This fall quarter I took a PhD seminar called Historiography. Its basically a research methods class for work in historical studies, and specifically church history. I’ve been plowing through a lot German and French stuff, learning new methods for locating obscure old articles and monographs, and writing a rough draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. Its been a lot of fun, and caused me to reflect on the nature of scholarship. Some miscellaneous thoughts: 1) Scholarship can be used for great good. Its like the army, or the press, or technological advance. It can serve the greater good…

As you can see, I’ve upgraded to a new background theme for my blog. I’ve also shortened the domain from gavinortlund.wordpress.com to simply gavinortlund.com (although either one will automatically direct you here). Thanks for checking in!

This would make for a fun journal article. And it would be a window into some important larger issues, like continuity/discontinuity between creation and new creation. Here’s my tentative answer: certainly there are some realms of scholarship that are only necessary in a fallen world—for example, the study of medicine will no longer be necessary when sickness and death are extinguished. And certainly there are some characteristics of scholarship in a fallen world that will need to be purged—the pretentiousness, the elitism, the (at times) dishonesty, and so forth. But at its best, scholarship simply represents an apparatus in which…

I was recently reading a bit of Resilient Ministry: What Pastors Told Us About Surviving And Thriving, by Bob Burns, Tasha Chapman, and Donald Guthrie (three old seminary professors). It looks like a really helpful book, and sparked some thoughts in me on what the key elements for a healthy ministry over the long haul are. As I was reading, I was reminded of how partial seminary training is. A minister going to seminary is like a basketball coach reading books about basketball, or a general reading books about war. Its good, but it only covers one portion of what…

This is a video about our missions trip in Belize this summer. Thanks to Megan Puentes for her hard work on it!

Esther and I are here on vacation in Scotts Valley, California, near Santa Cruz. We’re staying at the same Conference Center that we met at, almost exactly 7 years ago. Its been fun to explore — I really like this part of Northern California. We’re surrounded by beautiful, soaring redwood trees, but only 10 minutes from the beach. What a deal! Its been fun to re-connect with old friends, explore with Esther and Isaiah, and work on some scholarly projects. I love living in California. I know we have a lot of economic problems, and there is a lot of…

I used to be a bit skeptical about the value of personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Then one of my professors in seminary, Dr. Phil Douglass, gave my wife and me a short article on “how INFJs and ENFPs relate to one another.” (I’m an INFJ, and my wife is an ENFP.) I read the article, and was shocked at how accurately it described our relationship: it felt like someone had been studying Esther and me for a while and written the article specifically about us. I began to study more, and the more I read, the…

This quarter I had the privilege of TAing in a systematic theology class, and it got me thinking of how I would structure such as a class if I were teaching at a seminary. So the other night I planned out a rough sketch of how I would organize systematic theology classes, if I were teaching any of the main three that most seminaries offer. This assumes that I would be teaching at an institution on a 10-week quarter system, and at an institution which was evangelical and Protestant, and open to a broadly reformed approach. In the first two…

I’ve been planning out a tentative schedule for the structure of my PhD. Here’s what its looking like so far, with notes below: Fall 2012: seminar on the Doctrine of the Atonement, and Latin Winter 2013: Independent Reading I Spring 2013: Independent Reading II Summer 2013: German Fall 2013: Historiography seminar Winter 2014: seminar on the Doctrine of the Trinity Spring 2014: seminar on Calvin/Calvinism Summer 2014: French Fall 2014: Independent Reading III, and preparation for comprehensive exams Then I would take my comps and start my dissertation on St. Anselm’s Proslogion. Here is what I am thinking for my…

For the past week Esther and I have been in Tennessee. We spent a few days in Knoxville for a wedding, and then a few more at my parents’ house near Nashville. It is so refreshing to be back in a cooler climate (as opposed to the constant heat back home), especially as the leaves are changing. I forgot how much I miss four distinct seasons. The first night we were here, I went on an hour and a half walk in the pouring rain throughout my parents’ neighborhood. Great time for prayer and reflection on life. Its rained almost…