When a Paper Shines

Papers and theses often come to shine only after one realises a fundamental mistake. In my forthcoming paper on Christian political engagement, I proposed that Christian political engagement should not be an action, but a reaction. This didn't hold up -- among other things because action and reaction are hard to differentiate. After some hard thinking, I proposed that political engagement should not be a fixed ideal, but a relative one. Referees called this "genuinely interesting", "genuinely creative", and my paper was "well received". OBSERVATION: My late wife Mirjam made a fundamental mistake with her PhD. Once she discovered it, she had some original and valuable work on her hands.