Twentieth century English composer Benjamin Britten demonstrated an unusual capacity to evoke transcendent dimensions of reality. In this essay David A. Hoekema argues that certain works for accompanied solo voices and some non-operatic stage works achieve an intensity of musical and emotional expression that seem to encompass both divine and human realms. Examples of this…
Christians have been active in philosophy of mathematics in recent years, but Steven D. Boyer and Walter B. Huddell III argue that the classical work of Augustine of Hippo in this field has been largely misunderstood or distorted even by its supposed advocates. This essay corrects that distortion and shows how the traditional Augustinian awareness…
Scott Waalkes is Professor of Political Science at Malone University. Introduction Whatever happened to nuclear weapons? Once a regular feature of popular culture and news coverage, they seem to have disappeared. News junkies born before the mid-1970s will easily recall controversies surrounding the novel On the Beach, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film Dr. Strangelove,…
The survivors of the first atomic bomb used in war, which was dropped in Hiroshima, have been telling their survival stories for many decades. Many of them have found that telling their experiences is empowering, as it gives them a purpose to live and allows them to share their knowledge worldwide with people of all…
Reviewed by Karen D. Youmans, University Honors Program, Oklahoma City University The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) of Jacobus de Voragine, while not always revered for its artistry, stands unquestioned as one of the single most influential literary works of the late medieval period. Completed sometime between 1260 and 1298, the year of the Dominican friar’s…
Reviewed by Andrew F. Bush, Missiology and Anthropology, Eastern University Can the global Christian community, divided by its thousands of denominations and regional trends while also challenged by the increased vigor of other religions, be a source of healing to a world wracked by war, poverty, disease, and injustice? This daunting question is the basis…
Wendell Berry’s agrarian vision challenges the disintegrated, industrial model of higher education that prevails in our culture. Berry’s hope for the recovery of the university rests upon three requirements: an imagination guided by a unified organization of knowledge; a common, communal language; and responsible work. A university that embodies and unites these three principles might…
Reviewed by Chan Woong Shin, Social Sciences, Indiana Wesleyan University Ani Sarkissian’s new book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on religion and politics in general and religious freedom and repression in particular. As Sarkissian argues, existing works have mostly focused on either the place of religion in democratic regimes or more severe…
Reviewed by João Chaves, Religion, Baylor University and Baptist University of the Américas The accented Jesús presented by Miguel De La Torre is at odds with what De La Torre calls the Euroamerican Jesus. Jesús is not on board with versions of the white, middle-class, American dream that are usually dependent on capitalist commitments either…
Reviewed by P. C. Kemeny, Biblical and Religious Studies, Grove City College Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, is a prolific scholar. His works span a wide range of topics, including liberation theology…
Jordan J. Ballor is a research fellow at the Acton Institute and serves as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary. “We have been so buffeted by international hatred, so discomfited by an almost masochistic domestic…
Reviewed by Christopher A. Franks, Religion and Philosophy, High Point University This is quite simply one of the most helpful books on Aquinas I have ever read. It does so many things well. It gives a compelling historical reconstruction of Aquinas. It shows the immense resources Aquinas offers for contemporary theologizing. And it demonstrates, practically…
Christian Smith considers it “too narrow and exacting” to require that Christian scholarship seek to “weav[e] science and theology integrally together.” I, on the other hand, consider that to be the sine qua non of scholarship that is Christian. I am not suggesting that every individual work of Christian scholarship needs to articulate theological or…
During the last two decades, Craig Bartholomew has authored and edited an impressive number of volumes covering a wide range of subjects (550-551). A partial topical list includes the Bible’s unified story (The Drama of Scripture, 2004, co-authored with Michael Goheen), Christian worldview (Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview, 2008), the book…
When challenged in Luke 10 by a cheeky expert in Mosaic law who asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus turns the question back on his interlocutor and inquires what the Jewish scriptures say. The scholar can easily rehearse the formula found in the Torah: love God, and love your neighbor as…
Todd C. Ream is Professor of Higher Education, Taylor University, and Distinguished Fellow, Excelsia College. By almost any measure, Theodore Martin Hesburgh, C.S.C. (May 25, 1917 –February 26, 2015) was among the greatest university presidents of the twentieth century. Some historians may even go so far as to argue Hesburgh stands amongst the greatest university…
Reviewed by James S. Spiegel, Philosophy and Religion, Taylor University A long-standing criticism of open theism—at least since the emergence of the movement in the 1990s—is its failure to adequately account for God’s permission of evil. Why would God refrain from stopping rapes, murders, and child abuse when he could easily do so? The standard…
Reviewed by David Brodnax, Sr., History, Trinity Christian College “The American founders read the Bible” (1). This first line in Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers aptly summarizes Daniel L. Dreisbach’s exploration of the Christian scriptures’ theological, literary, and rhetorical impact on the people who created American democracy. With this historical work, Dreisbach, a…
Reviewed by Lenore M. Knight Johnson, Sociology, Trinity Christian College Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, best known for her explorations into the intersections of work, family, and personal life, departs from her previous work and dives into the world of American political divisions in her most recent book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning…
Since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, critics have charged that the principle of sola Scriptura has brought about “anarchy” in the life of the church. Scholars across the theological spectrum have taken on the Reformation, noting what they see as the empirical reality of “pervasive interpretative pluralism” (Christian Smith) or “unintended consequences” (Brad Gregory)….
