Reviews

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…

The University of California, Irvine’s Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, John C. Avise, is a very productive and highly respected scientist. His popular book, Inside the Human Genome, examines the content and structure of the human genome, but he moves beyond the bald facts about our genomes and tries to discern what they…

I had high hopes for this book. It is written by a senior scholar, published by a major university press, and touted by an impressive array of academic luminaries. To its credit, the book is well written and thought provoking, forcing readers to reflect seriously about serious matters, which is no small accomplishment. In the…

In his gloss on the Creation account in Genesis, the author of John’s Gospel narrates the Christian origins of existence: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was…

Don King, a well-known scholar in the field of C. S. Lewis studies, has made a substantial contribution to our knowledge of a fascinating and important woman. Joy Davidman is not well known. Indeed, most people who are aware of her can only imagine her as the heroic and tragic cancer victim and wife of…

In his book, Science and the Quest for Meaning, Alfred Tauber draws from post-positivist studies of science in an effort to bring coherence to the worldview of secular humanism. His “integrative project” abandons the fact-value dichotomy that served once as positivism’s central tenet and sets out to reconstitute the relationship between knowledge and meaning. As…

These two works, When Helping Hurts and God Knows There’s Need, both address the salient and timely concern of how Christians should address poverty. With these commonalities in mind, important differences inform each argument and approach. The foreword of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself begins with the…

With Religious Ideas for Secular Universities, John Sommerville continues a line of enquiry he began in his 2006 book, The Decline of the Secular University. There, he argued that the American university has found itself on society’s sidelines by excluding religion from academic discourse. In doing so, it refused, or at least failed, to address…

Literature tries to depict something – people, a culture, a historical situation, or images that stir the imagination – but depicting and explaining can work together. Mark Knight’s strength is to hear the sounds in literature and offer a critique of those who do not hear them in a Christian manner. The introduction provides an…

In response to the fundamentalist atheism of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens in their recent popular books, Ian Markham seeks to “locate understand this skepticism (perhaps even make case with a bit more rigor) and then provide an account of faith that is compelling, readable, and informed” (6). His subtle, concise Christian apologetic…

Christian colleges and universities are filled with a diverse body of students and faculty who are dedicated to the great commission (Matt. 28:19-20) and to the greatest commandments (Matt. 22:37-40). Many in this diverse group eventually will find themselves operating in the global marketplace, perhaps the last great frontier of missions. Functioning effectively in this…

As a measure of unmistakable gratitude for Paul Griffiths’ book on intellectual appetite, I want to speak carefully and precisely in honoring his accomplishment. Many terms of approbation, suitable as I once thought them for favored books, simply will not do. For if Intellectual Appetite accomplishes what its author intends, we Christian scholars must learn—through…