Christmas reflection: Waiting for Joy
Christmas is almost upon us – but today let’s skip ahead a little in the narrative we retell at this time every year.
December 2017
Self and World: The Transactional Approach to Science (1)
Richard Vytniorgu introduces a way of thinking about scientific work by rooting it in its social context.
This is the first in a series of three posts in which I introduce the transactional approach to doing science – an approach which encourages us to position scientific work within a broader matrix of beliefs and values. Although I’m not a scientist, my work in literary theory has brought me into contact with the transactional approach via its American advocate in literary studies and English education, Louise Rosenblatt.
From Maradona to Jesus
Is Maradona the best footballer of all time?
Worldwide there are 200,000 worshippers of Diego who attend the church of Maradona. The faithful follow their own 'bespoke' ten commandments which urge them to 'love football above everything' and 'name your first son Diego'.
The Church of Maradona insists that you get baptised by slapping a football!
There are three ways of looking at this odd story.
Materialists will dub this 'mere superstition'.
Relativists will nod approvingly: whatever works for you.
In pursuit of Christian scholarship (2)
The concluding part of Rudi Hayward's review of "Tracing the Lines" sketches Robert Sweetman's proposal to reconcile God's common grace to all scholars with the power of that same grace to transform the believer's mind redemptively.