Moving...

The blog, not us!  I'm switching to wordpress for a number of reasons.  You can find the latest here, if you'd still like to follow along:

jhsherrard.wordpress.com

The Center for Pastor Theologians

A little over a month ago I stumbled across an organization called the Center for Pastor Theologians through a colleague also studying at the University of St Andrews. One of the aims of CPT (which used to be called the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology, as it's referred to in the video below) is to foster a network of pastors who understand theological writing to be a part of the expression of their pastoral vocation in the local church. You can get a sense of the vision of the program in this video:


When I heard about the fellowships that CPT offers, I contacted Gerald Hiestand, the director of CPT, about the possibility of applying even though I'm not currently serving in the local church. He told me to go ahead and send in an application, and about a week ago I had a skype interview with the leadership of the organization. Last weekend, I got the word that I'd been accepted as an Associate Fellow (I'll drop the associate tag upon completion of my PhD and return to local church ministry). What this means is that this summer I'll fly over to the States for a three day symposium where I'll meet with the other pastors in my group to discuss a book and engage with our fellowship's mentor (in our case Doug Sweeney, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) and another guest consultant who has expertise in our particular topic. In the past, the books have been Kevin Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine and James Davidson Hunter's To Change the World, and this summer we'll be looking at the book Christian Theology and Market Economics, with Dr. Stephen Gabrill coming along as our guest consultant.

I continue to feel strongly that my calling is to the local church, but at the same time we've felt quite sure that getting a PhD at St Andrews was the right next step for us.  I know of quite a few pastors who have pursued an academic PhD as a part of their calling and have integrated that into their particular set of gifts.  For me, the CPT provides a network of relationships and also examples in the other pastors I'll meet for how what I'm doing in St Andrews can be a part of the larger calling that I've been given to ordained ministry in the local church. 

I'm looking forward to the trip and to getting to know some of the other folks in my fellowship.  I've met some of the folks in the other fellowship -- Trygve Johnson, who is the dean of the chapel at Hope College, and Greg Thompson, who pastors Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, VA (and who Kate heard preach quite a bit during her year in Cville) -- and they are great pastors whom I respect greatly.  Grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to the experience.

Giving Thanks (Belatedly)

"Thou that hast giv'n so much to me,

Give one thing more, a grateful heart."

Celebrating Thanksgiving in a country that doesn't recognize it as a national holiday was a little bit of a strange experience.  No four-day weekend, no sitting around watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, no (American) football.  Of all the small changes and adjustments that we've had to make, this was one that I hadn't seen coming.  And of course we were about as far away as we've ever been from family for a holiday. 

That's not to say that we didn't take time out to celebrate our native holiday.  On Thursday evening after we picked up the kids from school we joined our friends the Buchanans at the flat of another American family, the Buckners.  It was a great time, and the Buckners had some great things planned for our kids to do so they could experience the spirit of the holiday.  And in early November, we gathered with the folks I share my office with (the Black room, named after former St Andrews professor Matthew Black) and their families for an early Thanksgiving celebration.  Both were amazing meals and great times with our new friends here.  

This Thanksgiving season it's been particularly easy for me to reflect on all the things for which I can give thanks.  The last year, and particularly the last year has been full.  Full of changes, full of new experiences, and full of God's provision. It's amazing to pause and to survey it all.

Kate: I couldn't ask for a better companion in this journey.  The move to Scotland has been in the first place a move for me - a great opportunity, a chance to study and pursue the dream of post-graduate work that I've had for some time, and more besides that.   While the decision to move has involved some sacrifices for all of us, Kate was sacrificing the most - moving away from her family, from her friends, and to another country.  Her willingness to take this step, the courage that she's had at every step of the way, and the continued sacrifices she makes for our family - I can't thank her enough.

The Boys:  These guys have really risen to every challenge over here.  Joseph - who we once (very mistakenly) thought was our shy child - has flourished over here.  We've started calling him "the Mayor" since he is saying hello to everyone (classmates, older kids, little siblings of his friends) when we're going to and from school.  His teacher selected him to be the class representative for 'pupil council,' the school's form of student government.  For James the move was harder, but after a rough few weeks when we were moving from house to house and our schedule was really irregular, he's found his stride.  He remains, as ever, our crazy curly-headed child.  They have loved the new patterns of our Scottish life - the new friends, all the parks and playgrounds, the dramatic increase in the amount of walking we do.  

