There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

Summer is here or nearly here in the world of academia.

What does this mean for you?

For some of us, that means our teaching or class load might decrease while our research load increases. It might mean a slight break, or, if not a break, at least a different rhythm to our work. It might mean different connections within our communities as people take off for vacations or visits home in the coming months.

I was always overly optimistic about what I would accomplish over these three months. Without any classes or associated work, I thought I could finish all the projects I set out for myself. Yes, I could reorganize my office, clean out files, finish that writing project (or two), start a new hobby, go on vacation, have friends over for weekly meals, read my growing stack of books, walk more, eat better . . . .  And the list could go on.

There’s something about summer that makes it seem like so much is possible. Maybe it’s the longer days, along with memories from those seemingly never-ending childhood summers.

However, I often find that at the end of the summer, and I know I’m not alone, I haven’t accomplished most of the list. If I have, then I’m exhausted by not taking the opportunity to rest well. There was no time for everything.

So, I’ve started to look at my summer rhythm more realistically and give myself a lot more grace. Perhaps I’m starting to recognize the wisdom shared by the writer of Ecclesiastes – there is a season for “every activity under heaven.” And the limits on my time are good. They help me to trust in God more than myself, and to delight a bit more in each day and the work and rest it offers.

Here are some areas to consider when planning your summer.

Rest. How will you take time to slow down this summer?  Perhaps you can adjust your daily schedule a bit.
Pray. A Christian scholar is a scholar who prays. How will you spend time with God this summer?
Relate. How will you stay connected with people – or build your community?
Read. What one or two books do you want to read for enjoyment?  What books for your research or classes do you want to catch up on?
Work. What needs to get done this summer?  What are reasonable expectations?
Walk. How will you include movement and the outdoors in these months?  Both are so healing for our bodies, minds, and souls.

Blessings as you consider the best rhythms for you this summer.

The post Summer Rhythms appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Your faith and your work… one vocation, or two competing demands?
You know your research interests. Do you know your calling?
The academy gives you metrics. Who gives you meaning?

If you’ve wondered about the same or similar questions, join

InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network
Sacred Calling of Scholarship
2026 Summer Cohorts

During four online gatherings you will

• Find a community of other Jesus followers preparing for graduate school
• Engage in spiritual practices that undergird an academic life
• Explore the integration of scholarship and faith
• Gain practical advice to begin your graduate journey

Gatherings will take place during July and early August.  Days and times will be determined based on participant availability.

Register here by June 1.

Please share this with any student you know starting grad school this fall!

The post 2026 ESN Summer Cohort for New Grad Students appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Right now, there are generally two types of people on social media: those awash in red button/blue button discourse, and those blissfully unaware of it. For those second types, at the heart of the conversation is the following thought experiment. Everyone in the world has to privately choose to press a red button or a blue button. If a majority of people press blue, everyone lives. If a majority of people press red, only red-pressers live. The current conversation apparently kicked off a few weeks ago with this X poll; a similar conversation was stirred up a few years ago with a similar poll phrased in terms of pills rather than buttons. Both times, blue prevailed in the non-random polls, albeit by a smaller margin this time around.¹ Unsurprisingly, lots of people have strong feelings about why their choice is correct. I’m less concerned about your choice of button; I want to talk about math.

If the extent of your relationship with math is the typical arithmetic-to-calculus-through-algebra journey with a geometry side quest, followed by adulthood accounting and maybe the odd DIY project, you might see math as largely about performing calculations to achieve the single correct answer. There’s a case to be made that this is why we invented math (and writing)–to resolve questions of who owes what to whom in a way that both parties will agree. Things can get messy quickly if I, the monarch of grilled beef patties, think that $5.69 for a burger and $3.09 for onion rings adds up to $8.78 and you, my royal customer, think it’s $4.12 (or worse, beleventy christophthree). But nothing everything in life is financial; as we apply the mathematics we’ve developed over the millennia, we find that sometimes “Under what conditions does each answer make sense?” is a better question to ask than “What is the right answer?”

For example, going to the hassle of carving clay (other storage media are available) with records of business transactions and account balances presumes that you are going to be dealing with the same people over and over again. If I’m only going to trade with you once, we just make whatever deal we are both comfortable walking away with and that’s the end of it. Maybe that means we work out a deal we both think is fair. Or maybe I decide it is worthwhile to skew things in my favor, getting you to accept less either by trickery or coercion. If I know I’m never going to see you again, what do I care if you think I owe you something? And what good does it do you to record that debt?

But now suppose we aren’t so nomadic that we can count on mutual ghosting. On the one hand, I have an extra incentive to deal more fairly because I know you can come find me if you feel aggrieved. On the other hand, you might be willing to take the short end of a deal this time knowing that you can make it up next time, so long as we both agree on what’s owed. If we are asking the question “What’s the maximum value I can get out of this deal?” the “right” answer will depend on which scenario we’re in and what I believe I can get away with.

We’ve since developed math beyond accounting to investigate various such questions, creating fields like economics and game theory. A classic example is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Two people are imprisoned for a crime and each privately given the chance to testify against the other; testifying means getting set free while the other is penalized, unless both testify, in which case both are penalized to a lesser degree. The best possible outcome for either prisoner is to testify when the other doesn’t, but if both choose that option, they both get a worse outcome than if they had collectively said nothing. It turns out that the best strategy to use changes if you are in this scenario once or if you face the same deal repeatedly with the same person. The repetition creates the opportunity to essentially coordinate without coordinating (that is, without directly discussing your plans with the other person). You can demonstrate that you can be counted on to stay silent, your partner can do the same, and thus you can both take the risk of not testifying and have some confidence that your counterpart will do likewise, earning that better outcome than both testifying.

