Scholarships Available for Colleagues
Do some of your colleagues struggle to afford Society membership? Remember, when inviting your friends to join our Society, to encourage them to apply for a scholarship to offset their membership fees. Simply tell them that scholarship instructions are available at registration!
Also, recall that we provide Society promotional materials for your colleagues, small groups, church functions, etc.
What journals do you read?
We would like to promote the Society of Christian Scholars in local, academic journals that you read. Please help by emailing a list of these journals to jfoster@SocietyofChristianScholars.org
Society Opportunities
Society Hiring Representative
The Society of Christian Scholars (www.SocietyofChristianScholars.org) seeks a full-time Regional Representative from one of the following regions: Caribbean, Eurasia (countries north of China, Mongolia, Middle East and east of Ukraine), Middle East/North Africa, or South Asia. As a Society of Christian Scholars Regional Representative, you will contribute to a local and global movement of believing scholars by partnering with scholars in your region to develop and implement strategies to mutually equip one another for Christ’s glory.
Society Member Publishes a New Book: Have We Lost Our Minds?
With advances in neuroscience, many Christians are confused about what the soul is and its role in human flourishing. This confusion is rapidly increasing through the writings of “neurotheologians” such as Curt Thompson and Jim Wilder, who imply our brains are ultimately the cause of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, choices, and very identity. Are we ultimately a soul? Are we ultimately a body? Are we ultimately some combination of the two? This confusion leads to further confusion about how we flourish in our personal and professional lives.
Dr. Stan Wallace addresses this confusion about what we fundamentally are in his book Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing, and he offers helpful answers to these questions and points the way forward. This book identifies and corrects the wrong assumptions of neurotheologians, outlines a biblically and philosophically sound understanding of our soul and its relation to the body, and illustrates how this understanding is the right path toward more fully loving God and loving others.
Upcoming Workshop
God Still Speaks: Listening to the Voice of God in the University
Lead Facilitator/Presenter: Robert Woods, Executive Director, Christianity and Communication Studies Network; Visiting Scholar, Trinity Western University
Additional Presenters: Geri Forsberg, Western Washington University; Stan Wallace, CEO, Global Scholars; Peter Schuurman, Executive Director, Global Scholars, Canada
Date/Time: Tuesday, July 23, 2024 | 15:30 UTC – 19:00 UTC
Description: In 1972, Francis Schaeffer wrote the book He is There and He is Not Silent, which discusses how the Triune God models communication. The eternal living Triune God who spoke the world into existence continues to speak to us today. In 1980, Robert Webber provided a biblical view of Christian communication in his book God Still Speaks. We know that God speaks and that His voice can be heard around the world. But how do we as professors, students, and scholars hear His voice as we work within the university? What is God saying about the university today given the current crises in higher education? How do we as followers of Christ live out our lives in the university—a university that is often filled with knowledge contrary to God—while listening to the voice of God? And how do we make knowledge about the living God accessible to our students and colleagues and those within the communities that surround our work?
This Cru/Common Call workshop co-sponsored with the Christianity and Communication Studies Network (CCSN) will help you think more about the role of the Triune God in the Academy, in your scholarship, and in your personal life. What is God doing in the Academy not just in the United States but around the world? How are professors and students hearing His voice today? How are professors doing faith-learning integration in their teaching, research, and administration? How are professors and students coming to faith in Christ? How are they growing in their faith? And how are they going about making their faith known?
When you leave this workshop, you will have new resources to help you learn to hear God’s voice, God’s wisdom, and God’s will as you work in the university.
Please use code SCSFREE for free conference registration, a $50 USD value.
From the Society Library
This month’s Library Reading Corner feature includes five library resources under the library categories of Growing Spiritually and Loving God with the Mind. The following resources provide further reading for the Society’s June 2024 webinar by Dr Diane Chandler. View this webinar: ‘How to Survive and Thrive on Life’s Highwire.’
Library Search Terms: Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Practices, Habits of the Mind, Ignation, Poetry
Title: A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brief Description: This book is a “classic collection of sixteen sermons preached and compiled by Dr. King” along with two ‘more recent’ sermons. The subject of the collection is a “fusion” of Kings interpretation of Christian theology and his promotion of his vision of non-violent advocacy for social and political change guided by Christian love.