Our families:  Probably the most nerve-wracking part of our decision-making process was talking to our families about Scotland.  At every step, they have been gracious and understanding.  We know it's not easy, particularly when the grandkids are involved (let's be honest - we're chopped liver in comparison), but their support has been great.  The support of my sister in particular has meant the world.  We're looking forward to a few weeks in the States and visiting with both of our families over the Christmas holidays. 

Our church family in Starkville:  These folks have blessed us so much.  They chose to be excited when we announced our move to Scotland and have supported us in so many ways.  Kate and I still talk about our last Sunday and how special was that day to us.  It is great to hear about the new senior pastor's start at FPC - Dr. Lifer seems exactly the person FPC needs for the next step in its ministry.  There are great things ahead for this congregation, and we're thankful to have been with these friends for the past six years. 

The St Andrews Community: Since we touched down in Scotland, folks from the divinity school and from the community have welcomed us and done whatever they could to help.  Within the first month, someone had driven me 30 minutes away to pick up our car, we had been over to three houses for dinner, we were given things for our house, playdates for the boys were scheduled, and more.  Culture shock here comes more from the lots of little changes that are made as opposed to something like a completely different language or a totally different diet.  The folks here go out of their way to make the transition as easy as possible.  It's an amazingly generous group considering that we're all living the graduate student life.

New Friends:  We had a wonderful community in Starkville.  One of the things that caused the most fear for us was wondering what it would look like to start over in St Andrews.  While we're still developing friendships here, the transition has been easier than we could have imagined.  I've found in my own program some kindred spirits.  Forrest Buckner is a fellow PCUSA pastor who has been a great friend and has encouraged me a great deal as I think about how my studies can be a blessing to the Church.  Esau McCaulley and I have had some great conversations about ministry (he's an Episcopal priest who served in Japan) and about his work under N.T. Wright.  And my office (The Black Room - Garrick, Gisela, Hauna, Matt, and Sarah) has been a great place to learn and to have some great discussions.  And there many, many other friendships that are forming here; there are so many great folks studying here.  Kate has joined a women's Bible study, a Downton Abbey viewing group (no spoilers, don't worry), and there's a great group of mothers who all have kids at Canongate.  I still keep in touch with folks from back home regularly (including a spike in communication with a certain group of friends before and after the Egg Bowl) but God hasn't left us alone here.

The Beauty:  It's really just amazing how beautiful it is here. The fall has been pretty glorious by Scottish standards, with temperatures regularly in the 40's.  The blustery days of grey, wind, and rain have been few and far between.  I will often catch a view of the North Sea from my office and am reminded just how amazing all of this beauty is.  When I run in the morning, my path takes me by the North Sea while the sun is rising and through the walking path of the Old Course.  My trip to the Highlands for the Torrance retreat has me eager to see the rest of Scotland - more of the Highlands, the West, and the Islands.  We hope to take advantage of that sooner rather than later.

God's Gracious Providence:  The past 18 months or so have been a period in which God's providence and active presence in my life have been clear and immediate.  There have been things over that period that have been difficult, as difficult as anything I have ever had to deal with.  And yet the sense that I have been carried along, that I have been been the object of His compassion in a way that has been amazing personal, has been with me.  It has been a special season, and for this I am particularly grateful.

"Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;

As if thy blessing had spare days:

But such a heart, whose pulse may be

Thy praise."

- George Herbert 

The Torrance Retreat

Early in my application process I was put in touch with a handful of students studying Torrance in Scotland.  Along the way, a couple of these acquaintances shared with me about gatherings of scholars, pastors, laypersons, and students that centered around learning more about Torrance's theology.  When Alan, my supervisor, sent me information about one in November, Kate graciously agreed to let me go and so I signed up.

The retreats are at Firbush Outdoor Center, which is just off of Loch Tay in the Scottish Highlands.  The conference center is owned by the University of Edinburgh and it was a little on the rustic side but the beauty of the surrounding and the activities they offered during our down time more than made up for a couple of nights in a bunk bed and communal showers. Here was the view out our front door:

In the summer months you can go windsurfing here.  Didn't partake this time since it was a wee bit too cold. 