Martin Nowak covers this and related findings in his book SuperCooperators about what conditions can lead to altruism. Many have written on similar topics, but Nowak also brings his Catholic beliefs into the conversation in a way that might be of more interest than other takes. Here again, the question is not “Is altruism the correct answer?” but rather “Under what conditions is altruism the correct answer and under what conditions is ego the correct answer?” Because the reality is that either one can be the correct answer under different circumstances. One general finding is that groups of altruists can succeed better than groups of egoists in a variety of settings, yet it can often be personally more beneficial to act in an egoist way as a member of a group of altruists–provided enough of the rest of the group remains altruistic.

As a result, having an altruistic group is not a stable state, meaning a situation where no one has an incentive to act differently. The challenge then becomes how to maintain an altruistic group against the incentives to gain even more by putting oneself first. One way or another, the answer basically involves making egoism more costly, whether through monetary penalties, loss of status, loss of freedom, or other measures. Groups that don’t have some means to encourage altruism run the risk of losing their group advantage. At the same time, human psychology is complex. If individuals perceive, accurately or otherwise, that they are incurring those penalties no matter what they do may feel justified in therefore taking the egoist route so that they at least get the maximum benefit to offset the penalty.

I wonder if some amount of this is manifesting in the button discourse, particularly among those defending their choice of red. In this particular framing, the self-interested selection of red does not intrinsically come at a cost to anyone else; it is possible for everyone to press red and live. Sure, one might make the assumption that someone will wind up pressing blue for any number of reasons, but in a thought experiment like this it is also valid to make some “spherical cow”-style assumptions and assume everyone understands the instructions and the implications perfectly, is able to perfectly execute their intention, and knows the same is true for everyone else. Since it is thus possible to construct red button scenarios where everyone lives, it may be worth exploring what assumptions and values someone brought to the analysis instead of just going by the single bit of information available from their color selection. You may still disagree with their choice or their reasoning, or think that they scenarios they are considering aren’t the right ones. But at least you’ll understand better where the differences lie.

¹I don’t think much can be inferred from the differing outcomes. There are just too many ways that social media polls can be biased in a statistical sense–the two pollers could have very different audiences, the algorithm can make different decisions at different times about who is shown the poll in their feed, etc.–for them to be taken as anything more than curiosities.

The post Science Corner: One Button, Two Button, Red Button, Blue Button appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Listed below you’ll find many Christian professional and academic societies, along with links to their websites and, in some cases, links to conferences and publications. For other connections with graduate students or faculty, see InterVarsity’s directories of local campus fellowships.

Affiliation of Christian Engineers

The Affiliation of Christian Engineers (ACE) is intended to serve as an organizational vehicle to facilitate Christian engineers and others in body of Christ intentionally and collectively seeking God’s will for the engineering profession and its Christian members, documenting the results, and then collectively and intentionally influencing the engineering profession accordingly.

Affiliation of Christian Geologists (ACG)

Promoting fellowship for Christian professionals in the geosciences and providing educational resources for people interested in issues relating to geology and Christianity.

American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)

The American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) is a fellowship of men and women in science and disciplines that relate to science who share a common fidelity to the Word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science.

• Affiliation of Christian Biologists is a member organization of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the ACB seeks to encourage fellowship among Christian biologists and provide a supportive environment for networking, exchanging ideas, and assisting with integration of biology and Christian thought in research and teaching within both Christian and non-Christian universities.
• Christian Women in Science an affiliate group of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA). The mission of CWIS is to encourage Christian women of all ages to pursue, sustain, and grow in a career in science, technology, engineering or math, and to encourage women in these endeavors to pursue, sustain, and grow in the Christian faith.
• God and Nature Magazine

Association of Christian Economists (ACE)

ACE seeks to encourage Christian scholars to explore and communicate the relationship between their faith and the discipline of economics, and to promote interaction and communication among Christian economists.

Association of Christian Librarians

ACL is an organization for evangelical librarians and publishes the print and online versions of the Christian Periodical Index, the leading guide to evangelical perspective journal articles.

Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (ACMS)

The ACMS stated purposes are 1) To encourage Christians in the mathematical sciences to explore the relationship of their faith to their discipline; 2) To promote interaction among Christians in the mathematical sciences; 3) To encourage research and writing by Christians, especially on topics interrelating their faith and their discipline; and 4) To promote innovative and effective teaching.

• Conferences
• Journal 

Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS)

CAPS is an association of Christian professionals which exists to encourage understanding of the relationship between Christianity and the behavioral sciences at both the clinical/counseling and the theoretical/research levels, to promote fellowship among Christians in psychological and related professions, to support the spiritual, emotional and professional well-being of our members, and to offer educational and research opportunities that assist the profession and the community at large. Through its various programs,CAPS encourages the pursuit of excellence … in the counseling clinic, in the classroom, in the community and in the member’s spiritual and emotional life.

• Conferences

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity

The Center is a Christian bioethics research center of Trinity International University, whose mission states, “exploring the nexus of biomedicine, biotechnology, and our common humanity,” designates our commitment to anticipate, research, and analyze the emerging bioethical issues of our day. In this way, the Center exists to equip thought leaders to engage the issues of bioethics using the tools of rigorous research, conceptual analysis, charitable critique, leading-edge publication, and effective teaching.

