In this essay Gillis J. Harp notes that some American Evangelicals find it difficult to conceive of a species of conservatism that preserves a moral political economy and some notion of a paternalistic state protecting the less fortunate. Yet this is the kind of conservatism that characterized the thinking of one key strand within the…
Studies in moral and political psychology increasingly shed light on both the positive and negative political consequences of moral conviction. While people’s convictions engender courage to stand up for their beliefs despite the cost, they also trigger more negative emotions, polarized attitudes, and hostile responses. At a time when our political climate appears increasingly divided…
This essay examines the intersecting pedagogical and theological stakes of conflating our practices of reading and writing. With attention to ongoing “turf wars” within English departments, as well as to broader university trends toward prioritizing ROI, assessable artifacts, and marketable skills, it argues that we should de-couple reading and writing, recognizing them as distinctive practices…
On Friday, the largest-scale exploration of the American academic vocation will hit theaters. With a rumored marketing budget of $100 million, few of us likely avoided the campaign NBCUniversal unleashed in recent weeks for Christopher Nolan’s next film, Oppenheimer. Viewers of Wimbledon and Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, for example, were repeatedly introduced to snippets…
In Part 1 of this essay, I argued that the structure of a flame is, at certain levels, similar to the structure of life. The flame suggests that human nature, and even divine nature, is self-gift with a purpose. The stress of burnout may be a sign that the gift is misaligned somehow. But once…
At the end of a busy and tiring semester, I asked blog contributors if they had a favorite faith-learning book of the year. I received suggestions from a variety of blog authors and disciplines. A book by a professor from Rice University (go owls), Elaine Howard Ecklund, received Ruth Bancewicz and Clay Carlson’s votes for…
In light of increasing challenges and pressures in higher education, small liberal arts colleges struggle to maintain their identity and sense of institutional vocation. In too many instances—and stemming from both external attack and internal loss of purpose—liberal arts institutions sometimes seem to have forgotten what it means to offer a broad-based, interdisciplinary, and transformative…
Everything is compromised. Nothing is worthy. Strip it down, strip it down. Take off the sugar-coating, the veneer, the gilding, the velour, and what is left? Nothing. Emptiness. Posing, pretending, preening, delusion. Those of us who love – truly love – sometimes feel like the prey of shadowy hunters. We are huddled together for safety…
Perry L. Glanzer notes that over the past two decades institutional growth in Christian higher education has slowed to a trickle in the West, but in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa it has taken off. The remarkable vigor and growth of Christianity in the global South and East is an obvious driver behind the rise…
Though tribalism and conflict have long been a focus of social psychological research, psychology as a discipline has few meta-theories able to serve as organizing principles or prisms for new ways of understanding. This paper draws on the work of philosopher and anthropologist René Girard who uses mimesis (imitation) as a foundational lynchpin for tying…
Although Bret Easton Ellis has often been castigated by critics for his immoral characters, his novels not only have a moral framework, but arguably a Christian one. The confessional tone of his novels suggests that his characters are mere products of their surroundings, and that they are desperately seeking an escape from the excesses and…
Most Protestant Christians do not give much attention to the theological and moral dimensions of contraception. In his essay, Branson Parler argues that Wendell Berry’s general critique of the modern mythos helps us to hear Roman Catholic teaching on contraception as resistance to one specific practice entailed by that mythos. Insofar as Protestants recognize that…
In this paper, Gary L. Karns extends the earlier work of others regarding the biblical purpose of business with a reflective analysis on exchange and marketing as key processes related to the institution of business. Relationships/interdependence, holiness, justice, love stewardship, creativity, hope, and other themes are drawn from the biblical narrative to form a Christian…
In the previous post, I compared the arguments of overwhelmed NYU students to those of their organic chemistry professor. NYU professor Stephanie Lee’s tweet sums it up: “I could write compelling defenses for each party – students, Prof. Jones, my department, NYU admin – bc everyone is operating under different pressures.” In this post, I…
Nicholas Wolterstorff’s perceptive commentary on neo-Calvinist contributions to political activity is a welcome addition to discussions of Christian political engagement. Christian foundations of political thought are important and worthy of discussion, but in the current moment when fear and anger animate so much of American politics, Wolterstorff’s particular emphasis on political activity is especially prescient….
A prior version of this essay was delivered as the Carl F. H. Henry lecture and plenary address at the “Living Accountably” symposium on Faith and Culture at Baylor University in October 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Christian Scholar’s Review. Joel Carpenter is a historian and former provost at Calvin College, and…
The academic year 2020-2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Christian Scholar’s Review (CSR), one of the leading interdisciplinary Christian academic journals. This paper examines the history of CSR, including its precursor The Gordon Review, and highlights some key leaders and important themes in the journal’s work. It also describes the journal’s ability to evolve along…
Every year I offer a sociology of sport course at the conservative Presbyterian college where I teach. As this course takes place in the spring semester, I’ve been able to time a Super Bowl lecture to correspond with the actual event. Much of my lecture centers on identifying and analyzing the roles played by women…
When Samuel Huntington first published his “Clash of Civilizations?” article in Foreign Affairs in 1993, it was an attempt to map out the future lines of conflict in the wake of the collapse of the bi-polar world following the Cold War. In part this was a call to be mindful that just because the West…
Public intellectuals deploy their thinking as a way of exercising power and influence. Simply put, their aim is to change the world through spreading ideas and winning debates. An evangelical approach to being a public intellectual involves redefining that power through the lens of the cross. In deliberate conformity to the example of Christ, evangelical…
