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When reflecting on the past and future of the evangelical mind, we thought it fitting to hark back to a time not long after Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind was first published. I (Jack) remember as a young teenager visiting the Family Christian Bookstore on Cornerstone University’s campus to buy CDs; I…

Although it is empirically established that traditional religion enhances fertility, how it increases childbearing is not clear. This paper is an exploratory qualitative study investigating how religion influences decisions about intended fertility and family size. Most specifically, Michael Emerson and George Yancey ask how, if at all, do the religious understand children and family differently.…

When neighborhoods gentrify, residents can be physically displaced as well as psychologically displaced. This psychological displacement can occur even if the resident is not physically displaced. In this article, Keith E. Starkenburg and Mackenzi Huyser explore the significant impact that neighborhood changes have on one’s attachment to place as expressed through the concept of Christian…

This paper by Dennis L. Sansom examines and compares the ideas about the nature of the self in the twelfth-century theologian St. Peter of Damaskos and the twenty-first-century philosopher Richard Rorty. Peter understands the self as a flexible reality defined by a person’s ability to orient intentions, desires, and beliefs toward ever increasingly important ontological…

I first heard Dr. Ryken present the substance of this essay at a conference of Christian college and university presidents. Resonance filled the room. Heads nodded with empathy and affirmation. I have also had opportunities to see the ways in which Dr. Ryken integrates the roles of prophet, priest and king as he leads Wheaton…

Colleges and universities look for great leadership from their presidents—now more than ever. Economic turmoil, technological innovation, rapid globalization, increased government regulation, media scrutiny, public skepticism about the mission of higher education, student unrest, the volatile climate of social media, and the sheer complexity of campus life in the twenty-first century all require exceptional management,…

Introduction and Overview Phil Ryken offers a compelling treatment of Christ’s threefold office for thinking about the work of college and university presidents in our faith-based contexts. In his wonderful, precise style he offers an overview of our current challenges while integrating the most formative literature to extend our understanding. His goal is straightforward: If…

I first heard a version of this paper delivered by President Ryken at the 2016 annual meeting of the Council for Christian College and University presidents. I must confess that my initial reaction was lukewarm at best. It seemed presumptuous and even self-serving that we would compare our roles as presidents to the sacred Biblical…

I often saw copies of Christian Scholar’s Review lying around the house when I was growing up as a faculty kid, so I feel a special sense of privilege in contributing to this issue of the journal. I also feel grateful to Gayle Beebe, Shirley Mullen, Roger Parrott, and Bill Robinson for their commendations and…

Once, while grabbing a quick lunch with faculty members in our dining commons, I had to leave the group abruptly to attend a meeting. “I need to run—to go do what I do,” I said. A long-term professor responded, “We’re not sure what it is you do, but we’re sure glad we don’t have to…

Most Protestant Christians do not give much attention to the theological and moral dimensions of contraception. In his essay, Branson Parler argues that Wendell Berry’s general critique of the modern mythos helps us to hear Roman Catholic teaching on contraception as resistance to one specific practice entailed by that mythos. Insofar as Protestants recognize that…

David A. Hoekema is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College. George Marsden was a professor of History at Calvin College (1965–1986), Duke Divinity School (1986–1992), and The University of Notre Dame (1992–2008). His publications include The Soul of the American University (1994) and Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003), winner of the Bancroft Prize. Richard Mouw…

William Shakespeare’s references to biblical material have been much written about, but little attention has been given to a connection between Macbeth and the New Testament Epistle of James. James addresses issues common to secular and sacred literature—issues such as the nature of wisdom, the conditions of unity, the difference between appearance and reality, a…

It is an understatement to say that confusion abounds over the words “evangelical” and “evangelicalism.”This is a shortened and revised version of a paper first given at the Henry Symposium on Religion and Politics, Calvin College, April, 2015. I would like to thank George Marsden and Corwin Smidt for reading an early draft of this…

A wide range of contemporary Christian scholarship claims that a history of Enlightenment ethical thought, social science and epistemology is the first step to exposing the inadequacies of modern accounts of the good life. Michael Kugler argues instead that their attempts at critical historical analysis and explanation are unconvincing. Their narrative arguments are built on…

E. Jerome Van Kuiken is an Associate Professor of Ministry and Christian Thought at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Did God force pregnancy on Mary of Nazareth? The Winter 2012 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review presented Jack Mulder Jr.’s argument that non-Catholic Christians risk this startling implication by not accepting the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception,…

Secular norms of managerial rationality disregard God’s involvement in organizations. If we acknowledge that God is present and active in social organizing, how do our understandings and practices of entrepreneurship and management change? Such a perspective reconceives organizing as collaborating with the Spirit of God. This article describes the Spirit’s role in organizing social systems…

Advances in DNA sequencing technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of microbial populations on and within human beings. The goal of this article is to evaluate some of these discoveries in light of the story of scripture. The early chapters of Genesis make clear the relational nature of human being in regards to our connections to…

Contemporary attitudes toward student boredom have varied greatly. Whereas some have viewed it as a relatively trivial, even inevitable fact of classroom life, others have sought remediation through improved engagement techniques. Lost in many of these discussions, however, is a clear sense of the moral stakes associated with boredom. Drawing upon the work of Polish…

But we had reached a station. Those who were next to the windows told us its name: ‘Auschwitz.’No one had ever heard that name. So says the young narrator in Elie Wiesel’s Night, a hybrid novel-memoir (he calls it his “deposition”) about his Holocaust experience. That simple observation is laden with emotion—for the narrator (looking…