Todd Steen

A couple of years ago, my son-in-law showed me ChatGPT on his phone. I had heard of it before, but didn’t know what it could do. It seemed pretty cool, and he was able to have it answer some questions and then even use it to write a short sermon that was somewhat suitable for…

Economists generally don’t like tariffs. This was true even before the latest round of tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump. Various surveys have found that around 90 percent of economists believe that tariffs will negatively impact economic welfare, and a similar amount believe that tariffs lead to inflation.As just one example, see https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/framing-next-four-years-tariffs-tax-cuts-and-other-uncertainties-trump. This is…

Now that Donald Trump has become president, one of his signature initiatives is a proposal to form a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to Trump, DOGE will “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/11/trump-vows-dismantle-federal-bureaucracy-and-restructure-agencies-new-musk-led-commission/400998/. This new entity will be led by…

“Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.”  2 Corinthians 12:14 (NIV) Earlier this month, the…

Andy Crouch first burst onto the Christian scene with his book Culture Making.Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008). This volume is his latest work, and it continues with his earlier focus on the impact of technology on our lives. With a title like The Life We’re Looking…

“Recognition is the first human quest.” Andy Crouch begins his latest book with this statement and then expands on our desires to be recognized as persons—individuals who have a place in this world. In The Life We’re Looking for: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, Crouch suggests that technology has not succeeded in promoting true…

One of the significant changes to come out of the COVID pandemic was the increased prevalence of working at home (or remotely at other locations). Many of us have now experienced prolonged periods of work at home, and as might be expected, people have varying opinions on how much they like it. The phenomenon of…

Editor's Note: Due to the recent social media conversation about forgiving student debt, we thought it would be timely to reprint this earlier CSR blog post about this topic.  Thanks--PLG  “Just do it.” That was not the mantra of Nike being repeated in a recent Inside Higher Education article; it was the advice of a…

If your campus is anything like mine, there has been an increasing emphasis on students completing internships during their time in college or university. A decade or two ago, students completing one internship were ahead of many of their peers, while today, many students are completing multiple internships. At my institution, there has been increasing…

At a recent lunch with some of my colleagues, our discussion turned to the topic of the inflation that has developed in the US economy over the past year.  I am sixty-one years old while my lunch companions were in their 40’s and 30’s.  I was surprised to see their lack of knowledge and concern…

The academic year 2020-2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of Christian Scholar's Review (CSR). It was born in 1970 out of an earlier academic journal, The Gordon Review, which was created by Gordon College faculty and came in time to be sponsored by that college. The process of transition from The Gordon Review…

The academic year 2020-2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of Christian Scholars Review (CSR). CSR was born in 1970 out of an earlier academic journal, The Gordon Review, which was created by Gordon College faculty. The first issue of The Gordon Review was published in February 1955 under Lloyd F. Dean, the journal’s…

Our God is a God of justice; of this, there can be no doubt. As Christians, we know the familiar refrain of Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” There is much dialogue today about how to pursue and achieve justice on various issues, and that is a good thing…

Thanks to my friend and colleague Kent Van Til for his thoughtful response to my blog post on universal basic income.  In his response, he demonstrates very well what we at Hope College have formulated as our Virtues for Public Discourse.  In responding to his comments, I would note that we have much agreement on…

Mark Zuckerberg wants it. Elon Musk says we need it because of robots. Joe Biden rejected it. Ben Sasse thinks we should be talking about it. Milton Friedman sort of liked it, and even Charles Murray thinks it may be a good idea. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke favorably about it as a potential…