Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!

Dr Jonathan Chaplin speaks on Christian faith and the point of scholarship.

Starting from Romans chapter 12, this talk considers the role and distinctiveness of Christian scholarship. Using a framework of Creation, Fall and Redemption, Jonathan considers what it means to know that all scholarship is investigating Christ's world, but that world is marred by sinfulness acting at personal, academic and institutional levels, and yet the knowledge of Christ's redemption calls Christian scholars to be faithful witnesses to the universal Lordship of Christ in their own context. Christian scholars need to consider their own calling from a spectrum of possibilities.

Jonathan recommends two books on this topic:

• Charles Malik The Christian Critique of the University (out of print)
• George Marsden The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

© 2009 Jonathan Chaplin