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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 Reduction of Nursing Care to Disordered Nursing Practice: A Christian Analysis

Historically the nursing profession originated within a rich context of Christian values and beliefs. For example, in the Canadian context where I work and teach early Canadian nursing was managed and conducted by religious denominations, especially by Roman Catholic female orders.Kathy Hardill, “From the Grey Nuns to the Streets: A Critical History of Outreach Nursing…
August 18, 2023
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Helping Your New Faculty with Christ-Animated Learning

Recently, the editor of this blog, Perry Glanzer, asked readers if they had an example of faculty development for Christian mission that has been helpful. Since I have served on the Faculty Development Committee for the College of Arts & Sciences at Regent University for five years, I thought I would share one. Before I…
August 16, 2023
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Why Are Christian Campus Conversations about Alcohol So Anemic? Part II: A Substantive Christian Approach

A friend of mine recently shared that when talking with his daughter about her classes at a Christian university, he found himself repeatedly asking, “Did you discuss any constructive proposals?” Her consistent answer was, “No, we really did not have time.  We had to spend so much time on deconstructing structures of ____________” (with "deconstructing…
August 15, 2023
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In the Seed, I Perceive the Tree

When I teach our Natural Sciences Capstone seminar class, I must give the graduating seniors a challenging, cumulative assignment, appropriate to a 1-credit seminar course that meets once a week. In my class, these opposing requirements are met by assigning them to write a two-page proposal for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program…
August 11, 2023
BlogBook Review

Ecology of Vocation: Recasting Calling in a New Planetary Era

“California’s Apocalyptic Fires” “Drought Conditions Expected to Worsen and Spread Farther” “Flooded Canadians Fear the Next Disaster” “Between Heat and Floods, England Endures Extremes” “Europe’s Floods are Latest Signs of Climate Crisis” This short sample of headlines from articles in the New York Times from the last few years provides evidence that we are living…
August 10, 2023
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Listening to The Vision of God

In April, the actions of the Washington state legislature were discussed on the SPU faculty e-mail list, which might be a first. We celebrated as SB 5848 “Concerning licensure for music therapists” passed.Congratulations to my colleagues Carlene Brown, Christopher Hanson, Evelyn Stagnaro, Bobbie Childers, and others for their hard work to accomplish this. The bill…
August 9, 2023
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The Challenge to Start a “Christian” Business

Christianity is best understood as a religion that requires integration throughout a believer’s life. Scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 10:31 and James 1:8 warn against compartmentalizing one’s life into sacred areas that are subject to God’s requirements and secular areas that are outside His purview. Christian business faculty have long called on our students to…
August 8, 2023
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The Conference Table of Opposites

“I will endeavor by a very simple and commonplace method to lead you by experience into the divine darkness,” wrote Nicholas of Cusa in 1453 to the monks at Tegernsee.Nicholas of Cusa, The Vision of God (New York: Cosimo, 2016), 2. In 2023, our faculty/staff reading group discussed Nicholas’s method in a conference room with…
August 7, 2023