Just read the annual report for 2024 and was depressed to read, first of all, the Dean's report, which was full of the trendy, dull, corporate-sounding platitudes that I tend to think indicate a 2nd rate mind. I was resigning myself to the idea that this is what academic institutions have become nowadays when I started reading the report on the college in 2024, written by the college theology tutor, Prof Mark Edwards. What a relief. The donnish sense of waspish humour is still alive after all, I'm pleased to say. I quote one passage that amused me:

...we have welcomed two new Canon Professors, Andrew Davison as Regius Professor of Divinity and Luke Bretherton as Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. Professor Davison, a former undergraduate in Chemistry at Oxford, has written with distinction on the sacraments, but has also become known as an expert on Science and Religion; his recent study, "Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine", explores the possibility that intelligent life has more than one chance of survival in the universe. Some fear that it is now breathing its last in American universities, but Professor Bretherton's welcome return to his native England took place before the impending exodus. He has written six distinguished books, of which five are about political theology; the fact that he waited until the fifth before asking "What Is Political Theology?" suggests he has already mastered the Oxford approach to teaching.

I must admit I was tickled by the suggestion that this guy wrote four learned books before sitting up and asking himself, "WTF am I talking about?" 😄

Edited July 18, 2025Jul 18 by exchemist

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Just read the annual report for 2024 and was depressed to read, first of all, the Dean's report, which was full of the trendy, dull, corporate-sounding platitudes that I tend to think indicate a 2nd rate mind. I was resigning myself to the idea that this is what academic institutions have become nowadays when I started reading the report on the college in 2024, written by the college theology tutor, Prof Mark Edwards. What a relief. The donnish sense of waspish humour is still alive after all, I'm pleased to say. I quote one passage that amused me:

...we have welcomed two new Canon Professors, Andrew Davison as Regius Professor of Divinity and Luke Bretherton as Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. Professor Davison, a former undergraduate in Chemistry at Oxford, has written with distinction on the sacraments, but has also become known as an expert on Science and Religion; his recent study, "Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine", explores the possibility that intelligent life has more than one chance of survival in the universe. Some fear that it is now breathing its last in American universities, but Professor Bretherton's welcome return to his native England took place before the impending exodus. He has written six distinguished books, of which five are about political theology; the fact that he waited until the fifth before asking "What Is Political Theology?" suggests he has already mastered the Oxford approach to teaching.

I must admit I was tickled by the suggestion that this guy wrote four learned books before sitting up and asking himself, "WTF am I talking about?" 😄

Happen a lot here, doesn't it? We shoot off the conversational starting blocks without defining our terms first.

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Happen a lot here, doesn't it? We shoot off the conversational starting blocks without defining our terms first.

Perhaps it’s not quite as daft as it sounds. You think you know a subject, but the more you delve into it the more you come to question what it is really about.

But I was glad this Edwards guy seems sharp and to have a sense of humour, still. Sometimes modern academics can seem po-faced, strait-laced and serious. Unlike my Physical Chemistry tutor, who died last year. He used to muck about on Concorde before it entered commercial service (researching its effect on the ozone layer), used to drink far too much, once tried to get my then girlfriend into bed, broke into the cathedral at 2 am to play the organ, got the physical chemistry lab computer to play Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”……etc. I only found out, in the college report, that he was actually involved in the design of the cathedral organ when it was revamped. A bit of a headbanger, really, but certainly enlivened college life.