I mentioned in my last post that I would be posting more on my experience and thoughts on how I navigate being both an intellectual (of the academic order) and a Christian (of the psuedo-Reformed/Evangelical order). More specifically, I mentioned that i would be talking about how I see my ability to negotiate these spheres in relation to postmodern cultural and social theorists.
This is not my goal today. Today, I would like to take a moment, breathe, and give a few examples of others who negotiate this same process of self-identification.
First, there are the blogs that I have listed in my "Links" section to the left. These are friends and groups that are spending a great deal of time on the same issues that I often find myself struggling with. I point them out not only because I want more people to look at their sites but also because I want to prove that I am not an outlier of culture. There are a great number of individuals who are struggling with me over the same issues.
In addition to these blogs I would like to make special note of the following:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110002380
This is the article in the Wall Street Journal that talks about some of the pressures on graduate students have to face when they bring their personal ideology (in all its changing forms) into their work.
The story of Laura Winner, a Columbia graduate student, who went from Orthodox Judaism to being baptized into the Anglican church is not as strange as some might think, and it cannot be merely tossed into a labelled bin of another thinker desiring to just turn off their brain and submit to a false consciousness. Her book, "Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Religious Life" (Algonquin)" (although I've only read excerpts) seems to detail a journey very similar to those by such respected intellectuals as C.S. Lewis (I know everybody loves to bring him up), Jacques Ellul, and Simone Weil who not only transitioned in a very rational manner from different ideological positions into Christianity but also detailed their thoughts about this journey in excellent books.
Another such intellectual, Charles Towne, a Nobel Laureate in Physics, recently received the Templeton Prize (also won by Mother Teresa) for those who advance spiritual knowledge. This BBC article give an interesting introduction for those who feel that science and faith cannot mix:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4333801.stm
For more daily exposure to the kinds of questions and discussion that other in my position examine please check out at least one of the following:
http://www.badchristian.com
http://churchgalposts.blogspot.com/
http://evangelicalexpat.blogspot.com/
http://nbierma.blogspot.com/
http://www.dialogicalcoffeehouse.com/
I know that many people have extreme misgivings about trusting blogs and with good reason, but if you take these as expressions of people's personal journey rather than any sort of polemic, then i think it might help understand how others, besides myself, are working through this problem of belonging.
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