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Doctors Crossing Borders, and Other Perils of Professional Training

This fall I am teaching an Honors Seminar designed for students in my home university’s College of Health Sciences. The students are all eager to pursue their professional careers as medical doctors, nurses, and physical therapists. Sadly, only 10% of them have expressed any interest in practicing in those parts of the world where they…
November 19, 2024
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When Judgment Hurts

Last month, I attended a conference at Calvin University focused on how to counter reductionism in teaching and education. Certainly, our culture has been in thrall to reductionist tendencies for some time, as the angry, dismissive tone of internet culture and political discourse shows us. Sadly, this tone often makes its way into the classroom,…
November 18, 2024
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“Is it Wrong to Mourn What You Do Not Know?” On Satisfaction and the End of Learning

Many faculty professional development days, hallway dialogues between colleagues, and programs for the integration of faith and learning exist because of the common question: how can we motivate our students to desire learning? Although scaffolded course objectives and early alert systems for struggling students are designed with the ostensible end of effective teaching in mind,…
November 15, 2024
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An Extended Review of The Artistic Sphere: The Arts in Neo-­Calvinist Perspective (Part 2)

The words of Calvinists like Kuyper on the one hand, and secular “formalists” like Greenberg on the other, can sometimes seem interchangeable. However, Kuyper and Greenberg would certainly have disagreed concerning the “area of competence” contained in the “Artistic Sphere.” For Kuyper (and for Rookmaaker, who worked out Kuyper’s ideas through art criticism) the artist…
November 14, 2024

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The Doomsayers Are Wrong about Christian Higher Education (and Should Correct Their Alarmist Claims)

The sky is falling rhetoric tends to be overused when it comes to Christian higher education (CHE). This past month, one person tweeted upon learning that Trinity International University is discontinuing residential and in-person undergraduate education, “Christian higher ed is imploding.” This tweet was less reflective of empirical reality and more reflective of the struggles…
March 7, 2023
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You’re Only Human: An interview with Kelly Kapic

You're Only Human by Kelly M. Kapic, Professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, is a book recently published by Brazos Press (and which recently won a Christianity Today Book of the Year award). The point of the book is clearly stated in the subtitle: “How your limits reflect God’s design…
March 6, 2023
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Singing Stones

Albrecht Durer, Rock Study, ca. 1497, Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria In a memorable exchange from Luke’s gospel, Jesus (as he was wont to do) rebukes the Pharisees. The jubilant events of Palm Sunday are happening. The Pharisees are scandalized and tell Jesus to make His disciples quiet down. In response, Jesus says, “if they keep…
March 3, 2023
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Book Review – Sunset Cue

I once heard a sarcastic remark after attending a poetry reading. Perhaps I made the remark. At any rate, the reading featured a past-middle-aged poet reading newish poems from the latest book—the tenth or so—this poet had written. The sarcastic comment: “I sip my coffee as I gaze on the birdfeeder out my window. I…
March 2, 2023
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Your invitation to publish with Christian Scholar’s Review

Over the past 52 years, Christian Scholar’s Review has published over 1,000 articles and is well on its way to reviewing 4,000 books. Published quarterly, each issue usually showcases 4–5 articles and 8–10 book reviews from the full range of academic fields. In our continual mission to further Christ-animated scholarship, we invite you to add…
February 28, 2023
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Guardener’s Song*

Picture Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_The_Risen_Christ_Appearing_to_Mary_Magdalen_-_WGA19094.jpg We were flying east across the Atlantic Ocean, anticipating our overnight stop in Amsterdam, and were soon attracted by an interesting message on the headrest in front of us. It announced a celebration of the 400th anniversary year of Rembrandt van Rijn’s birth! Might it be possible for us to join the…
February 27, 2023
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The Limits of Vulnerability

Last fall semester, Beth Madison posted on the CSR blog about vulnerability in the classroom—a vulnerability on the part of professors that could lead to openness from students, and ultimately growth toward wholeness. I’d like to look at the issue of vulnerability from a different angle—that of students’ vulnerability in the classroom—and consider some of…
February 22, 2023
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Can Land Acknowledgements Be Christian?

Baylor University recently published a land acknowledgment (LA). A few other Christian institutions and conferences have also created them (see for example here, here, and here). According to the Baylor University link, “A Land Acknowledgment is a traditional custom that dates back centuries in many Native Nations and communities. Today, land acknowledgments are used by Native…
February 21, 2023