A Slippery Slope to Secularization? An Empirical Analysis of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universitities Post

In this essay, Samuel Joeckel and Thomas Chesnes explore whether secularization threatens institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Employing a 2007 survey, they show that, though vigilance should still be exercised, these institutions are hardly descending a slippery slope to secularization. The second part of the essay argues that overzealous vigilance…

Critical Thinking or Just Critical?: Reintroducing Humility to the Literature Classroom Post

In this essay Heidi Oberholtzer Lee argues that we need to teach and model in our classrooms the importance of reading with humility. This serves as a corrective to the promotion of reading strategies that primarily emphasize negativity and scorn, strategies that have been popularized by misapplications of Paul Ricoeur ’s “hermeneutic of suspicion.” More…

Converting the Gaze: From Gazing to Seeing in Richard Wilbur’s “The Eye” Post

This paper draws on aspects of Jean-Luc Marion’s account of “saturated phenomena” to explain Richard Wilbur’s poem “The Eye.” In Being Given and elsewhere, Marion contrasts “seeing,” a mode of perception hospitable to the alterity of the human other, with “gazing,” a mode of perception that presumes to control the other. The paper argues that…

Science and Religion: Introducing the Issues, Entering the Debates—A Review Essay Post

Introduction What is occurring at the interface between religion and science is more important than ever before. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which are the ever-escalating culture wars pitting creationists on the one hand against evolutionists on the other. Evangelicals often find themselves caught in the middle, albeit…

“For the Sake of this One, God hasPatience with the Many”: Czeslaw Milosz and Karl Barth on God’s Patience, the Incarnation, and the Possibility of Belief Post

In this paper, David Lauber proposes that a Christocentric conception of God’s patience with the world provides needed guidance in a Christian navigation of the darkness of the current secular age. Lauber uses the recent work of philosopher Charles Taylor, who characterizes the dark homelessness of this secular age. He also looks to the poetry…

Free to be Muslim-Americans: Community, Gender, and Identity in Once in a Promised Land, The Taqwacores, and The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf Post

When we hear that local Muslims have perpetrated terrorist attacks, many Americans worry whether the “strangers in our midst” will assimilate and become Muslim-Americans. Barbara J. Hampton argues that an examination of the themes of community, gender, and identity in three American novels written by Muslims can relieve the worst of our anxieties. The characters…

Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft Post

Francis Beckwith’s volume of the Christian Worldview Integration Series has much to offer the undergraduate student or novice newly considering the relation of faith and politics. The text’s subtitle indicates Beckwith’s Aristotelian assumption that “man is by nature a political animal.” Contrary to some theological interpretations which might discourage the faithful from political thought and…

Authentic Communication: Christian Speech Engaging Culture Post

It is the perennial discussion topic at Christian university faculty workshops and seminars. It is the seemingly-elusive goal of the Christian college classroom. It is the subject of concern among education policy experts and educational philosophers. Simply stated, the questions raised by those interested in the integration of Christian faith and learning are nowhere near…

The Soul of the American University Refreshed Post

Philip Ryken is the President of Wheaton College, where he has served since 2010. The author or editor of more than fifty Bible commentaries and other books, Dr. Ryken provides leadership on the boards of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and the National Assocation of Evangelicals (NAE). He was recently appointed as…

Reflection on Gillis Harp’s “Reconsidering the Liberal Captivity of American Evangelicalism” Post

Tom Lehman is Professor of Economics at Indiana Wesleyan University. Gillis Harp’s “Reconsidering the Liberal Captivity of American Evangelicalism,” Christian Scholar’s Review 41:1 (Fall 2011): 51-66, touching on traditionalist versus classical liberal themes in early American evangelicalism, is provocative, and as an economist I noted several areas of agreement. However, I also wish to express…

The Image in Mind: Theism, Naturalism, and the Imagination Post

Reviewed by David A. Hoekema, Philosophy, Calvin College “In spite of the indispensable use of images in our yearning to make sense of reality, there has not been sufficient attention to the aesthetic in the debate between theism and naturalism” (3). This opening comment conveys the motivation for a wide-ranging and provocative book by a…

Risk and Responsibility in Global Environmental Governance Post

The fundamental problems of global environmental governance are scarcity (a relative lack of resources with which to satisfy our relatively abundant goals), tragedy (the necessity of choosing between competing goods or rights, a corollary of scarcity), and risk (a measure of the likelihood of a tragic outcome). This article by Noah Toly examines the origins…

The Image in Mind Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination Post

Reviewed by David A. Hoekema, Philosophy, Calvin College “In spite of the indispensable use of images in our yearning to make sense of reality, there has not been sufficient attention to the aesthetic in the debate between theism and naturalism” (3). This opening comment conveys the motivation for a wide-ranging and provocative book by a…

Changing Faces on Freedom of Religion or Belief Post

A mere four years – something of a lifetime – ago, the Berkley Center asked many scholars and activists to offer advice for the new administration of President Trump. At the time, I argued that the new administration needed to leverage its multilateral assets: that freedom of religion or belief needed American leadership, but that…

From Memory to Imagination— A Review Essay Post

Steven R. Guthrie is Associate Professor of Religion at Belmont University. We have reached a decisive moment in Western culture, a moment of monumental consequence, for the church generally and for its practice of music specifically. This claim is at the heart of C. Randall Bradley’s From Memory to Imagination: Reforming the Church’s Music. Bradley…

“A Medium for Meeting God”: C. S. Lewis and Music (Especially Wagner) Post

This essay will survey Lewis’s writings and outline the development of his aesthetic ideas in relation to music, emphasizing his enjoyment of Wagner and explaining nuanced references to Wagner throughout Lewis’s works. Moreover, this essay will describe how Lewis’s ideas about God advanced in counterpoint to his ideas about music and how Lewis eventually came…

Determining the Truth of Abuse in Mission Communities: A Rejoinder and New Agenda Post

A previous article, “Christian Communities and ‘Recovered Memories’ of Abuse” (CSR 41.4 [2012]: 381-400) by Robert J. Priest and Esther E. Cordill, examines the problem of individuals wrongfully found to have committed abuse against minors in a mission context. However, James Evinger and Rich Darr argue the article erroneously describes the methodology of one denomination’s…

Gratitude: An Intellectual History Post

Reviewed by Kelly M. Kapic, Theological Studies, Covenant College How should one react to the following claims? “Jesus was an ingrate” (68); or “‘ingratitude’ is one of Christianity’s great contributions to Western civilization, precisely the contribution Christianity made to the formation of modernity” (225). Such lines, scattered through this volume, may strike the reader as…