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Of Prophets, Priests, and Professors -Part 2

In our previous post, we compared the role of Christian professors with that of the Old Testament prophets as “stewards of truth.” Following the model of the prophets of the Old Testament, we are required to maintain the truth of our respective disciplines, deliver it convincingly in the classroom, and continuously refine it to apply…
July 14, 2026
Blog

Of Prophets, Priests, and Professors -Part 1

Serving as a Christian university professor is not the most celebrated job in America. It is not an ignoble profession, but few of us would describe ourselves as overpaid. Most of us are exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime laws. One would think the years of education required to serve as a professor would…
July 13, 2026
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Flourishing 4.0: God’s Shalom and the Wholeness of Human Flourishing

One of the most ambitious attempts to answer the question of human flourishing appears in Tyler VanderWeele’s A Theology of Health: Wholeness and Human Flourishing. An epidemiologist whose work has helped shape contemporary research on flourishing, VanderWeele engages many of the themes explored by earlier writers—meaning in the face of suffering, justice within community, and…
July 10, 2026
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Flourishing 3.0: The Empirical Turn

What if the attributes of flourishing could be identified, defined, and studied as a social phenomenon, allowing those insights to inform interventions designed to improve well-­being and happiness? What if science itself could be harnessed to advance human flourishing? Many social scientists pursued enthusiastic answers to these questions. The chief architect of what would become…
July 9, 2026
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Flourishing 2.0: The Justice of Shalom

In the immediate post-­war period, the writers representing Flourishing 1.0 primarily examined the crises of flourishing within the interior life—questions of meaning, selfhood, and the courage required to live amid despair. Yet they were also attentive to the broader cultural forces that produced such crises. Tillich, for example, warned that political systems such as Communism…
July 8, 2026
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Four Cultural Movements in the Search for Meaning, Justice, Happiness, and Well-­being: Flourishing 1.0–Staying Human in the Absence of Meaning

What does it mean to flourish? The Israelites in Babylon likely did not imagine that they would prosper in exile. Yet through the prophet Jeremiah, they were instructed to build houses, plant gardens, and seek the good of the city in which they lived, even knowing that the exile would outlast most of them. Flourishing,…
July 7, 2026

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Blog

Guest Post: Relating a Gospel

Some years ago I had the privilege of presenting a brief devotional session in a Catholic institute where I was undertaking some language study. The chosen theme was the Parousia: the resurrected King coming in power. The descriptions that were used came primarily from Revelation and contrasted rather markedly with the iconography surrounding us in…
September 24, 2021
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Guest Post: In Defense of Humanistic Learning

It is cliche at this point to observe that humanistic learning is declining in American colleges and universities, including Christian ones. There are new data points each year, but the conclusion is always the same: faculty positions supporting particular arts and sciences majors, such as classics, history, philosophy, etc., are being reduced.  It is easy…
September 22, 2021
BlogReviews

The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality

Play is pervasive. It is a quintessential creaturely activity that is observed and experienced in virtually all human cultures. Play pokes through and manifests itself in so many different forms of life that, if Christians fail to think about play, it means eliminating or subtracting a significant swath of human behavior from theological reflection. Brian…
September 21, 2021
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Dorothy Sayers: Reluctant Public Intellectual

Editor's note: Due to an internal error, this post was not distributed this past Thursday when it originally posted. As a result, we are distributing it today. Thanks, PLG The idea of the public intellectual, popularly introduced in the mid-twentieth century, has flourished over the past decade. A public intellectual is an expert, “often a…
September 20, 2021
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Guest Post: How Would Jesus Do Math?

How would Jesus do mathematics? He would most likely connect the discipline to his daily experiences (whether in carpentry or in discipleship) and would seek out a community of like-minded individuals rather than work in isolation. I would like to think that he would support the mission of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical…
September 17, 2021
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Why Men Are Giving Up on College: The Death of Gentlemen

This past week The Wall Street Journal published an article about the crisis facing men with regards to higher education. In the article, the writer noted that Baylor University actually recruits women, male applicants’ mothers, to make sure young male applicants get their transcripts in on time. Apparently young men tend to be laggards in…
September 14, 2021
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For the Birds: Absence and Vision in Teaching Texts

This post is a slightly edited version of a recent editorial published in the International Journal of Christianity and Education.Smith DI (2021) For the birds: Absence and vision in teaching texts. International Journal of Christianity & Education. July. doi:10.1177/20569971211031437 (LINK: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20569971211031437) Birds are excellent indicators of environmental health and ecosystem integrity…Results from long-term surveys, accounting…
September 13, 2021
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Guest Post: Personal Formation, Self-Discovery, and the College Experience Viewed in Redemptive History

Science validates what many know by experience– the college years are a time of self-discovery and personal formation.Madelynn D. Shell, David Shears, and Zoe Millard, “Who Am I? Identity Development During the First Year of College” in Psy Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 25.2, 2020, 192-202. While peers, families of origin, socio-economic levels, and general…
September 10, 2021