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Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed)

“We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” is a theme coming out of the 1960s era that was encapsulated by the popular Crosby, Stills, and Nash song titled “Woodstock.”Joni Mitchell, Woodstock, 1969, MCA Records International, Lain Matthews, MCA 6073-015. The implication is something has gone wrong, and we need to find a way…
October 15, 2011
Review Essays

The Other Wolterstorff—A Review Essay

Nicholas Wolterstorff needs no introduction to readers of Christian Scholar’s Review. He has done as much as anyone alive to promote the kind of integrative scholarship that is CSR’s raison d’être. The project of Christian higher education, in general, does not have a more able spokesperson. Wolterstorff’s writings on Christian scholarship and Christian higher education…
October 15, 2011
Review and Response

Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry—A Review Essay

In Heavenly Participation, Hans Boersma, one of today’s leading evangelical theologians (and, in the interests of full disclosure, a friend to this reviewer), provides an accessible and compelling distillation of his recent project. The argument should be especially interesting for readers of this journal, since Boersma’s book is perhaps the most theologically responsible version of…
October 15, 2011
Review and Response

Dan Treier’s Sacramental Participation in Truth—A Response to His Review of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry

Dan Treier’s perceptive analysis and helpful interaction with my book touches on a number of important points. From my perspective—and I recognize that this is not the way Treier himself would want to put it—I would even say that his fine review sacramentally participates in eternal truth! I am certainly grateful, therefore, for the review…
October 15, 2011
Article

Gran Torino and Moral Order

In this essay, Annalee R. Ward explores Gran Torino’s moral order by engaging standpoint theory with Robert Wuthnow’s symbolic boundaries of moral order. In a journey of moral enlightenment, learning to communicate across boundaries anchors the story in hope. Along the way, Walt Kowalski encounters challenges to his moral structures which may affirm a redemptive…
July 15, 2011
Article

“Such Inexplicable Pain”: Kon Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp

Kon Ichikawa’s 1956 film The Burmese Harp is a powerful depiction of the spiritual journey of a Japanese soldier in Burma immediately following the end of World War II. Stephen Parmelee discusses the nature of this soldier’s search for meaning in the face of suffering; the parallels and differences between this soldier’s search and the…
July 15, 2011
Article

The Mystery Dialectic in Cinema: Paradox, Mystery, Miracle

Mystery, says Joseph G. Kickasola in this essay, is a key component in any film seeking to approach the transcendent. Mystery is a dialectical process, moving between paradox and miracle. The basic characteristics of religious mystery, as articulated by the theologian Louis Dupré, take thematic and formal shape in Paul Haggis’ 2005 Academy-Award winning film…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

Space, Time and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God

A significant disadvantage attending the hyper-specialized, professionalized nature of so much academic production today is the absence of synthesis. Scholars in diverse fields often treat similar issues (concerning things like identity, society, and the nature of truth)—but from different vantage points and with different vocabularies. They seldom see that they are duplicating each other’s efforts,…
July 15, 2011