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The “What” of Christian Scholar’s Review

Last week, Margaret Diddams discussed the important mission that guides Christian Scholar’s Review (CSR)—the “why.” As someone who studies Christian higher education, I also find that faithful institutions have theologically rich and informed mission statements. Unfortunately, many Christian institutions with great mission statements do not consistently demonstrate the operationalization of that mission in all they…
April 13, 2026
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Finding God in Engineering: The Shape is the Key

In the first post, I shared a story about Mike Mulligan that shaped me. In this one, I want to share the story that shaped my current approach to engineering education. It’s the story of how the t-shaped engineer came to be, and how a quiet theological correction helped me see its deeper truth. The…
April 10, 2026
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How Stories Slowly Shape Us: Even Engineers (Part 1)

The rise of artificial intelligence is not primarily a technical disruption. It is a formational one. The tools are reshaping us — our attention, our relationships, our sense of what it means to learn and work and belong. That conviction sits at the center of this series, reshaping the way I think about engineering education,…
April 8, 2026
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The Curse That Sanctifies Us All

The popular futuristic fantasy of a world without work has been receiving increased attention lately. In a January 2026 podcast, Elon Musk opined that people should no longer worry about saving for retirement because, in the world of abundance to come, those savings would be irrelevant.1 By 2030, he claimed, artificial intelligence would be smarter…
April 7, 2026
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The “Why” of the Christian Scholar’s Review

Almost every company in America can point to a corporate plan that highlights its unique strengths, market segments, growth opportunities, and headwinds. Many Christian not-for-profits, and especially Christian higher education institutions, can also point to their own strategic plans that focus on their mission, key areas for growth, and the steps they will take to…
April 6, 2026

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Psalm 8 includes Computers

The moon and stars, flocks and herds, wild animals, birds and fish. Psalm 8 lists each of these as part of God’s creation. But how do computers fit into creation? To begin, Psalm 8 is a song of praise to God, the “creator of heaven and earth.” The psalm then goes on to list aspects…
May 10, 2021
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The Tragic Academic Neglect of Mothers’ Impact: And a Christian Remembrance and Call for Change

We cannot count on academics to study the most important realities in our lives (versus the latest academic fad). Motherhood is one of those important realities. Noble Laureate and University of Chicago economist James J. Heckman recently made this astounding observation, “hat we don’t have—and to me, it’s an amazing deficiency—we don’t any good economic…
May 7, 2021
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Prostitution and the Limits of Economic Reasoning

In my capacity as host of the podcast Faithful Economy, I recently had the opportunity to interview Scott Cunningham, an economist at Baylor, about his work related to markets for prostitution. Albeit a bit reluctantly, Scott made a powerful case for at least partial legalization of prostitution. You can listen to our conversation here. I…
Steven McMullen Headshot
May 6, 2021
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The Emergence of Remix Culture

From Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self to Kristen DuMez’s Jesus and John Wayne, from Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood to Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry’s Taking America Back for God and Sarah Posner’s Unholy, a spate of illuminating (if controversial and contested) cultural histories have been published…
May 3, 2021
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Choosing How to Explain The Choice A Virus Makes

In the preface of his book, A Genetic Switch, famed molecular biologist Mark Ptashne writes regarding his beloved virus, named lambda, “The lambda life cycle is a paradigm for this problem: the virus chooses one or another mode of growth depending upon extracellular signals, and we understand in considerable detail the molecular interactions that mediate…
April 30, 2021
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Obscurity: On Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (usually just called Caravaggio) was always hiding. He left his family home at age 13, an orphan hiding from sorrow. At 21 he wounded a police officer and fled his hometown of Milan, hiding from the law. In his twenties and early thirties he spent most of his time skulking in…
April 29, 2021
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Ordering Our Evils: The Chinese Genocide of the Uyghurs

Editor’s Note; In this series on academics and the Fall, I have focused on the consequences of the Fall for Christian scholars in general, Christian scholars’ view of time and liberal arts education, but in this final post, I want to talk about the consequences of the Fall for our academic agendas regarding evil.  Christian…
April 28, 2021
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There Is No Wisdom in Looking It Up

We have all heard this from our students: “Why do I have to know when I can just look it up?” Today’s undergraduate students have come of age seeing their phones as an extension of themselves; their sense of self too often shaped in part by their browsing history and the responses to their own…
April 27, 2021