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In Defense of Methodological Naturalism

In this paper, Patrick McDonald and Nivaldo J. Tro argue that all scientists, including theists, should practice science in accord with methodological naturalism, the idea that scientific theories should be naturalistic (they should not contain supernatural elements). They present several reasons for accepting methodological naturalism, including its proven historical success, and they argue also that…
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Discursive Taboo in Community Discourse: Communication Competence and Biblical Wisdom

Racial tension, homosexuality and abortion are just a few of the topics where communication can quickly devolve into harmful conflict instead of calm and/or respectful dialogue. In this essay Julie W. Morgan and Richard K. Olsen explore the role of dialogue within a Christian academic community. How does a Christian academic community address subjects that…
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A Question of Power: A Political Scientist Responds to AIDS in Africa

In this article, Amy S. Patterson investigates how political power shapes the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Because Christians in the West often lack knowledge about how political power increases vulnerability to HIV infection and affects policy responses to the disease, the work analyzes the uneven impact of HIV/AIDS on countries, communities, and population groups. It…
January 15, 2009
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Teaching Vocation and (Other) Unsafe Scientific Principles

How might Christians in the natural sciences articulate their aims and motivations? Finding bearings in the themes of faith and calling, Matthew Walhout argues that traditional answers to this question tend to bind Christian thinking too strongly to objectivist rationality. He reiterates a concern registered historically in the context of Renaissance humanism, namely that Christian…
January 15, 2009
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Good Work with Toil: A Paradigm for Redeemed Work

Management research in the disciplines of Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management and Industrial / Organizational Psychology focuses on creating the optimum equ-librium between people and their work contexts. In this essay, Margaret Diddams and Denise Daniels use the Christian themes of creation, fall and redemption as a framework to analyze current management theories, and to…
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Marketing as a Christian Vocation: Called to Reconciliation

Among business disciplines, David J. Hagenbuch notes that marketing may be the field that is perceived least often as compatible with Christian vocation. However, when one considers that the central purpose of Christian vocation is reconciliation, that reconciliation is linked inextricably to exchange, and that marketing is the science that facilitates mutually beneficial exchange, it…
October 15, 2008
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A Theological Reflection on Exchange and Marketing: An Extension of the Proposition That the Purpose of Business is to Serve

In this paper, Gary L. Karns extends the earlier work of others regarding the biblical purpose of business with a reflective analysis on exchange and marketing as key processes related to the institution of business. Relationships/interdependence, holiness, justice, love stewardship, creativity, hope, and other themes are drawn from the biblical narrative to form a Christian…
October 15, 2008
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Abraham Kuyper’s Rhetorical Public Theology with Implications for Faith and Learning

Abraham Kuyper ’s approach to public engagement (his public theology) emphasizes both a “common” element as well as distinctive Christian identity. In this essay Vincent Bacote considers the contrasting approaches to public theology of Max Stackhouse and Ronald Thiemann and then offers a summary of Kuyper ’s public theology. The essay discusses that Kuyper’s work…
July 15, 2008
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From Evangelical Tolerance to Imperial Prejudice? Teaching Postcolonial Biblical Studies in a Westernized, Confessional Setting

Many confessional colleges and universities encourage diversity among their students and faculty. Yet while affirming diversity, there are sociological hurdles to overcome which rarely are acknowledged or confronted. Within the field of Biblical Studies, Kathryn J. Smith points out that these hurdles include the tendency to limit pedagogical offerings to those methods developed out of…
July 15, 2008
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Defending Human Personhood: Some Insights from Natural Law

The Christian affirmation of human personhood is based on a philosophical and theological understanding of human beings made in the image and likeness of a Creator-God. Yet, as Dennis M. Sullivan points out, not all participants in ethics discussions share these preconceptions, leading to contentious debates over human value at both the beginning and end…
April 15, 2008
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The Prospect of Christian Materialism

The idea that persons are or contain a nonphysical soul that is capable of existing after the destruction of the human body is customarily called “dualism.” Over the course of two millennia, the Christian tradition has been solidly in the dualist camp. Most Christians have affirmed the existence of the soul, its survival of death…
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Popular Cultural “Worlds” as Alternative Religions

To what extent can popular culture be understood as a collection of religions? Using a biblically informed appropriation of Paul Ricoeur’s theory of narrative as a threefold mimesis as his conceptual grid, Theodore A. Turnau explores how popular cultural texts can function as alternative religions. He focuses on two case studies: a group of romance…
April 15, 2008