I joined one of my fellow St Andrews PhD students, Travis Stevick, for the trip and we caught a ride with Mike Stewart, an elder from Holy Trinity, a Church of Scotland congregation in town.  The trip was my first glimpse of the highlands of Scotland, and it was a beautiful trip.  It's been a great fall by Scottish standards, and the leaves were still turning as we drove up through the mountains, alongside Scottish Lachs (Lakes), and through some charming Scottish towns like Crieff and Killin.

Loch Earn, near the Firbush Outdoor Center

We arrived around noon for a brown bag lunch, and then they had allotted time for recreational activities.  Travis and I signed up for a hike guided by one of the staff workers there.  I didn't bring a camera on the trip (all the pictures are thanks to Travis, who has let me use some of his pics from his iPad), and I wish I had.  We headed uphill and passed by the ruins of a couple of Scottish villages - one of them around 500 years old.  Then we cut across a stream across an old bridge that had weathered the test of time, before heading back down through the forest.  The beauty was really stunning.  The ferns had turned a ruddy brown, the grass was still lush, and as we hiked it started to snow.  Amazing.

The retreat started that evening with a couple of sessions - the first on the relationship between incarnation and atonement in TF's thought, and the second on "The Trinity and Judgment."  It was an eclectic group of folks - Church of Scotland pastors, a handful of graduate students, and also an amazing group of laypersons.  One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to know these folks.

Day 2 was a full day - four different talks and a long afternoon blocked out for recreation.  Dr. Tom Noble from Manchester University gave a "Centenary Reminiscence and Assessment of TF" (TF was born in 1913).  Many of the pastors in the room had studied under TF at New College and there were some wonderful personal reflections that were shared.  Dr. Robert Walker, who is TF's nephew and who edited TF's lectures into the volumes Incarnation and Atonement (a great place to start in reading TF along with The Mediation of Christ) gave a talk on "The Trinity in the Christian Life."  I had a chance to chat a bit more with Bob about my dissertation and he was a great help.

The afternoon was blocked out for more recreation and since it was sunny Travis and I ventured on what ended up being a 14 mile bike ride (!).  It was more than worth it for the view.  We rode along the southern rim of Loch Tay.

We got back just in time for the evening lectures.  David Torrance, TF's youngest brother, gave a lecture on the "The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Christian Life."  David followed TF and middle brother J.B. in theological studies and even had a year in Basel under Karl Barth.  But at the close of his first year he was told that there was a great need for pastors to aid in the effort surrounding Billy Graham's evangelistic work in Scotland and he turned in 40 pages of his dissertation and never looked back.  His talks were full of pastoral wisdom, and I was thankful to meet him.

The last talk of the night came from Dr. John Miller, on "The Role of Dogma in Preaching the Trinity."  John spoke movingly from his 37 years in the same church which was in the Castlemilk area of Glasgow.  It's what is called in Scotland a "housing scheme" but what we call in the US "the projects."  I found this article written on the occasion of John's retirement when I googled his name.  Spending some time with John was the highlight of highlights of the retreat. 

The final day had a talk on "The Christian Nurture of Children" given by David Torrance.  It was a great practical close to the retreat before a short plenary session where we all gathered around to talk about lingering questions we had and conversations we wanted to pursue a little bit further.  

Then Travis, Mike and I jumped in the car and headed back.  I was looking forward to seeing my family.  Thanks again to Kate for graciously sacrificing so that I could have this time.  

Oh, and I also got to take a picture here:

The site was made famous by this scene.  Brought back some memories of my adolescent years, when I watched this movie about 100 times:

A Day in the Life of a PhD Student

Our family has been in Scotland for two and a half months and it's been just over a month since I officially matriculated at the University of St Andrews, moved into my workspace, and began life as an 'official' PhD student.  Life has more or less fallen into a rhythm and with Joseph back in school after the two-week fall holiday break, this morning I thought I would document an average day in the life of a PhD student - or at least this particular PhD student.

With Joseph's primary school on the way to the university, I get to walk him to school each morning.  It's getting darker earlier and earlier - in December the sun will rise around 9 AM and set around 3 PM! - so on our walk we get to see some great early morning color.

A small gate out of our one-street neighborhood opens into this field, which has a trail to Joseph's school.  Along the way, the path narrows as we pass behind the single neighborhood between our house and Canongate Primary School.