Chr-astro for Professional Astronomers

Chr-astro was developed as a website and e-mail list for professional astronomers who are Christians. The idea for chr-astro began over lunch at the January 1998 AAS conference in Washington, DC. This lunch group found that meeting other Christians in astronomy and discussing issues of common interest was useful and encouraging.

The Steering Committee decided to create a mailing list for ongoing (but low-volume) e-mail communication among Christian astronomers.

The purposes of this e-mail forum are:

1. To build a community of Christians in astronomy. We accomplish this in part by organizing gatherings at astronomy conferences and by distributing the contact information of subscribers to the list (inclusion is voluntary).
2. To discuss issues and share resources on topics of interest to Christians in astronomy.

Christian Business Faculty Association (CBFA)

The Christian Business Faculty Association exists to assist and encourage Christian business faculty in the study, integration, teaching, and application of Biblical truths in service to the academy, students, and the business community.

• Conferences
• The Christian Business Academy Review

Christian Educators

The mission of this organization is “To Encourage, Equip and Empower Educators according to Biblical Principles.” Its members have served the youth of America since 1953 through classroom teachers, administrators, and para-professionals in education.

Christian Engineering Society (CES)

The Christian Engineering Society is a loose-knit group of individuals interested in the relationship of engineering and Christianity. The society hosts a bi-annual conference.

Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers (CFAMC)

The CFAMC seeks to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and help build His kingdom by encouraging Christian fellowship among its members in the context of their work and witness as composers of art music. We pray that believers will embrace our musical integrity because of our Christian witness, and that our commitment to musical excellence will allow us to bring our Christian witness to the wider art music world.

Christian Legal Society (CLS)

CLS is seeking justice with the love of God. Its mission is to inspire, encourage, and equip lawyers and law students, both individually and in community, to proclaim, love and serve Jesus Christ through the study and practice of law, the provision of legal assistance to the poor, and the defense of religious freedom & sanctity of human life.

• Conferences

Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA)

CMDA exists to motivate, educate, and equip Christian physicians and dentists to glorify God.

• Conferences

Christian Neuroscience Society (CNS)

CNS is a group of Christians who are interested in furthering the dialogue between neuroscience and the truth of the Christian faith.

Christian Nuclear Fellowship (Nuclear Science and Technology)

The Christian Nuclear Fellowship (CNF) is an informal, interdenominational group of evangelical Christians who work in the field of nuclear science and technology and who want to encourage each other to faithfully follow Jesus Christ in both their private and public lives (including in their professional activities). Thank you for visiting our website.

Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship (CPAF)

The Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship seeks to bring the love of Christ to a relatively untouched mission field: the many thousands involved in the world of the performing arts. This includes performers, teachers, and audiences, as well as arts administrators. CPAF is organized as a trans-denominational ministry dedicated to performing and teaching the classical arts to the glory of God and to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CPFI)

Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International is a worldwide ministry of individuals working in all areas of pharmaceutical service and practice. Their Mission is to provide fellowship among like-minded professionals, to challenge and promote spiritual growth, to encourage the advancement of knowledge and ethics in the practice of pharmacy, to encourage evangelism and the integration of faith into practice, and, to provide support and opportunity for service in both home and foreign missions.

Christian Scientific Society

The Christian Scientific Society is a society in the model of the Christian Legal Society and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations. It differs from some other science societies in that 1) members must be actual scientists or grad students (though others may become associate members), and 2) it is fairly theologically conservative but it is not a “young earth creationist” society.

Christian Society for Kinesiology and Leisure Studies (CSKLS)

The Society supports and encourages Christian professionals in the disciplines of health, physical education, recreation, dance, sport, and movement sciences to promote research and information that will contribute to the health and well-being of all people, image bearers of their Creator God.

Christian Sociological Society

The Christian Sociological Society is organized to provide a forum and fellowship for Christian Sociologists and related professionals and students to enable them to integrate their sociological academic background with their Christian faith.

Christian Veterinary Mission

CVM’s mission is to challenge, empower, and facilitate veterinarians to serve others through their profession, living out their Christian faith.

Christians in Political Science

CPS intends to encourage, and assist members to integrate their Christian faith into their research and writing; encourage, stimulate and assist members to bring insights and perspectives from their faith to classroom teaching in appropriate, creative ways; and provide a forum for fellowship among Christians in political science.

Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA)

Encouraging and Equipping Christians in Theatre Arts to impact the world and further the kingdom of God for over 20 years!

Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL)

The Conference on Christianity and Literature is an interdisciplinary society dedicated to exploring the relationships between Christianity and literature.

• Journal: Christianity & Literature

Conference on Faith and History (CFH)

The purposes of the CFH are to encourage scholars to explore the relationship between Christian faith and historical studies, to provide a forum for discussion of philosophies, methods, and traditions of history and to foster research in the general area of faith and history, to encourage and advance teaching and research informed by Christian faith commitments, to bring before the larger historical community the concerns and perspectives of Christian historians, and to provide a context for mentoring and networking among historians from various Christian traditions.

• Conferences
• Journal: Fides et Historia

Engineering Ministries International (EMI)

EMI is a non-profit Christian development organization made up of architects, engineers and design professionals who donate their skills to help children and families around the world step out of poverty and into a world of hope.

Evangelical Philosophical Society

Founded in 1974, the Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS) is an organization of professional scholars devoted to pursuing philosophical excellence in both the church and the academy. Interested laypersons can join as full, associate, or student members.

Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)

ETS is a professional society of Biblical scholars, teachers, pastors and others involved in evangelical scholarship in order to serve Christ and His Church.

