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Although Bret Easton Ellis has often been castigated by critics for his immoral characters, his novels not only have a moral framework, but arguably a Christian one. The confessional tone of his novels suggests that his characters are mere products of their surroundings, and that they are desperately seeking an escape from the excesses and…

Much of Christian scholarship has defended the Conception View of personhood, the idea that human beings have intrinsic value that begins at conception. However, modern reproductive technologies have led to new scientific insights into human embryology, without a matching increase in our metaphysical and moral understandings. A rigorous formulation of human nature and personhood is…

Physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) is considered by many to have been as important to physics as Newton and Einstein, especially for his work on electricity and magnetism and for being the first director of the Cavendish Laboratory. His technical achievements are significant, but he also offers us a model of the qualities of physics…

Jeffrey Vogel contends that Austin Farrer’s profound wrestling with the question of how best to speak about the divine-world relationship has ongoing relevance for contemporary theology. Though Farrer ultimately denies our ability to grasp the precise manner of God’s activity in the world, his idea that there is a unity between God’s activity in nature…

The burden of this essay is to argue that while cyberspace technologies do open up profound new possibilities for imagining and inhabiting the world, there is a creational limitation to the human imagination: our bodies. Justin Bailey argues that personhood is always grounded in and governed by norms of embodiment – things like corporeality, locality,…

In this article Benjamin D. Wayman examines two representative approaches to education in late antiquity—one by the pagan emperor Julian, the other by the Christian bishop Basil—and brings these approaches to bear on Christian higher education today. Engaging the work of Arthur Holmes, Wayman suggests that contemporary Christian liberal arts institutions exemplify Basil’s view of…

Bethany Keeley-Jonker and Craig Mattson notice that some of their best speech students practice a delivery so controlled it feels uncanny. This essay traces such “zombie speech” not to students’ worldview assumptions but to affective norms in conventional speech pedagogy. The essay appropriates Christian theology to reorient the practice of speech in keeping with a…

Wendell Berry’s agrarian vision challenges the disintegrated, industrial model of higher education that prevails in our culture. Berry’s hope for the recovery of the university rests upon three requirements: an imagination guided by a unified organization of knowledge; a common, communal language; and responsible work. A university that embodies and unites these three principles might…

Recently, the distinctive role that Christianity plays in shaping teaching has become an important focus of conversation in Christian higher education. To help provide an empirical understanding of current practices, Nathan F. Alleman, Perry L. Glanzer, and David S. Guthrie drew upon a survey of 2,309 faculty at 48 institutions in the Council for Christian…

The survivors of the first atomic bomb used in war, which was dropped in Hiroshima, have been telling their survival stories for many decades. Many of them have found that telling their experiences is empowering, as it gives them a purpose to live and allows them to share their knowledge worldwide with people of all…

In this essay Daniel R. Allen reviews nuclear deterrence, the most crucial theoretic construct for nuclear weapons policy. A wide range of positions exists with respect to belief in the deterrent utility of nuclear weapons. The positions of deterrence optimists rely entirely on a presumption that human rationality undercuts the motive for nuclear weapon use.…

In this essay Tyler Wigg-Stevenson situates the new international discourse on the “humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons” as the latest historical phase of nuclear weapons governance, involving a shift in focus toward the risks and effects of nuclear weapons, rather than the political ends they serve. Read in light of a Christian political theology that…

Steven McMullen notes that in recent years, a number of theologians and philosophers, following John Milbank, have drawn on continental post-modern philosophy to form a critique of capitalism and modern economics. Often called the “Radical Orthodoxy” movement, these scholars argue that the problems with capitalism lie not with its results, but its underlying metaphysics and…

Christians have been active in philosophy of mathematics in recent years, but Steven D. Boyer and Walter B. Huddell III argue that the classical work of Augustine of Hippo in this field has been largely misunderstood or distorted even by its supposed advocates. This essay corrects that distortion and shows how the traditional Augustinian awareness…

As Christ-followers become increasingly active in social justice, what is motivating their efforts? Steve L. Porter argues that the sustainability of Christian social action is ultimately dependent on receptivity to the energizing presence of Christ. Felicia Heykoop, Barbara Miller, and Todd Pickett each reflect on the practicalities of implementing such a model in a college,…

Twentieth century English composer Benjamin Britten demonstrated an unusual capacity to evoke transcendent dimensions of reality. In this essay David A. Hoekema argues that certain works for accompanied solo voices and some non-operatic stage works achieve an intensity of musical and emotional expression that seem to encompass both divine and human realms. Examples of this…

Marcia Webb contends that previous attempts at psychological interpretation of the Book of Job have often focused upon psychoanalytic or psychodynamic analyses of the text. In this essay she attempts instead to integrate biblical analysis of the ancient manuscript with contemporary empirically-based theory from trauma research and religious coping studies from the psychology of religion.…

The classic Protestant teaching about work has led evangelicals to view work as a vocation. In changing economic times, however, Scott Waalkes argues that we should rethink the classic teaching. He analyzes three “ideal type” views of vocation: a Reformational view, focused on “stations” or divine commands; a mystical view, focused on inner meaning; and…

Many writers have commented on the theological elements within the strange world of Flannery O’Connor’s stories. In this essay, Derek C. Hatch asserts that O’Connor’s work has deep theological resonances with twentieth-century Catholic ressourcement thought, especially that of French Jesuit Henri de Lubac. While there is no genealogical link between them, O’Connor’s fiction evidences an…

John M. DePoe points out that Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism is often considered to follow similarly to an argument given by C. S. Lewis. However, in this essay he suggests there are significant differences in their arguments against naturalism, which his analysis of their arguments emphasizes. The most significant contrast is the standard…