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Rest and Sabbath (part 3)

Editor's Note: The following is the final part of Amy Davis Abdallah's review essay of G. P. Wagenfuhr and Amy Erickson’s Sabbath Gospel: A New Narrative of Time, Rest, and the Work of the Church; Euntaek David Shin’s Rest: A Theological Account; and Travis West’s The Sabbath Way: Making Room in Your Life for Rest, Connection,…
September 18, 2026
Blog

Rest and Sabbath (part 2)

Editor's Note: The following is the second part of Amy Davis Abdallah's review essay of G. P. Wagenfuhr and Amy Erickson’s Sabbath Gospel: A New Narrative of Time, Rest, and the Work of the Church; Euntaek David Shin’s Rest: A Theological Account; and Travis West’s The Sabbath Way: Making Room in Your Life for Rest, Connection,…
September 17, 2026
Blog

Rest and Sabbath (part 1)

It is no secret that the western world’s relationship with time, work, and community is complicated, generally unhealthy, and does not lead to restful, delighted lives. We tend to continually desire more and perfection, and so tend not to stop, cease, rest, or enjoy community. Three recent books seek to reconstruct our theology and habits…
September 16, 2026
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A Higher Education Toward the True Purpose of the University

On July 4, 2026, Dr. Robert B. Sloan, Jr., President of Houston Christian University, was called home to be with the Lord Christ after nearly two decades leading HCU. His leadership was marked by faithfulness to Christian higher education and a vision for a university rigorous in pursuit yet no less faithful in commitment. My…
September 15, 2026
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Teens, TikTok, and America 250: A Meditation on Elite Culture

“Elite culture” is a dubious thing. It can often feel like a harmful construct designed to keep control of those who already have it. If this view is correct, then there’s nothing excellent, or even especially better, about elite culture - it’s only a code deployed by those “in the know” to exclude others. Not…
September 14, 2026
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Envy and Crime and Punishment

Recently, especially after Elon Musk passed the trillionaire mark, many people posted online about the ways Musk’s money could help the poor. Others, including famous politicians, then chimed in about what could be done with lots of billionaires' money. Unsurprisingly, no one posted about what they were currently doing with their money or other possessions…
September 11, 2026

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What Barfield Thought: An Introduction to the Work of Owen Barfield

If I were forced to select a single passage from C. S. Lewis’s hefty corpus that sums up most fully his genius for uniting reason and imagination, for exposing the fault lines in the monolith of modernism, and for expressing profound insights in the simplest of terms, I would choose one that occurs in Chapter…
September 12, 2024
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Who are you trying to impress?

I think human beings are built to want to impress someone. To please someone. To get approval. It’s there, palpably, in everyone’s eyes, if you know how to look. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this - nothing at all. It’s built into the tripartite structure of the Trinity, wherein Father and Son gaze upon each…
September 10, 2024
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Teaching Amid A Community of Teachers

Part-way through teaching a new course on faith and pedagogy last year I noticed an emerging pattern that had not been a fully conscious part of my plan. An unanticipated trend slowly turned into a conscious strategy that threaded its way through several major topics. It started a few weeks into the semester as we…
September 9, 2024
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Religious Service Attendance: An Important Predictor of Student, Faculty, and Human Flourishing

Throughout our scholarly careers, we have consistently been struck by an empirical finding we often encounter. The most important religious variable predictor in studies is usually not how people identify (e.g., Christian) or what they believe (e.g., certain views of the Bible). Instead, it is simply a weekly action. How often do they go to…
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Through-lines of a Life and Career: An Editor’s Reflection

For my own part, I know I must keep alive in myself what I have once known and grown into. —Thomas MertonThomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, Image, 1968), 187.  My wide-ranging but low-built apartment complex, constructed before I was born, values its old maples and oaks, though time has reduced…
August 30, 2024
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Introducing The Christian Scholar’s Review Summer Issue

When we receive a manuscript that looks promising for publication, I often ask its authors to keep two things in mind as they work on revisions. First, I ask them to make it clear why people should care about their topic, reminding them that most of their readers will likely be outside their field. However,…
August 28, 2024
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Understanding Before Expecting to Be Understood

In How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (2023), David Brooks calls us to re-think how much true influence we can have on others if we do not take the time to genuinely know them and hear their perspectives. In a time of distrust and uncertainty across…
August 23, 2024