Skip to main content
Blog

Four Cultural Movements in the Search for Meaning, Justice, Happiness, and Well-­being: Flourishing 1.0–Staying Human in the Absence of Meaning

What does it mean to flourish? The Israelites in Babylon likely did not imagine that they would prosper in exile. Yet through the prophet Jeremiah, they were instructed to build houses, plant gardens, and seek the good of the city in which they lived, even knowing that the exile would outlast most of them. Flourishing,…
July 7, 2026
Blog

Beholding the Birds of the Air: A Reflection

I am a teacher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and have been a student of God’s creation all my life. My family and I attend Geneva Campus Church, where several years ago, Rev. Bill Vander Hoven came for three months to fill a pastoral vacancy. I saw him often during my student coffee…
July 6, 2026
Blog

God, Christian Virtue, and Government

“For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” Romans 13:4 When taking Russian lessons in Moscow, my Russian language teacher and I…
June 26, 2026
Blog

Book Review of Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transforming What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically

In Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Kevin J. Vanhoozer offers what may be his most pastorally ambitious and ecclesially conscious work to date. While firmly rooted in the technical world of theological interpretation, the book’s animating concern is not merely how Christians read Scripture, but who Christians are becoming as readers, and how that reading shapes faithful action…
June 25, 2026
Blog

The Spring 2026 CSR Book Reviews

The review section of this Spring 2026 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review dovetails quite nicely with the content of the special theme issue guest-­edited by Bryan Gill, though the two parts were planned independently. The bulk of the review section is devoted to three review essays. All three essays (especially the first two) examine themes…
June 24, 2026
Blog

Introducing the Spring 2026 Issue of Christian Scholar’s Review: Finding the Imago Dei in Health Care

Sunday, on the last official day of spring, we released our spring issue online, coinciding with the expected arrival of the journal’s paper copies in the mailboxes of subscribers and faculty members at our institutional partners. We pride ourselves here at Christian Scholar’s Review, with our small volunteer editorial team and a single paid graduate…

Subscribe

for new content notifications, access to video and audio conversations with our writers, and invitations to our events.

Blog

An Ancient Tool for Change in a New University World

It is a season of change in the American higher education world. The technological tsunami of online education has broken across the university beachfront and the economic efficiency for students being able to earn a degree without leaving home, and often at reduced tuition, has produced a massive increase in online programs. At the same…
January 27, 2025
Blog

Attention to our Limitation

Montana is part of “Big Sky Country.” During a sabbatical last semester (thank you, Calvin University!), my wife and I spent time under the big sky and worked on writing projects. Unobstructed views and dramatic land features yield a sense of perspective that the sky’s not just big, it’s enormous. In parts of Montana, plains…
January 23, 2025
Blog

Robustness and Plasticity in Christian Higher Education

This past summer a terrible forest fire raced through Jasper National Park in Alberta, scorching wide swaths of the park and destroying a third of the town of Jasper; but even before the long winter set in, signs of new life were beginning to sprout. In a generation or two, the forests will have returned…
January 22, 2025
Blog

Christians Are Less Biased?

In this post-election period, there is a desire among many people to come together across political differences to restore civility and cooperation within workplaces, families, or even marriages. One of the major barriers to doing this is the belief that “I am right; they are biased,” which is referred to as the bias blind spot.…
January 21, 2025
Blog

The Nature of Slavery

Editor’s Note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we encourage you to read the following passage from Frederick Douglas’  “The Nature of Slavery” (1855) in which he describes how slavery mars the image of God  in humanity and undermines efforts to educate humans to their full capacity.   The very accompaniments of the slave…
January 20, 2025
Blog

The Dismal State of Mainline Protestant Higher Education

A 2018 volume on Mainline Protestantism opened by asking the question, “Is American mainline Protestantism a relic of a bygone era, the religious equivalent of Howard Johnsons’ Restaurants or Sears, a former giant now fighting for cultural relevance?” On one hand, one could argue that things are not quite that bad at the moment in…
January 17, 2025
Blog

How To Do Faith And Fitness With Proper Form

Editor’s Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom who publishes the Faith and Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are thinking about the subject for the popular fitness audience. Yesterday and today's posts are reproduced…
January 15, 2025
Blog

Moving Beyond Faith-Based Fitness

Editor's Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom, who publishes the Faith & Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are encouraging the popular fitness audience to think Christianly about the subject.…
January 14, 2025
Blog

This January: Fifty Percent Off at the Christmas Shop

I have a complicated relationship with seasonal Christmas shops. I’ll bet a lot of us do. It began in the 1990s. Like most adolescents, I developed a contrarian streak when it came to the elders’ sacred cows. December rituals around Christmas Tree Shops (or their copycats) were no exception. I had a lot of reasons…
January 13, 2025