The Faraday Institute for Science & Religion

The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion is an interdisciplinary research enterprise based at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. In addition to academic research, the Institute engages in the public understanding of science and religion by means of courses, conferences, lectures, seminars, and the media.

• Papers

Fellowship of Christian Librarians and Information Specialists (FOCLIS)

FOCLIS is a nondenominational organization of people involved in the library and information profession who are committed to the Christian faith and seek to reflect its principles in their personal and professional life.

Gegrapha

Gegrapha is a fellowship of journalists from all over the world who work in the secular media and share a common faith in Jesus Christ.

Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion

Image fosters contemporary art and writing that grapple with the mystery of being human by curating, cultivating, convening, and celebrating work that explores religious faith and spiritual questions.

International Arts Movement (IAMCultureCare)

IAM gathers artists and creative catalysts to wrestle with the deep questions of art, faith and humanity in order to inspire the creative community to engage the culture that is and create the world that ought to be.

The Network of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA)

Christians in the Visual Arts exists to explore and nurture the relationship between the VISUAL ARTS and the CHRISTIAN FAITH.

North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW)

NACSW equips its members to integrate Christian faith and professional social work practice.

• Conferences
• Social Work & Christianity

Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF)

The mission of NCF is engaging students and nurses with the good news of Jesus Christ to bring God’s love and justice to nursing and healthcare.

• Journal of Christian Nursing

Society of Christian Philosophers

The Society of Christian Philosophers was organized in 1978 to promote fellowship among Christian Philosophers and to stimulate study and discussion of issues which arise from their Christian and philosophical commitments.

• Faith & Philosophy

Due to the dynamic nature of operating a website and having a “home” page online, we cannot speak to the whereabouts of organizations that might have changed their names, numbers, or website addresses since the compilation of this list and humbly apologize for any inconvenience if the list is not presently up-to-date.  If you find a link that needs to be updated or know of a group that should be included on this list, please contact esn@intervarsity.org.

We value the contribution of writers who are not employed by InterVarsity, some of whom may not necessarily agree with all aspects of InterVarsity’s ministry, doctrine, or policies. These writings are the words of the writers and may or may not represent InterVarsity. The same is true of any comments which may be posted about any entries. Submitted comments may or may not be posted at the writer or the editor’s discretion. 

The post Christian Professional and Academic Societies appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Last Wednesday, the world’s eyes looked to the skies (well, via streaming, natch) as the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission departed Earth to swing around the moon at a distance farther than any Terran has been from home. It’s pretty remarkable what humans can do when we put our minds to it and collaborate. So what’s next? There’s talk of moon bases, trips to Mars, asteroid mining, and more. Or we can stay here and focus on terrestrial matters.

You can check out a debate on some of those options (or listen here if you prefer):

While I’ll admit to not knowing the ideal path to get there, count me among those in favor of boldly going where no one has gone before…as far as we know. Sure, growing up on sci-fi probably gave me a certain leaning. And I recognize it will not be easy, cheap, or without the possibility of exploitation. Nevertheless, for me it boils down to this: Life is the most interesting thing we know of in the cosmos, and the more life there is in more places, the more interesting it will get.

And since we just observed Easter, I can’t help but think that goal is consistent with what we were celebrating (along with the astronauts). Of course, there are many layers to the culmination of the gospel that is Jesus’ death and resurrection. I hope you don’t think it diminishes any other aspects to observe how the life God gives is so abundantly overflowing that not even death could contain it. Why not do what we can to magnify that life even further?

Now, we don’t know there isn’t life already out there in places other than Earth. Maybe just next door on Mars, maybe under the ice on Europa, or maybe nowhere closer than MoM-z14 (although the concept of “already” gets a bit fuzzy talking about something 33.8 billion light-years away). If life is already abundant in the cosmos, great! Still, the work needed to figure that out has a lot in common with the work needed to take life from Earth elsewhere. We can plan for both scenarios and pivot as needed once we get out there.

Of course, “out there” is very, very far. Even just Mars is over 100 times farther away than the record that was just set. There are those who see the vast distances and inhospitable space in between as evidence that the cosmos is not meant for life, or that life is an insignificant part of the cosmos. Personally, I think there are other ways to measure significance besides physical volume occupied.

For example, we can consider the idea of the adjacent possible, as introduced by Stuart Kauffman. The realm of the actual consists of all the things that currently exist, from quarks to water and oxygen to you and me and our digital watches. We can then take various objects that actually exist and combine them to make new objects. Many of those will be duplicates of things that already existed, but some of them will be never-before-seen novelties, like the Orion spacecraft hanging out by the moon. Everything that could exist which is one step away from what does exist is the adjacent possible. And once new things from the adjacent possible become actual, some things which were previously two steps away are now just one, adding to the current adjacent possible. From what we can tell, the adjacent possible of life is much larger than the adjacent possible of interstellar space. So why can’t we consider that evidence of the cosmic significance of life?

While we contemplate expanding the sphere of life in the physical space of the cosmos, we can also consider expanding the adjacent possible of life on Earth. That can be innovating or bringing more living beings into the world. That can also be creating opportunities for others, or perhaps even just not eliminating opportunities for others. That can be a grand, global effort, and it can be an every day habit of creativity, of collaborating, of leaving the world with a little more potential that it had when we woke up. After all, if we are going to bring life to more of the cosmos, we want to bring the best of what we have to offer. Might as well working on bringing our best to everywhere on Earth too and keep the winning streak for life rolling.

