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Addressing Reductionistic “Nothing but” Scholarship: The Conversation around a New Definition of “Evangelical,” Part 1

Christian scholars interested in Christ-animated learning have long observed that one major danger to such scholarship is reductionism. George Marsden helpfully summarized the problem in his book, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, “Once we have a convincing explanation at the level of empirically researched connections we are inclined to think we have a complete…
May 27, 2025
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Intellectual Pilgrimage: Christians in the Contemporary Academy

The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship became an instant classic when it was released by Oxford University Press in 1997, but I must admit that I always disliked the title. While it is an effective attention-­grabber, the text itself is far more nuanced and polite than the title presages. Additionally, the word “outrageous” conveys neither…
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Catholic vs. Protestant

“In the one Christ, we are one.”                                          -motto of Pope Leo XIV The Catholic Church has recently elected a new pope, not quite three weeks after the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. Meanwhile, I have been thinking about Christian education in the city of Seattle, where I teach at a Protestant university…
May 21, 2025
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Renaissance Man: Charlie Peacock’s Memoir Drives Deep into Evangelicalism’s Historic Twentieth-Century Turn

A real renaissance is hard to come by. No birth is easy, let alone a rebirth. But that’s what American evangelicals experienced—that’s what they accomplished—from the mid-twentieth century through the opening decades of the twenty first: renaissance. Joel Carpenter describes the initial stirrings of this vast movement, in the aftermath of the 1925 Scopes Trial, with…
May 19, 2025

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Legal Scholarship for the Kingdom

The primary claims of the first edition of George Marsden’s book, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, remain as salient and persuasive as they were thirty years ago: First, Christian academics may—I will argue should—be doing their scholarship from a Christian point of view (more shortly on what that might mean in practice), and second,…
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Building the Future of Christian Scholarship

The first edition of George Marsden’s book The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship appeared the same year I completed my doctorate. I eagerly read it and it immediately became a touchstone book for my early career. And so, it was with great enthusiasm that I began reading the second edition. How have the ideas aged?…
May 29, 2025
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Addressing Reductionistic “Nothing but” Scholarship: The Conversation around a New Definition of “Evangelical,” Part 2

I remember teaching a weekend course on American Christian history in the late 1990s. Since it was a weekend course for working adults, I used several videos in those late Saturday afternoon hours when eyes glazed and heads nodded. I found some great videos about the history of American Catholicism and African American Christianity, but…
May 28, 2025
Blog

Addressing Reductionistic “Nothing but” Scholarship: The Conversation around a New Definition of “Evangelical,” Part 1

Christian scholars interested in Christ-animated learning have long observed that one major danger to such scholarship is reductionism. George Marsden helpfully summarized the problem in his book, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, “Once we have a convincing explanation at the level of empirically researched connections we are inclined to think we have a complete…
May 27, 2025
Blog

Intellectual Pilgrimage: Christians in the Contemporary Academy

The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship became an instant classic when it was released by Oxford University Press in 1997, but I must admit that I always disliked the title. While it is an effective attention-­grabber, the text itself is far more nuanced and polite than the title presages. Additionally, the word “outrageous” conveys neither…
Blog

Catholic vs. Protestant

“In the one Christ, we are one.”                                          -motto of Pope Leo XIV The Catholic Church has recently elected a new pope, not quite three weeks after the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. Meanwhile, I have been thinking about Christian education in the city of Seattle, where I teach at a Protestant university…
May 21, 2025
Blog

Renaissance Man: Charlie Peacock’s Memoir Drives Deep into Evangelicalism’s Historic Twentieth-Century Turn

A real renaissance is hard to come by. No birth is easy, let alone a rebirth. But that’s what American evangelicals experienced—that’s what they accomplished—from the mid-twentieth century through the opening decades of the twenty first: renaissance. Joel Carpenter describes the initial stirrings of this vast movement, in the aftermath of the 1925 Scopes Trial, with…
May 19, 2025