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For all the credence given to the fact that teachers impact student learning, research has yet to pinpoint the exact nature of this supposed causal connection. The veracity of this crucial connection is affirmed both biblically and intuitively but not prescriptively or empirically. After an extensive review of the literature, in this article William F.…

In this essay Stephen Moroney provides an updated map to help readers grasp several ways that faith and learning intersect for professors and for students, in the academy and in the classroom, in the curriculum, and in lived experience. Integration approaches often focus on relating the content of the Christian faith to the content of…

Despite nearly fifty years since structural changes predicated the “model minority thesis” and “culture of poverty” arguments, these beliefs continue to be employed as cultural abstractions. Henry H. Kim elucidates how these concepts emerged in the 1960s and re- emerged in the twenty-first century and critiques these beliefs via historical sociology. A modified version of…

Keith D. Wyma argues that a coherent, well-grounded Christian perspective on civil dis- obedience is possible, and can be found in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas gives crisp guidelines regarding when civil disobedience could be morally allowable—or even obligatory—and supplies a “test” to determine whether a given method of disobedience is morally appropriate. The…

The faith-integration model, with its working assumption that “All truth is God’s truth,” has become the standard approach for many scholars at evangelical colleges and universities as they seek to understand the relationship between faith and learning. In this essay, Kevin D. Miller proposes that the integration model harbors an imperialistic impulse and proposes instead…

Sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith asked in their book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America: will the evangelical church remove the color line? Phillip Luke Sinitiere offers a “history” of Divided by Faith since its publication in 2000. This article traces out the book’s impact on scholars, accounting…

Introduction The American religious landscape is increasingly dominated by the influence of megachurches. A common criticism of megachurches is that they reinforce the bad habits of consumer culture. They do so by commodifying religion for the easy consumption of the religious consumer. Using Vince Miller’s account of consumer culture, and Michel De Certeau’s theoretical project…

Many Christian sociologists have experienced the juxtaposition of those two identities as casting them into a socially prophetic role. Sociology often places the Christian sociologist as one who speaks to the established Christian community rather than for it. Dennis W. Hiebert traces the development of the classic distinction between the sociological concepts of priest and…

Today’s world demands that we prepare learners to confront worldview implications for living in a multicultural and pluralistic world. One way we are doing this is through cross-cultural programs, domestically and internationally. While Christian higher education is increasing the number of students in these programs, Naomi Ludeman Smith, D.Min., asks if our institutions can show…

What does it mean to do Christian higher education in global context? More specifically, what does this entail for specifically evangelical projects in higher education? Part of the answer to this question involves engaging in dialogue with non-Western traditions of education. This essay by Amos Yong is motivated by the challenges and possibilities attending such…

Perry L. Glanzer notes that over the past two decades institutional growth in Christian higher education has slowed to a trickle in the West, but in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa it has taken off. The remarkable vigor and growth of Christianity in the global South and East is an obvious driver behind the rise…

Until recently, art has commonly been treated as ancillary to the educational mission and intellectual discourse that are at the core of Christian higher education. Using the exhibition Charis: Boundary Crossings—Neighbors, Strangers, Family, Friends as a case study, Curator and Project Director Rachel Hostetter Smith argues that art has a distinct capacity to serve as…

Robert C. Bishop and Joshua Carr describe and critique a number of assumptions found in recent books by atheist authors arguing against God’s existence. Several of these assump- tions are shared widely by Christians and may be adversely influencing our own work. Mr. Bishop is Associate Professor of Physics and Philosophy and the John and…

Joshua J. Stigall notes that because Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale is generally considered the least interesting tale in the Canterbury Tales it has not received critical engagement on the scale that other tales, like the Wife of Bath and the Knight, have received. Moreover, when the tale is discussed, Chaucer’s characterization of the Physician in the…

The fundamental problems of global environmental governance are scarcity (a relative lack of resources with which to satisfy our relatively abundant goals), tragedy (the necessity of choosing between competing goods or rights, a corollary of scarcity), and risk (a measure of the likelihood of a tragic outcome). This article by Noah Toly examines the origins…

Traditionally, Christianity has forbidden fornication, claiming that it is an offense against God. But why might God see it as a transgression? Miguel A. Endara contends that natural law reasoning applied to sexual anthropology helps us to discover that fornication promotes human objectification and existential fragmentation. In accord with natural law, that which undermines human flourishing is morally illicit.…

In recent years significant advances have occurred in both fields of neuroscience and cognitive psychology which have provided further comprehension regarding the biological structures underlying intentionality and decision making. In this essay, Tobias A. Mattei reviews the insights such empirical data might provide to the classical theological debate about human will and responsibility. After analyzing the positions of John…

The “integration of faith and learning” has become a touchstone of many Evangelical Protestant higher education institutions in recent decades. Martin Spence argues that modern Evangelical scholars and teachers have intellectual forbears who long ago raised similar questions about the relationship between faith and learning. The author introduces one such individual, the nineteenth-century British Baptist…

Despite the nearly three millennia that separate them, the psalms of the ancient Israelites and the spirituals of the African American slaves are remarkably similar, reflecting their communities’ similar milieus, emotions, and convictions. In this article, Elizabeth Backfish compares these musical manifestations of the heart, arguing that Israel’s subjugation in exile produced similar musical effects…

Modern discussion of the liberal arts has emphasized the development of the individual critical thinker and not the art of thinking socially. Rick Kennedy summarizes the four-step craft of social thinking that was long taught in the pre-modern tradition of liberal arts. This intellectual craft was not specifically named by the ancients but is evident…