In times where many are struggling due to the crises in the country, and grappling with decision of whether or not to leave the country, I have been reflecting on the decision I made to return to Sri Lanka in January 2020, after completing my doctoral studies in Australia… Often the conversations around returning to the country centre around the question of “is it really worth returning?”
Category: Reflections
‘It is unfortunate that our academics and intellectuals are yet to engage rigorously with the vast literature on neoliberalism, but I also see that as a consequence of their class character, and how they are beholden to Western interests, be it donor-funded research projects or neoclassical economic analysis perpetuated in the Western academy.’
- Ahilan Kadirgamar
- Ahilan Kadirgamar
Deep down in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfil a purpose bigger than ourselves. Only such a larger purpose can inspire us to heights we know we could never reach on our own. For each of us, the real purpose is personal and passionate: to do what we are here to do, and why?
- Os Guinness
- Os Guinness
When I began life as an undergrad in the Sri Lankan state university system, we were invited to reflect on God’s surprising message to the exiled population in Babylon - “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7). Regardless of whether one should be likening the state university experience to exile or not, the call to actively pray for the prosperity of those who are seen to be in opposition to you is a tough pill to swallow.
Last year, Vinoth Ramachandra gave a series of talks on how academics should engage the university. Like many of us, I watched them with a lot of interest. And yet I couldn’t shake the sense that, while he was right at the general level, the Sri Lankan context asks for something quite different from us. This post consists of a set of questions that have been rattling around inside me for a while now. The fundamental question behind everything else I have written is: how can Christian academics, given our history in Sri Lanka, where our society is right now, and the possibilities of a university, be witnesses to the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord?
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God;
for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labours as God did from his.”
Hebrews 4:9-10.
for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labours as God did from his.”
Hebrews 4:9-10.
In my short career as an academic, I have felt Hebrews 4:9-10 applies to every other profession, but mine. At this rate, I know I will be burnt out by the seventh year requiring a Sabbatical to recover.
The futurist Alvin Toffler has said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”. The Covid pandemic has exposed the fragile nature of life and laid bare many of the assumptions under which we unconsciously operate. While this has affected all of our life activities, nowhere has it been more stark as in our church life. Much of reform in history has happened when people were angry about the way things were. Such anger however, often results in bitterness and eventually avoiding the situation. Are there healthier ways to leverage such anger? Are there alternate models of church in the world?
The hypothetical example of a child who survived the 2004 tsunami (while many others perished around him) features in a debate between Alister McGrath and Richard Dawkins. The former endorses the appropriateness of the claim that God saved the boy; while the latter thinks that God would be extremely capricious if he behaved like that, and himself attributes the child’s survival to chance in the context of natural laws. Christian theists believe that God sustains the world rather than only having created it and set its path in motion. But could we also say ex ante that the child’s survival was determined (purely) by the laws of nature; but ex poste that God saved him?
The image of Nero fiddling while the City of Rome burned was referenced by some academics in Sri Lanka when transition to teaching online began during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Many of us could identify with that sentiment. How and why should we be engaging in ‘normal’ academic activities when the world is facing a pandemic?