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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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Languishing? Take Courage, Take Heart

The most-read article in The New York Times in 2021 was not about COVID, not about January 6th, not about the trial of Derek Chauvin, nor about NASA’s helicopter, Ingenuity, flying above the surface of Mars. It was by social psychologist Adam Grant who wrote back in April about languishing,Adam Grant, “There’s a name for…
March 21, 2022
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Guest Post – A Volcanic Tightrope

In March of 2020, famed daredevil Nik Wallenda completed the astonishing feat of walking on a tightrope stretched out across an active Volcano crater in Nicaragua. He stood roughly 2,100 feet above volcanic magma, dawning goggles, a balance beam, and a respirator to protect him from fumes. I wondered what went through his head as…
March 17, 2022
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These are My Students: A Reflection on Three Different Student “Profiles” in My DEI Course

When the Professional Becomes Personal: Opportunities and Challenges for Faculty of Color Teaching DEI Courses Overview of the Blog Series Although they are underrepresented in Christian higher education, faculty of color are overrepresented among those teaching the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) courses – at times, the single DEI course – within their department. For…
March 16, 2022
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Guest Post – The Beautiful Scandal of the Cruciform Mind

Editor’s Note: The William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company releases an updated edition of Mark A. Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind today.  Reflecting upon that book’s longstanding influence, Indiana Wesleyan University’s President David Wright offers this morning’s post, focusing on the impact Noll’s book had since its original release in 1994, his hopes for…
March 15, 2022
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A Serial Entrepreneur’s Unique Journey and Financial Risk to Help Christian Education: Is Amy Smiling?

An odd little book was amongst the cascading vendor enticements at last month’s educational gathering in Dallas, TX. From Walter Kim and Bryan Stephenson to Adelle Banks and Michelle Boorstein, the  Council of Christian Colleges and Universities’ International Forum produced a stellar lineup for its 1100 attendees—and they proved every bit as engaging as their…
March 11, 2022
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Guest Post – Creating a Campus Culture of Loving Judgment (Part 2)

In the last post, I shared how the biblical doctrine of judgment stabilized my own spiritual imbalances and insecurities, thus welcoming me, a sinner, into the presence of a righteous God who treated me better than I deserved. I shared Hamilton’s scholarship, showing God’s glory as revealed in this salvific work of judgment as THE…
March 10, 2022
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Guest Post – Thoughts on engaging a fluid culture with fluid dynamics in Christian education

What role should faith play in Christian education? This philosophical question regularly results in divisive dialogue in certain scholarly circles and—for newly minted faculty—instills a degree of confusion around the gravity of the issue. Under the weight of the school year, it grows easier to jettison this all-important question as pursuing the right funding, pedagogy,…
March 4, 2022