Category: Academic Integration

I just ran across a very interesting article, How To Become Educated Despite Going to College (yet another entry from the engaging J. Budziszewski

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).

In this dialog, the fictional Professor Theophilus recommends the very real Student Self-Reliance Project from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (read a somewhat hostile evaluation of ISI’s aims).

They have some absolutely extraordinary guides to books and scholars that you should acquaint yourself with–and these are books and scholars who don’t often make it onto your classroom reading lists.

I just ran across a very interesting website by Clifford Pickover which purports to rank the best and worst people in all of history.

Here are his picks:

Evil People
1. Tomas de Torquemada
2. Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler)
3. Adolph Hitler
4. Ivan the Terrible
5. Adolph Eichmann
6. Pol Pot
7. Mao Tse-tung
8. Idi Amin
9. Joseph Stalin
10. Genghis Khan
11. H. H. Holmes
12. Gilles de Rais

Good People
1. Buddha
2. Baha’u’llah
3. Dalai Lama
4. Jesus Christ
5. Moses
6. Mother Theresa
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. Martin Luther King
9. Mohandas Gandhi 

Obviously, we as Christians would radically differ in his assessment of Jesus, and I personally have questions about the relative ranking of many individuals on his list. Still, the exercise is an intriguing one: who would you rank as the most righteous and most vile people of all time?

I was interested to stumble across this article: No Ordinary Path: Columbia doctoral student Lauren Winner outs herself as a Christian linked on the Christianity Today blog.

There are two things that caught my interest:
a) this young lady had a remarkable encounter with Jesus
b) it’s considered newsworthy that a doctoral candidate at a prestitgious school believes in God

Why is this newsworthy? In her words: “It is not clear,” she says carefully, “that it is intellectually respectable to be religious. And publishing a spiritual autobiography might further undercut my ability to be taken seriously.”

Don’t worry, sister–you’re not alone! There are many smart and well-educated companions on your journey of faith with Jesus.

One of the greatest challenges we face as believers is living authentically Christian lives. It’s very easy to be spiritual on Sunday and at official religious functions, but it’s much harder to study in a Christian way, to work with a Christian work ethic, to conduct ourselves at the dinner table in a manner that pleases Christ.

But such things are the very essence of our faith.

If our faith does not manifest in the small things, it’s virtually irrelevant how it manifests in the big things.

Why all these thoughts on holistic Christianity? This blog entry discussing ethics among Christian businesspeople. You ought to read it.

And then you ought to ask yourself whether or not you’re different as a student because of your faith in Jesus. If you’re not, then you’ve not fully internalized your faith.

What do I mean? Here are some off-the-cuff reflections on what it means to be a student to the glory of Jesus:
* You actually seek to master the material.
* You love truth and seek it passionately, even going beyond the bounds of an assignment to acquire it.
* You do assigned work whether your professor will check it or not.
* You seek to make knowledge practical (turn it into wisdom).
* You’re a pleasure to have in class (both for the prof and other students).
* When you disagree with the prof you do so in an agreeable way.

There are tons more, but these are a few that pop into my head…

One of our chief goals is to integrate our biblical and academic perspectives on life. If you think it’s hard as an undergrad, just wait for grad school!

To help you out, Leader U has a special set of articles related to Christian scholarship.

Some that caught my eye: 

Check out On Integrating Your Faith for a brief set of relections on combining your scholarship and spirituality. I liked the innovated idea of tithing your research.

I was also struck by The Calling of a Christian Professor (meaning a Christian professor at a secular school). If that’s what God is calling you to do, check it out!

Also consider The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. George Marsden argues that “Christian perspectives should make at least as much difference as feminist perspectives.” Hear, hear!

Finally, you might want to check out Toward Integrating Your Life and Work for a challenge towards viewing scholarship as a vocation that matters to God.