Adam Perez graduated from Trinity Christian College in May 2013, and Mark Peters is Professor of Music at Trinity Christian College. Student Review – Adam Perez Liberal Arts for the Christian Life is a collaborative and self-reflective view of the liberal arts from the colleagues of Leland Ryken, distinguished scholar and professor at Wheaton College….
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…
A wide range of contemporary Christian scholarship claims that a history of Enlightenment ethical thought, social science and epistemology is the first step to exposing the inadequacies of modern accounts of the good life. Michael Kugler argues instead that their attempts at critical historical analysis and explanation are unconvincing. Their narrative arguments are built on…
It is an understatement to say that confusion abounds over the words “evangelical” and “evangelicalism.” These terms have been used in wondrously different ways by scholars, researchers, church leaders, and journalists. Few would argue with historian George Marsden when he wrote of the “conceptual challenge in … [saying] what evangelicalism is” and when he concluded…
Colleges and universities look for great leadership from their presidents—now more than ever. Economic turmoil, technological innovation, rapid globalization, increased government regulation, media scrutiny, public skepticism about the mission of higher education, student unrest, the volatile climate of social media, and the sheer complexity of campus life in the twenty-first century all require exceptional management,…
When reflecting on the past and future of the evangelical mind, we thought it fitting to hark back to a time not long after Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind was first published. I (Jack) remember as a young teenager visiting the Family Christian Bookstore on Cornerstone University’s campus to buy CDs; I…
In the fortieth episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Cheryl A. McConnell, President of Saint Joseph’s University. McConnell begins by discussing how ethical leadership emerged for her as an area of interest and eventually even became an area of expertise. Part of that emergence has to do with her background as a practitioner and as a scholar in accounting, a discipline which often asks for moral decisions to be made for which no preset battery of answers exist. As a result, moral formation must continue incrementally as one grows as a leader in the profession, allowing for ethical decision making to be reflexive or habitual. McConnell discusses the transition she made from serving as an accounting practitioner to an accounting scholar and how that process of discernment was set into motion when the firm for which she worked asked her to lead training seminars for junior colleagues. The transition she made from being a dean to a provost and now to a president was rooted in a discernment process that existed at the intersection of an institution’s leadership needs and the intrinsic joy she derived from the work. The one limitation McConnell shares that she set was that her willingness to serve where needed was limited to Jesuit colleges and universities due to her abiding belief in the missions of those institutions and the charisms that animate them. As provost and then as president of Saint Joseph’s University, McConnell explores how she and her colleagues fostered relationships with institutions in Philadelphia that would allow the university to expand its service in the health sciences. She then closes by discussing how the Jesuit institutions in Philadelphia work together to provide orientation for new board members along with ongoing formation.
By the middle of spring semester, talk with graduating seniors in my department often include the question: what will you be doing next year? That question reflects the fact that a career is an important aspect of vocation. American Christians often pray about questions of calling such as what work they will do, or who…
As the editor of this blog for the past five years, I have never responded directly to other blog posts, but in the case of Dennis Hiebert’s recent three-part post, I realized I had such a deep disagreement with his core argument that I have decided to do so. I also hope this response may…
In the second episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Francis S. Collins, physician-scientist and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collins begins by describing the day in November 2020, when he and his colleagues at the NIH unblinded the data related to the clinical trial for the COVID-19 vaccine and found its efficacy rate was 94.5%. In addition to describing his response and the responses of his colleagues to what was an unprecedented success, Collins offers details concerning previous scientific achievements upon which he and his colleagues depended when making such a successful vaccine in such a short period of time. Ream then asks Collins to step back and describe how he came to embrace serving as a physician-scientist as his vocation. While Collins was fortunate to work with several mentors while a medical student, a doctoral student, and an undergraduate, he offers the greatest credit to a high school teacher, Mr. House, who introduced Collins to scientific research as being comparable to being a detective. Collins describes his hopes for his most recent book, The Road to Wisdom, and his desire for people to come together during such a polarized season. Collins then closes by describing his work with operatic-soprano Renée Fleming and how the relationship shared by music and science enhances human health and flourishing.
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-third episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Michael D. Wilder, Dean of the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College. Wilder opens by addressing the ways music contributes to the cultivation of an imagination and how music is inherently part of human flourishing.
In the twenty-third episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Jim Gash, President of Pepperdine University. Gash opens by discussing his friendship with Tumusiime Henry and how that friendship impacted Gash’s vocation as a lawyer and a legal scholar as well as the expanding array of opportunities students experience at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law. Ream and Gash then talk about Gash’s calling to serve as an attorney, his appointment to Pepperdine’s law faculty, and how those experiences shaped Gash’s calling to serve as the President of Pepperdine University. They then close their conversation by discussing how the Churches of Christ (or the Restoration movement) impact the relationship shared by faith and learning on the Pepperdine campus and about Gash’s vision for Pepperdine to “to become a preeminent, global Christian University.”
In this episode of the Saturdays at Seven Podcast, Todd Ream interviews Karen Swallow Prior, noted author, compelling teacher, and public intellectual. Todd and Karen first discuss evangelicals’ role in the Victorian age and its literature, as well as, Karen’s vocational journey as an English professor and public intellectual. Karen also talks about her social media, specifically Twitter and Substack, where she’s been able to share her thoughts and research on the intersection of Christianity and culture. Lastly, they discuss Karen’s newest book: The Evangelical Imagination.
In this episode of the Saturdays at Seven Podcast, Todd interviews Shirley Hoogstra, the president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), on her role in representing Christian higher education institutions, today’s challenges facing the Christian higher education, and the relationship between Christian education and the Church.
The marks of evangelicalism (biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism) support the inclusion of people with disabilities; however, research reveals that having a disability label, especially a developmental disability, is a reliable predictor of whether people and families are present within the church. Using disability studies to identify how certain historical, social, and theological veins within…
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…
The COVID years have been tough ones for educators. I am in my thirty-second year as an English professor at Houston Baptist University (HBU), and, though I have weathered many economic, political, and pedagogical storms, I can’t remember having lived through such an intense and extended period of anxiety and uncertainty. In addition to the…
“Most social situations are not moral, because there is no conflict between the role-taking expectations of one person and another.”—Lawrence Kohlberg As mentioned in yesterday’s post, early in the history of higher education in America, one finds that American moral philosophers and educators gave up relying upon a functional view of a person’s full humanity…
Many confessional colleges and universities encourage diversity among their students and faculty. Yet while affirming diversity, there are sociological hurdles to overcome which rarely are acknowledged or confronted. Within the field of Biblical Studies, Kathryn J. Smith points out that these hurdles include the tendency to limit pedagogical offerings to those methods developed out of…
