Following Christ 2008: Social Sciences Track
Welcome to the Social Sciences Track informational page for Following Christ 2008! Read here about our plans for the program and get to know those who are leading the track.
You may be interested in participating in this track if your field is anthropology, archaeology, economics, linguistics, political science, psychology, or sociology. Other tracks of interest, depending on your focus, may include Business or Government & Public Policy.
Return to the Tracks page to consider other options available to you. |
Track Leaders
George Yancey, Chair
Dr. George Yancey is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. He is the author of One Body, One Spirit: Principles of Successful Multiracial Churches (InterVarsity Press), co-author of United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (Oxford Press) and the co-editor with his wife (Sherelyn) of Just Don’t Marry One: Interracial Dating, Marriage and Parenting (Judson Press). He has also authored several research articles on the topics of interracial marriage and multiracial churches and is the founder of Reconciliation Consulting — a Christian business that aids churches in dealing with racial diversity. His newest book is Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility (InterVarsity Press).
Jason Ingalls, Point
Jason Ingalls serves as an InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries campus staff member at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He received a B.A. in Theological Studies from John Brown University and an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He has served GFM since Summer 2006, and lives in Nashville with his wife, Monique. Jason and Monique attended Following Christ 2002 as seniors in college and were profoundly shaped by the experience. He hopes the Social Sciences track will be a place where frank discussion leads to a deeper understanding of faith, vocation, scholarship, and the delegates’ respective places in today’s university and the world.
Program Summary
Human flourishing in the Bible and Christian theology is social in construction. It is a dialectical process that propels (and is propelled by) a flourishing Christian community and flows out of ethical social relationships with God and with our neighbors. This track considers this multi-faceted human flourishing from the diverse perspectives of several social science disciplines.
Our disciplines provide unique windows into our conference theme. We study many different things: the interior life, where we came from, who we are, how we relate materially, how and why we speak to one another, how we organize ourselves into societies and cultures. From the view of our common subjects (human individuals and groups) and our common faith, we will discuss several questions:
- What is human flourishing?
- What do social science perspectives teach us about human flourishing and human failure?
- How do humans use power to organize themselves?
- What is the relationship of justice and injustice to human flourishing?
- In what ways do our disciplines open avenues for reflection on the Gospel and its message for the human person-in-relation?
- How can we use the skills developing in these disciplines to impact our social world?
As we consider the topic from the perspective of our disciplines, we will also reflect on what it means to flourish where God has planted us professionally and personally. Those in social sciences often find themselves in social environments that can have hostility or antipathy towards people of faith. How to not merely survive but to thrive in that environment is a challenge for all Christians in the social sciences. We hope you will leave with a renewed sense of God’s calling on your life.
Track Presenters
Sally Schwer Canning
Robert J. Priest is professor of mission and anthropology and director of the Ph.D. program in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; and an M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago. Among his publications, “Missionary Positions: Christian, Modernist, Postmodernist” appeared in the leading international anthropology journal Current Anthropology 42:26-68, and explored ways in which Christians are represented and silenced in the academy. Fourteen invited respondents interacted with Priest on issues raised. His more recent publications include This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity and Christian Faith (Oxford University Press, 2007, co-edited with Alvaro Nieves) and several edited collections on the subject of short-term missions. He enjoys collaborating in research and writing with his wife Kersten, a sociology professor at Wheaton College, with whom he shares many research interests and the joy of parenting four children.
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