This position piece from Sojourner’s Domestic Violence in the Bible series argues that Christians have a responsibility to address domestic violence in general and the well-being of women in particular. “Christians need to do a better job when it comes to preventing violence and abuse in our congregations and communities,” especially those Christians who are […]
Point and counter-point on the functions of God’s left-hand kingdom: two views from First Things: Can Civil Society Fix Us? More to the point, the writer wonders whether civil society as a disparate collection of communities can offer the same challenge to the expansive state that the imposing edifice of the medieval church did to the […]
In “The Supreme Court, 9-0, on student organizations’ ‘freedom to express the thought that we hate,’” UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh offers a perspective on students, free speech, and campus organizations. The Court “made clear that, while reasonable and viewpoint-neutral restrictions on student group membership policies are constitutional, viewpoint-based restrictions on student group speech are unconstitutional.” (Some […]
This essay, “Hope in a Jar,” asks, Why would a brand see theological language as rich ground for advertising? Perhaps because theology and advertising share the same root: desire. Theology is mediated to us through our everyday encounters with consumer products. The theological is right there in the everyday, staring at us in the labels on […]
Welcome to the first global Christian hackathon, where programmers speak of transformational love and pastors wield code. In 13 cities, 800 Christian coders, developers, programmers, designers, pastors, and artists gathered together for a 48-hour simultaneous hackathon. They scripted, designed, collaborated, and competed to develop new apps and websites for global and local adherents to the […]
How do the students in our classrooms today make sense or nonsense out of sex? This nine paragraph essay, “Sex and Tradition” by Peter Leithart, sets out a polemic for which they will need a little background and assistance to sort out. But a session or two will enable them to consider this theme’s cultural […]
In his essay, “Ghosts in the Secular Age,” Ross Douthat proposes three variations for the future of secularism: 1) one worldview among many; 2) a buffered, perceptually closed mindset; 3) the privatization of the spiritual. The article can be used in courses in modern history, philosophy, sociology, church and society, world religions, psychology, and systematic […]
From LiveScience, this brief article about evolutionary psychology and religion serves as a convenient inventory of the usual and now popularized claims about the human origins of religion. Links to sources are also included. The brief article can be used to introduce students to these ideas often cited in the popular press, then follow that […]
The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution by John Compton (Harvard Univ Press, 2014) argues for a revisionist view that nineteenth-century evangelical Protestants, not New Deal reformers, paved the way for the most important constitutional developments of the twentieth century. Says reviewer David Skeel: “A ‘living constitution’ is not tethered to the Founding Fathers’ intent or the literal […]
This review of Tales of the Ex-Apes: How We Think About Human Evolution by biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks (Univ. of Calif. Press, 2015), can assist students with the discussions about human nature in the current terms of biological anthropology, human exceptionalism, and the cultural determinism of scientific terms and ideas. Says Marks: “My point is precisely that nobody can […]