We've loved Canongate.  Joseph's class has been a great fit for him, and a number of other families in the divinity school have kids here as well.  I was counting the other day and came up with five other kids in P1 (the Scottish equivalent of kindergarden) who have parents who either are or were in full-time ordained ministry. 

Dropping this guy off is a great start to the day.  The kids line up outside the door to their classroom (each class has a door outside which is then locked for the rest of the day).  He always makes me wait and wave to him through the window before I head off to my school. 

After about a five minute walk to Joseph's school it's another 15 minutes until I reach my final destination.  Parking is at a premium downtown and we only have one car, and the walk is a great start to the day.  With the sun out this morning I decided to take the Lade Braes which has an entry point just behind Canongate.

It's a beautiful walk and the leaves are still turning here.

The Lade Braes runs right beside the Kinness Burn.  The river a little swollen now because we've had a rainy past few days.  Just on the other side you can see a bit of the Botanic Gardens, which are right next to Joseph's school.

I pass by our favorite park, Cockshaugh and then the path crosses over one of the main streets in St Andrews.  To the south the elevation drops and there's a great view of that part of town and farm land just beyond. 

The Lade Braes continues on, even though now I'm almost to the center of town.  At some points it gets pretty narrow:

Before it ends pretty much at the center of town:

Someone told me before we moved here that the actual town of St Andrews was only three streets, and he was right.  This is South Street (the other two are Market St and North St) and I head east on my way to the divinity postgraduate offices.  Along the way I pass by St Mary's College, which is the Divinity School and where the library, professor offices, and seminar rooms are.

The name of the building that holds the postgraduate offices is the Roundel.  It's at the very end of South Street.  The first door on the left is the entrance.

You can just see Rule's Tower in that picture.  But when you walk around the other side of the building you see this:

That's the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral.  On the other side of that is the North Sea.  My office doesn't face that direction, which is probably for the best in terms of my work efficiency!  The divinity postgraduates are truly blessed to have such a great building in such an incredible location.  The Roundel provides a great community where students can engage one another and learn from each other.  

Speaking of my office, I work on the third floor (2nd floor in the UK as the ground floor is 0 over here) in the Black Room.  I share it with three other PhD's and there's a small side room where a visiting scholar has a private office.  Here's my desk:

Not quite as many books as I had in the office in Starkville but still quite a few.  The divinity school library is a great resource but it's nice to have much of what I need on hand and to not have to worry about books that I need being recalled by other folks in the university community.  The mandatory pastor's continuing education budget that I had at FPC was put to good use!

And here's my view for most of the next eight hours:

Getting into a rhythm of reading and writing for that much time a day has taken a little getting used to.  Pastoral life was great but having uninterrupted time to study was often hard to come by, particularly the last year and a half in Starkville when I was serving as the interim senior pastor.  That experience makes me all the more grateful for what I get to do right now.  Today I'm reading a book by Paul Molnar on T.F. Torrance in preparation for a chat that I get to have with him on Tuesday about the direction of my dissertation. 

Every once in a while I'll need to run over to the St Mary's Library, and today is one of those days.  I was looking for a couple of essays and found them easily enough here:

On Wednesdays the theology students get together for a seminar in College Hall just off of the St Mary's quad.  This semester we're reading through one part (IV.2 for those of you keeping up at home) of Karl Barth's multi-volume Church Dogmatics.  I tried to sneak in today to take a picture but it was locked.  But in this picture it's straight ahead.  This semester Professor John Webster leads the conversation and then next semester Professor Alan Torrance, my supervisor, will do the same.  There are some sharp people studying at St Mary's and I'm encouraged and challenged by them. 

About five o'clock is quitting time for me.  On the advice of many others I'm treating my academic work much like a job and working on basically a 9 - 5 schedule.  It started raining this afternoon and I got a text message from my wonderful wife with an offer to pick me up.  That was good to hear, since I'd forgotten my raincoat.  And here she is, navigating the Scottish roads in our manual Citroen C4 like a pro!

