Reviews

Reviewed by Brad A. Lau, Student Life, George Fox University There are few topics more timely and timeless than the intersection of Christian faith and contemporary cultural understandings of human sexuality. In this carefully researched and thoughtful work, Jonathan Grant details the societal challenges that exist while suggesting a practical and convincing Christian vision for…

Reviewed by Kevin John Frank Pinkham, English, Nyack College James Gunn’s introduction to Harry Harrison’s short story “The Streets of Ashkelon” includes the claim: Science fiction cannot be written from an attitude of religious belief. Science fiction questions everything. It accepts nothing on faith. ... Science fiction’s religion is skepticism about faith, although there is…

Reviewed by David M. Johnstone, Student Life, George Fox University Soong-Chan Rah ranks among the top American scholars who perceptively understand the contemporary Western church, speak prophetically into it, offer hope, and do not hesitate to probe the theological implications of scripture. I count his Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times as…

Reviewed by William B. Evans, Erskine College and Theological Seminary This volume emerged from a moderated eCircle sponsored by The Colossian Forum and involving 26 regular contributors along with other commenters. Author Harold Heie and many of his interlocutors are convinced that Evangelicalism today is conflicted and combative and that a balance of commitment and…

Pope John Paul II delivered a series of “audiences” now known as Theology of the Body over the course of 129 Wednesdays from 1979 to 1984. These presentations focused on our physical (particularly sexual) nature as God’s gift of love that provides opportunity for us to experience and give love in return. The Pope was…

This fine little book provides a fascinating collection of autobiographical sketches by a diverse group of well-known biblical scholars. These insightful sketches describe the formative influences on the authors’ lives, developments in their theological and academic thinking, and (especially) how their personal faith has been affected by critical biblical scholarship. The latter is an issue…

In Free to Serve, Stephen Monsma and Stanley Carlson-Thies argue that protecting and promoting the religious freedom of faith-based organizations is essential to the bulwark of democracy. The constitutional protection of religious freedom for faith-based organizations, however, is under attack, with division and disunity among religious communities and in their relation to the secular world.…

Communication Professor Peter Horsfield pens a trenchant, alternative history of Christianity by focusing on the media employed by church leaders across the centuries. The title, From Jesus to the Internet, summarizes the range of his study, while the subtitle, A History of Christianity and Media, describes the substance. Horsfield connects key turning points in ecclesial…

With a “crisis” of purpose haunting higher education, American institutions explore the goals of their existence as their emerging adult occupants do the same with their purposes in the world. Today, the uncertainties of students rise as their commitments drop in relation to key components of adulthood (such as choice of major, marriage). Responding to…

Reviewed by Holly Ordway, Apologetics, Houston Baptist University “Apologetics? What’s that?” Chances are good that anyone who knows enough about the field to be interested in reading this review has heard that question before – perhaps many times. Sometimes it is followed by the joke, “Does that mean you’re apologizing for being a Christian? Ha,…

Reviewed by Young Lee Hertig, Global Studies and Sociology, Azusa Pacific University, Co-Founder/Executive Director of Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity (ISAAC) The book title, The Spirit Moves West: Korean Missionaries in America, can set different expectations than when first turning the pages. After empirical research of the fundamentalist sectarian group, the University…

Reviewed by Christopher A. Franks, Religion and Philosophy, High Point University This is quite simply one of the most helpful books on Aquinas I have ever read. It does so many things well. It gives a compelling historical reconstruction of Aquinas. It shows the immense resources Aquinas offers for contemporary theologizing. And it demonstrates, practically…

Reviewed by David M. Johnstone, Residence Life, George Fox University The subject of faith and the university experience has long been a topic of discussion, and both the volumes reviewed here add to that complex conversation. They particularly focus on the current American student experience, providing reflections and data that lead to new and sometimes…

Reviewed by Jerold Waltman, Political Science, Baylor University The papers representing the 10 chapters of this book grew out of a symposium sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project at the University of Oklahoma; it is the inaugural volume in the University of Oklahoma Press’s new series on the American Constitutional Heritage. The usual rubs on…

Reviewed by Mark W. Cannister, Biblical Studies and Christian Ministries, Gordon College Based in part on her 2007 research study “Testimony and Formation,” Amanda Drury set out to develop a greater understanding of testimony as a faith practice that contributes to the spiritual formation of adolescents. Her research included a collection of interviews with adolescents,…

Reviewed by Matthew Hill, History, Liberty University For too long, the religious dimension of the American presidency has been neglected. Outside the never-ending debate on the religious convictions of the Founding Fathers, four of whom became president, far too little research has been devoted to this subject. The religious dimensions of the Civil War have…

Reviewed by J. P. Gerber, Psychology, Gordon College This book is the first volume from the recently formed Society for the Exploration of Psychoanalytic Therapies and Theology. It seeks to refresh writing on psychoanalytic therapy by engaging a wide range of scholars and practitioners from diverse corners of the psychoanalytic landscape. It also attempts to…

Reviewed by David Vander Laan, Philosophy, Westmont College Who’s Afraid of Relativism? has two aims. The first is expressed in an epigraph by Augustine: “If those, however, who are called philosophers happen to have said anything that is true, and agreeable to our faith...not only should we not be afraid of them, but we should…

Reviewed by Micah J. Watson, Political Science, Calvin College Timothy P. Jackson is an intellectual revolutionary disguised as a distinguished professor of Christian ethics at Emory University. Political Agape is the third in a trilogy of books aimed at changing the way we think about a host of first-order subjects.The other two books are Love…

Reviewed by Zachary Purvis, Divinity, University of Edinburgh In Kelly Joan Whitmer’s telling, the story of the Halle Orphanage is the story of the formation of a new “scientific community,” populated by kings, theologians, and cosmopolitan inventors determined to furnish new instruments with the ability to decode the mysteries of magnetism. Hers is a fascinating…