An odd little book was amongst the cascading vendor enticements at last month’s educational gathering in Dallas, TX. From Walter Kim and Bryan Stephenson to Adelle Banks and Michelle Boorstein, the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities’ International Forum produced a stellar lineup for its 1100 attendees—and they proved every bit as engaging as their…
A previous article, “Christian Communities and ‘Recovered Memories’ of Abuse” (CSR 41.4 [2012]: 381-400) by Robert J. Priest and Esther E. Cordill, examines the problem of individuals wrongfully found to have committed abuse against minors in a mission context. However, James Evinger and Rich Darr argue the article erroneously describes the methodology of one denomination’s…
Charles Taylor identifies a shift in Western culture in the 18th century around the idea of “authenticity,” a shift toward valuing individual people for their original perspectives, their unique ways of being human.[1] As Western thinking was making this shift, a brother and sister in northern England began packing picnic lunches and wandering around some…
In the short space of about 30 years, we have gone from heralding liberal democracy (or liberalism) as the final political regime (see Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis) to wondering whether it can or should survive. The big idea behind liberalism is liberty. Now, liberty is variously defined and can mean something like “freedom from”…
Practical theology is inherently interdisciplinary. However, this interdisciplinarity is most often engaged through the intellectual work of a single person. In our work on “neighbor love,” the fields of social-cognitive psychology and practical theology have been brought together through the collaborative work of two scholars to better understand the dynamics of dehumanization, the opposite of…
While it would seem that Pietism and Postmodernism share little to no common ground, Roger E. Olson notes that in fact there are several points where they are congenial with each other. Pietism was a movement for church renewal among German Lutherans in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. Its ethos of conversional piety eventually became…
In this episode of the Saturdays at Seven Podcast, Todd Ream interviews Karen Swallow Prior, noted author, compelling teacher, and public intellectual. Todd and Karen first discuss evangelicals’ role in the Victorian age and its literature, as well as, Karen’s vocational journey as an English professor and public intellectual. Karen also talks about her social media, specifically Twitter and Substack, where she’s been able to share her thoughts and research on the intersection of Christianity and culture. Lastly, they discuss Karen’s newest book: The Evangelical Imagination.
Jeremy S. Stirm is a military chaplain and independent scholar and taught most recently as an adjunct instructor for Truett Seminary. He served two tours of duty, one in Afghanistan with Special Forces and one in Iraq as a chaplain. Since the dawn of war, the physical wounds of war have been readily acknowledged, and…
This paper draws on aspects of Jean-Luc Marion’s account of “saturated phenomena” to explain Richard Wilbur’s poem “The Eye.” In Being Given and elsewhere, Marion contrasts “seeing,” a mode of perception hospitable to the alterity of the human other, with “gazing,” a mode of perception that presumes to control the other. The paper argues that…
With the theme of hospitable readers and neighboring texts, the classical Greek virtue of hospitality meets the Christian virtue of loving one’s neighbor as one’s self. Either virtue involves looking out for the well-being of those whom we encounter, whether as guest or as neighbor, including those whose claim on us might not seem natural…
Editor’s Note: Due to an editorial mistake, two blog posts were released yesterday. In order to make sure the second post received proper attention, we are resending it today. This post is from “Advice to…” series in the most recent issue of Christian Scholars Review. Thanks, PLG When Perry Glanzer asked me to write for…
In this essay Teri Merrick argues that Christian philosophers are uniquely called to cultivate a disposition of wonder in their students, despite its strong family resemblance to the medieval vice of curiosity (curiositas). The argument hinges on showing that wonder is essential tothe practice of authentic Christian hospitality. Wonder is claimed to be the emotional…
These outstanding and quite different contributions to the dialogue between faith and learning in the general area of contemporary psychology share the fundamental conviction that drives the faith/learning dialogue: that the grandeur and scope of Christian truth and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ defies any minimalist constraints to the merely spiritual or to the…
In September of 1930, the German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrived in New York for his first visit to America. As a teaching fellow at Union Theological Seminary, the young Bonhoeffer spent the next year meeting colleagues like Jean Laserre, a French pacifist, and Frank Fisher, a black seminarian who introduced Bonhoeffer to Abyssinian…
Reviewed by Tom Lehman, Economics, Indiana Wesleyan University Imagine a situation in which someone you know to be innocent is wrongly accused of crimes she did not commit, and the prosecution in the case is the actual perpetrator of those crimes. However, the accused innocent is not particularly appealing, is not always cooperative, is easily…
Jack Mulder Jr. challenged Christians to accept the Immaculate Conception of Mary (“Why More Christians Should Believe in Mary’s Immaculate Conception,” Christian Scholar’s Review 41.2 [2012]:117-134) because it provided the psychological freedom for her to consent to the Incarnation. In this paper R. Gary Chiang and Evelyn M. White take up this challenge by showing…
Writings in theological discussions of beauty evince certain problematic tendencies with respect to “spirit” language. Whether it is the paucity of such language or an idiosyncratic usage of it, “spirit” language is often evacuated of specifically pneumatological content. In this essay W. David O. Taylor attempts to re-conceptualize the Holy Spirit’s role with respect to…
John W. Wright is Professor of Theology and Christian Scripture at Point Loma Nazarene University. Introduction We live in a world assembled to overcome the instabilities arising out of World War II. The dominant post-War narrative has understood the “Good War” as an ideological battle between democracy and totalitarianism. In the West, the narrative expanded…
Reviewed by Tom Lehman, Economics, Indiana Wesleyan University Imagine a situation in which someone you know to be innocent is wrongly accused of crimes she did not commit, and the prosecution in the case is the actual perpetrator of those crimes. However, the accused innocent is not particularly appealing, is not always cooperative, is easily…
Colleges and universities look for great leadership from their presidents—now more than ever. Economic turmoil, technological innovation, rapid globalization, increased government regulation, media scrutiny, public skepticism about the mission of higher education, student unrest, the volatile climate of social media, and the sheer complexity of campus life in the twenty-first century all require exceptional management,…
