Reviews

Reviewed by Nathan Alleman, Educational Administration, Baylor University Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”393 House of Commons Debate, 5, s. 403 (October 28, 1943). The late Prime Minister’s words came to mind as I read Margaret Grubiak’s intriguing book, White Elephants on Campus: The Decline of the…

Reviewed by Steven McMullen, Economics, Management and Accounting, Hope College There are a cluster of interesting questions at the intersection of Christianity and economics, some of which go to the core of the disciplines of economics and theology. What is economic justice? How should Christians approach poverty? What is the role of the Church in…

Reviewed by Donald L. Cassell, Jr., Senior Fellow, Africa Portfolio, Sagamore Institute Susan VanZanten is a literary scholar and professor at Seattle Pacific University. She has written an autobiography that reads like a bildungsroman, a story of formation and growth. Here the growth is not necessarily psychological and moral, but intellectual and unexpectedly emotional. There…

Reviewed by Sarita D. Gallagher, Missiology, George Fox University In many ways Scott W. Sunquist’s text, Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory, is the text for which missiologists and mission practitioners have been waiting. In Sunquist’s three-part exploration of mission history, theology, and practice, the author presents a well researched, ecumenical, and theologically…

Reviewed by Arlin C. Migliazzo, History, Whitworth University For more than four decades Professor George M. Marsden has modeled for many of us in the academy the winsome synergy possible between disciplinary rigor and Christian faith assumptions. From his studies of fundamentalism through his critiques of American higher education, to his Bancroft Prize-winning biography of…

Reviewed by Fred Van Geest, Political Science, Bethel University The essays in Christian Political Witness were presented at the 2013 Wheaton Theology Conference at Wheaton College in Illinois. Of the twelve contributors, eleven have a background in theology and one is an historian (Mark Noll). Not surprisingly, the essays are largely theological in nature and…

Reviewed by Todd E. Johnson, Theological Director, Brehm Center for Worship Theology and the Arts, Fuller Theological Seminary Michael Bauer identifies the target at which this volume is aimed in the Introduction. Bauer writes, “This book is an attempt to lay a foundation for that vital work (arts ministry) by grounding it in the insights…

Reviewed by David Lyle Jeffrey, Literature and the Humanities, Baylor University Anyone who has read so much as one of her many books knows that Michelle P. Brown, Curator Emerita of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies and History of the Book at the University of London, is no…

Reviewed by Steven W. Wood, Theatre and Communication, Indiana Wesleyan University Jill Stevenson has made a considerable contribution to evangelical theatre scholars and practitioners – and the larger academia interested in performance studies, theatre criticism, and American theatre historiography – by coining the term “evangelical dramaturgy” (4). American evangelical dramaturgy, Stevenson argues, is a broad-reaching…

Reviewed by Mary M. Brown, English, Indiana Wesleyan University All of the five contributors to Making Nothing Happen: Five Poets Explore Faith and Spirituality consider themselves both theologians and poets. Their formal educations and professions favor their positions in theology, but their practice confirms their place in the world of poetry. Gavin D’Costa, Eleanor Nesbitt,…

Reviewed by R. Michael Medley, English, Eastern Mennonite University When one risks sharing a story of intense personal suffering, one invites others to a sacred moment of communion. Though the assertions of the sufferer may make us uncomfortable, we cannot be judgmental nor shut our ears to his or her story. To read Christian Wiman’s…

Reviewed by Edward B. Davis, History of Science, Messiah College This book by Stuart S. Peterfreund, professor of English at Northeastern University, episodically traces the history and rhetoric of British natural theology from the early seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. The unifying scheme is the identification of a few key “turning points,” when the…

Reviewed by Noah J. Toly, Urban Studies and Politics & International Relations, Wheaton College Place matters to the practice of faith in urban congregations; congregations’ practices of faith matter to the dynamics of urban neighborhoods. So goes the two-pronged central argument of Katie Day’s book, Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street, a…

Reviewed by Jacob Goodson, Philosophy, Southwestern College Recently, an undergraduate student attended my office hours with a list of questions that demanded answers. One of these questions was simple, yet significant. She asked, “What does postliberalism and postliberal theology mean?” She added, without hesitation, “Wikipedia doesn’t give a clear or helpful answer. So what is…

Reviewed by Dale Goldsmith, Religion/Academic Dean, Retired Until modern times, dying and death had been an immediate reality to everyone. Then – this is the short version – medicine came up with ways to postpone dying and distance us from death; and we made a point to shut it out of our thinking. Our institutions…

Reviewed by Jonathan Morgan, Theology, Toccoa Falls College A remarkable trend among evangelicals and other Protestant groups in recent decades has been an increasing interest in tradition – namely, the doctrines and practices of the early church. Many have recognized a need for continuity with the past in order to be consistent with the church…

Reviewed by Stephen L. Woodworth, Spiritual Formation, Toccoa Falls College In the past decade a number of authors have centered their gaze on attempting to understand the spiritual lives of emerging adults.Most notable are the often referenced works produced by Christian Smith, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (New York,…

Reviewed by Nathan Jones, Doctoral Candidate in Theology and Music, Duke University Divinity School When you see the names “Bach” and “John Eliot Gardiner” together on the cover of a superb work of art, it hardly comes as a surprise. After all, Gardiner is one of the world’s leading conductors, whose recordings of Bach’s vocal…

Reviewed by Nicholas Kerton-Johnson, Political Science and International Relations, Taylor University Os Guinness is a prolific writer and commentator and in his latest book he also takes on the mantle of prophet, a point noted by William Inboden in his support for the book. Indeed, Guinness issues a powerful prophetic statement: that the freedom of…

Reviewed by Alexander Jech, Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nicholas Wolterstorff’s new book, The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology, aims to provide an original contribution to the long Western theological tradition of political thought and to show thereby that this tradition remains capable of making original and significant…