Dr. Sykora’s earned degrees include a Ph.D. from Durham University in the United Kingdom; M.A. in biblical studies and M.A. in theological studies from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky; and a Master in Law from Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic.
Dr. Sykora research revolves around three interwoven questions:
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How shall we make sense of the violence sanctioned by the benevolent God of the Bible?
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How can the biblical text be helpfully illuminated by subsequent theological thinking?
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How shall we understand God's preference for some individuals or groups of people and what does it mean for those who are "unfavored."
In the past, Dr. Sykora served as a pastor in Bratislava, Slovakia, and as a Free Methodist missionary responsible for theological training in Europe. He remains involved in projects that attempt to articulate the Christian faith in the increasingly post-Christian and post-secular context of Central Europe.
"To grow, plants, as well as humans and communities, need to have deep roots. Within the Great Conversation series, I am inviting students to join me on a journey throughout the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian Era to find nuggets of wisdom that could illuminate our often messy and unsettled lives. In a dialogue over the insights from the great mothers and fathers of faith, we then discover where to stretch our roots to bring fruit to those around us."
