However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. —J. Robert Oppenheimer, April 13,…
In the tenth episode of the Saturdays at Seven Podcast, Todd Ream interviews Romanita Hairston, CEO of the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Romanita starts by sharing her vocational journey in leading different organizations. Then, they discuss the “Murdock-ish” values of the Trust and how they practice that with their partners and beneficiaries. Lastly, they talk about how philanthropic organizations can support the Church and church-based educational institutions.
In the fourteenth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Timothy Larsen, the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought, Professor of History, and Director of the Faith and Learning at Wheaton College. Tim opens by talking about how his interests as an historian gravitated to the Victorians, what they knew, and what we can learn from them today. Todd and Tim then talk about his understanding of the academic vocation and how Tim goes about discerning what projects to pursue. They then close by talking about Tim’s magisterial effort, The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, and what Christmas as a season of expectation has to offer our understanding of the academic vocation.
In the sixteenth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Willie Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale University. Jennings begins by talking about defining theology, where efforts to practice theology went awry in recent decades in the North Atlantic world, and how a properly ordered and, in turn, properly practiced theology proves critical to the Church, the seminary, and the Church-related university. Jennings then talks about his widely acclaimed The Christian Imagination, ways in which it was misunderstood and ways in which it was properly understood. Ream and Jennings then close their conversation by talking about Jennings’s After Whiteness and the implications of ideas defining that book for the seminary as well as the Church-related university.
In the twenty-fifth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Edgardo Colón-Emeric, the Irene and William McCutchen Professor of Reconciliation and Theology, the Director of the Center for Reconciliation, and Dean of the Divinity School at Duke University. Colón-Emeric opens by recounting how he was called to the ministry and how that calling eventually came to include service on the faculty at Duke University as well as providing theological education in El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Russia. Ream then asks Colón-Emeric to unpack his theological understanding of reconciliation, how that understanding was formed by his study of Óscar Romero, and how to discern the varied relationships reconciliation and culture share. They then close their conversation by discussing Colón-Emeric’s understanding of the Christian academic vocation, how such an understanding is expressed by the leadership he offers the Divinity School at Duke University, and the unique position the Divinity School has in cultivating a theological appreciation of the professions including medicine, law, and business.
In the twenty-ninth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Douglas A. Sweeney, Professor of Divinity and Dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. Sweeney begins by talking about the unique space Beeson fills in theological education as a confessional, evangelical, and interdenominational institution. He then goes on to talk about how that unique space is enhanced by Beeson’s commitment to offering an incarnational experience for ministerial formation through in-person teaching, small class sizes, shared worship experiences, and common meals. Ream and Sweeny then transition to talking about Sweeney’s own preparation for leading such an institution as a result of his experiences at Yale University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. A key component of that preparation in Sweeney’s life is his study of Jonathan Edwards and ways Edwards faith prompted him to pursue truth regardless of where it may reside. Ream and Sweeney close their conversation by talking about the relationship Beeson shares with Samford’s other professional schools as well as ways it seeks to offer continuing education for laypersons.
In the thirty-sixth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Charles Taylor, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at McGill University. Ream and Taylor open by exploring the relationship shared by perceptions of selfhood and perceptions of how societies organize themselves. Taylor then addresses what happens when misalignment between the two occurs as various perceptions of selfhood come into conflict with one another in common social and political spaces. Ream and Taylor then discuss Taylor’s calling to academic philosophy yet how that calling was never entirely divorced from Taylor’s commitment to public service. For example, Ream and Taylor discuss Taylor’s service as co-chair of the Québec Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. After discussing the impact Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl made on Taylor’s thinking about selfhood, Ream and Taylor explore how Taylor identified and framed the questions he pursued in works such as Sources of the Self and A Secular Age. Following up on these works, Ream asks Taylor to explore the significance of Taylor’s most recent works, The Language Animal and Cosmic Connections. They then close their conversation by discussing Taylor’s perceptions of the academic vocation along with when and how scholars can be of service as public intellectuals.