The post Science Corner: Life Victorious appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Throughout scripture, we see people confessing and receiving forgiveness. In the Psalms, we hear David and other psalmists cry out to God in their brokenness and ask for mercy, expecting that because of God’s loving mercy, they will be forgiven.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
(Psalm 51:10-12)

Before Jesus started his ministry, his cousin, who we know as John the Baptist, “went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Luke 3:3.  Then, throughout his ministry, Jesus speaks forgiveness over many people he encounters, shocking the religious establishment.  This forgiveness seems as, if not more, important than the physical healing.

Following Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, the disciples took up this message.  We see the disciples preaching the need for repentance in the early years of the church in Acts, as well as in their letters, such as this passage from 1 John 1.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 

In today’s society, confession can seem old-fashioned and even unnecessary, if not damaging.  Especially if we are in places and around people where we need to keep up appearances to succeed in school and careers. However, the truth of God’s Word and actions remain.  The teacher, writer, and pastor, John Mark Comer, writes the following in his book, Practicing the Way.

The problem is: Human beings resist facing reality.  The human capacity for self-deception is staggering.  But when it comes to sin, ignorance is not bliss.  It’s a cancer metastasizing through our bloodstreams.  The diagnosis is essential to the cure.  Over a millennia and a half ago, Evagrius Ponticus said, ‘The beginning of salvation is to condemn oneself.’ He was just saying that until we name our sin and open our wound to God, we can’t be saved from it.

This means we must begin by setting all that we are before God’s loving eye.  It is only when we are honest with God, others, and ourselves about all the ways we fall short of love that we enter into the transformational process of becoming more loving. (96)

I wonder what this looks like not only for our personal lives, but also for our campuses, our departments, our disciplines.  Since these institutions are made up of humans, sin will inevitably infect them – and, like us, awareness of the brokenness is the start of any healing. You may want to consider the following questions.

• In what ways do you see people in your discipline set up the discipline or career success as an alternative to God?
• Where do you see the relational effects of the fall in your discipline’s understanding of human relationships and society?  In the relationships within your department?
• How would you characterize the prevailing climate of conversation with your peers—is it one of wonder and delight, or something closer to cynicism?  Why do you think this is?
• What is idolatry as it applies to your academic work?
• Where does evidence of the fall show up in your discipline?

As you do this exercise, talk with God and/or a fellow believer about what you find.  More than likely, you aren’t going to be able to change the things you discover. But you might be able to recognize one area that you would like to pray into more. You may also become curious about ways to express the brokenness and turn toward healing in the places where you have influence.  In all of this, remember that we trust a God who is a master rebuilder.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
(Isaiah 61:4)

For more on the practice of confession, here are a couple of articles from other places on the ESN blog.
Remember You are Dust
Confession

The post Taking Stock appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

Everyone has thoughts on artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) these days, so it can be tough to cut through the noise. Personally, the novelty applications that make the rounds on social media don’t really grab me. Caricature portrait of myself? I’m sure I’ll like what my wife can draw better. Pop culture mashup? I’ll just wait for Avengers Doomsday. A knowledgeable person has found a practical use case that solves a real problem they had? Now we’re talking. So I perked up when I saw that Donald Knuth was excited about the mathematics abilities of Claude Opus 4.6.

Not familiar with Donald Knuth? He’s probably not a household name. There’s a decent chance he’s your favorite computer scientist’s favorite computer scientist. (Or maybe that’s Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, the co-first computer science PhD in the US, a pioneer in computer science education and contributor to the development of BASIC, my first programming language and maybe yours too.) Knuth is a somewhat legendary figure in computer science circles. As an undergrad, I remember hearing rumors about his idiosyncratic relationship to email; while probably as factually unreliable as any other bit of hearsay, no other computer scientists were even the subject of urban legends. He created the TeX typesetting system and the WEB/NOWEB tools for literate programming, all technologies that I use regularly in my day job. He is also the author of the foundational text The Art of Computer Programming, an ongoing project of his that led to his encounter with Claude.

His first person account is included in the linked write-up. I’d encourage you to read those bits for yourself, even if the math parts are intimidating (more on those shortly). Briefly, he posted an unsolved math problem that he was working on for his book, someone posed the problem to Claude Opus 4.6 which was able to find some solutions, and then further iterations with it and other LLMs produced additional solutions and written formal proofs that those solutions are indeed valid.

What was the unsolved problem? It’s about Hamiltonian cycles, a topic in graph theory. In graph theory, a graph is a set of nodes and edges between them. The nodes could be physical places and the edges transportation links, like subway stations (nodes) and the tracks that connect them (edges). Or they could be people (nodes) and friendships (edges). Or actors (nodes) who costarred in TV or movie projects (edges). A Hamiltonian cycle is a path that starts at one node and follows the available edges to every other node, visiting each one before winding up back at the start node. Knuth wasn’t planning a transit excursion or a movie marathon, he was working on a more abstract setup. For a directed graph (the edges point in one of the two directions) with a specified number of nodes (m³) connected in a specified way, can you split the edges into three equal groups such that each group is a Hamiltonian cycle?

Sometimes with a math problem like this you can prove that solutions exist without knowing what that solution or solutions are or look like. Or you can find the actual solution(s), thus proving they exist. In this case, for any given value of m you might be able to come up with a solution, but that doesn’t tell you about whether there is a solution for any other value. So even better is a procedure that constructs solutions given the value of m of interest. Then you need a proof that your procedure produces genuine solutions, without actually generating all (potentially infinite, depending on the range for m that the procedure works for) solutions and checking them individually. And that is what the LLMs were able to produce: several different procedures for generating solutions that worked for different ranges of m, and in at least one case the corresponding formal proof that the procedure worked.

