Reviews

Writing in the January 2010 issue of Diversity,Ferdinando Boero, “The Study of Species in the Era of Biodiversity: a Tale of Stupidity,” Diversity 2 (2010): 115-126. Ferdinando Boero declared that, “...the study of biological diversity is a mission from God.” I must admit that on first reading, this declaration and Boero’s use of quotes from…

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…

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…

American Protestants have taken part in presenting the Gospel in diverse cultural areas for over 250 years. Many Protestants have tried to be true to the biblical vision of many cultures, people groups, and languages united in their worship of God. Many also assume that within their own institutions of higher education this diversity would…

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…

The old adage states that you should not judge a book by its cover. In this case, it would be applicable to amend this saying slightly to state that you should not judge a book by its title. The title does the book a disservice in that it implies a superficial treatment of the highly…

When I arrived at Cornell University for graduate school, I sensed rather quickly thatscience and religion had a strained relationship on campus. The university’s founding president, Andrew Dickson White, had framed the relationship in 1896 with a two-volume work entitled A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, and the university’s luminaries…

It is the perennial discussion topic at Christian university faculty workshops and seminars. It is the seemingly-elusive goal of the Christian college classroom. It is the subject of concern among education policy experts and educational philosophers. Simply stated, the questions raised by those interested in the integration of Christian faith and learning are nowhere near…

Guy Stroumsa’s new book is not so much about religion, or even the study of religion, as it is about the history of the comparative study of religion since the Enlightenment. More specifically, Stroumsa bases his research on the primary sources of the published works of the missionaries and scholars who were involved firsthand with…

Diana Garland, Dean of the School of Social Work at Baylor University, is well known for her contributions to family ministry, having engaged in numerous important research projects and having accumulated a bevy of valuable publications on family, faith, and ministry. In Inside Out Families: Living the Faith Together, Garland examines faith as it is…

It is refreshing to read a deeply philosophical book rooted in the author’s passion for social ministry. Ethna Regan has provided an argument for the proper manner in which to understand the language of human rights in the context of theological discussions about social justice, an argument seated in her years of work with street…

Francis Beckwith’s volume of the Christian Worldview Integration Series has much to offer the undergraduate student or novice newly considering the relation of faith and politics. The text’s subtitle indicates Beckwith’s Aristotelian assumption that “man is by nature a political animal.”Aristotle, “The Politics,” in Classics in Political Philosophy, J. Porter, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall),…

The publication of To Change the World marks a new phase in the career of a distinguished sociologist. The author of a half-dozen books on religion and American culture, James Hunter goes where few social scientists dare to tread: the frontier between sociological analysis and theological reflection. The result is essential reading for those called…

“A MAN with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (New York: Harper and Row,1956), 3. This…

Born the son of a Baptist minister in western Pennsylvania, one of many parts of the country that takes very seriously its athletic competitions, Shirl Hoffman has grown up in and around sport. With his upbringing and later his work as a Professor of Exercise and Sport Science as well as the Director of the…

Is it possible to speak properly of God without falling prey to fideism, projectionism, onto theology and the neoscholastic notion of analogiaentis? In Speaking of God, D. Stephen Long argues that a constructive antidote to these modern theological ills (chapter 1) requires a more explicit Christological basis. More specifically, “if we are able to move…

What are rhetoricians good for? That query plays on George Scialabba’s 2009 book title about the utility of public intellectuals. Directed toward rhetoricians in particular, the question also helps interpret Michael J. Hyde’s recent book, Perfection: Coming to Terms with Being Human. Christian scholars will quickly appreciate Hyde’s attention to the relationship between rhetoric and…

In this book, which is the latest in a series on the mature Christian life that also includes Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright returns to the theme of the new heaven and new Earth. This time, he challenges everyone to think through what it means to live a fulfilled life as…

Just a few decades ago, it was illegal in much of the United States for a white person and a black person to marry. Today, intermarriage is not illegal, and the very term formerly used to prohibit it—miscegenation—seems a distasteful relic of an ugly, bygone era. Frankly, most Americans rarely think about the subject anymore.…

Historians by nature seek new methodologies in understanding old stories, and this work deftly reexamines a familiar narrative in novel fashion. The story of American religionis generally told chronologically, moving from century to century, or topically, such as examining Puritan communities in New England or Quaker communities in Pennsylvania. Amanda Porterfield and John Corrigan, two…