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Christian Public Witness in a Divisive Age

Nicholas Wolterstorff’s perceptive commentary on neo-Calvinist contributions to political activity is a welcome addition to discussions of Christian political engagement. Christian foundations of political thought are important and worthy of discussion, but in the current moment when fear and anger animate so much of American politics, Wolterstorff’s particular emphasis on political activity is especially prescient.…
May 8, 2023
Article

Response to Black, Kaemingk, and Weithman

Let me begin by warmly thanking Amy Black, Matthew Kaemingk, and Paul Weithman for their generous and challenging comments on my essay, “Fidelity in Politics.” I have found it both enjoyable and instructive to reflect on what they say. In my response to their comments, I will begin with comments on some intellectual issues that…
Nicholas Wolterstorff
May 8, 2023
ArticleFeatured

Advice to Christian Historians

Almost forty years ago Alvin Plantinga’s memorable “Advice to Christian Philosophers” set out a three-fold challenge to encourage members of his own academic tribe, but also “Christian intellectuals generally.” First, “to display . . . more independence of the rest of the philosophical world”; second, to “display more integrity in the sense of integral wholeness”;…
May 8, 2023
Article

Re-considering Scholarship Again: Knowledge, Community, and the Work of Christian Scholarship

Scholars at Christian institutions have inherited from the broader academy an archival definition of knowledge that tends to obscure relationships between academic scholarship and broader human enterprises. This essay builds upon and extends the work of Ernest Boyer and others who have advocated for a stronger link between scholarship and human communities. It argues that…
May 8, 2023
Article

Enabling Evangelicalism: How a Renewed Vision of Church as an Alternative Community of Reconciliation Necessitates the Inclusion of People with Disabilities

The marks of evangelicalism (biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism) support the inclusion of people with disabilities; however, research reveals that having a disability label, especially a developmental disability, is a reliable predictor of whether people and families are present within the church. Using disability studies to identify how certain historical, social, and theological veins within…
May 8, 2023
Review Essays

Living in a Democracy as a Fallen People

In the short space of about 30 years, we have gone from heralding liberal democracy (or liberalism) as the final political regime (see Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesisFrancis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1992).) to wondering whether it can or should survive. The big idea…
May 8, 2023
Book ReviewReviews

The Art of New Creation: Trajectories in Theology and the Arts

Encouraging signs suggest that a revival of Christian art could be gathering strength. New publications, workshops, conferences, communities, websites, and leaders are in place, working to bring a powerful infusion of spiritual energy into the Body of Christ via the many-faceted vehicles of Christian art. The Art of New Creation draws from the proceedings of…
May 8, 2023
Book ReviewReviews

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith. Foreword by Makoto Fujimura

Though few of us have the patience to really contemplate them, great pictures are rich “icons” of human nature. They are considered great precisely because they contain timeless, complex, interlocking truths in one small “box.” They are the world’s most dazzlingly efficient form of deep, rich, and instantaneous-yet-endless communication. The old platitude says “a picture…
May 8, 2023