To accomplish this, Claude iterated through a few dozen ideas about what such a procedure might look like. For each one in turn, it generated computer code that would implement the proposed procedure. Then it would run that code for specific values and check whether the procedure worked in those cases. When it found that the procedure didn’t work, it moved on to another idea, until it eventually came up with a procedure that worked for several odd values of m and declared success. For that procedure, Knuth himself then worked out a formal proof manually. Subsequently, other folks iterated with Claude and other LLMs to find different procedures, including some that worked for even numbers, and one of those procedures was then proven to be a general solution in yet another LLM session.

To be fair, even to generate the first working procedure, Claude did not do all of those steps smoothly in one pass. There were some starts and stops, and in the initial sessions it just plain conked out trying to find solutions for even values of m. At the same time, it did not need to be led step-by-step through the process or given ideas to try; it apparently has some ability to take multiple steps towards a goal on its own.

How it does that is harder to say. Some LLMs, in some modes, do provide running commentary on what they are doing and why, but it is not clear to me whether that is any more accurate than any other text generated by such models. To be fair, we don’t know everything that goes on when humans carry out complex tasks like this either, and given how much goes on at the unconscious level, we may not be 100% reliable about our own processes either. But to look at the output, it sure seems like Claude has a better understanding of graph theory than I do, or at least a better facility to do graph theory work. Maybe not better than Donald Knuth or the other mathematicians and computer scientists involved, but better than me.

Does that mean we are on the way to superhuman, and perhaps even God-like intelligence? That’s certainly the sci-fi answer, but not for me to say. However, just the idea that we are creating peers for ourselves–not in the traditional, what-parents-have-been-doing-for-years way, although that is remarkable for its own reasons–represents a substantial development. Sure, we’ve been making tools that can replace or exceed human capabilities, both physical and mental. But we’ve never had a tool we could talk to like this before. I don’t think that makes us as gods or anything like that, but I can see how someone could wind up following that train of thought.

Knuth himself might be interested in such questions himself. His book, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About, has sections like “Computer programmers as creators of new universes” and “Other concepts of computer science that may give insights about divinity.” The book predates the current AI boom, but his insights on how computer science can speak with theology are likely still relevant.

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To date, the story narrated for Christian workers has been that of the individual, striving to stay true to their faith in a hostile work environment, watching for openings to evangelize co-workers. In Working for Better, A New Approach to Faith at Work, social scientists Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels offer a more expansive script, inviting workers towards a wider, deeper understanding of the doctrine of the imago Dei that recognizes the common grace in all people, including those who believe differently from us, and to embrace the practice of “principled pluralism.” Alongside this, they call pastors (including this college pastor) to more fully equip our congregations to step into this much bigger, more complex vision.

The authors conducted the largest study to date on faith and work in the United States. The data reveal a rich myriad of fears, longings, attitudes, and experiences of people of faith at work. Writing primarily for a Christian audience, the authors interpret the survey data through the theological lens of the doctrine of the imago Dei to both identify the real struggles Christians experience at work and to reveal potential opportunities for Christians to work towards justice at work for all.

The book lays this analysis out structurally. Chapter one on the changing landscape of the context of faith in the workplace, and Chapter twelve on the growing call for practicing rest bookend five chapter pairs. In each of the pairs, the first chapter engages with a more traditional approach to faith at work, and the second chapter shifts the reader to a new way of engagement. The pairs address 1) our conceptualizations of calling at work, 2) religious discrimination, 3) workers’ individual personal responsibility and workplace systems, 4) gender discrimination, and finally, 5) the expression of religious faith at work. The authors see these pairings as the key areas of tension emerging from the data where there “needs to be the most intervention in setting forth a new vision in order to see the greatest redemption in workplaces today.” (p.7)

Chapters two and three address our conceptualizations of calling. From the data, it is evident that the sacred/secular divide is alive and well in evangelicalism. Many of the Christians they interviewed struggled to see work as part of their calling that was not either specifically people-focused or vocational Christian ministry. Chapter three, however, examines wherein their work Christians found their sense of calling. The authors were able to use this data to graphically map how Christians find their calling in different aspects of their work, leading them to argue for a more expansive understanding of calling in our work.

No doubt many will find the analysis on calling highly useful. But it is in the next four pairings that the book really takes off. In each pairing, the authors actively push Christians to lift our gaze from seeing ourselves as lone islands in our workplaces, struggling against a work environment that is hostile to our faith, to seeing ourselves as agents of systemic change for the good of all. They call on Christians to recognize every person at work as God’s image bearer, regardless of their religious affiliation, and who thus deserves our consideration and advocacy. 

Chapters four and five address the issue of religious discrimination. Chapter four outlines data that points to the realities of religious discrimination in the workplace. Chapter five then particularly calls on those in leadership roles in workplaces to pay attention to how workers from different religious traditions might experience the workplace, and to take active steps to address religious discrimination. The authors use one of many “slow down moments” in the book to remind Christians that part of being faithful at work is being aware of and concerned for those who are not Christians (p.79). These moves in chapter five are refreshing. In a time when diversity itself is under attack, the authors chart a way for Christians to positively contribute to a just workplace for people of all religions.

