About a decade ago, a first-generation freshman came into my office for her first academic advising meeting. As we talked through her set of classes, I asked her in what she thought she would like to major. With downcast eyes and quiet voice, she told me that she had no idea. In that instant, I…
Our God is a God of justice; of this, there can be no doubt. As Christians, we know the familiar refrain of Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” There is much dialogue today about how to pursue and achieve justice on various issues, and that is a good thing…
Brad A. Lau is Vice President for Student Life at George Fox University, and Pamela Havey Lau is a freelance editor. Maybe there’s a God above. But all I’ve learned from loveWas how to shoot at someone who outdrew youIt’s not a cry you can hear at night. It’s not somebody who has seen the…
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 his book The Perfect Mile, Neal Bascomb chronicles the competition between Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee to be the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. Bannister’s success as the first man to break this barrier is well-known, but another feat of excellence was accomplished by Landy two years…
Patrick McNamara, Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, has made a thoughtful and nuanced contribution to a growing field centered on questions concerning brain activity required for, and involved in, religious life. In a field spanning the disciplines of neuroscience and religious studies, it is often hard to find a perspective…
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,…
In light of recent events, our blog contributor agreed that it would be timely to repost a parable he told in April. Let me tell you a story. There was a man and a woman who were married. They were married for 15 years. But it was a horrible marriage. The husband was very abusive…
On June 29, 2021, a camera at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, captured video footage of Jacob deGrom playfully engaging a teammate in a wrestling match in the outfield as other players stretched and prepared for that night’s game. After several seconds deGrom successfully pinned his opponent as a third teammate slid…
“I will endeavor by a very simple and commonplace method to lead you by experience into the divine darkness,” wrote Nicholas of Cusa in 1453 to the monks at Tegernsee. In 2023, our faculty/staff reading group discussed Nicholas’s method in a conference room with sunlight streaming in through a wall of windows. But to Nicholas,…
It seems that every day brings news of a development in AI technology, whether advances in the medical or tech fields, new threats to (cyber)security, or concerns for industries that might have jobs overtaken by computers or robots. Some commentators exhibit great excitement about possibilities for change and improvement, while others fear our lives might…
In the arts, most of us will be familiar with the notion of a “classic.” If we take a college course in English literature, the history of art, or Western architecture, we will likely be introduced to human artifacts that are widely regarded as so important, so influential in shaping our culture, that a basic…
“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (Tertullian, the 3rd century B.C.E.) is really the basic question addressed by this new book, which is part of the Liturgical Studies Series of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Calvin Stapert’s small book undertakes an enormous task, sketching a brief history of documents that refer to…
Advances in DNA sequencing technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of microbial populations on and within human beings. The goal of this article is to evaluate some of these discoveries in light of the story of scripture. The early chapters of Genesis make clear the relational nature of human being in regards to our connections to…
This article explores, through the writings of French critic André Bazin, how cinema finds its roots in the capacity of documenting traces of the world and in the osmotic relationship between an event and its record. Due to its ontological status, photography echoes an incarnational and Christological model, and cinema becomes a spiritual mediator between…
“As humans we have two eyes to view the world; their combined binocular vision brings depth not available to either eye on its own.” — Sir John T. Houghton While curriculum vitae means “course of one’s life” its academic use normally omits materials from childhood and youth—even when vocationally important. Absent from our CV are…
The gospel of Jesus Christ is wrapped in the notion of God’s “will be[ing] done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10 NIV). The good in the good news (or gospel) looks a little different for every age, culture, and context. Unlike the Eastern notion of karma, or what goes around comes around,…
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…
Steven R. Harmon is Visiting Associate Professor of Historical Theology, School of Divinity, Gardner-Webb University. I am grateful to Kimlyn Bender for his perceptive review of Baptist Identity and the Ecumenical Future and to Christian Scholar’s Review for publishing not only such an extensive review of the book, but also my response to it along…
I first heard a version of this paper delivered by President Ryken at the 2016 annual meeting of the Council for Christian College and University presidents. I must confess that my initial reaction was lukewarm at best. It seemed presumptuous and even self-serving that we would compare our roles as presidents to the sacred Biblical…
