The conference was founded back in 2003 by Christian postgraduate students, for Christian postgrads, to help to integrate our faith and our studies. It is a national conference because it is held in the UK, with delegates from across the country. However, it is an international one as postgraduates of many different nationalities attend. Although it is mainly attended by students based in the UK, the conference is open to Christian postgraduates wherever they are studying.
Until Covid, the conference has been held annually, generally in a weekend in June.
But why do we need a postgraduate conference of this kind?
“The Earth is the Lord’s”: Postgraduate years are a roller coaster ride. To some it is exhilarating, to others, exhausting. To some it is a great enterprise in discovering and understanding the world, to others it is another step in “Getting Somewhere”. A Christian has an added dimension to the ride: knowing that the “earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”, and knowing, consequently, that all study, research, and discovery is an exploration of this amazing world.
“The Mind of Christ”: Postgraduate study is a unique process and the Christian postgraduate has an extra ingredient that flavours it– the power of God to transform our thinking. Our minds are renewed and consequently we do not carelessly conform to the thinking and culture of our times. Instead God gives us the ability to think alongside Him, to think God thoughts with the Mind of Christ, an awesome and humbling realisation. Some of the greatest discoveries and journeys of research have been by men and women who thought along with God.
“Do not be ashamed”: The university environment is often perceived, by Christians, to be a hostile environment for the Christian faith, and many Christian postgraduates and academics respond to this by keeping their head down, completing their study or research, and then getting on with life. Instead of engaging in Apologetics for the faith, Christians are apologetic or dogmatic.
For many the great divorce between faith and study results in two “lives” – the academic where they engage in rigorous thinking, discussion, reading and experiments, and the Christian life, often centred on fellowship, praise and worship, and “listening to good teaching”. The Conference is an attempt to help reconcile two separated “lives” into an integrated whole.
– Dr Maithrie White, Conference Chair
About the site
We ask for your patience while we rebuild and redesign the site.
This site is intended as a resource for the postgraduate community, to help explore the transformation that comes when mind, life, faith and research engage and interact. There are links that might be useful for enabling you to explore the links between faith and study further. There are also recordings of previous conference sessions uploaded for you to listen to.