David I. Smith is the Director of Graduate Studies in Education and the Director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College. Lamenting divisions between theory and practice, theology and education, and the academy and the church, the editors of a recent volume on the Christian university comment wryly in their…
It is by now cliché to point out that contemporary culture is saturated with mediated images. Since Marshall McLuhan, it has also become increasingly commonplace to assume that this diverse profusion of images has replaced nature as the primary environment in which we live, move, and have our being. Such an overwhelming omnipresence of media…
Jack Mulder Jr. is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Hope College. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes the following about controversies surrounding the Blessed Virgin Mary: …there is no controversy between Christians which needs to be so delicately touched as this. The Roman Catholic beliefs on that subject…
The 2005 publication of a comparison of the chimpanzee genome and the human genome revealed overwhelming evidence of common ancestry for human beings and other primates. For Christians trained in genetics and genomics, it also provided the most substantial challenge to date to the historicity of Adam. Until that time, many believers who study science…
The tradition and legacy of Dutch theologian, politician, and journalist (and more) Abraham Kuyper and his theologian colleague Herman Bavinck have been often regarded as the special or narrow object of interest of those associated with denominations and institutions with roots in the Netherlands. Craig G. Bartholomew has written Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition with…
In his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, the eighteenth-century founder of Methodism, John Wesley, strove for biblical commentary that penetrated deeply yet remained concise and clear. Discontent with mere intellectual insights, Wesley yearned to assist the “learned and unlearned” to understand better God’s ways so that they would progress in joy and character development…
When neighborhoods gentrify, residents can be physically displaced as well as psychologically displaced. This psychological displacement can occur even if the resident is not physically displaced. In this article, Keith E. Starkenburg and Mackenzi Huyser explore the significant impact that neighborhood changes have on one’s attachment to place as expressed through the concept of Christian…
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…
This paper by Dennis L. Sansom examines and compares the ideas about the nature of the self in the twelfth-century theologian St. Peter of Damaskos and the twenty-first-century philosopher Richard Rorty. Peter understands the self as a flexible reality defined by a person’s ability to orient intentions, desires, and beliefs toward ever increasingly important ontological…
Robert Boyd is a professor at Fresno City College, where he has taught philosophy and theology of religions since 1996. While Boyd has maintained his primary interest in the field of critical reasoning, much of his current research deals with issues connected to the philosophy and theology of religions. He recently published two impressive volumes…
Both science fiction (SF) and science fiction criticism offer great possibilities for rigorous examination of our ethical assumptions and cultural presuppositions. In his essay, Joshua Matthews argues that Christian literary criticism and pedagogy can benefit from integrating SF into our scholarly activities and our classrooms. Although SF academic criticism tends to downplay religion and theology,…
The year 2018 marks two milestone anniversaries: the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Samuel Huntington’s original “Clash of Civilizations” essay in Foreign Affairs and the seventeenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After those attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Huntington’s predictions of Muslim-Western clashes appeared vindicated. But his…
In Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters, Christian Smith proposes an insightful theory of religion, differentiating between the nature of religion itself and the various effects of religion. Seeking such differentiation, the complex and overlapping relationship between an ontological understanding of religion and religion’s practical effects and impacts in and…
How is the presence of ubiquitous personal technological devices shaping human development and interpersonal relations? How might persons navigate this technological revolution in a way that deepens and enlivens personal development, relationships, and experience rather than truncates or diverts them? What does it mean to reflect Christianly about how people relate to technology? What spiritual…
Reviewed by Emily S. Bosscher, First Year Experience, Trinity Christian College Over the past five years, the student population on college campuses has changed. Current students are equal parts less ready for college and adulthood but highly empathetic toward others around them, indecisive and yet yearning for mentoring relationships, filled with anxiety and the fear…
For well over twenty years, Christian scholars and educators of various disciplines have been engaged in an examination of the nature of Christian and secular higher education. Much of that reflection with regard to the North American context in particular has turned on one of two types of examinations. The first type is comprised of a…
One of the primary things we learn about God in the Bible is that he is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; any reference to the Holy Spirit). Moreover, we learn that as image bearers of God, we are to exhibit God’s character by being holy as well (Lev. 11:45; I Peter 1:15-16). Yet, holiness is a…
Hunter’s overall point is well taken, though: new efforts at undergirding democracy became more focused on reason (internally derived ideas) or on natural law (externally derived absolutes), and less so an amalgamation of the two, feeding eventually into a culture war. For instance, John Dewey had great faith in our capacity to reason our way…
Like so many, I have recently enjoyed the benefits of the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Raising teenagers in a technological world has been complicated, but AI has helped my husband and me monitor our teens’ phone and text use by providing red flags for things like bullying, depression, and anxiety, while still allowing them…
Things that Smell Good When we think of good smells, we imagine things like freshly baked bread. Particular good smells can evoke fond memories. Babies heads have a pleasant smell about them. Perhaps you’ve known a child who didn’t want his or her “blankey” washed, because they didn’t want the comforting smell of it to…
