Theological Foundations for Creation Care: Replacing Apathy and Despair with Hope and Christian Virtues — A Review Essay (Part 1) Post

Andrew J. Spencer’s and Steven Bouma-­Prediger’s recent releases applying Christian theology to contemporary environmental problems share similar goals and face common constraints. As trade paperbacks, both books are intended to motivate an indifferent or skeptical Christian readership and theologically equip students to address hot-­button political topics. The authors self-­identify as Evangelical, utilize the language of…

Theological Foundations for Creation Care: Replacing Apathy and Despair with Hope and Christian Virtues — A Review Essay Post

Andrew J. Spencer’s and Steven Bouma-­Prediger’s recent releases applying Christian theology to contemporary environmental problems share similar goals and face common constraints. As trade paperbacks, both books are intended to motivate an indifferent or skeptical Christian readership and theologically equip students to address hot-­button political topics. The authors self-­identify as Evangelical, utilize the language of…

“Seeing Poems” ft. Wheaton College’s Karen An-hwei Lee I Saturdays at Seven – Season Two, Episode Twelve Post

In the twelfth episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Karen An-hwei Lee, Professor of English and Provost at Wheaton College. Lee opens by discussing the importance of the Christian imagination, how such an imagination is fostered by a liberal arts education, and how such an imagination is critical to the faithful exercise of professions such as medicine, law, business, and ministry. Lee explores how poetry became foundational to her calling as an educator, the ways poetry fires the Christian imagination, and how poetic structures express ways the image of God is present in the lives of the people she encounters. Ream then asks Lee to explore the ways various poets and teachers nurtured her calling and helped her to see more in the world than that which materially resides before us. They close their conversation by exploring Lee’s understanding of the academic vocation and her hopes in the months and years to come in terms of the understanding of the academic vocation that unites educators serving the Wheaton community.

Diversity Matters: Race, Ethnicity, & the Future of Christian Higher Education Post

Diversity Matters is an important book—timely, sensitive, honest, challenging, yet hope-filled. The title Diversity Matters can be read as a rallying cry (subject-verb statement) and (as an adjective-noun phrase) as descriptions of how different schools and individuals have wrestled with racial, ethnic, and gender matters of inclusion, especially within PWIs (predominantly white institutions). Professor Longman…

“A Way of Living Excellence” ft. Villanova University’s Rev. Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A. I Saturdays at Seven – Season Two, Episode Five Post

In the fifth episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Rev. Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A., Professor of Theater and President of Villanova University. Donohue begins by discussing how academic excellence and Catholicity find a home in the Augustinian charisms that animate Villanova. He details how Augustine’s understanding of what it means to be human proves fundamental to how whole-person education not only fosters efforts focused on the heart and the mind but on the intersection of the two. Donohue then speaks about the influence of the Adrian Augustinians had on him as a young boy and how the sisters cultivated within him a calling for theater and the ministry. He addresses how those callings were cultivated during his undergraduate and graduate education and how they are woven together in terms of how he expresses his service to the Villanova community as its president. Ream and Donohue then explore the Augustinian dimensions of Villanova’s current strategic plan, “Rooted. Restless.” and how that plan fuels Villanova’s ongoing rise as a distinctively Augustinian and Catholic university. They close by discussing how the academic vocation has developed at Villanova over the course of its history, how it developed during Donohue’s tenure as Villanova’s president (now the longest of any president in Villanova’s history), and the ways the university continues to explore formative practices for educators that integrate teaching, service, and research in ways that benefit students, the Church, and society.

The Scandal of Required English Classes at Christian Universities Post

Every Christian university requires at least one English composition, writing, and/or literature class. Thus, one would think that someone reviewing those course descriptions would find considerable evidence demonstrating how Christianity relates to these basic courses. You would be wrong. We recently analyzed the required gen ed course descriptions at all Protestant and Catholic universities that…

Virtue, Trust, and Moral Agency in Business Post

Every business is a social structure. Critical realist sociology tells us that social structures influence the decisions that persons within them make by presenting restrictions (penalties for violating norms) and opportunities (rewards for taking up advantages offered), that frequently alter those nonetheless free decisions. Thus, a business can encourage or discourage virtuous decisions, and over…

“Where Language Can Lead” ft. McGill University’s Charles Taylor I Saturdays at Seven Ep. 36 Post

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.

How to Articulate and Incarnate Your Institution’s Christian Identity: Lessons from Australia Post

Developing a theologically-informed vision of excellence about any topic, such as Christian higher education, requires not only serious theological and empirical study but also two other important things: 1. Studying the topic’s history; 2. Making international comparisons. Regarding the latter, one of the wonderful things about doing international research in Christian higher education is that…

“Empowering People to Dream” ft. Gordon College’s Michael D. Hammond I Saturdays at Seven Ep. 28 Post

In the twenty-eighth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Michael D. Hammond, the President of Gordon College. Hammond opens by discussing his loyalties as an avid baseball fan and his experience of throwing out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game. He then discusses the discernment process he undertook and the critical role mentors played as he made the transition from a department chair to a dean, to a provost, and now to a president. Ream and Hammond discuss Hammond’s leadership style and how that style has contributed to the considerable rise in engagement and morale at Gordon even though morale and engagement have declined across higher education in recent years. They also talk about how that leadership style pays dividends during the season of political, social, and even religious fragmentation presently plaguing the United States. Ream and Hammond then close their conversation by exploring how the Christian academic vocation is understood and exercised at Gordon and the unique opportunities that come with its exercise in New England.

“The Beauty of the Church” ft. Duke University’s Edgardo Colón-Emeric I Saturdays at Seven Ep. 25 Post

In the twenty-fifth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Edgardo Colón-Emeric, the Irene and William McCutchen Professor of Reconciliation and Theology, the Director of the Center for Reconciliation, and Dean of the Divinity School at Duke University. Colón-Emeric opens by recounting how he was called to the ministry and how that calling eventually came to include service on the faculty at Duke University as well as providing theological education in El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Russia. Ream then asks Colón-Emeric to unpack his theological understanding of reconciliation, how that understanding was formed by his study of Óscar Romero, and how to discern the varied relationships reconciliation and culture share. They then close their conversation by discussing Colón-Emeric’s understanding of the Christian academic vocation, how such an understanding is expressed by the leadership he offers the Divinity School at Duke University, and the unique position the Divinity School has in cultivating a theological appreciation of the professions including medicine, law, and business.

Faith and AI on Film: Lessons for Christian Educators Post

It has been just over a year now since ChatGPT’s release, and the shock waves from that seismic event keep rippling through society at large. One means of measuring its impact on our collective imagination is by the number of notifications my faculty inbox has received for professional articles and workshops on generative AI, or…

“The Idea of a Spirit-Infused College:” A Response to Dale M. Coulter and Amos Yong Post

I tried to summarize faithfully The Holy Spirit and Higher Education, but as it is a co-authored, content-rich, 320-page treatise, that was a daunting task. Coulter and Yong have wonderfully provided their own summary—one that brings into focus aspects that I did not find a place for. Their reply deftly presents both the book’s tone…