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IDA’S JOURNEY Ida Glaser (Central High, 1959-1968) has accomplished great things in her lifetime, but not without a great deal of early trauma. Writing from her home in Houston, Texas, Ida explains how her journey of faith has shaped her career. From the age of 12 (LIV), I had no doubt that I was going to be a pure Mathematician. At 16 (LVI), the new Physics teacher (Mrs Silipo – she had a basset hound called Emma which trod on its ears when negotiating stairs) said she thought I should do Physics instead. Being a contrary teenager, I rejected the idea, but then thought, ‘Pure Maths is a wonderful game with ideas in my head; but maybe I should do something which will apply the game to the world outside me’; and Physics I did, eventually getting an MPhil in theoretical space physics from Imperial College, London. By 66, when I took formal retirement, I had spent a decade as a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford and an associate staff member at Wycliffe Hall. I had been on the founding team of the independent Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, as its academic director and then its director. I had published four books and an edited volume, and more papers than I can recall,
and, at 70, I continue to head two writing projects. One is producing a series of Bible commentaries from Muslim contexts, and the other is developing the ‘Routledge Reading the Bible in Islamic Context’ series. As I write this, I am also writing the introduction to the next volume: a collection of papers around the topic of ‘Reading the Gospels in Islamic Context’, which I am co-editing with a Muslim from Iran and a Christian from South Africa. Oh yes! And I am writing this from Houston, Texas, where I am, with my husband, launching a new Center for Muslim & Christian Studies. In response to COVID restrictions, we have taught three online courses with 82 students from 14 countries – ‘Qur’an and Bible 1: Torah’, ‘History of Muslim-Christian Dialogue’ and ‘Contemporary Issues in Muslim-Christian Dialogue’. Watch the website for developments! CMCS Houston, the Center for Muslim & Christian Studies. People often ask how I made the journey from Physics to
the study of the Qur’an and the Bible and Muslim-Christian relations (I did a PhD in comparative theology from Durham on the way). I usually cite the well-known physicist-turned-anglicanpriest, John Polkinghorne, in his observation that the main difference between physics and theology is that physics is easy and theology is difficult. Both are observing reality and seeking truth; but physics is the study of material which we transcend, whereas theology is the study of what transcends us. If you like, I have continued to use that mathematical brain of mine to study reality, and have moved step by step towards applying it to increasingly complex systems. I’d like to record here my
