Christopher Watkin is named Bethel Seminary’s 2024-2025 Karlson Scholar

Christopher Watkin says he “makes sense of how people make sense of the world.” He is an associate professor of French studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and author of nine books, most recently Biblical Critical Theory. This landmark work won the Christianity Today Book of the Year award in 2024 and helps Christians understand the importance and relevance of Scripture in navigating a challenging and often chaotic world.

Because of his unique ability to help Christians understand how the Bible is relevant to the situations they are facing, Watkin was chosen to be Bethel Seminary’s Karlson Scholar this year. Says Bethel Seminary Dean Peter Vogt: “He is a French scholar, not a theologian or Bible scholar, which makes his approach and conclusions really engaging."

Excited to be selected, Watkin says he loves exploring the Bible and thinking together with students—often the most fun and most challenging people in the world to dialogue with. “My prayer is that, by God's grace, my partnership with Bethel might encourage students to rejoice in, and press further into the richness, sophistication, and incisiveness of the Bible for addressing big, contemporary cultural issues that matter to us all,” he says. 

The Karlson Scholar program began last year, with Francis Chan as the inaugural scholar. Karlson Scholars teach a Seminary for Everyone class, deliver guest lectures in classes, teach a seminary elective, participate in one or more episodes of the “Whole & Holy” podcast, and speak in Chapel. “This program is a great opportunity for us to partner with really strong thinkers and leaders in the evangelical church by highlighting their work and bringing the benefit of that work to Bethel Seminary,” says Vogt.

Watkin will teach a Seminary for Everyone course this summer: “Making Sense of Life through the Bible’s Story,” June 2-27, 2025. “We all live our lives through stories. They shape our dreams and our fears, and they are lenses through which we make sense of our world and ourselves,” says Watkin. “A great joy and a great challenge of the Christian life is that God has woven us into the greatest story of all, the story of the whole universe that dances to the distinctive biblical beat of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. Making sense of life through God's story brings a depth and a richness to our experience of the world and ourselves, giving us fresh perspectives on many of the great questions and debates in our society at the moment.”

Hear more from him at his blog ChristopherWatkin.com and thinkingthroughthebible.com, as well as on Twitter @DrChrisWatkin.

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