Posted by: gcarkner | September 17, 2012

Do Ideals Still Motivate?

In Search of a Few Good Saints: Women & Men

Some see this as such a cynical age that they wonder whether ideals have currency. We wish to protest. As a ministry to graduate students at UBC and beyond, in Graduate Christian Union (GCU) and the Graduate & Faculty Christian Forum (GFCF), we are diligently on a quest. It is not an easy, safe or superficial desire. Quite the contrary, in our quest, we are looking to find and nurture the next generation of culture- and nation-shapers, builders of the literary imagination, institution-shapers. We are looking for the future apologists, justice-seekers, politicians who care about the common good and the weaker members of society, peace-negotiators, international relations adjudicators. Read More…

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Posted in GCU Personality, Grad Student Strategies, Public Lectures, Seeker Corner, Stewardship

Posted by: gcarkner | September 15, 2012

Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies.

Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies. Oxford University Press, 2011. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUF82TZFCs&feature=youtu.be

Every thinking Christian needs this book. Many other university academics should read it as well. Quite simply because Alvin Plantinga does know exactly where the most basic conflicts between our  secular society and  the world of religious faith lie. More innovatively, he argues that there is deep concord between science and theistic belief in spite of the common assumption of conflict. Moreover, the apparent concord between science and naturalism is mistaken.

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Posted in Apologetics, Science Reflections, Seeker Corner

Posted by: gcarkner | September 15, 2012

Spirituality & Politics

 When Mountain Meets Valley: Spirituality and Politics

We live in both a post-Christian and post-secular age. This means that as the tight grip of secularism has weakened (and diminishes), the interest in spirituality, contemplation and the meditative way are emerging yet again as valid ways of going and growing deeper in the inner journey. The fact we live in a pluralist ethos means that a plethora of spiritual traditions (both ancient and new) are in vogue. There is a definite and decided need for judicious discernment for those who enter through the spirituality portal. Read More…

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Posted in Faith & Culture, Prayer & Spirituality, Seeker Corner

Posted by: gcarkner | September 15, 2012

Scientism Investigation continued

Scientism Under the Microscope

Despite popular belief, the integrity of scientism is quite shaky and most scientists do not share its arrogance. It is still, however, a strong influence on the Western cultural ethos. Scientism is based on an outdated world picture, outdated physics, and an inaccurate understanding of science. This is part two of my blog on scientism, an ongoing series. Read More…

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Posted in Faith & Culture, Science Reflections, Seeker Corner

Posted by: gcarkner | September 12, 2012

Individual Survivalism vs. Community

A Tale of Two Grad School Strategies

A radical pursuit of self-definition and private self-interest, to the exclusion of the presence and the needs of the Other, although immensely popular today, is a far less tenable and credible option. Postgraduate students can operate on a faulty assumption of chronic distrust, that is, fear that other grad students will always try to control and manipulate one’s behaviour, steal one’s research for his own purposes, or try to impose her agenda (will-to-power) in the lab. This fear is often intensified as we seek to reinvent ourselves as an  “expert” in our field and carve out our academic niche towards that tenure track position. This leads to the loneliness that all grad students experience. Read More…

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Posted in GCU Personality, Grad Student Strategies

Posted by: gcarkner | September 11, 2012

Tree of Peace for 9/11

ArtWay Visual Meditation September 9, 2012 

www.artway.eu

Painting by Makoto Fujimura: Shalom, 2001, 47,5 x 62,5 cm, hand printed lithograph on paper.

http://www.artway.eu/artway.asp?id=341&action=show&lang=en 

Makoto Fujimura: Shalom  

A Tree of Peace 

by Ned Bustard

This month we will honour another anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, 2011. On this occasion I often take time to study the lithographShalom by Makoto Fujimura. I am honoured to have one from the edition hanging in my home. Always lovely, the piece takes on extra gravity for me at this time of the year. In Objects of Grace: Conversations on Creativity and Faith Mako explains how it was made and some of its significance:

‘On September 12 I took my family to upstate New York. I was working at Corridor Press in Otego, NY with master printer Tim Sheesley, who is the brother of painter Joel Sheesley, on a lithography series on the theme of shalom. The image was of a medieval quince tree that I had sketched at The Cloisters in New York. Read More…

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Posted in Faith & Culture, Prayer & Spirituality

Posted by: gcarkner | September 9, 2012

Critical Marks of Scientism

Six Cultural Identifiers of the Ideology of Scientism

[See also UBC Lecture by Ian Hutchinson MIT Plasma Physicist 

Point of Reflection: Although scientism (and philosophical positivism as per A.J. Ayer) has been academically discredited by many philosophers and scientists in the twentieth century, it still seems to dominate popular thinking, even among many bright science students and scholars. In order for a belief to be considered valid or credible, scientism requires that it be scientifically testable. Read More…

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Posted in Apologetics, Faith & Culture, Science Reflections, Seeker Corner | Tags: ,

Posted by: gcarkner | September 7, 2012

Embedded in Hope

Good Research is Embedded in Hope, in Anticipation of Discovery

Where is hope in this third stage of Capitalism called Postmodernity (Fred Jameson)? Where are we in this journey?  Are we lost, jaded or commodified in a sea of globalization, overwhelmed by an identity crisis, imploded into a consumer society? I first went to grad school to gain some knowledge and to transcend the sea of experience, to carve out time for reflection, to ‘make sense of it all’. I discovered the powerful theme of hope.

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Posted in Faith & Culture, GCU Personality, Grad Student Strategies

Posted by: gcarkner | September 5, 2012

Culture Matters…

Stimulating literature is our lifeblood. It takes us to a new level of existence. GCU often sponsors a book study that introduces new ideas as part of its learning process. Our most recent savvy one is Andy Crouch’s  Culture Making: recovering our creative calling. He makes note of how people of faith critique, condemn, copy and consume culture in various ways. Sometimes they feel the need to be counter-cultural in their stance. Crouch demonstrates that some of it is legitimate and important; some of it is trivial and shallow, or even wrong headed.

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Posted in Faith & Culture, GCU Events, Seeker Corner, Stewardship

Posted by: gcarkner | September 4, 2012

Portrait of an Oxbridge Christian in Science

Dr. Ard A. Louis is a Reader in Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford, where he leads an interdisciplinary research group studying problems on the border between chemistry, physics and biology,[1] and is also director of graduate studies in theoretical physics. From 2002 to 2010 he was a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. He is also International Secretary for Christians in Science, an associate of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, and serves on the European advisory board of the John Templeton Foundation.[2] He has written for the BioLogos Foundation,[3][4] where as of November 2011, he sat on the Board of Directors.[5] He engages in Molecular Gastronomy.[6] He appears in the film series Test of Faith produced by Faraday Institute for Science & Religion.

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Posted in Apologetics, Science Reflections, Seeker Corner

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