Christianity and the University Experience

Christianity and the University Experience
Author: Mathew Guest
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1780936214

What impact does the experience of university have on Christian students? Are universities a force for secularisation? Is student faith enduring, or a passing phase? Universities are often associated with a sceptical attitude towards religion. Many assume that academic study leads students away from any existing religious convictions, heightening the appeal of a rationalist secularism increasingly dominant in wider society. And yet Christianity remains highly visible on university campuses and continues to be a prominent identity marker in the lives of many students. Analysing over 4,000 responses to a national survey of students and nearly 100 interviews with students and those working with them, this book examines Christianity in universities across England. It explores the beliefs, values and practices of Christian students. It reveals how the university experience influences their Christian identities, and the influence Christian students have upon university life. Christianity and the University Experience makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the survival and evolution of religion in the contemporary world. It offers fresh insights relevant to those working with Christian students, including churches, chaplaincies and student organisations, as well as policy-makers and university managers interested in the significance of religion for education, social responsibility and social cohesion.

Christianity and the University Experience

Christianity and the University Experience
Author: Mathew Guest
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1780936397

What impact does the experience of university have on Christian students? Are universities a force for secularisation? Is student faith enduring, or a passing phase? Universities are often associated with a sceptical attitude towards religion. Many assume that academic study leads students away from any existing religious convictions, heightening the appeal of a rationalist secularism increasingly dominant in wider society. And yet Christianity remains highly visible on university campuses and continues to be a prominent identity marker in the lives of many students. Analysing over 4,000 responses to a national survey of students and nearly 100 interviews with students and those working with them, this book examines Christianity in universities across England. It explores the beliefs, values and practices of Christian students. It reveals how the university experience influences their Christian identities, and the influence Christian students have upon university life. Christianity and the University Experience makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the survival and evolution of religion in the contemporary world. It offers fresh insights relevant to those working with Christian students, including churches, chaplaincies and student organisations, as well as policy-makers and university managers interested in the significance of religion for education, social responsibility and social cohesion.

The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience

The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience
Author: Simeon Zahl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2020-06-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192562762

In The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, Simeon Zahl presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. He argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. He then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, Zahl outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological ideas. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, Zahl also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God's activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. At the heart of the book, Zahl proposes a new account of the theology of grace from this experiential and pneumatological perspective. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, he retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, Zahl engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology, and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Barth and Aquinas.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education

Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education
Author: Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2017-01-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268101299

Over the last two decades, the American academy has engaged in a wide-ranging discourse on faith and learning, religion and higher education, and Christianity and the academy. Eastern Orthodox Christians, however, have rarely participated in these conversations. The contributors to this volume aim to reverse this trend by offering original insights from Orthodox Christian perspectives that contribute to the ongoing discussion about religion, higher education, and faith and learning in the United States. The book is divided into two parts. Essays in the first part explore the historical experiences and theological traditions that inform (and sometimes explain) Orthodox approaches to the topic of religion and higher education—in ways that often set them apart from their Protestant and Roman Catholic counterparts. Those in the second part problematize and reflect on Orthodox thought and practice from diverse disciplinary contexts in contemporary higher education. The contributors to this volume offer provocative insights into philosophical questions about the relevance and application of Orthodox ideas in the religious and secular academy, as well as cross-disciplinary treatments of Orthodoxy as an identity marker, pedagogical framework, and teaching and research subject.

Gay on God's Campus

Gay on God's Campus
Author: Jonathan S. Coley
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1469636239

Although the LGBT movement has made rapid gains in the United States, LGBT people continue to face discrimination in faith communities. In this book, sociologist Jonathan S. Coley documents why and how student activists mobilize for greater inclusion at Christian colleges and universities. Drawing on interviews with student activists at a range of Christian institutions of higher learning, Coley shows that students, initially drawn to activism because of their own political, religious, or LGBT identities, are forming direct action groups that transform university policies, educational groups that open up campus dialogue, and solidarity groups that facilitate their members' personal growth. He also shows how these LGBT activists apply their skills and values after graduation in subsequent political campaigns, careers, and family lives, potentially serving as change agents in their faith communities for years to come. Coley's findings shed light on a new frontier of LGBT activism and challenge prevailing wisdom about the characteristics of activists, the purpose of activist groups, and ultimately the nature of activism itself. For more information about this project's research methodology and theoretical grounding, please visit http://jonathancoley.com/book

Burying White Privilege

Burying White Privilege
Author: Miguel A. De La Torre
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2018-12-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467453250

Short. Timely. Poignant. Pointed. Burying White Privilege is all of these and more. This is the book that everybody who cares about contemporary American Christianity will want to read. Many people wonder how white Christians could not only support Donald Trump for president but also rush to defend an accused child molester running for the US Senate. In a 2017 essay that went viral, Miguel A. De La Torre boldly proclaimed the death of Christianity at the hands of white evangelical nationalists. He continues sounding the death knell in this book. De La Torre argues that centuries of oppression and greed have effectively ruined evangelical Christianity in the United States. Believers and clerical leaders have killed it, choosing profits over prophets. The silence concerning—if not the doctrinal justification of—racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia has made white Christianity satanic. Prophetically calling Christian nationalists to repentance, De La Torre rescues the biblical Christ from the distorted Christ of white Christian imagination.

