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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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ChatGPT and the Turing Test: Biblical Studies Version

My inventive colleague, Dr. Isaac Soon, recently offered a constructive counterpart to all the handwringing in academia about ChatGPT. Instead of bemoaning ChatGPT’s potential to mimic student papers for fear of widespread cheating, why not use ChatGPT as a teaching and research tool? Isaac put up on his weblog a process he could supervise, as…
February 3, 2023
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Teacher Dispositions: The Mind, Heart, and Soul of Servant Leadership

When I began reading Servant Teaching—Practices for Renewing Christian Higher Education, by Quintin Schultze, I felt like I had discovered a priceless jewel for which countless educators had searched for decades. Schultze addresses, with grace and humility, the theme of teacher dispositions. And, he does not just dance around the topic of character-based leadership, as…
January 31, 2023
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Whither Christian Civility?

In 2017, a group of about forty Christian communication scholars convened at Spring Arbor University to participate in a dialogical mini-conference on “Civility and Virtue in a Multicultural Public Sphere.” A year and a half into the presidency of Donald Trump, our conversations kept turning to the plague of incivility in our national discourse and…
January 30, 2023
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A Christian Reflection on Religious and Secular Iconoclasm

“So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship….” (Acts 17:22-23) Across my newsfeeds recently has come news of an “Exceptional trove of 24 ancient statues found immersed in…
January 27, 2023
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Book Review – Witness at the Cross: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Friday

I double-checked the title; was “witness” singular or plural? With the answer—singular—the book’s thesis became crystal clear. Amy-Jill Levine invites each reader to be a witness, a witness to arguably one of the most monumental events in history, the death of Jesus of Nazareth. She lays bare each ancient witness’s actions and testimony, and encourages…
January 26, 2023
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Loving the Aliens: Building from a Strong Foundation (Part Three)

Developing a solid biblical foundation on the issue of multicultural ministry is essential if we are to have any meaningful discussion on how best to respond to undocumented workers. If God desires to bring to Himself a multiethnic community that will best reflect His glory, then we should be doing everything we can until then…
January 25, 2023
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Loving the Aliens: A Biblical Theology of Multiculturalism (Part Two)

To faithfully respond to a specific issue (like undocumented workers in America), we need to take a step back and see a bigger picture of God’s work as revealed in God’s Word. While the issue of undocumented workers touches on several topics (political, legal, economic, etc.), at its heart, talking about undocumented workers is about…
January 24, 2023
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ChatGPT and the Rise of AI

When I was a teenager, I purchased an early personal computer called a Timex Sinclair ZX-81 with money I earned from my paper route. I was amazed at how computer programs enabled me to build “castles in the air . . . creating by exertion of the imagination.”Frederick P. Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on…
January 20, 2023