations...all in two and a half years.

But it all started to unravel when your rhetoric - well actually when your rhetoric became incomprehensible and bore no resemblance to the visionary oratory of 2007. Your government backed down on core election promises like climate change and refugees and that new federalism you once promised. You had seemed so unassailable, but with a rabid new leader on the other side of the treasury benches the polls turned against you. And so did your party. Out-flanked by the factions you had banished on your accession to the top-job, your were whacked by your deputy and a fellow Nambour boy; a wasted PM.

It happened very suddenly didn't it? I'm sure you feel it was sudden. How is it that the outrage over 1975 hasn't prevented the backroom party hacks from removing the elected PM?

So it is that I sit here tonight with a familiar melancholy feeling looking over a letter a received when I was seven. I hope you too enjoy spending more time with your family.

Sincerely,

Matt

Resurrection and Science

"By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it..." Rev. 21.24

I studied an Arts degree at Sydney Uni. To be more precise, I majored in Ancient and Modern History. So, as I'm back at uni now serving alongside the postgrad/staff faculty of the SUEU, I don't pretend to know much of what the science guys I meet with are saying when they start talking physics. An I'm often annoyed and frustrated by the arrogant, modernist faith placed in scientific knowledge and achievement. It's a mean metanarrative right?

However, a fascinating thought was explained for me tonight as a talked to a friend. Is the resurrection's affirmation of creation (c.f. Oliver O'Donovan's Resurrection and Moral Order) also an affirmation of scientific inquiry into creation? My friend has written a 2000 word paper on this topic, which I'm yet to read, but if anyone else has thought more seriously about this than I have, I'd love to hear what you think. Especially if there are any scientists out there.

NT Historicity Readings

Here are the books I'm recommending in my AnCon seminar (Ancon, if you're interested, currently has over 630 registrations). Are there books any that you would add, or subtract?

Short and easy to give away
Andrew Errington, Can We Trust What the Gospels say about Jesus? Matthias Media, Sydney, 2009. Andrew has a MA in early Christian and Jewish Studies and is a former EU president.

Murray Smith, Jesus: All About Life, The Bible Society, Sydney, 2009. Murray is currently completing a PhD on Jesus and Early Christianity. He’s also a former EU president. Reviewed here and here.


If you want to know more
Paul Barnett, Is the New Testament History?, revised edition, Aquila Press, Sydney, 2003.

John Dickson, The Christ Files: How historians know what they know about Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2006.

John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life, Lion Books, Oxford, 2008.

John Dickson, A Spectator’s Guide to Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2005.

John Dickson, Life of Jesus course guidebook, Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney, 2009.

Audio
John Dickson, Jesus: Reconsider? SUEU re:Jesus festival 2008, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

Chris Forbers, Does the Historical Jesus Have a Leg to Stand On? SUEU Think Weeks 2006, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

More serious books
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Erdmans, Grand Rapids, 2008.

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, second edition, IVP, Leicester, 2008.

Publish or Perish

One of the challenges for Christian post grads and academics is academia's culture to 'Publish or Perish'. One American academic shares her experiences of this culture:

When I was in graduate school, I was taught by a number of excellent limnologists. The mental model we were given of the academic life was that of a cohort of fish, something called “young of year.” As a fish cohort, we were supposedly thrown into a lake with resources where we had to compete. The best would get more resources, work harder, grow faster, and eventually be the fittest. These would succeed and get the best academic jobs, get the best grants, and become leaders in their professional societies.

One professor declared in a seminar, “In the end, what stands is your publication record. Jobs may come and go, spouses may come and go, but at the end, what you have is your publication record.”

This astonished me at the time and does not at all reflect my worldview. Although this person was an eminent scientist whom I highly respected, I felt empowered to strongly disagree. I disagree with his statement and with the “young of year” metaphor. I am not in competition with my cohort of fish friends, trying hard to be the one with the most papers at the end of my life. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons many women drop out of the scientific world after getting their Ph.D.s is that they often do not accept that as a life goal.

- Dorothy Boorse, In Focus: Asking the Right Question: Reflections on Life Teaching at a Small College.

Instead, Boorse offers an alternative approach:

I do not look at scientific productivity as the only measure of success. Rather than asking, “Am I doing everything I thought I would do?” or “Am I doing as much in my field as other people?” I suggest we ask, “Am I contributing to the world?” and “Does my life work?” A Christian can ask, “Am I doing what I think God is calling me to do with my talents and abilities?”

Do you pray for Christians in academia, that their 'attitude would be the same as Christ Jesus...' (cf. Phil 2.5 ff).

h/t Goannatree

Disciples in the University and the Church?

"We know that the universities which set a pattern for all other universities were all founded on Jesus Christ, and we know that foundation has now in practice become a relic of the past. A Christian critique of the university raises the question of why this has happened. Is it a natural phenomenon? Was it an inevitable development? What were the ultimate spiritual causes behind it? Does it really signify progress? Progress from what, to what? Is it reversible? What are its consequences upon the whole destiny of man?

Is it a necessary condition for these great universities becoming so overwhelmingly leading in all domains of research, learning, scholarship, discovery and invention that they unmoor themselves altogether from Jesus Christ? Are scientific progress and the worship of Jesus Christ incompatible? Could a saint earn a Nobel Prize in science, and could a Nobel Prize winner in physics or chemistry or medicine or economics fall on his knees and say the Credo and mean it exactly as Athanasius meant it and as the church means it today? Is it a mere matter of division of labor, so that the university will attend exclusively to matters intellectual and scientific and the church exclusively to matters moral and spiritual? Does this division of labor make no substantive difference to the very process of science and thought to which the university dedicates itself, and to the truth value of its findings?"

- Charles Habib Malik, A Christian Critique of the University, 1982. Dr Malik had a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard, and over fifty honorary doctorates from such universities as Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Notre Dame, and Freiburg. He was also the President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1958-59.

Matheson Russell will be talking about a life of discipleship in the University and the Church a the Post Grad day at AnCon.

Registration closes on Wednesday 16 June. If you haven't registered yet, head to www.ancon.org.au.