http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/comments-rss.php Comments RSS for Faculty en-us Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:04 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/how-can-we-change-the-university#com1997 How Can We Change the University?

"I need to read in detail, but at first glance, there is a huge and very influential part of the Christian population at a university being ignored - the Staff: Facilities, Housing, Food Service, Student Centers, Student Groups, etc... These have huge influence on the University and impact culture, faith and values MUCH more directly than Faculty. (I happen to work in this area at a University) It is the Staff that feed and care for the students. We deal with real emotional and life issues, as well as clean up the real life tragedies that occur at a University including student death. Clearly, we need to include this population along with faculty, especially regarding issues of faith and influence. In fact, I would suggest that we start with staff and provide leadership from both faculty and staff where possible...."  read on » ]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:04 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/how-to-be-busy-productive-and-happy#com1993 Audio: How to Be Busy, Productive, and Happy

"am a very busy person ,this subject thrills me alot.cos i love to be happy too.kudos'i need to hear more...."  read on » ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:39:53 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/leading-a-balanced-life-of-excellence#com1991 Leading a Balanced Life of Excellence

"I suggest that we try to avoid the well-intentioned but erroneous and intolerable stress placed upon Christians in education by fellow Christians who seem to suggest that scholarship is a religiously neutral enterprise, not really something that is honouring to God, and that Christian academics therefore need to busy themselves with church activities and generous financial giving in order to really be justified as being “sold out for the Lord.” This creates intellectual schizophrenia and the misunderstanding that causes Dr Kaita to encourage his fellow academics to avoid going “the whole hog” in Christian activity. In an age when it is almost universally recognised that scholarship of every sort is a deeply religious activity, we contend that what every academic does in the university is a deeply committed, faith-based activity, and that for us as Christian academics, done aright our academic activities can also be fully-fledged acts of worship and service that delight the heart of God. Exercising the spiritual gifts sure does mean prayer, Bible study, and joining in church services with God’s people, but we contend that it also means the research, teaching, and interaction that we do in the academy on a daily basis. Being “sold out for God” (and I have concerns about using economic rationalist metaphors) is in fact what we are called to do. Listen as Jesus remind us of the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:32: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Spending all our hours on research, to the neglect of our families or church life, is not a faithful walk. It is not going all out for God. And spending all our energies on church life, and not bringing our scholarly activity under the lordship of Christ, is not being all out for God either. Being sold out for God is apportioning and using our time and energies wisely in all that we do as deliberate acts of worship and service to Him. At around the same time as receiving Dr Kaita’s article from IVP, where Christians are exhorted to accept the intellectual and structural constraints of the university system and just get in there, work hard, and seek after tenure as the way to successful living as an academic, I also read an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald (27 August 2009) reporting on a speech by secular university president , Vice Chancellor Steven Schwartz, entitled “Unis must rediscover wisdom”. Schwartz was encouraging academics and students alike to reject the status quo in universities that sees educational institutions as training centers that just prepare young people to enter the job market. He urged those involved with universities to reject this utilitarian worldview, and work to rediscover the vision of seeking after wisdom as being at the heart of the academic enterprise. Which of these two perspectives do you believe is closer to the heart of God? The one that says conform to the university’s view of success and chase academic advancement as the means to a fulfilled scholarly life, or the one which says think through the presuppositions and values of your university, stand against the flow if necessary, and ensure that what you are doing is encouraging the search for wisdom and fulfilled humanity rather than mere skill acquisition and job creation. In conclusion therefore, I appreciate Dr Kaita in joining with us in wrestling with the issue of how best to honour God in all that we do. However, I do not accept the ways and means that he suggests that we adopt in order to achieve this goal. Acceptance of the status quo is dangerous, pre-emptive capitulation. Prioritising one’s life around the notion of success rather than faithfulness may be an embodiment of the American dream, but it is not a Biblical one. Dividing life into the sacred and the secular by seeing scholarly research and teaching as being outside of our Christian worship and service to God is a dualism that is typical of much of contemporary evangelical Christianity, but which seems to me to be inconsistent with what I understand about biblical truth. Our calling is to engage the culture, challenge the idols of our time, and seek to be faithful unfolders of God’s majestic world in every human endeavour. Or, as the Christian Faculty Fellowship in one university puts it, as Christians working in tertiary educational settings, we seek “in the very exercise of our [academic] calling, to bear witness to Christ in his gentle yet liberating rule”...."  read on » ]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:30:26 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/leading-a-balanced-life-of-excellence#com1990 Leading a Balanced Life of Excellence

