Skip to main content
Blog

Letting Go of the List: Presence, Purpose, and the Christ-Shaped Life

Today’s post explores our list-making tendencies—and the deeper drive for accomplishment and control that often fuels them. As our entry point, I’ll turn to one of Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad stories: “A List.” It’s a gentle invitation to consider whether there might be better ways to spend our days and pursue our purpose. You…
August 5, 2026
Blog

Diminishment

The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing. --Robert Frost, “The Oven Bird” Aging and diminishment are not synonymous. There are hundreds of books and essays about aging,…
August 4, 2026
Blog

Preliminary Thoughts on Sport, Theology, and Trauma (Part 4): Concluding Remarks and Recommendations

One of our goals in this essay was to synthesise three related books on trauma, from three distinct sources—pastoral theology, the social scientific (and secular) study of sports, and biographical material. We hope to have provided a starting point for others to research the sports-­theology-­trauma relationship and to think about how to support athletes holistically…
Blog

Preliminary Thoughts on Sport, Theology, and Trauma (Part 3): Theological and Psychological Perspectives on Trauma

Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, emerita professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Spiritual Trauma Care: Theology and Psychology in Dialogue, is one of America’s leading pastoral theologians. Her latest book brings the latest trauma theory and empirical findings into conversation with Christian theology. Hunsinger states that the “overriding purpose of the book is to…
Blog

Preliminary Thoughts on Sport, Theology, and Trauma (Part 2): Social-­Scientific and Methodological Perspectives on Researching Trauma in Sports

Our review of the literature yielded no publications specifically on a theological and psychological understanding of trauma in sports, aside from an interview with Rachael Denhollander and a book and two articles that touch on trauma-­related issues in sports from a Christian perspective (e.g., resilience and identity). There are several publications from the fields of…

Subscribe

for new content notifications, access to video and audio conversations with our writers, and invitations to our events.

Blog

I Don’t Want My Students to Be Well-rounded

I recently found myself explaining again the value of a liberal arts education. I fell into using the same language I have used for hundreds of other students over the years. I was offering the same sorts of justifications that were used on me as a biochemistry major in the 1990s when I was told…
March 28, 2023
Blog

Why Faculty Need to Go Back to School: A Modern Viewpoint

It is a truism in higher education, especially at liberal-arts institutions, that interdisciplinary collaboration promotes academic excellence—that it forms well-rounded students and fosters communities of intellectual creativity. We want our students to combine ideas from multiple disciplines in order to be critical and flexible thinkers. They should study philosophy and literature so that they can…
Blog

“An Eye for His Image”

Bill was one of my very best friends in college. We went to music school together, we played in bands, and we pledged a fraternity. Bill’s daughter, Kaylie is a graduate of the university where I currently teach and sang in our university choir. So as Bill and his wife Shelia would attend Kaylie’s choir…
March 24, 2023
Blog

Better Together, Part Three: Literary Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

This series is adapted from a chapter in Keith Loftin’s Rekindling an Old Light: The Virtue and Value of Christ-Shaped Liberal Arts Learning (High Bridge Books, 2022, published in conjunction with Moral Apologetics Press). Literature can give us ears to hear and sensitize our eyes to see goodness, truth, and beauty—in fact to effect union…
March 22, 2023
Blog

Better Together, Part Two: Reading Widely

This series is adapted from a chapter in Keith Loftin’s Rekindling an Old Light: The Virtue and Value of Christ-Shaped Liberal Arts Learning (High Bridge Books, 2022, published in conjunction with Moral Apologetics Press). Why should Christians read literature from a broad array of writers and thinkers? As our last installment put it, “If literature…
March 21, 2023
Blog

Better Together, Part One: Why Christians Need Literature and Literature Needs Christians

This series is adapted from a chapter in Keith Loftin’s Rekindling an Old Light: The Virtue and Value of Christ-Shaped Liberal Arts Learning (High Bridge Books, 2022, published in conjunction with Moral Apologetics Press). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” begins harmlessly enough—with townspeople from a rural community gathering in the picturesque public square on an idyllic…
March 20, 2023
Blog

Book Review – Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land

There is now a well-developed Christian literature addressing the dualism of mind- body, and the consequences for our health and flourishing when this dualism is taken for granted, ignored, or unchallenged. Theologian Norman Wirzba suggests there is another dualism that similarly threatens our spiritual-physical-social health; this is the dualism between humanity and the rest of…
March 16, 2023
Blog

Professing Christ in Public Universities: An Interview with Jonathan Pettigrew

Integratio Press recently published Professing Christ: Christian Tradition and Faith-Learning Integration in Public Universities.Jonathan Pettigrew and Robert H. Woods Jr., eds., Professing Christ: Christian Tradition and Faith-Learning Integration in Public Universities (Pasco, WA: Integratio Press, 2022). Edited by Jonathan Pettigrew and Robert H. Woods Jr., this book includes contributions from 18 current or former faculty…