Blog

The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to make of a diminished thing. --Robert Frost, “The Oven Bird” Aging and diminishment are not synonymous. There are hundreds of books and essays about aging,…

One of our goals in this essay was to synthesise three related books on trauma, from three distinct sources—pastoral theology, the social scientific (and secular) study of sports, and biographical material. We hope to have provided a starting point for others to research the sports-­theology-­trauma relationship and to think about how to support athletes holistically…

Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, emerita professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Spiritual Trauma Care: Theology and Psychology in Dialogue, is one of America’s leading pastoral theologians. Her latest book brings the latest trauma theory and empirical findings into conversation with Christian theology. Hunsinger states that the “overriding purpose of the book is to…

Our review of the literature yielded no publications specifically on a theological and psychological understanding of trauma in sports, aside from an interview with Rachael Denhollander and a book and two articles that touch on trauma-­related issues in sports from a Christian perspective (e.g., resilience and identity). There are several publications from the fields of…

After sixteen years of ups and downs on the LPGA Tour, I decided to retire . . . and with the help of a few trusted women, I started down the journey of speaking honest words about the trauma I had experienced on and off the course. . . . As I speak about the truth and feel the…

During my “tween” years, I devoured novels about Christian boys of my age. For example, I read most, if not all, of the Moody Press thirty-six-volume series about the Sugar Creek Gang, a group of boys who encouraged each other in maintaining their shared Christian identity. Even though I am grateful for the “wholesome” image…

For the past few years, my wife and I have enjoyed getting to know a husband and wife from Cuba studying music here at Baylor. Growing up amid persecution and poverty, they still developed a strong passion for the Lord and a calling to live that out through their music. They also are admittedly surprised…

Ron Highfield's The Christian University and the Academic Establishment arrives at a particularly fraught moment in the history of American higher education. Confidence in the university as an institution has eroded dramatically. Political polarization has drawn colleges and universities into broader cultural conflicts. Debates over academic freedom, diversity initiatives, institutional mission, free speech, and ideological…

When asked to do a second edition of our book, Authentic Communication: Christian Speech Engaging Culture (IVP Academic), my co-author, Todd Lewis, and I thought of the people who have most influenced our thinking about Christian engagement in an oft-hostile world. Influenced by Michael Michalko’s book, Thinker Toys, we created our Mt. Rushmore of individuals…

“Who’s on your Mt. Rushmore?” This is one of my favorite questions to ask my students. When it comes to fashion, politics, theology, or potentially volatile social issues, who most informs your thinking?  Specifically, give me four names of people who have your ear.  The Mt. Rushmore idea is based on Michael Michalko’s idea of…

Teaching organic chemistry, I have grown accustomed to the moment when students’ eyes begin to glaze over, and their faces seem to ask, “What’s the point of learning all of this?” It is a fair question, and not only for students trying to survive learning countless chemical reactions. In a culture that is suspicious of…

In When Politics Becomes Heresy: The Idol of Power and the Gospel of Christ, Tim Perry, lead pastor at a Lutheran church in Canada, applies a knowledge of church heresy to the Christian church today, arguing that Christians need to examine themselves in light of ancient heresies. Although not a direct case for the study…

In ancient times, the discipline or field of rhetoric focused on speech, mostly in politics and law courts. Then with the advent of writing, rhetoric was extended to the written word. Today, however, rhetoric cannot include only spoken and written speech. With modern technologies, humans communicate in a variety of ways, not only through sermons…

At first glance, or even third, one might have difficulty seeing the connection between these three books. However, each makes a significant argument for the life of the church in this divisive age. How can Christians with divergent beliefs and markedly different political positions communicate with one another? How can the fractured church communicate to…

In our previous post, we compared the role of Christian professors with that of the Old Testament prophets as “stewards of truth.” Following the model of the prophets of the Old Testament, we are required to maintain the truth of our respective disciplines, deliver it convincingly in the classroom, and continuously refine it to apply…

Serving as a Christian university professor is not the most celebrated job in America. It is not an ignoble profession, but few of us would describe ourselves as overpaid. Most of us are exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime laws. One would think the years of education required to serve as a professor would…

One of the most ambitious attempts to answer the question of human flourishing appears in Tyler VanderWeele’s A Theology of Health: Wholeness and Human Flourishing. An epidemiologist whose work has helped shape contemporary research on flourishing, VanderWeele engages many of the themes explored by earlier writers—meaning in the face of suffering, justice within community, and…

What if the attributes of flourishing could be identified, defined, and studied as a social phenomenon, allowing those insights to inform interventions designed to improve well-­being and happiness? What if science itself could be harnessed to advance human flourishing? Many social scientists pursued enthusiastic answers to these questions. The chief architect of what would become…

In the immediate post-­war period, the writers representing Flourishing 1.0 primarily examined the crises of flourishing within the interior life—questions of meaning, selfhood, and the courage required to live amid despair. Yet they were also attentive to the broader cultural forces that produced such crises. Tillich, for example, warned that political systems such as Communism…

What does it mean to flourish? The Israelites in Babylon likely did not imagine that they would prosper in exile. Yet through the prophet Jeremiah, they were instructed to build houses, plant gardens, and seek the good of the city in which they lived, even knowing that the exile would outlast most of them. Flourishing,…