As a companion to yesterday’s blog introducing our summer articles, today we turn to our book review section, curated by our book review editor, Matt Lundberg—Calvin University’s director of the de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development and professor of Religion. While we publish many excellent standalone reviews, the second part of each journal offers far more than critiques of others’ work. We begin with one or two review essays, extended reviews, or paired reviews and author responses—pieces that move beyond summary to engage in deeper dialogue. These expanded reviews invite conversation between the books’ central ideas and the reviewer’s own insights. Our summer issue features all three formats, alongside several outstanding standalone reviews.
We open our book review section with Ben Faber’s review essay, “Returning to Religion in Shakespeare Studies.” Faber, associate professor of English at Redeemer University in Hamilton, Ontario, surveys the shifting place of Christianity in Shakespeare scholarship—from one interpretive lens among many, to a rejected framework seen as culturally oppressive, to being largely overlooked in favor of Shakespeare’s humanism. He then examines three recent books that argue the plays themselves are deeply shaped by Christian themes.
Lee Oser, Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study of Religion and Literature (Catholic University of America Press, 2022);
David Anonby, Shakespeare on Salvation: Crossing the Reformation Divide, foreword by Gary Kuchar (Pickwick, 2024);
Darren Dyck, Will & Love: Shakespeare and the Motion of the Soul (Cascade, 2023).
Faber writes, “These books take religion to be the legitimate force in culture, rather than one cultural phenomenon among many. Whereas materialist criticism views religion as a construction on an economic base, or a symptom of the will to power, or a therapeutic practice, this return to religion understands faith to be the oxygen that animates life itself, the grammar that gives meaning to reality, the architectonic that shapes the human world, the social imaginary that knits the body politic, the sine qua non of culture.” In reviewing the books, Faber is also giving a glimpse of meaning into multiple plays. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Henriad plays, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and Twelfth Night all make appearances in this review. Toward the end, in noting the value of this interrogation, Faber writes, “In Shakespeare studies, the turn to religion and theology could helpfully be more sensitive to the plays as theatrical events, and not only as literary texts. Given that performativity currently has considerable purchase in the academy at present, religion and theology could well complement contemporary articulations of subjectivity and personhood.”
Next, we have a review and response. Paul Yost, associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Seattle Pacific University, reviews Westmont President Gayle Bebee’s book, The Crucibles That Shape Us: Navigating the Defining Challenges of Leadership (InterVarsity, 2024). A recognized leadership scholar himself, Yost not only comments on Bebee’s seven key crucible moments in leadership but builds on them to note the current weaknesses and gaps in much that is available for Christian leadership development. Yost writes:
Leadership research suggests that there are four elements critical to leader development and effectiveness: talent/gifts, experiences, lessons, and agility to capture the learning. The Crucibles That Shape Us draws on all four but offers a Christian perspective that is largely missing in scholarship today. Where today’s organizations are looking for leaders that are “high potentials” in a survival-of-the-fittest contest, Beebe notes that Christianity encourages leaders to draw on their God-given talents to find their calling to serve in the roles in which they have been placed. Where our culture tells a person to seek success and achievement, he notes that God refines us in moments of crisis—we are called to be faithful and listen for God’s voice. Where the culture looks for tactical and strategic lessons to win, he considers how we are called to grow in our character and serve others. Where business is looking for practices and tactics to get ahead, he challenges readers to draw on God, scripture, and the people God has placed in their lives. Leadership isn’t a prize to be sought but a calling to be lived.
Bebee then offers a very personal and biographical response to Yost’s review. Both are rich essays. After reading through both, I found it helpful to start and end with Bebee’s response, while reading Yost’s review in between. There are many interesting thoughts about the state of leadership studies and practice in these two pieces.
Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, professor of political science and international affairs at Gordon College, gives an extended review of James Davison Hunter’s 2024 book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis (Yale University Press). Melkonian-Hoover reviews Hunter’s arguments for hybrid enlightenment—a synthesis of enlightenment and religious ideals, or some future comparable set of common beliefs and ideals—to undergird democracy. She insightfully adds her own scholarly-supported thoughts to the causes and antidotes to the unraveling of culture over the past 50 years, ending with these resources to expand the conversation:
Hunter’s Democracy and Solidarity is a timely and important book, but it is best read in conjunction with the broader literature on democracy, which looks not only to culture but to an array of factors (recall that many of the nations adopting and thriving under democracy were once presumed incapable of doing so culturally). There is a substantial array of scholars who have been thinking comparatively for years about democratization and democratic consolidation, its progress and regress (Guillermo O’Donnell, Terry Lynn Karl, Larry Diamond, Scott Mainwaring, Jared Diamond, and Samuel Huntington, to name a few). To look to our past to understand our present is key, but to look all around us can be enlightening as well.
In other reviews:
Katie Alaniz, associate dean, associate professor of education, and director of the Center for Learning Innovations and Teaching Excellence at Houston Christian University, reviews David I. Smith, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom (Eerdmans, 2025).
Lanta Davis, professor of honors humanities and literature at Indiana Wesleyan University, reviews Judith Wolfe’s The Theological Imagination: Perception and Interpretation in Life, Art, and Faith. Current Issues in Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2024).
Micah Watson, professor of political science at Calvin University, reviews David T. Koyzis’s Citizenship Without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement (InterVarsity, 2024).
Abigail Bergeron from the department of philosophy at Queen’s University reviews Albert Borgmann’s Moral Cosmology: On Being in the World Fully and Well (Lexington Books, 2024).
