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Last month, I attended a conference at Calvin University focused on how to counter reductionism in teaching and education. Certainly, our culture has been in thrall to reductionist tendencies for some time, as the angry, dismissive tone of internet culture and political discourse shows us. Sadly, this tone often makes its way into the classroom,…

Many faculty professional development days, hallway dialogues between colleagues, and programs for the integration of faith and learning exist because of the common question: how can we motivate our students to desire learning? Although scaffolded course objectives and early alert systems for struggling students are designed with the ostensible end of effective teaching in mind,…

The words of Calvinists like Kuyper on the one hand, and secular “formalists” like Greenberg on the other, can sometimes seem interchangeable. However, Kuyper and Greenberg would certainly have disagreed concerning the “area of competence” contained in the “Artistic Sphere.” For Kuyper (and for Rookmaaker, who worked out Kuyper’s ideas through art criticism) the artist…

I was a senior in college when I first encountered Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by the Calvinist scholar Hans Rookmaaker.Hans Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (Crossway, 1994). I was studying art history at the Courtauld Institute in London; the book was lent to me by a local…

Since Charles Taylor published his monumental work A Secular Age (seriously, try picking up a copy, it’s huge) in 2007, Christian thinkers of a certain cast have been talking about “disenchantment.” This discourse persists through the present day, when, just as one example, O. Alan Noble has engaged with books on the subject of enchantment…

Derek Schuurman rightly warns against the use of chatbot “personas,” which are created by configuring a program like ChatGPT to respond in the style of a particular person. For Schuurman, the problem is that using these services encourages “ontological confusion” – by interacting with a computer as if it is a human being, “we run…

I have heard wise colleagues rightly say that the Christian university is not the church. This is a prudent reminder. Nonetheless, I would like to explore how a comparison between the first-century Jerusalem Temple and modern Christian universities might provide a useful guide for faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees at Christian colleges. Such a comparison…

This blog introduces our fall special-themed issue exploring the Christian academic vocation through the lens of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on the scholarly vocation. The articles are currently available on our website, while the paper copies of the issue will be delivered to our sponsor institutions later this month. On August 31, 1837, Emerson greeted…

I have voices in my head. That could be a lead-in to an article about mental health issues, but I mean something quite different than harmful voices. I’ve been a teacher for almost three decades now, and any time I engage in my role as an educator, there are voices in my head that inform…

The other day, I chatted with C.S. Lewis. The conversation went something like this: Derek: “Hi, Jack. What do you think of Christian Scholars Review?” C.S. Lewis: “Ah, you address me as ‘Jack,’ a name I hold dear, given to me by my family and friends. As for the Christian Scholars Review, while it is…

If you look at the most well-known lists of virtues, even lists of Christian virtues, you will likely not see this virtue discussed. Yet, this virtue makes the list of eight explicit virtues that the Biblical writers tell us to imitate because the triune God demonstrated it. The most well-known of these eight are agape…

Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a dual reflection on The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum (aka “Comfort Women Memorial”) by Eimi Ichimura, a Ph.D. student, and Paul Kim, a professor of psychology at Seattle Pacific University.  Emi identifies as Japanese American and Paul identifies as Korean American. They disclose this information upfront so…

The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum (aka “Comfort Women Memorial”) in South Korea is a powerful place of remembrance. Specifically, in a small building (it’s literally the size of a large American house) located near the tourist hotspot of the Hongdae neighborhood, the museum is filled with painful stories of women who were forced…

The sun beats down and the head swims. Lips are parched. Eyes see spots. Legs list and stagger, barely able to hold up the body’s weight. Everything seems both too bright and too dark at the same time. The heart cries out with a silent scream, “I hate you, I hate you, God of my…

Differences of opinion have always been part of life. Spouses, family members, co-workers, neighbors, and church members have had spirited conversations about politics, theology, social issues, and even sports. This is especially true of students in our classes. In one study, college students were asked to keep a journal of how many disagreements with friends…

Last year, I hosted a chocolate-tasting lab for a large group of honors students. I provided them with several types of chocolate, and together we went through a slow process of reaction, evaluation, and comparison. Their specimens for consideration included: Hershey’s milk chocolate, a very fine 72% dark chocolate, an increasingly bitter 80% dark chocolate,…

Social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, has once again secured a spot on The New York Times Best Seller List with his latest book, The Anxious Generation. In this work, Haidt offers evidence-based insights into the psychological and sociological rationales leading to increased anxiety in Generation Z compared to Millennials.  Specifically, he investigates the cultural, social, and…

In the first part of this essay, I described how the twenty-first-century discovery of the oldest paintings on earth in Indonesia – including the Sulawesi warty pig – illustrates the main points of Darrel R. Falk’s On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species.Darrel R. Falk. On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species. (Wipf and Stock Publishers,…

Cave paintings and rusty ochre brushstrokes appear on the cover of Darrel R. Falk’s recently  published book, On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species.Darrel R. Falk. On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species. (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023). These earliest examples of art call out to us today. Falk describes the European cave paintings in the…