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ArticleReview Essays

Winsome Conviction

Let’s start with the proposition that conversation about civility among evan-gelical Christians today has too much of the book of Proverbs and not enough of the book of Job. In contrast with the complex emotional world of Job (more on that later), the proverbists have a settled, centered comfortability with the world—so long as one…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReview Essays

How (Not) to Lose Your Soul While Saving the World: World Vision, Tearfund, and the Precarious Rise of Evangelical Humanitarianism

In the late 1940s, budding American evangelist Bob Pierce visited Amoy, China, to preach the gospel at a girl’s school run by Dutch Reformed missionary Tena Hoelkeboer. Not knowing much about Chinese culture, Pierce told students to go home and tell their parents that they were going to become Christians. One of them actually did…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReview and Response

Art + Faith: A Theology of Making

It may be hard to imagine, but before around 1800, almost every human product in the world was handmade. Every object was unique and wrought with time, sweat, and effort by artisans who had trained decades to master their craft. Most people, therefore, owned very few “artful” objects—maybe a few clothes and a few pictures—many…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics

Policymakers (and therefore, citizens) in modern democracies confront a knot of intertwining problems, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to terrorism. Many of the threads have formed a rope called human migration, as drought, political instability or corruption, and neocolonial economic policies by the major powers interlace to drive seventy million (and counting) refugees from…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience: An Introduction

The middle of a pandemic is usually not a good time to publish a book, especially when social and travel restrictions interfere with the traditional methods of publicizing and marketing a new book. However, the claims of conscience by Christians in this pandemic make the publication of Christianity and the Laws of Conscience: An Introduction…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

Survival: A Theological-Political Genealogy

Perhaps the first thing to say about Adam Stern’s book is that it demonstrates deep erudition and analytical capability in the author’s quest to interrogate the concept of survival in a theological and political sense. Stern carries out his exercise primarily through interaction with texts by the Jewish scholars Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig,…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation

“Owning a piano does not make the pianist.” This wisdom from folklore also pertains to the fine art of parenting. Having children does not guarantee successful outcomes.Jerry Bigner and Clara Gerhardt, Parent-Child Relations: An Introduction to Parenting, 10th ed. (Pearson Publishing, 2018), 6. Hence, emotionally vested parents and coparents will go out of their way…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

Science and the Doctrine of Creation: The Approaches of Ten Modern Theologians

Evangelicals do not have a reputation for wise and irenic engagement with modern science. Scholars at The Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School have been trying to change this characterization of hostile defensiveness, especially through their “Creation Project” that has brought evangelical scholarly focus to the doctrine of creation over recent years, of which…
July 15, 2022
ArticleReviews

The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir

I first encountered Sherry Turkle years ago when a colleague in philosophy mentioned her to me as someone to keep an eye on. Later, I received from him a copy of one of her early books, The Second Self. Turkle’s more recent books, Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation, contain remarkable insights into how technology shapes…
July 15, 2022
Article

Planting Churches or Selling Them? New Competitors for the Metaphors We Use

While the Bible offers a dazzling array of metaphors with which to think about the church, contemporary social scientists—informed no doubt by the influential Rational Choice Theory of Religion movement—often engage a market-based metaphor. With help from Gladys Ganiel’s Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland, this article demonstrates why this is an attractive yet deficient frame for examining…
February 28, 2022
Article

Christian Higher Education as Sacred Liminal Space

Higher education institutions are encountering an unprecedented confluence of short- and long-term challenges. Despite the turbulent context, institutionally and individually we must perpetually work to sustain our liminal essence, while refusing to be defined by excesses. Because on these campuses, students are transformed into “whole and holy persons,” and equipped to engage in “God’s work…
February 28, 2022