Reformational philosophy is a philosophical tradition that emerged in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth century as an innovative re-articulation of Dutch Calvinism, a strand of the historical reformed and Presbyterian tradition of Christianity.[1] This innovative intellectual renewal of Calvinism, originating with the theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper, began to flower in the early twentieth…
For well over twenty years, Christian scholars and educators of various disciplines have been engaged in an examination of the nature of Christian and secular higher education. Much of that reflection with regard to the North American context in particular has turned on one of two types of examinations. The first type is comprised of a…
Mark A. Peters is professor of music and director of the Center for Teaching and the Good Life at Trinity Christian College. He is president of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music and book review co-editor for Christian Scholar’s Review. Whatever you learn, remember: the learning must make you more, not less, human.—Elie Wiesel…
In a recent New York Times column, Ross Douthat explored “the reasons behind a seemingly unreasonable belief” (namely, the belief that the presidential election was stolen). Some points that Douthat raises in his essay about this “post-truth” age have implications for our task in helping our students to research well, with soundness of materials as…
Transhumanism is a scientific-philosophical movement that desires to use biotechnological enhancement to bring humanity into a “posthuman” state. According to the movement’s website it “seek[s] to make [humanity’s] dreams come true in this world, by relying not on supernatural powers or divine intervention but on rational thinking and empiricism, through continued scientific, technological, economic, and…
What makes you feel worthwhile and valuable? This past year, I added this question to the qualitative portion of our Baylor Faith and Character Study with 18 seniors (for more about the study see here). I came across it when rereading Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development regarding some of…
In a recent essay in First Things, Mark Bauerlein offered an account of the last half century (or more) of literary studies that is dazzling (in both its breadth and depth) and devastating (in its accuracy). While the history described in the article, “Truth, Reading, Decadence,” centers on developments in the field of English, the…
Can game playing possibly be the ideal of existence? Philosopher Bernard Suits argues that it is, using a twist on the moral logic of Aesop’s fabled grasshopper. While many philosophers have weighed in on this question, none have done so with a Christian lens. In this article, we consider Suits’s body of work on the…
Cultivating the Spirit is a book “…about the spiritual growth of college students” (1). This pithy description may lead some who work in faith-based institutions or in “religious” campus roles to add it quickly to their reading lists. After all, as the argument may go, students’ spiritual formation is central to what these folks prize….
It’s almost three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. I’m trying to finish up a bit of writing [this blog post] while constantly keeping an eye on the top right-hand corner of my computer screen. Three o’clock is right when my daughter’s school day ends. Readers of Power Women might very well recognize these words. They…
Many children grow up wondering what they will become in life. Nonna Harrison invites her readers into her own reflections on these early childhood questions. Frequently she was not satisfied with the types of answers she received regarding her probing quest to understand life’s nature and purpose and how an individual can become a better…
Author’s note: In yesterday’s post, I argued that one of the purposes of scholarship is friendship with the dead. Today, I reflect on how our relationship with the dead can both enrich and be enriched by friendship with the living. . . . We sometimes think of scholarship as something occurring in a vacuum. The…
With Religious Ideas for Secular Universities, John Sommerville continues a line of enquiry he began in his 2006 book, The Decline of the Secular University. There, he argued that the American university has found itself on society’s sidelines by excluding religion from academic discourse. In doing so, it refused, or at least failed, to address…
Many of our students are required to read Plato’s Gorgias at some point in their college careers. Occasionally, and after some reflection and discussion of the text, those students come to appreciate just how high the stakes are for those confronted with the Gorgias’s central question: how should one live? Socrates, Plato’s protagonist, champions the…
Over the course of history, darkness and creatures associated with the dark have long beenvilified. Yet according to Adam Barkman, this vilification has often resulted in both aesthetic and ethical injustice. At the root of these injustices is humanity’s constant failure both to keep the literal and the metaphorical separate and to remember that all…
That we Americans live in a radically pluralist society is no secret. For some time now, there has been concern among thoughtful Christians that America may be heading down the same road that Europe trod in recent decades – the road to a radically secular, post-Christian society. However, this trend is called into question, increasingly,…
Theory and history offer two contrasting ways for apprehending the large and multifaceted concept of “empire.” The six books under consideration sort themselves according to their respective tendencies to treat “empire” theoretically or historically. A concept of “empire” driven by theory will show centripetal trajectories and risk becoming reductionist while historical concepts will expand to…
T. M. Moore’s assessment of Pagans & Christians in the City is what any author hopes for—a review that is laudatory and charitable, but also comprehending and insightful. In this response, therefore, I might just say “Thank you” and stop there. However, Moore does call attention to some contestable choices in the book that in…
The title of James K. A. Smith’s book, The Devil Reads Derrida, might prove misleading to those (non-Derrideans) who believe that a text should possess a coherent meaning and that this meaning be evinced in the title. For in fact, the most important word of the title isn either “Derrida” nor “Devil,” but the innocuous…
Introduction Entering into the cathedral of Notre Dame for the first time, with its towering arches, brilliant stained glass windows, and intricate architecture, a sense of awe and wonder rush through the eyes, evoking contemplation of the cathedral’s magnificence. The flood of emotions can be overwhelming. These emotions are no less present when standing at…
