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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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Helping the World’s Search for a Vocabulary

In a fascinating conversation published in Advance magazine a few years ago, Shirley Hoogstra interviewed Anne Snyder and David Brooks about their impressions of the kind of Christian education happening on our CCCU campuses.  Are we doing enough, Shirley asked, to be a “leaven” in the larger academy, helping “to transform things for the better?”…
August 24, 2026
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Character in Community: A Fellowship Inspired by Oxford’s Online Leading with Character Course (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, we shared the story of how the Leading with Character Fellowship was built: a six-week community of practice scaffolded around the Leading with Character online course, designed to bring relational accountability, weekly small groups, and shared formation to what might otherwise have been a solo online experience. Two of…

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First Steps at Advent: On Faith and the Fantastic Four Film

Amid star-strewn heavens, a woman groans in labor pains as an enormous devourer endangers her, intent on seizing her miraculous child the moment he’s born. So unfolds the vision of Revelation 12:1–5. So too goes a crucial scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025). The Revelator retells the…
December 5, 2025
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Institutional Survival, The Chocolate War, and The Weight of Glory

All of us who read the Christian Scholars Review want Christian higher education to survive.  Most of us, anyway, are aware of the growing threats to our survival, both as individual colleges and universities; and to our survival as a collective enterprise. Where is Eastern Nazarene University today, Barrington, or Nyack—to limit ourselves for the…
December 3, 2025
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Academic Gratitude

We learn to practice virtues in specific contexts. Thus, academics always need to think about how to apply Christian virtues in their particular learning environment in specific ways. In particular, as academics, we should have special reasons to be thankful during this season. Anyone who teaches has received intellectual gifts that God does not bestow…
November 24, 2025
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The Ever Evolving and Evasive Nature of Knowledge

Editor's Note: Due to a technical issue with WordPress, this essay was published earlier this month without the text, only the tables. We have reposted the corrected version today.  Human culture and consciousness in the Global North have evolved profoundly over the past two millennia, and are conventionally referenced as the overlapping respective eras of…
November 21, 2025
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Thanksgiving, Hobbits, and the Way of Ennoblement

Jesus tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive. With Thanksgiving approaching, I thought this an opportunity to reflect on giving, receiving, and what it means to be thankful. The popular conception of Thanksgiving is that it’s a time to give thanks for the blessings in our lives—for our family, friends,…
November 20, 2025
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Put on the Attire of Leadership (Part 2)

Many years ago, my wife, Phyllis, and I were the guests of the University of Notre Dame provost at a football game in South Bend, Indiana, between the Fighting Irish and West Point. At halftime, someone pointed me toward the private box where the leaders of the two schools were watching the game together. I…
November 19, 2025
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Leadership: It’s Not Only for Administrators (Part 1)

About 10 years after I became the president of Fuller Seminary, I received a letter from a college student asking me for career advice. His goal in life, he said, was to be the kind of academic president that I was, and he wondered how he should prepare for that role. I wrote back, telling…
November 18, 2025
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Music: The Soul of the Liberal Arts

Many colleges and universities, within the CCCU and without, continue to be faced with difficult questions regarding which academic programs to retain and which to “consolidate.” There are an incredible number of factors that inform each of these considerations, and I do not covet those who are tasked with the corresponding decisions. It is often…
November 17, 2025