My name is Scott Bonham. I’m a professor of physics at Western Kentucky University, a life-long follower of Jesus Christ, a husband, a father, and someone with interests in history, culture, philosophy, and making sense of the world around us.
Background
After earning a PhD in Physics doing work in experimental solid state physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I then switched focus to physics (and more generally science) education starting with a postdoctoral fellowship in science education at North Carolina State University, which has been my scholarly focus since then. More recently I earned a Master of Arts in Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville, where I was particularly interested in the socio-cultural context of science as emerged out of medieval thought and where it might be going in a post-modern, post-truth world. One direct result of that was the development of an interdisciplinary course (soon to be renamed to) “Science in the Crossfire: towards making sense of and engaging in socio-scientific issues.”
While I was raised in a Christian family, the defining experience of my faith was wrestling with the question as to whether the story was true. After considering various arguments and forms of evidence (which will be discussed in various posts on this blog), I have become convinced that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a real, historical event, and therefore there is good reason to believe he is who he claimed to be and that his teaching represents something deeper than merely human ideas. I have been part of various churches and Christian organizations over the years, and am currently an active member at Bowling Green Christian Church.
I have also had long interest in knowing another culture. I studied Spanish for multiple years in high school and college, spent a summer in Mexico City living with a Mexican family, and have been involved in several different Spanish-language churches. This led to me dating and marrying my wife, Noemi Jaramillo Bonham, who is originally from Guerrero, Mexico, and we very much have a bilingual, bicultural relationship. We also have two adult children.
My goals for this blog
The posts on this blog bring together elements of my personal experiences, academic study, and faith journey pursuing a thoughtful approach to seeking a multi-faceted understanding of truth in a deeply divided world. My hope and prayer is that these can contribute in some small way towards better understanding each other across those divisions and figuring out what is really true. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect that of his employer, church, family or friends.
Follow me on Instagram or drop me an email at scott.bonham@sciencefaithculture.org