Review and Response

I am glad that Professor Tomlin appreciated my review of his outstanding book. We are both Pascalians, I wager, so our disagreements are not major. The sticking point is found in how we treat Pascal’s understanding of reason in apologetics, particularly regarding arguments for God’s existence. A few points will suffice: First, given Pascal’s several…

I am very grateful to Professor Douglas Groothuis for his generous and insightful review of my recent biography of Blaise Pascal. It is good to encounter a fellow scholar who has also found Pascal endlessly fascinating and instructive, and I am honoured to know that, with his long study and close knowledge of Pascal’s works,…

The French polymath, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), has rightly been called a masterful writer who shaped French prose, a brilliant mathematician, a pathbreaking experimental scientist, an inventor, a witty polemicist (The Provincial Letters), an apt and original Christian apologist (Pensées), and an acute philosopher, both in the disciplines of philosophy of science and philosophy of religion.Blaise…

The Crucibles that Shape Us by Gayle Beebe is an important addition to the Christian leadership literature on the challenges and growth that leaders will experience over the course of their careers. The book fills a missing space between books for secular business leaders and Christian ministry leaders. This book is written for Christian leaders…

With God are wisdom and strength, he has counsel and understanding.” —Job 12:13 I greatly appreciate Paul Yost’s poignant and generous review of The Crucibles that Shape Us.Gayle D. Beebe, The Crucibles that Shape Us: Navigating the Defining Challenges of Leadership (InterVarsity, 2024). He accurately amplifies what I hoped to identify and communicate while noting…

I thank Professor Howard for his attention to my book. I am seriously considering his objections. My book was written during a time of a COVID-­19 pandemic and other global threats and a great division in the world, and the Catholic Church. Many of those threats seem even more serious now, three years later. I…

When an influential priest (the Czech, Templeton-­award winning author, teacher, and theologian Tomáš Halík) criticizes “ecclesiastical authorities” while seeking to advance the agenda of another ecclesiastical authority (in-deed, the highest of them all: Pope Francis, to whom the book is dedicated), one can’t help but be hopeful for or at least curious about the future…

I appreciate Father Halík’s response to my review of his book. Let me reiterate that it’s an impressive work replete with valuable insights and many nuggets of wisdom and sanity. Despite the criticisms that I offered, his and my analysis of contemporary Christianity/Catholicism overlap considerably. In wondering whether forces extrinsic to the church have caused…

By the power of the Holy Spirit, my maternal grandmother used to pick up rattlesnakes without harm. The church I have been a member of for decades now is affiliated with the Assemblies of God (though you might need a court order to find that out). This connects me to Amos Yong, an author of…

We wish to thank Timothy Larsen for his generous and critical engagement with our book. As a fellow heir of the Pentecostal and academic heritage represented in our book, he is uniquely situated to discern its potential contributions and shortcomings. He rightly notes our desire to develop a Pentecost vision of higher education that asks…

I tried to summarize faithfully The Holy Spirit and Higher Education, but as it is a co-authored, content-rich, 320-page treatise, that was a daunting task. Coulter and Yong have wonderfully provided their own summary—one that brings into focus aspects that I did not find a place for. Their reply deftly presents both the book’s tone…

The title of this book parallels George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship,George M. Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). and the emphasis on Christian teaching is a welcome supplement to Marsden’s focus on Christian scholarship. Indeed, Marsden writes the foreword. This book is a significant complement to…

Since Elmer John Thiessen is one of the foremost philosophical thinkers in Christian education, we are grateful for his review. Furthermore, considering Thiessen’s contributions and his extensive teaching experience in pluralistic contexts we are similarly grateful for his claim that we “make a significant contribution to providing a more nuanced answer to the question as…

I will limit my response to the heart of our exchange, which has focused on how a Christian teacher’s personal convictions can be shared in a secular and pluralistic university classroom. Of special significance here is the fact that while G&A and I agree on their practical rules of transparency, we continue to disagree about…