T.F. Torrance: Pastor

I initially encountered T.F. Torrance's writings while I was in my second year of seminary, as I've recounted elsewhere.  One of the reasons that I settled upon studying T.F. when I applied to doctoral programs was because his theology continued to capture my imagination while I served as a pastor.  More often than not, when I picked up one of T.F.'s books during my six years in Starkville, I found something that related to the work in which I found myself.  Part of this has to do with the nature of what T.F. believed and who he thought God was.  But it also comes from his experience as a pastor.  It's one part of his life and ministry that impressed me and I've devoted this post to some details about T.F.'s pastoral ministry.

As I said before in my last post, Torrance initially believed his vocation was to follow in his father's footsteps as a foreign missionary.  It was only while studying at New College at the University of Edinburgh that he began to believe that his ministry might fall within the real of theological education. 

In 1939 Torrance returned from a brief stint of teaching at Auburn seminary in New York (the content of those lectures can be found in The Doctrine of Jesus Christ) to a country on the verge of war.  He initially attempted to enlist with the British Army Chaplains but was told that the waiting list was currently two years long.  After a brief season studying at Oriel College in Oxford while finishing his doctoral dissertation begun in Basel, Torrance accepted a call to be pastor of a Church of Scotland parish in Alyth.  He would serve there until 1947, though the time was interrupted by his service with the Allied Forces in Europe.  After that he served for three years at the Beechgrove Church in Aberdeen before accepting a post at New College.  Torrance's memoirs of that time in Alyth have recently been published, and are full of many reflections that give insight into his pastoral heart, such as what follows:

"I made a point of reading a passage of the Holy Scripture and praying in each home, relating the intercession as far as I could to their family life and circumstances of which I learned from their elder.... During those pastoral visits I used to recall the statement of John Calvin that the gospel should be preached privatim et domatim, privately and from house to house, and made that a major part of my ministry.  I found that after I had visited people two or three times and read the Bible to them and prayed with them, they often opened their hearts to me.  I learned more of the needs of peoples lives and souls in that way than I could have done otherwise, and it helped to make my preaching of the gospel and exposition of the Bible as personally relevant as possible.  I recall on one occasion, for example, a lady member of the congregation hesitatingly told me that she had a vision of angels, but had never dared to tell any minister about it in case it was dismissed.  When I told her that I believed her, and spoke a little of the ministry of angels, she was overjoyed in a way that deepened her faith and her own reading of the Holy Scriptures" (Gospel, Church, and Ministry 34).

T.F.'s time as a pastor serves as the background for his ministry at New College teaching divinity students and his writings as well.  It wouldn't be correct to say that he was driven by 'practical' concerns - it's clear that the motivating force of his theology is the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures.  But that was always done with an eye to the church and its ministry in the world.  Nowhere is this more clear than in T.F.'s continued concern with making clear that it is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone that we come face to face with God.  At key points in his pastoral ministry he encountered people who questioned whether or not God was really like Jesus, and the lasting impact of his work has been to answer that question with a resounding "Yes!"  Here Torrance recounts an incident that took place in his service to the Allied troops during the invasion of Italy:

"When daylight filtered through, I came across a young soldier (Private Philips), scarcely twenty years old, lying mortally wounded on the ground, who clearly had not long to live.  As I knelt down and bent over him, he said: 'Padre, is God really like Jesus?'  I assured him that he was - the only God there is, the God who has come to us in Jesus, shown his face to us, and poured out his love to us as our Savior.... The incident left an indelible impression on me.  I kept wondering afterwards what modern theology and the Churches had done to drive some kind of wege between God and Jesus.... There is no hidden God, no Deus Absconditus, no God behind the back of the Lord Jesus, but only the one Lord God who became incarnate in him" (from T.F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography). 

Torrance's work clearly has academic implications for any number of fields:  the dialogue between theology and natural science, the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, or the interpretation of the Scottish Presbyterianism being just a few.  But even within the most challenging of his works there is a clear pastoral trajectory which is in all true theological work in its service to the Church in its ministry in the world.  I close with a passage I recently stumbled across about the importance of prayer in the T.F.'s work of training ministers while at New College:

"During my own years of teaching theology in New College... I used to ask myself two questions about students as they completed their training: whether they had tuned into knowledge of God in their studies so finely that they had attained a theological instinct for divine truth, and whether their conduct of public worship reflected the habit of private prayer.  They were much more important for the holy ministry, I felt, than clever essays, profound learning, or brilliance in examinations.  Fine-tuning of the human mind in the knowing of God and direct personal communing of the human spirit with God lie at the very heart of theological understanding, and bear decisively not only on the vocation of the pastor but on the vocation of the theological professor" (from "John Baillie at Prayer").

