This week, we sat down with Professor Paul Lim, Associate Professor of the History of Christianity.

Professor Lim is an award-winning historian of Reformation- and post-Reformation Europe. His latest book, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2012), won the 2013 Roland H. Bainton Prize as the best book in history/theology by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. He has published two other books in that area: The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism (Cambridge, 2008); and In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty: Richard Baxter’s Puritan Ecclesiology in Context (Brill, 2004).

In addition, history of evangelicalism and global Christianities are his other foci of research. Currently, he is writing a book on the transformation of global evangelical attitudes toward and endeavors on eradication of human trafficking and structural poverty.

Professor Lim holds a B.A. from Yale University (1990), an M.Div. from the Biblical Theological Seminary (1995), a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary (1997), and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (2001).

This is the final episode of The Carver Cast, Season 1. Please stay tuned for Season 2, anticipated in 2021! In the meantime, our team continues to engage with Christian faculty, and you can visit us at www.carverstl.org for updates and other resources.

--

The Carver Cast engages with Christian faculty in higher education and highlights the work of those faculty to bridge connections between university, church, and society. In doing so, it seeks to disrupt the perceptions that Christians are “anti-intellectual” and that higher education is “anti-Christian.” Tune in for a wide-ranging discussion with faculty around the country, with mediocre production quality but excellent content!

Penina Laker and John Inazu are Carver Project faculty fellows and members of the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, where Laker is assistant professor of communication design and Inazu is a professor of law and religion.

This week, we sat down with Washington University Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Jill Pasteris, to talk about living out her faith in her scientific field.

Professor Pasteris’ research interests include Biomineralization and Raman spectroscopy of Geological Materials. She holds a PhD from Yale University.

Pasteris collaborates with chemists and materials scientists to compare Raman and infrared (IR) spectra of biological apatite (a calcium phosphate mineral) and its synthetic analogs. The current goal is to understand better how the carbonate ion is incorporated into biological apatite. She also currently is collaborating with colleagues from the School of Engineering to enhance the growth of lead-bearing minerals to form protective mineral scales on the inner walls of lead pipes. The aim is to eliminate the cause of lead poisoning due to the historical use of lead service pipes to bring drinking water into homes in the US.

--

The Carver Cast engages with Christian faculty in higher education and highlights the work of those faculty to bridge connections between university, church, and society. In doing so, it seeks to disrupt the perceptions that Christians are “anti-intellectual” and that higher education is “anti-Christian.” Tune in for a wide-ranging discussion with faculty around the country, with mediocre production quality but excellent content!

Penina Laker and John Inazu are Carver Project faculty fellows and members of the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, where Laker is assistant professor of communication design and Inazu is a professor of law and religion.

This episode, we talked with Professor Abram Van Engen, Associate Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, about his research on religion and literature. His research focuses especially on seventeenth-century Puritans and the way they have been remembered and remade in American culture.

Van Engen began his career with a study of sympathy in seventeenth-century Puritanism, drawing together abiding interests in the history of emotions, theology, imagined communities, and literary form. Those interests led to his first book, Sympathetic Puritans, and numerous related articles on early American religion and literature.

Beginning with these concerns, Van Engen has moved from a study of the Puritans in their own place and context to an interest in the way Puritans have been recollected and re-used by later generations. Studying the life of texts and the effects of collective memory, Van Engen has produced a second book, The Meaning of America, along with several other publications that together study the creation and curation of American exceptionalism.

Work on his second project was furthered by participation in the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University in St. Louis, where Van Engen has been leading a team to study the concept and creation of American exceptionalism through a history of the phrase “city on a hill.” That work has led to multiple related digital projects, all in teams with undergraduate and graduate researchers. Collaboration remains essential to his work, with co-edited journal issues, co-written articles, co-taught courses and working groups that bring together literature, history, religion, politics, and psychology.

Van Engen’s undergraduate courses have included Literature, Spirituality, and Religion (a freshman seminar); Early Texts and Contexts; American Literature to 1865; Natives and Newcomers in Early America; City on a Hill (for American Culture Studies); and Morality and Markets (co-taught with the Business School). Graduate seminars have included Puritanism, Literature and Religion, Intro to Graduate Studies, and Marilynne Robinson.

Van Engen is also the Director of English Graduate Studies as well as an Associate Professor of Religion and Politics (by courtesy). He received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2010.

--

The Carver Cast engages with Christian faculty in higher education and highlights the work of those faculty to bridge connections between university, church, and society. In doing so, it seeks to disrupt the perceptions that Christians are “anti-intellectual” and that higher education is “anti-Christian.” Tune in for a wide-ranging discussion with faculty around the country, with mediocre production quality but excellent content!

Penina Laker and John Inazu are Carver Project faculty fellows and members of the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, where Laker is assistant professor of communication design and Inazu is a professor of law and religion.