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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
Blog

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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Chasing AI: Wisdom and Responsibility for Christian Educators

As an educational psychologist, I study teachers and students, both of whom are learners in their own ways. As artificial intelligence (AI) burgeons in classrooms, I cannot help but think of Romans as a possible answer to the question Benjamin Bloom posed more than four decades ago. Roughly, Bloom’s question was: “How can we deliver…
April 14, 2026
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The “What” of Christian Scholar’s Review

Last week, Margaret Diddams discussed the important mission that guides Christian Scholar’s Review (CSR)—the “why.” As someone who studies Christian higher education, I also find that faithful institutions have theologically rich and informed mission statements. Unfortunately, many Christian institutions with great mission statements do not consistently demonstrate the operationalization of that mission in all they…
April 13, 2026

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Blog

The Challenges of Writing about Teaching

This piece is a slightly adapted version of a recent editorial written for the International Journal of Christianity and Education. In the preface to his recent book Transforming Fire: Imagining Christian Teaching,Mark D. Jordan, Transforming Fire: Imagining Christian Teaching. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). Mark Jordan (2021) recalls his experiences as a young teacher who “found many…
April 17, 2023
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Purgatory: What to Make of a Gifted Athlete? Three Parables (Part 2)

In yesterday's post, I maintained that our talents are, just like our very lives, gifts from God. Recognizing that our lives and talents are gifts has three important implications for athletes: gifts must be cultivated, gifts are temporary, and gifts must be used well. These facts—regarding the nature and purpose of athletic gifts—are not often…
April 11, 2023
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Purgatory: What to Make of a Gifted Athlete? (Part 1)

In my last post, I focused on the first book of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Inferno. There I attempted to draw lessons out of Dante’s text regarding the place of courage in sport. Here, I want to extend the examination to the second book of the Divine Comedy, the Purgatory. In this post, I will…
April 10, 2023
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On Deserts and Discipline: For Lent

In the Seattle Art Museum, there is a little painting that often perplexes my students. It shows a scrawny, aged, half-nude man kneeling on desert ground and facing a small crucifix mounted on a stick. His left arm is extended with its empty hand splayed; his right hand holds a gray, prism-shaped rock. And despite…
April 7, 2023
BlogBook Review

Playing as Others: Theology and Ethical Responsibility in Video Games

Since their inception, video games have often been viewed as trivial or unworthy of significant theological study. However, Benjamin Chicka argues that this posture is a mistake: video games represent powerful cultural artifacts that possess the potential for tremendous theological depth, and they provide us with new vistas of ethical possibilities. Whereas most serious theological…
April 6, 2023
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Historicizing The Scarlet Letter and COVID-19

Earlier today as I was scrolling through my phone’s camera roll, I paused at pictures of March 2021. My son and daughter, five and six then, were masked at the grocery store in the canned vegetables section. The next picture was them a few months later, masked at the playground. As I scrolled through the…
April 5, 2023
BlogBook Review

Nurturing Faith: A Practical Theology for Educating Christians

This book is an admirable attempt to chart a “road map” for the discipleship and educational mission of the global, twenty-first century church. The authors identify their work as a “practical” theology because it seeks to inform the church’s practice through “self-conscious examination” of current practices (9). By “faith” the authors mean “a knowledge-based, conviction-established,…
March 30, 2023