In the thirty-second episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Robin Baker, President of George Fox University. Baker opens by discussing the role of innovation in higher education and how that sense of innovation differs from what one may experience in other non-profit institutions as well as for-profit institutions. As an historian, Baker describes his appreciation for the stories and traditions that define and animate colleges and universities. While he contends change is inevitable, he also contends that those stories and traditions afford change with a purpose or direction. Ream and Baker then talk about the practices and habits that afford administrators, staff members, and faculty members with the ability to orient their respective efforts toward a common mission. They close by discussing how the theological commitments that define the Society of Friends or the Quakers influence the George Fox community and the unique ways that community pursues the relationship shared by faith and learning.
In the third episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Linda A. Livingstone, President of Baylor University. Livingstone begins by discussing the commitments that define the research university and the unique ways the Christian research university is designed to be of service to a world in need. Ream and Livingstone discuss Livingstone’s calling as a faculty member in business, how that calling came to include serving as dean of the business schools at Pepperdine University and George Washington University, and, in particular, how that calling came to include serving as president of Baylor. Livingstone addresses the theological imagination needed to lead a Christian research university such as Baylor and, in turn, how to form staff members and faculty members for lives of service to students as well as a myriad of external constituents. Ream and Livingstone then close their conversation by discussing the virtues that define the Christian academic vocation and the ways that the health of that vocation is connected to the health of the relationship shared by the Church and the university.
This series is adapted from a chapter in Keith Loftin’s Rekindling an Old Light: The Virtue and Value of Christ-Shaped Liberal Arts Learning (High Bridge Books, 2022, published in conjunction with Moral Apologetics Press). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” begins harmlessly enough—with townspeople from a rural community gathering in the picturesque public square on an idyllic…
Christian Scholarship has a distribution problem. More than ever the Church needs Christian public intellectuals. Here’s how you can help.
“And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” –Genesis 2:7 (ASV) Back in the 70s when I was in college, pop culture had co-opted a quote from Carl Sagan that “we are stardust.” Joni Mitchel echoed this theme…
A highlight for any college community, especially smaller colleges, includes guest lectures by important people of their times. These can include authors, artists, politicians, journalists, celebrities, and scientists. The best lectures are provocative, inspiring, and certainly memorable. Here is the story of one such event. As the newly-appointed director of the Marshall Space Flight Center…
Following the wide public release of the GPT-3 language generator, the internet has been awash in panic and awe—but mostly panic. Headlines like “The College Essay is Dead” (Atlantic) and “Will Chat GPT rot our brains?” (RNS) tell the story of our academic anxiety in the face of this challenge. Others have offered more sanguine…
As a multidisciplinary journal, we strive to ensure that all of our pieces would interest a general academic audience. This doesn’t mean they are dummied down in any sense of that phrase. The articles stand on their own as academic pieces. In multiple indexes such as Google Scholar and Researchgate, I can see that our articles are regularly cited in other’s works. But they are also designed for the sheer pleasure of reading good work done well. I hope you can take a break sometime in the next week, read one of the pieces, and let the author know what you think.
In the past two decades the evangelical academy has devoted a good deal of attention to the “Christian scholar” and “Christian scholarship.” While these discussions have born considerable fruit, they lack the scope to cast a vision for Christian higher education in general. Jim Halverson argues that the Christian academy needs to articulate a vision…
As educators, we know the importance of taking advantage of “teachable moments,” those valuable, yet often unexpected, instances in which student interest and eagerness conspire to create a context in which learning a particular idea becomes most accessible or possible. Although I know I have seized some such moments in my classrooms, several have undoubtedly…
It’s not so much the story you believe as the lie that I tell myself about you now that we can’t, or won’t, speak of anything else but history’s latest, loudest fool. We have forgotten how to praise the beauty of the earth, or to gripe about Kansas’ City’s offensive line; things indifferent. Things there’s…
