In South Africa where I lived for many years, the basic “hello” greeting, sawubona, translates literally, “I see you.”Read more…
Lent: Frames of Reference and a Global Perspective (Scholar’s Compass)
Anthropologist Kevin Birth explores the church calendar in the second of a two part series.Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Lent and Easter’s Timing
Why does Easter happen when it does? Anthropologist Kevin Birth explores the church calendar in the first of a two part series. Read more…
Omri Elisha: The Moral Ambition of Evangelical Christians
Last year, I began a series reviewing academic perspectives on evangelical Christians, beginning with James Bielo’s Words Upon the Word and T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back. I’m picking up this series again with Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social OutreachRead more…
Evangelicals and Suffering (When God Talks Back)
Last week, in my discussion of what evangelicals can learn about themselves from T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back, I mentioned our approach to suffering. Originally, I wasn’t going to write another post on the book, but I wanted to comeRead more…
Talking Amongst Ourselves (When God Talks Back)
Last week, I shared a few lessons on talking with non-evangelicals that I had taken away from T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back. This week, I’m going in the opposite direction. What are some things that evangelicals need to doRead more…
Talking with Non-Evangelicals (When God Talks Back)
A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. As I mentioned then, please read Mark Noll’s review, which is much better than what I could have written.Read more…
When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann
For the past several weeks, I’ve been reading T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. The book addresses a simple, but profound, question from the perspective of a nonbeliever: how can seemingly rational, otherwise normal people claimRead more…
Bielo: Answering “Are you a Christian? Are you an academic?”
I’m currently reading Words Upon the Word by James S. Bielo, an ethnography of evangelical Bible study groups in Lansing, Michigan. Last week, I looked at Bielo’s introduction and the question of Bible study as a cultural institution. This week,Read more…
How Academics See Evangelicals: A Tentative Reading List
Last week, I asked for recommendations for resources on how academics view evangelical Christians. Thank you for all of your great suggestions! In addition to the comments on the blog, I received several more suggestions by email, as well asRead more…
What Do Academics Think of Evangelicals?
During the past few weeks, one of the darlings of the book review circuit has been T. M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Luhrmann, an anthropologist at Stanford, spent several years attending Vineyard ChurchesRead more…
What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life: Any Regrets?
This is the final post in Kevin Birth’s series, What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life. Previously: Departmental Politics, Teaching the Curriculum, The Tenure Track. It was one of those gloomy days when even a cup of coffee hadRead more…
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: The Tenure Track, Etc.
Ah springtime—the time of annual reviews of junior faculty. That time when tenured faculty give reassurance that somebody is well on their way to getting tenure. Or, more rarely, that time when the powers-that-be must be brutally honest with an untenured professor.Read more…
What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life: Teaching the Curriculum, Etc.
This is the second post in Kevin Birth’s series, What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life. Previously: Departmental Politics. HERR, mein Herz ist nicht hoffärtig, und meine Augen sind nicht stolz; ich wandle nicht in großen Dingen, die mir zu hochRead more…
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: Departmental Politics, Etc.
Our recent series What I Wish I’d Known About Graduate School has been one of our most popular series to date, and it almost immediately inspired this follow-up series, What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life. I am pleasedRead more…
Humanity Revisited
What Is Integration? began a quote series from Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective* (Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis, InterVarsity Press, 2009). Below’s a section from Chapter 1 where Spears and Loomis establish their understanding of biblicalRead more…
Week in Review: Big Questions Edition
Here’s the top five articles, books, websites, etc., that we’ve been reading or thinking about the past week. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the topRead more…
Field Research with Children
Inside Higher Ed spoke with anthropologists at a “Mothering (in) the Field” panel discussion at the recent American Anthropological Association annual meeting. The topic: how do they conduct their fieldwork and be mothers at the same time? It’s an interestingRead more…