Chapters six and seven shift workers’ focus from personal responsibility to improving workplace systems. One of the strengths of the book is its irenic approach. The authors take seriously and deeply honor their interviewees’ concern to be ethical at work, even when it comes at a cost. They follow this up with a call to pastors to talk more about how Christians should act at work (p.95). The data in these chapters reveals that many Christians are willing to stand up for the integrity of themselves and their workplaces, even at the risk of their very jobs. Building on this, the authors then move readers to do what they can in their various work situations to influence workplace systems. The authors are aware that systems thinking may not be welcome by all amongst their readership. They thus take great care to lay down a biblical foundation for their case and to address anticipated objections. Chapter seven is full of real-life examples of Christians shifting the culture and changing systems in their workplaces. From the data, the authors helpfully identify that Christians have embodied cultures of care, fostered honest organizations, and shifted systems and practices to make their workplaces more just for racial and gender minorities. Aware of power dynamics in workplaces, they also suggest practical ways in which all Christians can notice systems that operate unjustly and nudge their workplace cultures into closer alignment with seeing all as made in God’s image.

Chapters eight and nine address gender discrimination. In a critical move for Christian women, the authors highlight the connection between restricted women’s roles within the church and its impact on issues women face in the workplace. They point to how gendered roles in the church, including the lack of women leading from the front, expectations of clergy wives, and the so-called “Billy Graham rule” that prohibits male pastors from meeting with female congregants, both socialize women in particular ways and result in the church marginalizing women who work in all forms of paid employment. As with every other pairing, however, in chapter nine, the authors generously share ways in which churches can better support women who work, and Christian leaders of workplaces can better support women. It is difficult to say whether this pairing will address what is often, for better or worse, a division that is couched in theological terms. Sociological data may or may not be enough to convince church leaders to make theological shifts, and the authors wisely stay within their expertise as social scientists. For those who are willing to hear, however, the authors advocate for women (including a particular engagement with issues pertaining to women of color) to be seen as fully made in the image of God, and call for action on that basis. Their efforts will no doubt be appreciated by many women in the church.

Finally, chapters ten and eleven consider how Christians express their faith at work. The data is again both fascinating and encouraging. Christians are working hard to be thoughtful in how they share their faith with their colleagues. But it is the authors’ call for “principled pluralism” that warrants attention. They define principled pluralism as a mode of relating that does not require any person, Christians included, to relinquish or dilute their beliefs, but calls on all to be open to recognizing the true value within another person’s faith. It is a call to Christians to recognize the reality of common grace within other faith systems. Their practical suggestions, which include considering power dynamics within the workplace and incorporating religion in diversity training, along with their surveyed examples, reveal the challenges of this call. It is worthy, and indeed, it would lead to the flourishing of all in a workplace, but we have a long way to go to attain it.

A major highlight of this book is the authors’ thoughtful analysis of the data. People of faith long to bring their whole selves to work, and Christians long to serve God in and through their work.   It also reveals that our theologies of work and calling are deeply intertwined with our American individualism, patriarchy, and a sacred-secular divide. The final chapter on rest, so vital for human flourishing, highlights our capitalist mindset, even as it lays out practices such as a “minute by minute, day by day” approach to rest (p.202). As they say, “In the case of rest, our data is actually the silence.” (p.193) Such is the Christian theology of rest in this country.

More than anything else, this book is a wake-up call to pastors and church leaders. We have left our people hungry. Christians long to see the meaning in their work, and they long to bear faithful witness to Christ in the workplace. Further, as they engage daily with the realities of pluralism, increased polarization, and the complexities of changing workplaces, they need theological and practical resources to equip them to engage with these social realities winsomely and with integrity, even as they seek justice for the whole. Indeed, this book brings workplace justice into the work and faith conversation where so many have been silent. As it is, it appears that many Christians are left to struggle as best they can on their own, and the challenges for women are even less seen by the church.

This book is perfect for book groups. It’s packed with real-life examples and practical wisdom, and each chapter ends with thoughtful reflection questions, including particular questions for faith communities. May we who are church leaders use it to teach ourselves as well as the people we serve, so that we may all work for better.

The post Book Review: Working for Better by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

We just observed Super Bowl Sunday, the culmination of the American football season. There are downsides to having so much of our attention and our culture revolve around the sport. On the plus side, it provides common ground for metaphors. One of the quirks of football is the possibility of offsetting penalties. I’m not sure if we saw them in this Super Bowl; I didn’t notice any, but the slow-starting game lost my attention for a while. But if you’ve watched at least a few football games, you’ve likely come across them. Basically, if a player from each team breaks the rules on the same play and the infractions for the penalties are similar enough, they cancel each other out and neither team is penalized.

Matters of justice have dominated national conversations of late. How do we implement justice for criminals and the victims of their crimes while respecting the rights of the innocent? How do we balance justice for breaking immigration laws with compassion for those seeking to escape difficult circumstances not of their making? How do we hold the powerful accountable for crimes against the most vulnerable when the powerful control so many of the levers of justice? Answering all of these questions is beyond my remit, but just because I am treating them rhetorically does not mean I think they are unanswerable. Rather, I want to focus on what I think is a mathematical aspect of those conversations.

I had offsetting penalties on the mind even prior to the Super Bowl, because the idea feels like it is creeping into some of these other, more consequential matters of justice. Maybe not to the same degree in all issues, and certainly not in everyone’s reasoning, but I have noticed that offsetting mindset at play. Someone you identify with, respect or support is legally or morally culpable? Just find someone from “the other side” who is similarly guilty. Then your proxy, and by association you, are off the hook, right?

