Academic Connections, International

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  This is the introduction and first in a series of podcasts on Jesus and Academic Culture (length 12:37)

    Addendum Video for Podcast #1 (length 2:35)

Links to other Podcasts and their resources in this series:

    Podcast #2 (Niebuhr’s Chapter 1)

    Podcast #3 (Niebuhr’s Typologies)

    Podcast #4 (D.A. Carson’s Critique of Niebuhr)

    Podcast #5 (D.A. Carson’s Alternative)

    Podcast #6 (Big Ideas that Influence Academe)

    Podcast #7 (Understanding a Division Among Evangelicals)

    Podcast #8 (Going Forward)

Abstract for the Series

     This Podcast is the beginning of a Podcast Series which I am calling Jesus and Academic Culture. The series focuses on questions like: how do and how should Christian scholars “fit in” at secular universities and what does academic culture have to do with doing evangelism in the academic world? It begins with an analysis of parts of two books written by Christian scholars. Those scholars focus on general culture, but then I take their insights and use them for focusing on evangelicals that are either coming into or who are already in academe as researchers and teachers.    

Abstract for this Particular Overview Podcast

     Here’s what I’m going to do in this podcast in Parts 1 & 2: I will introduce the subject by highlighting the contributions of two important scholars, focused on the relationship between Christ and culture. Later in this series, I will discuss their contributions in geater detail. Understanding their contributions will eventually lay the ground work for discussing how Christian scholars can better understand the importance of good methodology to produce good Biblical exegesis. This is of strategic importance in forming attitudes towards the authority of Christian faith and the authority of academic culture.

In Part 3 of this video I will introduce how I will bring those insights to bear by focusing on one aspect of academic (and secular) culture—the prominence and authority of certain culture orienting ideas. These are often cultural assumptions shaping, to one degree or another, how the gospel is heard especially in the current milieu of "social justice issues.”

I will also sketch an outline that provides some justification for the assertion that presently evangelicals (less so for evangelical scholars) are divided in important ways on how think about that relationship. That divide seems to be between theological and political conservatives and theological and political progressives. I will argue that both the theological and political conservatives and the theological and political progressives give evidence of reading their politics into their theology and eventually into praxis.

Because of the current demographic make up of evangelicals in academe, I will also allude to concerns I have with some of the theological and political progressives that are making what I think are some poentially serious theological mistakes. I am concerned this can unfortunately eventually lead to undermining both the credibility of historical Christianity and its relationship to both academic and general culture. This whole discussion we will be having can also bring up other alarming consequences regarding responding to social justice issues and the hearing of the gospel.