T.F. Torrance: Evangelical Theologian

As I begin my work here in St Andrews and as I also start to use this medium to communicate to friends and family what it is I'm up to here, as great place to start is the person is the subject of my study here - T.F. Torrance.  As I've shared elsewhere, a part of what I feel is the Father's call on my life and ministry has to do with this particular person, and as I've been spending time in his biography I've been reminded why that is so.  For the next few posts, what I'll do is draw attention to certain parts of his life and ministry.

 A young T.F. Torrance

In reading Allister McGrath's wonderful biography of Torrance and also in a recent conversation with my supervisor, I've been reminded of the evangelical heritage and thrust of Torrance's ministry.  Torrance was born to missionary parents who worked in the Chengdu region of China (roughly south-central China).  Torrance's father, also named Thomas, was inspired by a visit from David Livingstone to a nearby Scottish parish to consider mission work.  Torrance senior was to spend the greater part of the rest of his life in China.  His work began in 1896 with the China Inland Mission and later he worked with the American Bible Society where he met his wife, Annie.  The work in China was set on the backdrop of a particularly tumultuous period of Chinese history, and among the political struggles that took place Christian missionaries were often persecuted or martyred.  In 1927 the Torrance family fled Chengdu because of threat of persecution in their area and during their escape by ship came under small-arms fire. 

Torrance was profoundly affected by the faith of his parents and it was a gift that oriented his life and ministry.  He writes:

Through my missionary parents I was imbued from my earliest days with a vivid belief in God.  Belief in God was so natural that I could no more doubt the existence of God than the existence of my parents or the world around me.  I cannot remember ever having had any doubts about God.  Moreover, as long as I can recall my religious outlook was essentially biblical and evangelical, and indeed evangelistic.  I used to read three chapters of the Bible every day and five on Sundays which meant reading through the whole Bible each year.  My father who could repeat by heart the Psalms and some of the books of the New Testament (the Epistle to the Romans, for example) encouraged us children to memorise many passages of the Holy Scriptures which I greatly appreciated later in life.  Family prayer sled by my father on his knees and the evangelical he taught us to sing nourished our spiritual understanding and growth in faith.  I can still repeat in Chinese, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'  I was deeply conscious of the task to which my parents had been called by God to preach the Gospel to heathen people and win them for Christ.  This orientation to mission was built into the fabric of my mind, and has never faded - by its essential nature Christian theology has always had for me an evangelistic thrust. 

It was to that end that Torrance commenced theological studies at New College in Edinburgh.  He hoped to follow in his father's footsteps and return to the mission field in China. 

 H.R. Mackintosh's

The Person of Jesus Christ

Torrance's training at New College deepened his theological convictions.  Under the teaching of a great Scottish theologian named H.R. Mackintosh, Torrance found himself taught by someone who often ended a survey of a particular Christian doctrine with the question, "How would that be received and understood on the mission field?"  Mackintosh's teaching affected Torrance deeply, and the mark he made upon the young TF is visible throughout his life. 

Mackintosh also, however, gave Torrance a different vision for his vocation.  As Torrance excelled in his studies and won awards and fellowships, he began to articulate a new way of understanding his calling: 'theological ministry in the service of the gospel.'  And it was to that end that Torrance left Scotland in 1937 to study with the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth.

As I have been reading through TF's writings in much greater depth, I am reminded of all of the ways that this "evangelical and evangelistic" thrust to his work is present from the beginning to the end of his corpus.  In his writings, in his teaching (which had the effect of leading to the conversions of at least a handful of theology students), and in the witness of his life, Torrance maintained a strong sense of the missional impulse of the Gospel.  In his dialogue with the natural sciences (something I'll blog about later), it's clear that Torrance views his work as serving in the church's ministry to the Western mind and all of the ways in which it had built unnecessary barriers between the physical sciences and theology.  In whatever ways God calls me in ministry forward, I feel some comfort in placing myself at the figurative feet of someone whose writings have at their heart a healthy, evangelical heart. 

*Quotes, dates, and details from Torrance's life all come from Allister McGrath's T.F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography