Editor's Note: As we begin a new semester, ESN seeks to support Christian scholars seeking to act justly as teachers and researchers. Later in January, we plan to post a longer reflection by a friend of ESN who is giving deep thought to these issues. As the semester starts, ESN writer Katelin Hansen makes some reading and teaching suggestions. As we continue to process last year's heartbreaking news stories, Christians on academic campuses can play an important role in the ongoing process of lament and reform … [Read more...] about After Ferguson: Seeking Justice as the Semester Starts
justice
Book Review: The Cross and Gendercide
The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls By Elizabeth Gerhardt My rating: 4 of 5 stars There is a war going on that knows no national borders or physical territories. It is a war that occurs in clinics, ritual ceremonies, sweatshops and brothels, college campuses and religious homes. It is a war against half of the planet's population. It is the war against women. One manifestation of this war is that there is not a woman I know who feels safe walking alone … [Read more...] about Book Review: The Cross and Gendercide
Book Review: Birmingham Revolution
Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Epic Challenge to the Church By Edward Gilbreath My rating: 4 of 5 stars Solitary confinement in prison can be a shattering psychological experience, one often used to break the spirit of those imprisoned. For Martin Luther King, Jr., solitary confinement served not only to further forge the character of this civil rights leader, but resulted in one of the signature documents of the civil rights movement, indeed, one of the most important human rights … [Read more...] about Book Review: Birmingham Revolution
Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part II
In Part I, I explored what Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford) will share at the upcoming Midwest Faculty Conference: Fruitful, Faithful Presence: Living Theologically in the Midst of the Academy (Cedar Campus, MI, 6/22-28).* Although the conference (or what some have termed a Confamication**) will provide an opportunity for Padgett to develop his thoughts on Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy, he has a significant amount of work in theology involving systematic theology, moral theology (ethics), and the … [Read more...] about Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy: Part II
Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace
In watching people die, I have come to better appreciate how much meaning people attach to a body and how death has a way of revealing our most elemental beliefs about what remains. I have talked to patients in their final moments, have shoved long needles into pulseless vessels, have held the hands of weeping mothers and wives and sons, have electrified bodies on hallway floors, have carried severed limbs and have watched blood and vomit and blood fly through the air during final resuscitation attempts. I have stayed … [Read more...] about Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace