Blog

Lived religion Today’s elite athletes have much at stake in sports.  Climbing up the rankings within youth, collegiate and professional sports is no doubt daunting, where the victor has the best chance of advancing and everybody will seemingly do whatever it takes to win.  Competition can produce uncertainty and anxiety in the lives of athletes,…

In the space of about a year, three big trees fell in middle of the Seattle Pacific University campus. All of these were close to the Tiffany Loop, where we hold an “Ivy Cutting” graduation ceremony under the canopy of branches every June (when weather and pandemics permit). Each time a tree fell, I’d remember…

With the revamp of the Christian Scholar’s Review website last year, it is easy to search our archives for authors, articles, book reviews, and essays from the paper edition of the journal dating back to 2012. We are also posting current articles on our homepage for easy access. As the editor of our print journal,…

Why bother? Among the more important questions we can ask as scholars—as researchers and as teachers—is this question of significance. Is the question that has occurred to me worth pursuing? If so, how far and at what cost? And if I then find out an answer, who cares? Should I try to publish it? Is…

I recently had occasion to read one of the more obscure publications by one of the more famous Christian philosophers of our time, Nicholas Wolterstorff. An article he first presented as a conference paper at Calvin College (now University) in 2000 is currently available in the handsomely produced two-volume series of Wolterstorff works edited by…

As a journal editor, I intermittently see articles submitted that choose as their rhetorical opening some generalization, often alarmist, about “today’s students” and their supposed challenges or deficiencies. As someone who is regularly involved in providing professional development on the topic of teaching and learning, I also sometimes get asked to provide input on the…

Decades ago, when I informed an acquaintance that I had accepted a tenure-track position at a Christian college, he shifted his eyes awkwardly before smiling out, “Sounds like a nice place to send my daughters.” I repeat the appalling comment—appalling on many different levels—in order to contrast it with a different kind of parental approach…

Transhumanism and the Image of God by Jacob Shatzer, Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Union University, is a book published in 2019 by IVP Academic. It’s a book that appeals to a variety of readers, from philosophers and theologians to those working in the field of technology. The vision of transhumanism is one that…

I have recently realized that, despite my best intentions, I am guilty of chronological snobbery. It is a humbling—but helpful—understanding. It has helped me to make sense out of my own bewilderment over these past few years. Let me explain. I teach British literature, specializing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (but like most professors,…

This post was adapted from a longer white paper for Christian practitioners working in student success offices. For those interested in joining the conversation, please contact Sinda Vanderpool at Sinda_Vanderpool@baylor.edu. Helping students achieve “success” is an increasingly important topic within the research and practice of higher education. In addition to helping students accomplish personal goals,…

In the UK we are emerging from our latest (and, we hope, final) COVID lockdown. Like creatures unused to daylight we blink in the face of the brightness of our new freedoms. And in some cases, wonder whether the darkness we have become used to might not be preferable, for the moment at least, to…

Portions of this blog were part of a longer essay with the same title that appeared in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (click here for the full article). Permission has been obtained for the duplications. Does faith matter in mathematics? Not according to the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner. In 1937 he suggested a way to view the…

I recently opened my daily New York Times morning e-mail to these sentences from David Leonhardt: “Good morning. The pandemic may now be in permanent retreat in the U.S.” A good morning indeed. With the changes in the CDC guidelines suggesting easing restrictions on mask wearing outside, and then inside, for those who are fully…

Better a patient person than a warrior; one with self control than one who takes a cityProverbs 16:32 (NIVUK) Editor’s note:  I thought summer would be a good time to start a blog conversation and invite responses to a post. I’m guessing that there is no better way to get responses than by posting about…

The overwhelming questions. Earlier in the academic year, I noted that these have been “unsettling, chaotic, and disorienting times.”  It has been a year of endurance, tenacity and “completion” for our academic communities.  That the year was completed is a mark of success.   There has also tremendous sadness, lament, and tragedy laced throughout our campuses. …

The 2021 winner of the Templeton prize is Dr. Jane Goodall. Dr. Goodall is, of course, one of the most famous scientists in the world renowned for her 60-year-long work studying chimpanzees in Tanzania. Her warmth and humility have endeared her legions of fans and the results of her work have redefined our understanding of…

When people in Christian circles find out I am a moral philosopher, they are often eager to talk about how God’s existence is crucial to morality in some way. I hear a lot of, “Well if God doesn’t exist then there can’t be any such thing as right and wrong” and, “If Christianity weren’t true,…

The world seems to be full of disasters, appearing on our TV screens and newspapers on a weekly basis. Some are clearly caused by humans: bridges fall down; buildings catch fire and incinerate many people; dams collapse and drown folk; terrorism and war inflict terrible suffering and atrocities. Others seem to be arbitrary, just “acts…

A pioneer in the academic field of sport and spirituality, Shirl Hoffman has long sought to return sport to its roots in play.See for example, Shirl Hoffman, ed., Sport and Religion (Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics Books, 1992). In 2010, he published his magnum opus, Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sport. While the product of a lifetime of thoughtful,…