Reviewed by W. Brian Shelton, Historical Theology, Toccoa Falls College Unbeknownst to many, a liberal arts curriculum consisting of the trivium and the quadrivium did not exist in antiquity. This was instead a medieval development, owing its pedigree to antiquity and in large part to Augustine, who set out immediately after his conversion to solidify…
Reviewed by Bernadette Waterman Ward, Literature, University of Dallas Susan Colón’s concise, clear book argues that Victorian realism is particularly fertile ground for parables and thus undercuts many common presumptions in literary studies. Her opening chapters are theoretical, dealing first with creating a working definition of parables and secondly with dismantling some illusions about the…
Reviewed by Crystal Downing, English and Film Studies, Messiah College Several years ago I began a book review with these words: “Movies can elicit profound, sometimes dismaying, reflections about the reciprocal influence between religion and society, faith and culture, belief and behavior. Rarely, however, do filmgoers consider the influence of religion on the production of…
Stephen C. Johnson is Dean, Honors College, at Abilene Christian University. Jason M. Morris is Associate Dean, Honors College, at Abilene Christian University. Kristina M. Davis is Assistant Professor of Honors Studies and Communication at Abilene Christian University. Jeffrey O. Haseltine is Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, and Associate Dean, College of Education…
What does it mean to do Christian higher education in global context? More specifically, what does this entail for specifically evangelical projects in higher education? Part of the answer to this question involves engaging in dialogue with non-Western traditions of education. This essay by Amos Yong is motivated by the challenges and possibilities attending such…
In this article, we will attempt to build a multi-dimensional vision of rehabilitation, based in Christian understandings of human nature, redemption, and community. By first exploring what rehabilitation means and why it is important, we will then survey three models of restoration and rehabilitation which can be instituted as programs offered within the incarceration system…
Reviewed by Craig Hinnenkamp, Global Commerce and Management, Whitworth University An increasing number of writers in both Christian and secular journals are calling for a fundamental change in the basic orientation and purpose of business. Articulated from a faith-based perspective, J. Van Duzer et al. proposes the purpose of business is to serve God through…
Reviewed by Thomas Trzyna, English, Seattle Pacific University Christian Scholar’s Review is a generalist journal, so the purpose of this review, above all, should be to recommend the poetry of one of the twentieth century’s most talented poets, W. H. Auden. Auden had the musical and compositional skills of Robert Frost and W. B. Yeats,…
Reviewed by Kimberly Carmichael Thornbury, Senior Vice President for Student Services and Dean of Students, Union University Higher education faces ongoing major challenges including student access and affordability, massive budget constraints, and a race to find innovative ways to deliver educational products through online platforms. Christian higher education faces additional attacks, primarily issues of religious…
Eric Miller is Professor of History and Humanities at Geneva College. The penultimate track of the CD that accompanies Ken Burns’ 1994 film Baseball features the actor Amy Madigan reading a quotation from The Sporting News. “Great is baseball,” she intones. “The national tonic. The revival of hope. The restorer of confidence.” Madigan starred opposite…
Despite nearly fifty years since structural changes predicated the “model minority thesis” and “culture of poverty” arguments, these beliefs continue to be employed as cultural abstractions. Henry H. Kim elucidates how these concepts emerged in the 1960s and re- emerged in the twenty-first century and critiques these beliefs via historical sociology. A modified version of…
Reviewed by Philip D. Byers, Graduate Student in History, Washington University in St. Louis For the latter half of the twentieth century, the ubiquity of the word “evangelical” in common parlance bore little correlation to the degree to which social commentators and water-cooler politicos actually understood the movement. Thankfully, diligent work by a generation of…
Reviewed by Rachel Pietka, English, Baylor University Literature and Theology: New Interdisciplinary Spaces takes its place among other similar projects that have been published in the last few years: Finding a Common Thread: Understanding Great Texts from Homer to O’Connor (2013), Hard Sayings: The Rhetoric of Christian Orthodoxy in Late Modern Fiction (2013), Between Truth…
Jeffrey P. Bouman is the Director of the Service-Learning Center at Calvin College. My neighbor Don strolled by my house one early evening last June while I was out front in my urban neighborhood, reading the newspaper. We shot the breeze, talked about meeting new neighbors, the weather, the ethics of drone strikes, and Don’s…
As a biblical studies professor at a Reformed, liberal arts college, David Crump has observed the tendency for Reformed folk to allow debates over confessional interpretations to stand in place of a robust engagement with Scripture. Crump’s own denomination requires all church leaders, including college faculty, to sign a pledge called the “Covenant for Officebearers,”…
Reviewed by Nicholas Kerton-Johnson, Political Science and International Relations, Taylor University Os Guinness is a prolific writer and commentator and in his latest book he also takes on the mantle of prophet, a point noted by William Inboden in his support for the book. Indeed, Guinness issues a powerful prophetic statement: that the freedom of…
Trisha Posey is Director of the Honors Scholars Program and Associate Professor of History at John Brown University. In May 2013, I was part of a group of faculty from John Brown and Cornerstone Universities that visited Uganda Christian University (UCU) in Mukono, Uganda to participate in workshops on the integration of faith, learning, and…
Steven McMullen notes that in recent years, a number of theologians and philosophers, following John Milbank, have drawn on continental post-modern philosophy to form a critique of capitalism and modern economics. Often called the “Radical Orthodoxy” movement, these scholars argue that the problems with capitalism lie not with its results, but its underlying metaphysics and…
Reviewed by David Lyle Jeffrey, Literature and the Humanities, Baylor University Anyone who has read so much as one of her many books knows that Michelle P. Brown, Curator Emerita of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies and History of the Book at the University of London, is no…
Reviewed by Steven McMullen, Economics, Management and Accounting, Hope College There are a cluster of interesting questions at the intersection of Christianity and economics, some of which go to the core of the disciplines of economics and theology. What is economic justice? How should Christians approach poverty? What is the role of the Church in…
