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Theological Foundations for Creation Care: Replacing Apathy and Despair with Hope and Christian Virtues — A Review Essay (Part 1)

Andrew J. Spencer’s and Steven Bouma-­Prediger’s recent releases applying Christian theology to contemporary environmental problems share similar goals and face common constraints. As trade paperbacks, both books are intended to motivate an indifferent or skeptical Christian readership and theologically equip students to address hot-­button political topics. The authors self-­identify as Evangelical, utilize the language of…
December 11, 2024
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Shaping Witnesses: Baylor’s English Graduate Program

In the past year or so, six graduates of Baylor University’s English graduate program have published books about the arts of reading well and the value of forming Christian imaginations. Jessica Hooten Wilson (grad of 2009) published Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice (Jessica has also published several…
December 10, 2024
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Sharing Our Screens

Recently I re-watched The Truman Show, the 1998 film about a man, played by Jim Carey, who discovers that his life has been broadcast to the world as a reality TV show. Though produced a quarter of a century ago, the movie’s critique of an “always-on,” surveillant media culture felt timely and spoke to my…
December 9, 2024
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Not Quite Exiles nor Never Much of an Eden: The Meaning of Vocation for the Professorate Thirty Years after the Publication of Mark Schwehn’s Exiles from Eden

The early 1990s saw a rash of books on religion and higher education, and Mark Schwehn’s 1993 Exiles From Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America was a book unlike any of the rest. It begins with two memorable illustrations of the central problem Schwehn addresses. The first recalls a faculty get-­together at the…
December 5, 2024
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Be the Hope You Seek

A friend asked me not so long ago, “Where can we find hope in such uncertain times?” Many of us have been asking this reasonable and pressing question for much of the past five years. As Christians, we can easily recite a couple of the 140 Bible verses that, in various different stories and admonitions,…
December 4, 2024
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Christ-Animated Scholarship and Human Worth

Every once in a while, I come across an article or book that exemplifies the best of what Christ-animated scholarship can and should be. I recently came across one such article in the field of psychology that addressed the topic of human worth. The concepts of self-worth and self-esteem have a long history in the…
December 3, 2024

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The Struggle for Soul in Christian Higher Education: Burtchaell was Right, and I Was Wrong, Part II

In yesterday’s post, I recounted Burtchaell’s argument about the threats to Christian higher education and my response recorded in the book, Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions.Robert Benne Quality with Soul : How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI:…
February 16, 2024
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The Odd Experience of Romance

I had the pleasure of addressing the St. Andrew’s Society of Savannah on November 30, 2023, on the occasion of their 286th St. Andrew’s Day Dinner. A friend had suggested me as the speaker because I had written a three-volume biography of C. S. Lewis. Lewis was a lovely man with many fine qualities, but…
February 14, 2024
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Holy Grails and Trendy Water Bottles: On Desire

This year, at my daughter’s suburban, mostly upper-income middle school, a certain kind of water bottle has become au courant. It is expensive and unwieldy, but there’s a sense that one can’t do without it. I found out today that another, nearby middle school (no surprise) is aflutter about the same bottle. To be deprived…
February 13, 2024
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Faith and AI on Film: Lessons for Christian Educators

It has been just over a year now since ChatGPT’s release, and the shock waves from that seismic event keep rippling through society at large. One means of measuring its impact on our collective imagination is by the number of notifications my faculty inbox has received for professional articles and workshops on generative AI, or…
February 12, 2024