Christian Worldview and the Academic Disciplines

Christian Worldview and the Academic Disciplines
Author: Deane E. D. Downey
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2009-04-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498275249

This book--an edited compilation of twenty-nine essays--focuses on the difference(s) that a Christian worldview makes for the disciplines or subject areas normally taught in liberal arts colleges and universities. Three initial chapters of introductory material are followed by twenty-six essays, each dealing with the essential elements or issues in the academic discipline involved. These individual essays on each discipline are a unique element of this book. These essays also treat some of the specific differences in perspective or procedure that a biblically informed, Christian perspective brings to each discipline. Christian Worldview and the Academic Disciplines is intended principally as an introductory textbook in Christian worldview courses for Christian college or university students. This volume will also be of interest to Christian students in secular post-secondary institutions, who may be encountering challenges to their faith--both implicit and explicit--from peers or professors who assume that holding a strong Christian faith and pursuing a rigorous college or university education are essentially incompatible. This book should also be helpful for college and university professors who embrace the Christian faith but whose post-secondary academic background--because of its secular orientation--has left them inadequately prepared to intelligently apply the implications of their faith to their particular academic specialty. Such specialists, be they professors or upper-level graduate students, will find the extensive bibliographies of recent scholarship at the end of the individual chapters particularly helpful.

Gender Inequality in the Ordained Ministry of the Church of England

Gender Inequality in the Ordained Ministry of the Church of England
Author: Alex D.J. Fry
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2023-09-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000965473

This book offers a fresh social scientific analysis of how theologically conservative male clergy respond to the ordination of women to the priesthood and their consecration as bishops within the Church of England. The question of women’s place in the formal structures of England’s Established Church remains contested. For many, to prevent women from occupying such offices is often understood to be a matter of inequality, whereas those who oppose their ordination see it as a matter of obedience to God’s will. Tensions have become heightened in a culture that increasingly promotes the rights of individuals who have historically been marginalised and that challenges traditional social roles. This volume explores the gender attitudes held by clergy in the Anglo-Catholic and evangelical traditions of the Church and considers how these gender attitudes shape the way they think about women’s ordination and how they interact with female colleagues. It also considers the contribution of a range of social phenomena to the formation of these gender attitudes. The author draws on and develops a variety of sociological and psychological theories that help to explain the processes that lead to the formation of clergy attitudes towards gender more broadly.

Christianity and Critical Race Theory

Christianity and Critical Race Theory
Author: Robert Chao Romero
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493438328

Critical race theory has become a lightning rod in contemporary American politics and evangelical Christianity. This irenic book offers a critical but constructive and sympathetic introduction written from a perspective rooted in Scripture and Christian theology. The authors take us beyond caricatures and misinformation to consider how critical race theory can be an analytical tool to help us understand persistent inequality and injustice--and to see how Christians and churches working for racial justice can engage it in faithful and constructive ways. The authors explore aspects of critical race theory that resonate with well-trod Christian doctrine but also that challenge or are corrected by Christian theology. They also address the controversial connection that critics see between critical race theory and Marxism. Their aim is to offer objective analysis and critique that go beyond the debates about social identity and the culture wars and aid those who are engaging the issues in Christian life and ministry. The book includes a helpful glossary of key terms.

Dictionary of Christianity and Science

Dictionary of Christianity and Science
Author: Zondervan,
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2017-04-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310496063

The definitive reference work on science and Christian belief How does Christian theology relate to scientific inquiry? What are the competing philosophies of science, and do they "work" with a Christian faith based on the Bible? No reference work has covered this terrain sufficiently--until now. Featuring entries from over 140 international contributors, the Dictionary of Christianity and Science is a deeply-researched, peer-reviewed, fair-minded work that illuminates the intersection of science and Christian belief. In one volume, you get reliable summaries and critical analyses of over 450 relevant concepts, theories, terms, movements, individuals, and debates. You will find answers to your toughest questions about faith and science, from the existence of Adam and Eve to the age of the earth, evolution and string theory. FEATURES INCLUDE: Over 450 entries that will help you think through some of today's most challenging scientific topics, including climate change, evolution, bioethics, and much more Essays from over 140 leading international scholars, including Francis Beckwith, Michael Behe, Darrell Bock, William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross, Craig Keener, Davis Young, John Walton, and many more Multiple-view essays on controversial topics allow you to understand and compare differing Christian viewpoints Learn about flesh-and-blood figures who have shaped the interaction of science and religion: Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Darwin, and Stephen Hawking are just the beginning Fully cross-referenced, entries include references and recommendations for further reading Advance Praise: "Every Christian studying science will want a copy within arm’s reach." --Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary "This is an invaluable resource that belongs in every Christian's library. I will be keeping my copy close by when I’m writing." --Lee Strobel, Elizabeth and John Gibson chair of apologetics, Houston Baptist University "Sparkles with passion, controversy, and diverse perspectives."--Karl Giberson, professor of science and religion, Stonehill College "An impressive resource that presents a broad range of topics from a broad tent of evangelical scholars."--Michael R. Licona, Houston Baptist University "I am certain that this dictionary will serve the church for many years in leading many to demonstrate that modern science can glorify our Creator and honor his creation." --Denis O. Lamoureux, University of Alberta "'Dictionary' is too humble a label for what this is! I anticipate that this will offer valuable guidance for Christian faithfulness." --C. John Collins, Covenant Theological Seminary Get answers to the difficult questions surround faith and science! Adam and Eve | the Age of the Earth | Climate Change | Evolution | Fossil Record | Genesis Flood | Miracles | Cosmology | Big Bang theory | Bioethics | Darwinism Death | Extraterrestrial Life | Multiverse | String theory | and much, much more