Reviews

In the last quarter-century, a number of books and essay collections have been published which address the role of women in higher education, as well as the difficulties many females face as faculty members in male-dominated institutions. Books such as Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Woman’s Guide to Surviving in the Academic World (1993),…

Two Messiah College faculty members, Douglas Jacobsen (Distinguished Professor of Church History and Theology) and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen (Professor of Psychology and Director of Faculty Development, and yes, they are married), have provided us with another provocative book addressing the relationship of religion and American higher education. Their previous book on Christian higher education, Scholarship…

Jeremy Begbie believes that music is far too important to be ignored by theologians and that musicians need to understand the theological concepts that shape their assumptions about musical meaning and value. He wants us to learn to think theologically through music, and also to be theologically musical. His project is understood best not as…

If you’ve ever wondered where God stands on “business” and the role of business in Kingdom work, Paul Stevens’ Doing God’s Business: Meaning and Motivation for the Marketplace is a must-read. In a previous publication, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Minis-try in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), he presents a personal…

Returning after an extended absence to a once-familiar place, be it a college campus, a church, or an organization, a person may be surprised by the contrast between what is recalled through the mind’s eye of what was, and what is apparent through physical eyes of what is. The natural and reactionary question “how did…

Having crossed paths with many well-known philosophers, such as Gilbert Ryle,John Mabbott, Oxford Memories (Oxford: Thornton’s, 1986), 77-8. Antony Flew,Antony Flew, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperOne,2007), 22-3. C. E. M. Joad,Christopher W. Mitchell, “University Battles: C. S. Lewis and the Oxford University Socratic Club,”…

Magnificence at Work: Living Faith in Business begins with the profound suggestion that work is a paramount consideration and an integral facet of faith—especially from a Christian perspective: “work has always been the locus of God’s calling. It would be surprising if it were not, for work matters profoundly as a creative act, as a…

Alan Roxburgh begins the “Forward” to this text with an interesting and concise message regarding why and for whom the book was written and the intended story of the book. While Roxburgh suggests that the book is intended to be a guide for leaders, it appears as though the book may be aimed at pastors…

As academics, we all want listeners or readers who are interested in what interests us. They make our days. Like Luke who wrote both the gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts for Theophilus, we have an interested audience in mind. Claar and Klay want to reach Christians who have no knowledge…

J. M. W. Turner, the renowned British landscape painter of the late 18th and early 19th century, renders the powerful forces of nature in dramatic fashion, evoking an array of moods from contentment to trepidation. In a similar way, Roger Olson paints a dramatic scene from the contemporary evangelical theological landscape by attempting to articulate…

Two key assumptions of political liberalism, individual rights and limited government, proceed logically from Christian premises. No political philosopher demonstrated this better than Glenn Tinder in The Political Meaning of Christianity. Each person is an “exalted individual,” one whose destiny is at the heart of the drama of creation and redemption. Respect for that status…

If, as Richard Dawkins says, Darwin’s theory of evolution allows one to be an intellectually-fulfilled atheist, Haught’s theology allows one to be a scientifically-fulfilled theist. In this second edition of God After Darwin, Haught argues that not only can evolutionary biology (EB) be reconciled with Christian theology, but that EB is a great gift to…

Written with conviction and care, Liberating Tradition: Women’s Identity and Vocation in Christian Perspective by Kristina LaCelle-Peterson, associate professor of religion at Houghton College, is a primer of feminist and Christian intersections, paths often viewed as either diametrically opposed or at least mildly in conflict. Working from the perspective that the Bible has a liberating…

Tracy Fessenden’s new book, Culture and Redemption, maps the genealogy of what has been called “the Protestant consensus” and its affect on American literature from the Puritans to the modernists. In one sense this is an old and discredited story. For the past 25 years, the multicultural left has disputed that there has ever been…

Popular sentiment may cast the American family as portrayed in the 1950s and early 1960s as a Platonic ideal. Children were precocious yet respectful of authority—enter Wally and Beaver Cleaver. Wives were the matriarchs of homes which were always in good order—enter June Cleaver. Husbands were dutiful providers who arrived home shortly after 5:00 p.m.…

Alexander Hill, president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, has recently released the second edition of Just Business: Christian Ethics for the Marketplace, eleven years after the original edition. Previously, Mr. Hill taught in the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific University. It is clear that the book is written for a college-aged audience. The…

There is a long tradition in the West that Intellectuals are (happily) ignorant of the “Dismal Science.” Christians, in addition, feel that they are called to avoid wealth, to repair the effects of its accumulation on the lower strata of the population and to help the successful ones to use “economics” with distant care. And,…

Mario Beauregard (a neuroscientist) and Denyse O’Leary (a freelance journalist and writer on faith and science) have produced a provocatively titled book covering an equally provocative topic. First off, it must be stated that the subtitle of the book, “a neuroscientist’s case for the existence of the soul,” is not fulfilled by the actual content…

When James D. G. Dunn delivered his Manson Memorial Lecture in 1982, he set out to sketch an emerging paradigm in current Pauline studies. Though it was not his intent to label that paradigm or coin a phrase, nevertheless his description of “the new perspective on Paul” struck a chord and became the catchphrase for…

In recent years, things “Celtic” have undergone a renaissance in popularity. This rising tide of interest has floated the concept of the Celtic Church back into public view. With this resurgence comes the inevitable question: What were the issues that led to the Celtic Church’s eventual demise as it was absorbed into the Church universal?…