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Reviews

Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents

Reviewed by Matthew Hill, History, Liberty University For too long, the religious dimension of the American presidency has been neglected. Outside the never-ending debate on the religious convictions of the Founding Fathers, four of whom became president, far too little research has been devoted to this subject. The religious dimensions of the Civil War have…
July 15, 2016
Reviews

Christianity and Psychoanalysis: A New Conversation

Reviewed by J. P. Gerber, Psychology, Gordon College This book is the first volume from the recently formed Society for the Exploration of Psychoanalytic Therapies and Theology. It seeks to refresh writing on psychoanalytic therapy by engaging a wide range of scholars and practitioners from diverse corners of the psychoanalytic landscape. It also attempts to…
July 15, 2016
Article

Human Embryo Metaphysics and the New Biotechnologies

Much of Christian scholarship has defended the Conception View of personhood, the idea that human beings have intrinsic value that begins at conception. However, modern reproductive technologies have led to new scientific insights into human embryology, without a matching increase in our metaphysical and moral understandings. A rigorous formulation of human nature and personhood is…
July 15, 2016
Reviews

Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy

Reviewed by Micah J. Watson, Political Science, Calvin College Timothy P. Jackson is an intellectual revolutionary disguised as a distinguished professor of Christian ethics at Emory University. Political Agape is the third in a trilogy of books aimed at changing the way we think about a host of first-order subjects.The other two books are Love…
July 15, 2016
Reviews

The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment

Reviewed by Zachary Purvis, Divinity, University of Edinburgh In Kelly Joan Whitmer’s telling, the story of the Halle Orphanage is the story of the formation of a new “scientific community,” populated by kings, theologians, and cosmopolitan inventors determined to furnish new instruments with the ability to decode the mysteries of magnetism. Hers is a fascinating…
July 15, 2016
Extended Review

The Road to Character— An Extended Review

Kevin Ryan is Director Emeritus of the Center for Character and Social Responsibility at Boston University. David Brooks has written a book of moral philosophy that quickly jumped to The New York Times’ Best Seller list and lasted there for 22 weeks. Brooks is a regular columnist for the Times and a weekly commentator on…
April 15, 2016
Reviews

The Politics of Jesús: A Hispanic Political Theology

Reviewed by João Chaves, Religion, Baylor University and Baptist University of the Américas The accented Jesús presented by Miguel De La Torre is at odds with what De La Torre calls the Euroamerican Jesus. Jesús is not on board with versions of the white, middle-class, American dream that are usually dependent on capitalist commitments either…
April 15, 2016
Reviews

Medieval Christianity: A New History

Reviewed by James Halverson, History, Judson University In the preface to Medieval Christianity, Kevin Madigan apologizes for adding another book to the “groaning shelves” of medievalists and historians of Christianity. He is correct about the groaning. Many trees have fallen in the service of studying Christianity between 600 and 1500 in the four and a…
April 15, 2016