Congregations, Neighborhoods, Places is “an attempt to think with congregations, particularly congregations in cities, about how social science can both help churches become more aware of themselves and of those who live around them” (19).Read more…
After the Election Part 2: Diversity and Unity this Thanksgiving Holiday
This election season has challenged and strained relationships. Nearly four-in-ten Americans report the election has led to tensions with friends and families. This Thanksgiving week, how can we reconcile and restore our relationships when we reunite with family and friends?Read more…
Summer Snapshot: The Discipline of Simplicity
Two years ago, my husband and I packed our two-bedroom townhouse into my parents’ garage and flew to the U.K. with two bags each. During our postgraduate studies, we lived in a 300 sq. ft. apartment and shared one three-feet-wide closet for a whole year. Aside from traveling and making friends from around the world, we learned a few unexpected lessons which we are trying to integrate into our lives this summer.Read more…
Journalism Notes: On-the-Job Training
I love the academy. I love having smart conversations with my colleagues and students. I love seeing young people’s eyes opened to new ideas and a critical perspective on all manner of topics and issues. I love seeing older students who return to school and find a new or refreshed love of learning. I am a vocal proponent of the enduring value of higher education for all who choose to pursue it.Read more…
Book Response: Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful
“Why? is the proper question with which to begin our exploration of the church’s teaching ministry” (20).Read more…
My Calling at Church (Liturgies of Calling, Post 4)
For beloved brothers and sisters, For faithful ministers and fellow servants of the Lord, For those who know our circumstances and comfort our hearts, For those who make known to us the works of God, We praise thee, O Lord.Read more…
Book Review: Is Your Lord Large Enough?
In “Is Your Lord Large Enough?”, Peter J. Schakel turns to the writing of C.S. Lewis on topics concerning the formation of Christians and provides a “digest” of Lewis’s writing around key topics drawn from his letters, fiction, and non-fiction books and essays. Read more…
Learning from our Brothers and Sisters after Charleston
The shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston is heavy on my heart because 10 years ago I, too, stepped into an AME church as a young white man. I didn’t know anyone there and was anxious about how I would be perceived. But the pastors and members showed me hospitality that forever changed my life.Read more…
How Can the Church Care for Academics? (Scholar’s Compass)
On Tuesday I wrote about how academics can support the church. Today I’d like to spend a little time reflecting on how the church can care for believers whose vocation is to study, research, and teach. Academics are part of Christ’s body, with a role to play, even as they celebrate the roles of others with very different vocations. Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Sir Gawain Seeks Christmas
One of my favourite Medieval, Middle-English poems (if you don’t have one you really should), is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It begins at a Christmas feast in King Arthur’s court. All are feasting and laughing when suddenly a giant of a man comes riding into the hall where the courtiers are feasting.Read more…
Bible-Believing Biblical Scholar, Part 2: Integrating Christian Faith and Biblical Scholarship (Scholar’s Compass)
Teachers have significant influence through what they say. There are at least two spheres in which this warning from James is important to me: the church and the classroom.Read more…
The Legacy of Kuyper
The sixth and concluding post in a series drawing from and interacting with Richard Mouw’s Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Eerdmans, 2011). Stay tuned for additional series by Dan Jesse applying Kuyper’s insights to our context in higher education. We mustRead more…
Kuyper on The Role of the Church
“Kuyper makes much of the fact that the Kingdom of Christ is much bigger than the institutional church.” (Mouw, 57) Read more…
Introducing Kuyper’s “Sphere Sovereignty”
Kuyper posited that there are multiple spheres of influence in life and they are all responsible for their own flourishing.Read more…
The Lure of Abraham Kuyper
Why Kuyper? Richard Mouw’s Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Eerdmans, 2011), in part, seeks to answer that question. Kuyper, according to Mouw, asked many of the questions that should be central for the Reformed church. The questions that motivatedRead more…
The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics — Ard Louis
Ard Louis[1] The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics (1/29/2012) from oxfordchristianmind (52 min, 52 sec). Description: What does our calling to be disciples of Christ mean for our academic vocation (whether temporary as students or longer term as a career)?Read more…
Book Review: Being Religious, American Style
Popular religiosity is a phenomenon of every culture. Popular religiosity is the personal, informal expressions of religious belief that flourish outside the structures of formal belief. And these have played an important role in American religious history, according to Charles H.Read more…
Book Review: Wisdom & Wonder
Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art, Abraham Kuyper, edited by Jordan J. Ballor and Stephen J. Grabill, Trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman, Christian’s Library Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011. ————– Wisdom & Wonder contains a new translation of chapters writtenRead more…
Book “Review”: The Cost of Discipleship
I’m not going to attempt to “review” such a classic work. Rather, I thought I would comment on what I thought were some striking themes in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (1937). One thing is the theme of unqualified obedienceRead more…
In God We Trust: A July 4th Conversation on the Historian’s Vocation & the Church
So, Wen, given the prevalence of the whole “Christian America” ideology in American churches today, what has been your experience in the church as a historian of American religion? How do you navigate conversations about America’s history in church? Read more…
Review: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Pittsburgh: Crown & Covenant Publications, 2012). 154 pp. Rosaria Butterfield is the kind of woman she herself once bitterly opposed. The homeschooling pastor’s wife and adoptive mother of four wasRead more…
The Myth of Sodom and Gomorrah
Homecomings for Christ-following secular university students may not always be perfectly sweet. The mellow look of sympathy from a friend or loved one is accompanied by the statement that “Now that you’re home, you can be with real Christian people.”Read more…
Success, Failure and the Protestant Work Ethic
Not long ago I wrote an Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) blog post about my experiences on the tenure track, sharing my concerns about whether I would get tenure and contemplating my priorities. I wanted to think through whether tenure even should beRead more…
Why I’m (Still) A Christian – Part I
In my last post, I expressed some surprise at the fact that I am still a Christian, and that was genuine. But at the same time, I also find it perfectly reasonable and rational to be a Christian. Which, asRead more…