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Reviews

Hunting the Unicorn: A Critical Biography of Ruth Pitter

Once a moderately well-known poet and public intellectual in Britain in the middle of the twentieth century, Ruth Pitter has been almost forgotten save as a footnote in biographies of C. S. Lewis. Yet her work won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry and the William E. Heinneman Award. She was the first woman to receive…
April 15, 2010
Reviews

Why Evolution is True & Why Evolution Works (And Creationism Fails)

On May 28, 2007, the recent creationist organization Answers in Genesis opened its 27-million-dollar Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Although the organization projected 250,000 visitors to the museum in its first year, 404,000 people paid to see the museum during its first year of operation. Despite the economic slow down in 2008-2009, almost one million…
April 15, 2010
Reviews

Christianity and Human Rights: Christians and the Struggle for Global Justice

In Christianity and Human Rights Frederick Shepherd has assembled a strong collection of contributions to one of the fastest growing areas of research in international relations, political thought, development studies and the study of religion: the history, theory and future practice of human rights. Shepherd’s volume is particularly worthy of attention because of three features:…
April 15, 2010
Reflection

A New Philosophy of Darkness

Over the course of history, darkness and creatures associated with the dark have long beenvilified. Yet according to Adam Barkman, this vilification has often resulted in both aesthetic and ethical injustice. At the root of these injustices is humanity’s constant failure both to keep the literal and the metaphorical separate and to remember that all…
April 15, 2010
Review Essays

The Empire of Theory and the Empires of History

Theory and history offer two contrasting ways for apprehending the large and multifaceted concept of “empire.” The six books under consideration sort themselves according to their respective tendencies to treat “empire” theoretically or historically. A concept of “empire” driven by theory will show centripetal trajectories and risk becoming reductionist while historical concepts will expand to…
April 15, 2010
Article

What are Bodies for? An Integrative Examination of Embodiment

In this paper, Elizabeth Lewis Hall presents an integrative understanding of the human body, drawing on theology and the social sciences to answer the question, “What is the body for?” Radical dualist influences on culture and on Christianity have negatively affected experiences of embodiment. The social sciences are used to examine the structure of embodiment…
January 15, 2010
Article

A Slippery Slope to Secularization? An Empirical Analysis of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universitities

In this essay, Samuel Joeckel and Thomas Chesnes explore whether secularization threatens institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Employing a 2007 survey, they show that, though vigilance should still be exercised, these institutions are hardly descending a slippery slope to secularization. The second part of the essay argues that overzealous vigilance…
January 15, 2010
Article

David Sloan Wilson’s Group Selection Theory of Religion: Analysis and Possible Christian Responses

Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson has put forward a functional theory of religion which holds that religious belief and practice are “good” for believers in biological terms. In his view, religious beliefs are attached to reality via this benefit, even though they are fictional in a strict sense. He claims that his group selection-based explanation…
January 15, 2010
Reviews

Believing Again: Doubt and Faith in a Secular Age

Renaissance artists loved to paint the past, and, in their enthusiasm, they plundered the storehouses of both history (the Life of Moses, the Fall of the Roman Republic, the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection) and legend (the Heroes of Greek Mythology, the Tales surrounding Troy, Romulus and Remus). Their paintings and frescoes still have the power…
January 15, 2010
Reviews

Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment & Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination

As both an industry insider and a Christian scholar, Brian Godawa’s situation is unique and vital to both a Christian understanding of culture and a cultural understanding of Christianity. From this tenuous place Godawa delivers his critique of Hollywood’s treatment of Christians and Christian subject matter, but he tempers it with a call for a…
January 15, 2010