By Mike Russell, University of South Australia - Magill
I attended my second ever T3 'Thinking Truth Together' day in Adelaide recently. It's unlike any other Christian event I've ever been to, and remarkably encouraging and illuminating. A big part of the genius is in the program: It's Christian academics speaking about their own research, relating their research to Christianity, and then taking questions from the other attendees. So in our case, we had a company of nine, which included an agricultural scientist, a sociologist, an accountant, a molecular biologist, a specialist in entrepreneurship, and me (I'm doing Masters research in Christian apologetics).
The discussion roamed at a high level from feeding the poor to applications of how certain human cells sense oxygen to the sociology of refugee arrivals in country towns to the entrepreneurial benefits of humility to the detection of fraud through accounting. The breadth of collective input meant we participants were forced to get our heads up out of our own limited fields and see the breadth and intricacy of human knowledge.
'Integration' was the buzz-word, as we considered how the various disciplines could be integrated with each other, within the Christian worldview. This was aided by a talk we listened to which outlined one approach to thinking about various academic disciplines in relation to the discipline of law.
These are great things in themselves and show the glory of the one God who made them all. But the richness grew in particular as specifically Christian insights and motivations were articulated by the various experts. It was interesting to me how the Christian motivations of various speakers informed their particular focus and research interest. So our meat quality agricultural-scientist loved to talk about his travels with students to see Christian-sponsored projects aiding the agriculture of poor countries. The sociologist was passionate and detailed about the integration of refugees. The accountant was enthusiastic about how accounting might be used to identify fraud, while musing on the power of sin to hide such fraud. And how good it was to conclude such an intellectual tour with prayer to our common God through our Lord Jesus!
We had a lovely final word from the non-university attendee who had come with her son, looking out for his faith as he started university. She enthusiastically thanked those present for the spiritual encouragement the meeting had provided her and her son. She mentioned the increased confidence it had brought her that there were Christians at the highest level in various parts of the tertiary system. And the rest of us had to agree that it had been very encouraging. For we had seen in concrete terms how Christians can thrive and contribute at the highest level of enquiry.
A big thanks to Lewis Jones for coming all the way from Sydney to make this event happen.