Title: An Ignatian Prayer Adventure by Kevin O”Brien
Brief Description: This is an ‘adapted version of the spiritual exercises’ of a retreat in ‘The Ignatian Adventure’. A detailed description of the concept of Ignatian Spirituality and an eight week schedule of daily prayers and reflections are provided
Title: Book Review of The Spiritual Practices of Jesus by Martine Audeoud
Brief Description: This is a review of the book Spiritual Practices of Jesus: Learning Simplicity, Humility and Prayer with Luke’s Earliest Readers written by Catherine J. Wright, which is included in the Society of Christian Scholars Book Reviews. According to Audeoud, the author, as guided by the theological concept of spiritual formation, ‘attempts to unlock our understanding of Jesus’ spiritual practices so that we can better emulate him’.
Title: ‘How We Lost the Christian Mind and How to Find it Again – Part 1’ by Stan W. Wallace
Brief Description: This is the first of a five part series of blogs written by Dr. Wallace, the President and CEO of Global Scholars. In Part 1, Dr. Wallace postulated that ‘things have changed in the last two hundred years in Christian thought. At that time all Christians understood the centrality of the Christian mind for a healthy life (spiritual life included). [He went on to say that] churches were the center not only of spiritual activity but also of intellectual activity [and that there] was a very strong connection between the church and higher education’.
Title: ‘Poetry and Ecology: the Spirit Breathing through Word and World’ by Debra Brown
Brief Description: This paper was presented at a one-day conference at Queen’s University and describes a project that is focused on the relationship between ecology, poetry and faith not only within a Christian university context but also within the ‘secular academy, in prints and in public venues of all kind’. The author presents her view of how God communicates the relationship that man should have with the environment in order to maintain ecological and spiritual balance for both nature and mankind, with support from the scripture.
Please contact the Society’s librarian, Dr Marlene Hines, at librarian@societyofchristianscholars.org for any further assistance.
Upcoming Webinars
Be sure to check the Webinars Page for third-party webinars that are often added on short notice and for updated presenters and topics that may be helpful in equipping you to bring the gospel to bear in your university context.
Examining the Research Process: A Perspective by Jim McCloskey – Thursday, 18 July at 1400 UTC
Research is the process of putting different pieces of information together to find patterns, correlations, and connections. When conducting research, you want to connect the significance of your topic to other perspectives or compare your topic with how others have thought about it. Research is an iterative cycle of inquiry, discovery and refinement, rather than a straight line. The process of iteration supports progression, however, as it entails not only moving a research project forward but also a deepening awareness of how this project fits within the context of what has come before as well as present realities.
On Thursday, 18 July 2024 at 1400 UTC, Dr Jim McCloskey, Library Director and Associate Professor at Wilmington University, DE (USA), will offer one perspective on the research process, acknowledging that other non-Western approaches might offer important nuances. In research, there is an element of exploration, careful observation, unpredictability, and reflection. Research can be frustrating because there are so many directions in which to go, but it is also exciting and rewarding when you have forged your own path and arrived at your own destination. This workshop will help you take the essential steps as you proceed through the stages of the research process.
The research stages to be discussed include:
Planning –
Define the problem
Choose your topic and scope
Search for, manage and review the literature
Develop research questions
Designing
Formulate a theoretical framework
Develop a measurement plan or methodology for the variables in the research questions
Develop a data collection plan
Operationalizing
Collect data
Determine how to analyze the data
Organize and synthesize your findings
Recommendations
Disseminate results
Register today for this important webinar that can enhance your research capacity!
Citizenship without Illusions by David Koyzis –Thursday, 15 August 2024 at 1400 UTC
With political conflict on the rise and numerous elections this year, can Christians participate in the public square without buying into political illusions—ideologies that become idolatrous? Is it better to avoid politics than risk ethical compromise or division among believers?
On Thursday, 15 August 2024 at 1400 UTC, Dr David Koyzis, a Global Scholar with Global Scholars Canada (a Society Institutional Partner) who holds a PhD in Governmental and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame (USA), will make the case based on his new book, Citizenship Without Illusions, for political engagement as a way to love our neighbors that does not require our full devotion to parties or ideologies.
Take part in this important conversation by registering below.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the Addenda are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Society of Christian Scholars.
