Some Christian students in the sciences may encounter apparent tensions at the interface of science and religion, resulting in struggle, doubt, or loss of faith. While the content of these tensions is often addressed in the classroom, the experiential process of struggle is not often addressed. The goal of this paper is to explore two…
We cannot count on academics to study the most important realities in our lives (versus the latest academic fad). Motherhood is one of those important realities. Noble Laureate and University of Chicago economist James J. Heckman recently made this astounding observation, “[W]hat we don’t have—and to me, it’s an amazing deficiency—we don’t any good economic…
Readers of CSR and these blogs are likely familiar with the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) and its mission. If not, or if it’s been a while, I’d like to give you an introduction or an update. I have been a member of the ASA since, well…a long time. I am a Fellow, past Executive Council…
Reviewed by Matthew J. Milliner, Art, Wheaton College What is “theology and art,” this hybrid category of inquiry that has sprung up like bamboo in and across neatly divided academic plots? Should it be categorized as art practice, art history or musicology, philosophy, theology, or something different still? Whatever the answer (and there may not…
Reviewed by Stephen N. Bretsen, Business and Economics, Wheaton College The cover art on Andrew Skotnicki’s book The Last Judgment: Christian Ethics in a Legal Culture is disconcerting. The simple black and white drawing, called Judge Jesus by Mike Gregg, depicts a hollow-eyed Jesus with a beard and long hair bearing the crown of thorns…
A Christian liberal arts education should undermine certitude: something I learned from Dorothy L. Sayers, whose twelve radio plays about Jesus were so cherished by C. S. Lewis that he read them every year until he died. In my new book, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers (Broadleaf 2020), I recount how…
In a global digital culture of influencers, followers, and attention-deficit disorders, mimetic theory helps show that imitation shapes much more of human behavior than once thought and that even desire is mimetic. People want what they see others wanting, which often means conflict. It is an idea with complex implications, but its kernel is simple…
This collaboration between a social work researcher with expertise in systems of care for those with disabilities and a literary scholar asks whether mimetic theory can shed light on relational dynamics surrounding children with intellectual disabilities. Data came from two sources: field experience with organizations in China and interviews with stakeholders of organizations in Michigan….
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. I argued, following St. Augustine’s claim that virtue is the right “ordering of our loves,” that winning in sport could be loved, as long as it wasn’t loved more than…
During the pandemic, my wife and I often take extended walks around our neighborhood. During one particular walk, we waved to a man and his daughter (must have been around 4 or 5 years old) playing in front of their house, and the man returned the gesture. Immediately after this exchange, his daughter said to…
Matthew 5: Be Complete, Not Perfect I always begin my Humanities Philosophy course by discussing Matthew 5:43–48. In this provocative passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus delivers the most demanding moral command ever uttered: love your enemy. You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell…
According to Big Bang cosmology, time began at the moment of creation, along with energy, matter and space as constrained by the elegant equation E=mc2. Twentieth century astrophysicists quantified the expanse and duration of the cosmos. However, geologists were ahead of them on the duration thing by introducing the concept of deep time in the…
Dear friends, I have decided to stop using the online test monitoring system. I had felt conflicted about it throughout the semester last fall, because I was not convinced that it would prevent cheating and suspected it could worsen equity issues. Now I am finally abandoning it because it is bad for my soul and erodes…
In the first weeks of 2021, during what were (please God) the deadliest days of the pandemic, a theoretical modeling study was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet. Behind the confidence intervals and bewildering acronyms is a testimony of God at work, bringing life and life flourishing where otherwise death and isolation would…
Landscape view of Salsberry Peak in the Pahrump Hills region, Gale Crater, Mars. Inset: Curiosity Rover “selfie.” Credit: NASA Part 1. Full speed ahead 2021 will be a busy year for space exploration and commerce with the promise of great advances in science and technology. NASA Highlights will include landing the Mars Perseverance Rover and…
Editor’s Note: Due to the recent social media conversation about forgiving student debt, we thought it would be timely to reprint this earlier CSR blog post about this topic. Thanks–PLG “Just do it.” That was not the mantra of Nike being repeated in a recent Inside Higher Education article; it was the advice of a…
Einstein once wrote: “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand in rapt awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle….
It is now 50 years since Robert Greenleaf coined the term “Servant Leadership” in his groundbreaking essay, The Servant as a Leader. In a break from command and control strategies of the past, Greenleaf’s leadership theory required that a leader must be a servant first and a leader second. Unlike task-focused leaders, a Servant Leader must focus…
I have been thinking about academic titles this past semester (as is evident from my blog post at the beginning of the academic year and my Ph.D. student’s post yesterday about his experience of my experiment). How fitting, then that the semester should end with the twitter-stirring controversy sparked by an op-ed about the academic…
One of the first questions I ask students in my Christian Legal Thought seminar is what they expect Christianity might have to say about law. A common answer is that Christian teaching can provide guidance about what the legal rules should be. Many of my students have been taught the importance of having a Christian…
