The intersection of science and faith can lead to tension among Christian believers and confusion between the faithful and their secular colleagues. In A Little Book for New Scientists, Josh Reeves and Steve Donaldson provide a useful map of this intersection without rehashing old arguments or taking polarizing positions on potentially controversial topics. Instead, this…
Introduction and Overview Phil Ryken offers a compelling treatment of Christ’s threefold office for thinking about the work of college and university presidents in our faith-based contexts. In his wonderful, precise style he offers an overview of our current challenges while integrating the most formative literature to extend our understanding. His goal is straightforward: If…
I first heard Dr. Ryken present the substance of this essay at a conference of Christian college and university presidents. Resonance filled the room. Heads nodded with empathy and affirmation. I have also had opportunities to see the ways in which Dr. Ryken integrates the roles of prophet, priest and king as he leads Wheaton…
Not all historical fictions are created equal. Most valuable are those informed by years of study, research, and reflection which take seriously the history and context of ancient texts and their characters. In A Week in the Fall of Jerusalem, Ben Witherington III offers us just such a gem that presents lives of early Christians…
Mark A. Peters is a professor of music at Trinity Christian College. In recent years, there has been an extended, and surprising, debate in this journal’s pages over Christian belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. While I have appreciated perspectives from both sides of the debate and am always heartened by civil and thoughtful…
How have evangelical faculties fared in their efforts to move beyond the scandal Mark Noll so sharply exposed nearly a quarter of a century ago? This is the question I take up in this essay, writing as a mid-career faculty member of a Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) institution. What follows are historical…
Michael Vander Weele is Professor of English Emeritus at Trinity Christian College. If you looked up this review, chances are good that you will want to read this collection of essays for yourself—unless you have not read anything by Marilynne Robinson yet, in which case do that first. When I read page 128, part of…
Today’s post is an excerpt of a longer talk given by David Lyle Jeffrey in May 2019 at a conference sponsored by the Christian Association for World Languages (CAWL). We are thankful for the opportunity to share Dr. Jeffrey’s wisdom for the benefit of Christian scholars of all disciplines. His commitment to the importance and power…
Mariam Kamell Kovalishyn is assistant professor of New Testament studies at Regent College. Three very different books on Romans emerged around the same time in 2019, authored by Scot McKnight, by Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh, and by Jackson W. Not one claims or seeks to be a commentary; rather, they each provide a sort of…
In the early eighties I was a junior at a large research university in British Columbia. One quiet Friday evening, in the century old residence hall, a friend and I were sitting in the empty hallway while she tried to teach me how to play poker. About an hour into her unsuccessful attempts, she leaned…
Reviewed by Tim Muehlhoff, Professor of Communication, Biola University C. Christopher Smith, senior pastor of Englewood Christian Church (Indianapolis, IN), describes early attempts to bring diverse people in his church together to talk as a “hot mess.” Yelling and sarcasm were default modes as members gathered Sunday nights to discuss potentially volatile issues. Out of…
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.Proverbs 25:2 One of the central problems often influences Christian education is an inordinate belief in quick moral or intellectual virtue. Growing up on a diet of conversion stories, evangelical Christians love the idea of lives transformed…
In the first installment of this blog series, I established a basic framework for how Christians ought to analyze the place of winning in sports. In the second installment I expanded on that idea by examining how winning in sports is rightly understood as a “third order good.” Here I conclude by examining the biblical and…
Reviewed by Edward C. Polson, Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Messiah College In Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat examines some of the most significant changes that have occurred in U.S. religious life since the 1950s. He explores the impact that the declining significance of both…
Reviewed by Benjamin B. DeVan, Ethics and Theology, Durham University “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). This aphorism traditionally attributed to King Solomon especially applies to books about sex, which proliferate in print and online faster than the proverbial jackrabbit, and exponentially exceed in number Solomon’s “seven hundred wives of royal…
Reviewed by Douglas Jacobsen, Church History and Theology, Messiah College I will not keep you in suspense. This is a brilliant book that should be read by everyone who is interested in the global dynamics of contemporary Christianity. The Christian world has changed dramatically in the last two centuries and Jay Riley Case’s goal is…
In his 2009 essay, “Finite Care in a World of Infinite Need” (CSR 38.3 [Spring 2009]: 327-333), Stanley Hauerwas suggests that, given the unlimited health care needs and limited health care resources in the U.S., Christians need to imagine an integrally Christian practice of medicine, which may include refusing potentially life-saving treatments. In this response…
It’s already July, and while for many people July means summer is just getting started, most college professors are already starting to think about the new school year. The start of a new school year is always nostalgic for me. I have loved school all my life—which is why I never wanted to leave it….
This article initially appeared in Current. I was on a train heading from Alexandria to Cairo. Next to me sat my friend Grace, a fellow student in the American master’s program we were just finishing. She was a Kenyan who had a radiant smile and a prominent accent that sent her English dancing and curling…
One of the problems Christians face in engaging today’s environmental challenges is appreciating the depth and breadth of our heritage. I’ll confess to a gap in my teaching. In the past, when I was assigning supplemental readings for environmental studies courses, I tended to stick to titles, like A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, that are…