"I’m also not sure that I would share Robert’s exegesis of II Timothy 4:7 where Dr Kaita seems to suggest that Paul is encouraging Christians not to “go the whole hog” in some Christian activity. I understand providing hospitality; or recreation with the family that celebrates God’s goodness and humanity’s stewardly lordship over creation; or preaching in church; or raising children; or engaging in scholarship at Princeton, - to all be profoundly Christian activities. Activities over which, when faithfully executed, God can say to us as he did to Naaman through Elisha when Naaman had to go into his king’s pagan temple: “My shalom be with you” (2 Kings 5:19). At the core of my concern is the inherent sacred/secular dualism that seems to be creeping into Robert’s analysis of the situation. It’s my contention that writing a well-prepared, coherent, research paper that has the aim of applying our insights to a better understanding of God’s world, is as profoundly an act of faithful worship and service to God as is singing in the church choir or financially supporting missionaries working in the urban jungles of Asia or Latin America. It is using the gifts and talents God has given us ultimately in service of Him. It’s similar to Eric Liddell’s comment that “God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.” It was in his running that God was pleased. I sense that God’s delight was just as real on the practice circuits of the sheep trails in rural Scotland or on the running track of the 1924 Paris Olympics, as it was in Liddell’s later life when he went as a missionary to China. I might be wrong, but I believe that in every circumstance of life, on Tuesday in the research laboratory, on Thursday in the shopping mall, on Saturday on the sports field, and on Sunday in the pew, as our Christian service, we are called to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may understand and give effect to God’s will in our lives (Romans 12). As Christians, we are called to do all that we do as unto the Lord. We are called to bring every thought into subjection to Jesus Christ. We are called to recognise that the earth and the fullness thereof (including physics and educational structures) are the Lord’s. We are called to live faithfully before Him in all that we do, to celebrate His lordship over academia as much as in town planning, sermon preparation, home-making, or recreation. (cont.)..."  read on » ]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:29:59 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/leading-a-balanced-life-of-excellence#com1989 Leading a Balanced Life of Excellence

"I appreciate the desire of Robert Kaita to encourage his readers, who are Christian scholars working in universities, to be encouraged to simultaneously serve Christ and achieve academic success. By this, we take it that he means to assist such folks live lives that are of faithful service and worship to God, without becoming spiritually burnt out on the one hand, or unnecessarily discouraged in their academic vocation on the other. In this regard, we find his reminder for Christian academics to be active in nurturing the spiritual gifts, which he infers are personal prayer, Bible study, and involvement in the life of the institutional church, to be timely and helpful. We do indeed need to be very careful how we approach the urge not to attend the Sunday evening worship service or the Wednesday lunchtime Christian Faculty Fellowship meeting because we have too many term papers to grade, or because the deadline for our next academic journal article submission is fast approaching. However, whilst agreeing with Robert’s concern for his fellow Christian academics, we would urge him to re-evaluate the core perspective from which he operates, which seems to be an acceptance of the academic status quo and the division of life into apparently religiously neutral academic pursuits on the one hand and worship and service to God through spiritual activities on the other. We would submit that scholarship, and our role in it, is deeply religious, whether we are talking about physics, or human performance studies - as Ray Mellichamp’s colleague Phil Bishop demonstrated during his tenure at the University of Alabama. We would further contend that the role of a Christian scholar (but also non-Christan scholars for that matter) is not merely to accept the status quo of the advancement and success categories as defined by the contemporary university system. It may be “the system”, but if the system is wrong, then we need to work with others to seek to change it. To do otherwise is to engage in pre-emptive capitulation which is to give the game away before we have even started. The motivating force for Christians to “publish or perish” should not be primarily to achieve tenure (a structure which itself I believe to be problematic), but should be to faithfully exercise our scholarly gifts as an act of service and worship to God and for the betterment of His world. Faithfulness to God, rather than an obsessive desire to climb the academic success ladder, should be our motivating force. (cont.)..."  read on » ]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:29:24 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/leading-a-balanced-life-of-excellence#com1981 Leading a Balanced Life of Excellence

"Thanks for the article! It was helpful. I am also a physicist. I got my degree from Cornell in 1985. I can definitely relate to a lot of what you said. I am fairly introverted and deal with similar issues. I am trying to live out my Christian life and family life in addition to my academic life. Thanks again for the article. It was helpful! Dave..."  read on » ]]> Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:52:38 -0500 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/2009-midwest-faculty-conference-slideshow#com1947 2009 Midwest Faculty Conference Slideshow

"This is phenomenal! Really captures the memory of our time together this summer. Good work, Mike!..."  read on » ]]> Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:28:05 -0500 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/two-prayers#com1894 Two Prayers

"I thank whoever provided these prayers. There is a depth and timelessness in the prayers of our church fathers and mothers that I need but do not have in myself...."  read on » ]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:29:45 -0500 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/partners-in-the-gospel#com1886 Partners in the Gospel

"This is a clear and simple tool that is a great asset for anyone new to working with faculty. Especially good is Appendix A that gives ideas on how to find contacts...."  read on » ]]> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:47:38 -0600 http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/faculty/resource/la-tours-the-new-born-child#com1866 The New-born Child by Georges de La Tour

"This picture strips away all the unnecessary detail and leaves us with two women adoring a new born child. We could argue whether this is the Christ child - the light pervading the scene suggests it is. But perhaps its significance lies in that it could be the Christ child or it could be any other loved and treasured new born - it is a universal experience that resonates with all those who have adored new babies...."  read on » ]]> Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:13:43 -0600