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Scholarship and Vocation

One Sunday in the 1950s, when I was in my teens, my uncle and aunt had joined my parents for refreshments after our Sunday evening church service. Before the delicacies were ready, my dad guided my uncle downstairs to my basement aviary and aquarium room to see my nesting parakeets and tropical fish. As they…
August 31, 2026
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Words Are (but Shouldn’t Be) Cheap (Part 2)

May my spoken words and unspoken thoughts be pleasing even to you, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 TLB I could take a whole lot of words to talk about the need to pray for my students and colleagues and their families. Yet, I’ve found the more time and effort I put…
August 28, 2026
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Words Are (but Shouldn’t Be) Cheap (Part 1)

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14 KJV Daily (if not multiple times a day!), I pray Psalm 19:14 for myself. As a professor, writer, and speaker, I spend a lot of my day, every day, occupied…
August 27, 2026
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Preface to the Reviews

This issue’s book review section contains two review essays, each of which examines multiple books on a common theme, and four reviews of individual books. The first review essay, “Rest and Sabbath: A Review Essay,” is written by Amy Davis Abdallah, who teaches practical theology at Ashland Theological Seminary. Abdallah’s essay examines three recent books…
August 26, 2026
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Introducing Christian Scholar’s Review 2026 Summer Issue

With today’s blog, I’m pleased to introduce the summer issue of Christian Scholar’s Review. Our Spring issue was sadly delayed, largely due to printing schedules, so I am delighted to have this issue in hand (or on screen) for many just as the academic year begins. With decades of the rhythms of the academic year much more real…
August 25, 2026

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Editor's Note: Due to an early morning link problem with the e-mail sent Thursday, we are resending Katie Kressar's post Friday, July 23rd as well.  In addition, the Christ Animating Learning Blog will take a one week vacation next week. We will return on August 2nd.  Thanks, PLG Like many academics, I’m a small-town kid…
July 22, 2021
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How Southern Honor Corrupted American Higher Education: A Christian Critical History and Alternative to Honor Codes

Universities, including Christian ones, have become quite comfortable with what some might describe as the “virtue” of honor. Although we may instinctively classify it as a favorable trait, honor—as it exists on college campuses today—has a troubled backstory. What is more, today’s faculty and administrators who esteem honor may not know about its contentious history.…
July 21, 2021
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Grieving the (Possible) Loss:

What I Love about South Korea Study Abroad, and Why It Might Not Be the Same Again My home state of Washington just declared a “full re-opening” and a return to a (new) normal. As a result, I can see relief on the faces of those around me as we Washingtonians attempt to remember what…
July 20, 2021
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Guest Post: A Well-Read Life

I have designed my ethics class to interweave ethical reflection (theory) with formation (practice), in part by thematically pairing readings with spiritual exercises. One such pairing includes Aquinas’s account of the virtue of love (Summa theologiae II-II q. 25-27) and a week of repeated contemplation of the apostle Paul’s hymn of love in I Corinthians…
July 19, 2021
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Teaching as a Call to Becoming

In teaching Biblical studies, I have come to view the integration of faith and learning less as a movement from doing to becoming and more as a process from being to becoming. It is less a movement from something to another, and more a maturation process, the transformation of one’s identity, brought about through the…
July 16, 2021
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On Humility, or, Christianity as Bull-dung

In a post engagingly entitled “Academic Freedom: From Ram-skit to Bull-dung,” Crystal Downing relates how a professor bragged about telling students, “Christianity is ‘bull-dung’ and that’s not opinion; it’s fact.” My immediate thought was that this was indeed an inspired metaphor for the faith whose God was born in a stable. Like the crown of thorns,…
July 15, 2021
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Letting Our College Experience Teach Us

It’s already July, and while for many people July means summer is just getting started, most college professors are already starting to think about the new school year. The start of a new school year is always nostalgic for me. I have loved school all my life—which is why I never wanted to leave it.…
July 13, 2021
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Unraveling and Hope

When the Moravian bishop and education reformer John Amos Comenius died in 1670, he was just a few chapters short of completing his 7-volume General Consultation on the Reform of Human Affairs (De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica). This ambitious work ranged across a vast array of topics including philosophy, theology, linguistics, education, politics, and…
July 12, 2021
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Reclaiming the Power of Words

Ellen Seidman is on a crusade. Her efforts have caught the attention of thousands of YouTube viewers, educators, 250,000 petition signers, and even past presidents such as President Obama. Her crusade doesn’t focus on ending poverty, racism, global warming, or sex trafficking. Her crusade is to end the use of a single word. Seidman and…
July 9, 2021