Well, why does that work in football? The nature of the game means that you can collapse much of the action into a single dimension–distance between the ball and the goal line. The discrete nature of the action also helps, with the ball not moving between plays. That allows officials to adjust the position of the ball in that one dimension while action is paused, as a way to punish rule violations. So when multiple infractions would mean shifting the ball in both directions, you might as well just skip ahead to the net zero movement. But note that this is not common across all sports. In ice hockey, if players on opposite teams commit penalties, they are both sent to the penalty box rather than allowing those penalties to cancel out. Same thing with yellow or red cards in soccer; you don’t get away with something just because I also broke the rules.

In a sense, this is because the punishments occur in separate dimensions. My time in the penalty box is not on the same “axis” as your time in the penalty box, such that any shift towards more time for me means less time for you. I doubt the officiating bodies of these sports necessarily think in terms of dimensions of punishment when constructing the rules. But that’s one of the joys of math, finding ways to apply common abstractions to a variety of situations so that reasoning and problem-solving can be shared between them. I suppose one could say something similar about sports and other games; they provide abstractions of competition and conflict in which we can work out different approaches with lower stakes.

Of course, life can’t be all fun and games. The stakes in the questions I raised earlier couldn’t be higher for many involved. All the more reason, then, to explore the full dimensionality of the possibilities for justice. So let us note that something interesting happens in high dimensions. In one or a few dimensions, there is a strong sense that some points are closer together than others. My son is less than 300 miles away from me at college; my daughter is over 2,000 miles away. Those aren’t the same distance, and it matters; I can drive to one in a day but not the other. But in high dimensions, most points wind up roughly the same distance apart–not necessarily close, just similar in distance. This creates challenges for data analysis known as the curse of dimensionality, but for our purposes now let’s consider how it might be a blessing.

To even be able to contemplate offsetting justice, I had to introduce the idea of someone from “the other side.” Notice how that is also a one dimensional concept, assuming we can put everyone along a single axis and split them into sides. This assumption is front and center of much public discourse at the moment. As a result, we naturally regard folks as either close to us or far away from us in that one dimension. Consider then what would happen if we instead regarded our fellow humans in their full dimensionality. As we expand into more dimensions, the distances between us smooth out. Again, they don’t go to zero. We are definitely not all the same person, and we don’t need to be for this effect to work. Quite the opposite, really. Since we all contain multitudes, between any two people there will be enough of a mix of commonalities and distinctives to put a similar distance between them as between any other pair.

Putting it another way, John Hodgman likes to say “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” It is his way of encouraging guests on his podcast to be concrete and detailed. And he’s expressing a sentiment many have observed about storytelling, that universal stories require specific details, not generalities. This could seem like a paradox, but it makes sense if one reflects that specific stories are high dimensional stories while vague ones are not. And so a vague story will perhaps resonate with some strongly, but potentially feel quite alien to others. But a story with many specific facets will be similarly relatable for nearly everyone.

So take this as encouragement to be fully yourself in all the dimensions you occupy. And appreciate the fullness of all of God’s other image bearers as you encounter them and consider how to treat them justly.

The post Science Corner: Multidimensional Justice appeared first on Emerging Scholars Blog.

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 
– Philippians 1:3-6

Joy and good work.  As I read the opening of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, these words make me pause. He is praying with joy – one of the key works he practiced while in prison – and he knows that those to whom he is writing are in the midst of good work in their community.

Over Christmas break during Urbana 2025, InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference, I had the privilege of seeing joy and good work come together in community.  Nearly thirty scholars attended a lunch for emerging scholars, and during the hour and a half we were together, the sound of conversation never died down. As I visited each table, I heard linguists, scientists, historians, statisticians, and more share about their work and how it fits into God’s story.  As people shared about their scholarship in all different stages of completion, the joy level in the room increased. No one seemed to be concerned about posturing or making a point; everyone wanted to share about the work God had given them to do and their love for it.

This reminds me of a passage from the book,The Seeker and the Monk, by Sophfronia Scott. In this work, Scott interacts with the Cistercian monk and author, Thomas Merton, through his voluminous writings.  In a section on joy and work, she writes:

“There is a divine connection and joy and light.  And if (Thomas) Merton could have reveled in his gifts, he may have felt something similar.  Perhaps Merton did taste a bit of this joy.  There’s a Merton quote that shows up in a lot of compendiums, but I can’t find its original source.  It says, “When ambition ends, happiness begins.”  I think letting go of ego and doing what we do best because it’s simply what we do seems like a good way to be.
. . .
I’m guessing that in your prayerful moments, Thomas, you realized helping people was what your work was really about.  Maybe this knowledge is what inspired you to keep going.  By the time you published A Merton Reader, it seemed you were ready to let go, at least a bit, of wanting your writing to be anything more than it was. I think of you with empty hands because you’ve given away the best of who you were.  I hope you became lighter for it.”

As you begin this new year, how are you looking at your work?  Is it with joy and lightness?  Is it with the weight of expectations set by your department and yourself?  Maybe a combination of the two? Where might God be inviting you to recognize the good work he is inviting you into with him?

“In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accepting life, and everything in life as a gift, and clinging to none of it, as far as you are able”  – Thomas Merton 

PRACTICE

I invite you to ask one or two other scholars to join you in reflecting on these questions, perhaps over coffee, a meal, or a walk.  Shared in community, these conversations can bring out the joy we might miss on our own.

Creation:

·       Describe where you see your discipline bringing order out of chaos.

·       Where do you experience excitement, delight, and a sense of joy in your work?

Fall:

·       What is idolatry as it applies to your discipline?

·       Where does evidence of the fall show up in your discipline, work?

Redemption:

·       What does Jesus love about your research?

·       How is God using your discipline to bring redemption?

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