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The “How” of Christian Scholar’s Review: Addressing Two Academic “Integration” Problems

Over the past two weeks, my colleagues Margaret Diddams and Perry Glanzer have articulated the mission of Christian Scholar’s Review by considering the “why” and “what” of the journal. In this blog post, I will explore the “how” question—how CSR approaches its mission. (As you might expect, the “how” overlaps considerably with the “what” and…
April 20, 2026
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Beyond Civility: The Call to Intellectual Hospitality

The conversation began, as it often does, with conviction. In my undergraduate criminal justice classroom, we were discussing the death penalty. One student spoke with certainty about justice as retribution—grounded, she explained, in her understanding of Scripture. Across the room, another student responded just as firmly, articulating a vision of justice rooted in restoration, also…
April 16, 2026
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Book Review of Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling

Finding one’s calling is a rich, complex journey. Honesty “about the ups and downs of calling will open up conversation” that fosters contemplating more meaningful and purposeful lives (16). That is one of the primary aims of Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore’s recent book. Utilizing faith, philosophy, and pragmatism, she pushes back on the pop culture notion of…
April 15, 2026

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Social Controversies in the Classroom: How to Put Learning First

Discussing emotionally charged social controversies in the classroom is one of the few parts of my job for which I feel really well-equipped. I just finished a teaching appointment in systematic theology, but I obtained my doctoral training in that field relatively late in life. My original doctoral training was in political philosophy. (I’m the…
May 24, 2023
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Much Ado About Theories: Teaching Marx and Other Suspicious Types in Christian Higher Education (Part 1)

I’ve taught an undergraduate sociological theory course for 20-some years, and it’s long been one of my favorites. Theories are fascinating phenomena. They can prod people to adjust their gaze, see things anew, step into the shoes of another, and occasionally even shift paradigms. Theories can delight, enrage, puzzle, unnerve, and challenge. They can move…
May 19, 2023
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Rhyme’s Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry (Book Review)

Brad Leithauser’s new book, Rhyme’s Rooms, is a feast, a palace, a work of beauty that deserves a wide audience beyond the academy, as well as inclusion in any serious course on poetry. It also seems to be Christian scholarship of the best sort: serious intellectual work conversing in a rigorous and diverse secular profession,…
May 18, 2023
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Keeping First Things First: A Charge to Christian Academics

I teach literature today in no small part thanks to Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane’s realistic novella depicting the impoverished conditions of life in the Bowery at the turn of the twentieth century.This piece has been adapted from an address to the Sigma Tau Delta chapter of Liberty University, delivered March 10,…
May 17, 2023
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Ask for Christian Theorizing and a Christian Positionality Statement: A Proposal for Dissertations and Theses at Christian Universities

As mentioned in yesterday's post, my research undertaken with my graduate students has discovered that Christian graduate education is not very Christian. The marketing, objectives, and curriculum at two-thirds of programs show little sign of Christian influence. Our undergraduate programs may be different, but our graduate programs are really imitations of the secular programs from…
May 16, 2023
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Letter to the Class of 2023: Find Joy

“Are You Going to Go My Way?” Lenny Kravitz Dear Class of 2023, If there is a descriptor of the vice that older generations have perpetrated upon you at this moment, I would label it joylessness. Look at all the dystopian books you were fed growing up, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Mazerunner, Uglies, Matched, etc.…
May 12, 2023