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Reviews

Integrating Faith and Psychology: Twelve Psychologists Tell Their Stories.

Efforts toward the integration of Christian theology and academic disciplines are not easy undertakings and can look quite disparate across the disciplines. What can be easily lost in these pursuits are the unique callings that drive integration efforts and the individuals that engage in them. Glendon Moriarty’s book provides a unique reflection on the “integration…
Reviews

Psychology and Christianity: Five Views.

This book is an expanded version of the 2000 Psychology and Christianity: Four Views, edited by Stanton Jones and Eric Johnson. In this new version Stanton Jones has moved from coeditor to author of the integration position chapter, with Eric Johnson assuming the post as sole editor. From the new book title it is obvious…
October 15, 2011
Reviews

Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed)

“We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” is a theme coming out of the 1960s era that was encapsulated by the popular Crosby, Stills, and Nash song titled “Woodstock.”Joni Mitchell, Woodstock, 1969, MCA Records International, Lain Matthews, MCA 6073-015. The implication is something has gone wrong, and we need to find a way…
October 15, 2011
Reviews

Space, Time and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God

A significant disadvantage attending the hyper-specialized, professionalized nature of so much academic production today is the absence of synthesis. Scholars in diverse fields often treat similar issues (concerning things like identity, society, and the nature of truth)—but from different vantage points and with different vocabularies. They seldom see that they are duplicating each other’s efforts,…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts

For the past year and a half I have served on the building committee of our Midwestern Lutheran church. Together with our architect we planned and then built a new sanctuary and fellowship hall in a remarkably short period of time. Little from my experience as an architectural historian prepared me for the conversations we…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution

In God of Liberty, Thomas Kidd presents a thoughtful and well-argued discussion of the role of religion in eighteenth-century America. Beginning with the Great Awakening and continuing through the Election of 1800, Kidd capably discusses ideas about faith and God and how they influenced the changes in America produced by the American Revolu-tion. In doing…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir

There are many ways for someone to tell her or his life’s story, and at least as many ways of hearing the story that is told. Stanley Hauerwas’s recounting of his life, like the man himself, is intriguing, in no small part because he recognizes the disagreements in meaning and method, together with the potential…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

On Becoming a Christian Educator in Social Work

Michael Sherr’s book, On Becoming a Christian Educator in Social Work, begins with Sherr’s personal story, including his conversion from Conservative Judaism to evangelical Christianity and his reasons for writing the book. Sherr relates that the seeds for this project were planted while he and some colleagues were facilitating a workshop on faith-learning integration in…
Reviews

Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics, Religion, and Christian Faith

God, grant me the serenityTo accept the things I cannot change;Courage to change the things I can;And wisdom to know the difference. This modified version of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer” may be the most recognizable prayer in America, with the possible exceptions of the Lord’s Prayer taught by Jesus (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4), the ubiquitous…
July 15, 2011
Reviews

Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat, and Christian Diet

Challenging modern theologians and Christian ethicists who they believe have ignored the theological importance of everyday eating, David Grumett and Rachel Muers state in their preface to Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat, and Christian Diet, “Food issues are not just about healthy eating, but about how humans live under God” (x). Their book provides…
April 20, 2011
Reviews

When Religion Meets New Media

Since I earned my doctoral degree in communication studies in the 1970s, scholarship addressing the intersection of religion and communication has become a booming enterprise.More recently, researchers have started examining the rise of “new” digital media which enable religious groups to circumvent the mainstream and religious mass media gatekeepers at television and radio networks and…
April 15, 2011