Extended Review

The Protestant Reformation made the Bible accessible not only to theologians and priests, but also to everyday people. Interestingly, though, certain branches of that same movement were deeply distrustful of the paintings, statues, icons, and stained glass windows that adorned churches, viewing them as objects of idolatrous worship rather than as doorways and windows to…

Amid the constant reminders throughout 2017 of the need to reckon collectively with racism as a system embedded within the American social, political, economic, and cultural landscape, two important collections emerged offering reflective tools for this work. Acclaimed author and national correspondent for The Atlantic Ta-Nehisi Coates’s We Were Eight Years in Power: An American…

Reformational philosophy is a philosophical tradition that emerged in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth century as an innovative re-articulation of Dutch Calvinism, a strand of the historical reformed and Presbyterian tradition of Christianity. This innovative intellectual renewal of Calvinism, originating with the theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper, began to flower in the early twentieth…

I believe the most important issue in twenty-first-century Christian liberal arts is “How shall we then read the Bible?” With rampant out-sourcing, on-lining, under-training, and down-sizing in General Education, along with myopic careerism in parents, administrators, and professors, fewer and fewer Christian colleges and universities show clear interest in teaching Bible-reading as a distinctive and…

In the context of the Moral and Faith Development graduate course I teach every fall, I am always surprised by my graduate students’ reactions to the topic of sex. I always end the course by requiring students to read a book about the sexual behaviors of college students. Before discussing the book, I ask students…

Those of us working in the world of higher education often hear about the fragmentation of American universities. Many observers, inside and outside the university alike, have lamented that “multiversities” have lost any coherent educational center. Accusations abound of proliferating programs, endless elective options, growing preference for professional and pre-professional programs over the liberal arts…

Mark A. Peters is a professor of music at Trinity Christian College. In recent years, there has been an extended, and surprising, debate in this journal’s pages over Christian belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.The debate opened with Jack Mulder, Jr.’s article, “Why More Christians Should Believe in Mary’s Immaculate Conception” in 2012 (CSR…

“How can one be a Christian scholar?” Such is the “quandary of the modern age” that is referred to in the subtitle of Thomas (Tal) Howard’s The Pope and the Professor. And in the book, the quandary is a tragedy for church historian Ignaz von Döllinger, whose scholar’s conscience fails to hold to both of…

Rick Kennedy does me a great honor by reviewing not only my most recent book, but also, in a minor key, two prior ones and labeling them together a “trilogy.” Neither fame nor fortune have followed in my case, but I am pleased to be found, in Kennedy’s judgment, of writing a “thriller ... intellectual…

William C. Ringenberg’s The Christian College and the Meaning of Academic Freedom: Truth-Seeking in Community is a helpful read for academics and academic administrators, whether employed at faith-based or secular institutions. The author maps out tensions that arise around academic and religious freedom and, using case studies and historical insights, brings clarity and balance to…

Lauren Anders Visser teaches in the Communication Arts department at Trinity Christian College and serves co-pastor of Jacob’s Well Church Community in Evergreen Park, IL. In the foreword to From Bubble to Bridge: Educating Christians for a Multifaith World, Eboo Patel references an increasing diversity and tension in society, and he states, “All of us…

Adam Perez and Glenn Stallsmith are Th.D. students in liturgical studies at Duke Divinity School. One of us (Stallsmith) had a high school chemistry teacher who displayed a bumper sticker in her classroom: “What in the world ISN’T chemistry?” Benjamin L. Gladd and Matthew S. Harmon would like pastors to ask a similar question when…

David I. Smith is the Director of Graduate Studies in Education and the Director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College. Lamenting divisions between theory and practice, theology and education, and the academy and the church, the editors of a recent volume on the Christian university comment wryly in their…

In 1940, at a time when war led many to introspection, G. H. Hardy wrote A Mathematician’s Apology to reflect upon and to justify his work in mathematics. A classic for the field, the essay provided a glimpse into the mind and motivations of a mathematician. To Hardy, mathematics was a creative art using the…

Many writers have found reason to unleash withering rejections of certain artworks of their time. Writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Max Nurdau, and Hans Rookmaaker did this for social, psychological, and religious reasons respectively. For them, certain trajectories in the various modern art worlds they observed were evidence of decline. Of note is the fact…

Todd C. Ream is Professor of Higher Education, Taylor University, and Distinguished Fellow, Excelsia College. By almost any measure, Theodore Martin Hesburgh, C.S.C. (May 25, 1917 –February 26, 2015) was among the greatest university presidents of the twentieth century. Some historians may even go so far as to argue Hesburgh stands amongst the greatest university…

Jonathan B. Himes is Professor of English at John Brown University. Based on his characteristic tone of immediacy, supported by more modern colloquial diction and a host of comma splices, and especially due to his penchant for working in religious references that may resonate with Christian readers in high school or college English classes, Douglas…

David P. King is Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies and Karen Lake Buttrey Director of the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Charitable giving in the United States continues to rise. The most recent research from Giving USA, the Annual Report on Philanthropy, calculated charitable giving in…

During the last two decades, Craig Bartholomew has authored and edited an impressive number of volumes covering a wide range of subjects (550-551). A partial topical list includes the Bible’s unified story (The Drama of Scripture, 2004, co-authored with Michael Goheen), Christian worldview (Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview, 2008), the book…

Kevin Ryan is Director Emeritus of the Center for Character and Social Responsibility at Boston University. David Brooks has written a book of moral philosophy that quickly jumped to The New York Times’ Best Seller list and lasted there for 22 weeks. Brooks is a regular columnist for the Times and a weekly commentator on…