Jack Levison on “What I Learned from a Master Teacher.”

In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day, this article from Jack Levison, Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University, recalls the author’s introduction to masterful teaching.  Read his “What I Learned from a Master Teacher,” published in Levison’s blog at Huffpost, here.

Posted by Joe Creech

Interview with Scott Korb, Author of Light Without Fire: The Making of America’s First Muslim College

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Libby Nelson interviews Scott Korb, Author of Light Without Fire: The Making of America’s First Muslim College.  This is a fascinating look at Zaytuna College, which opened its doors in Fall, 2010.  Read more here.

Posted by Joe Creech

God-Talk; or what’s going on over at feminismxianity this morning

I just read Caryn Riswold’s latest post over at her blog on Patheos, Feminismxianity.  Caryn discusses her use of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple in her Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies.  Caryn is using a novel to get at race, class, and gender, but also considering religion. Here we can consider religion as Church and as personal faith.  Caryn identifies how:

Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize winning novel reflects and encapsulates so many of the issues we have been learning about and discussing throughout the semester, from the intersection of race, class, and gender, to the pervasiveness of violence against women, to the complicated role that institutions like religion play in reinforcing inequality as well as becoming sources of empowerment.

I always tell students that I think the single best piece of theology in all of American literature is found in Celie’s letter that starts out, “Dear Nettie, I don’t write to God no more.  I write to you.”  The conversation between Shug and Celie that follows is mere brilliance.

Check out Caryn’s post to find out why she identifies this passage as “mere brilliance.”   As you know, we do enjoy reading and sharing good teaching practices around here and Caryn’s excellent post gives something definitely worth passing along.

Winter 2013 Issue of Christian Scholar’s Review

Christian Scholar’s Review has posted its most recent addition here.  Below is the new Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Christian Scholar’s Review
Volume XLII, Number 2 (Spring 2013)

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CHARLES J. MILLER CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR’S AWARD

ARTICLES

• Miguel A. Endara - Natural Law, Sexual Anthropology, and Sexual Licitness [Abstract]
• Tobias Alecio Mattei - Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology Insights into the Classical Theological Debate about Free Will and Responsibility [Abstract]
• Martin Spence - John Foster and the Integration of Faith and Learning [Abstract]

REVIEW ESSAY

• Amos Yong - Whence and Whither in Evangelical Higher Education? Dispatches from a Shifting Frontier—A Review Essay [Abstract]

REVIEW AND RESPONSE

• Jacob L. Goodson and Quinn T. McDowell - The Church for the World—A Review Essay [Abstract]

• Jennifer M. McBride - Response to Review of The Church for the World [Abstract]

REVIEWS

• Alexei Nesteruk, The Universe as Communion: Towards a Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Theology and Science Reviewed by Shaun C. Henson, Theology and Religion, University of Oxford

• Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts
  Reviewed by Louis Markos, English, Houston Baptist University

• Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
  Reviewed by Edward C. Polson, Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Messiah College

• Charles Taliaferro and Jil Evans, The Image in Mind: Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination
  Reviewed by David A. Hoekema, Philosophy, Calvin College

• Robert Sirico, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy
  Reviewed by Tom Lehman, Economics, Indiana Wesleyan University

• Charles E. Farhadian, ed., Introducing World Christianity
  Reviewed by George F. Pickens, Theology and Mission, Messiah College

• Amanda Rose, Showdown in the Sonoran Desert: Religion, Law, and the Immigration Controversy
  Reviewed by Carl A. Ruby, Student Life, Cedarville University

• Caroline J. Simon, Bringing Sex into Focus: The Quest for Sexual Integrity
  Reviewed by Benjamin B. DeVan, Ethics and Theology, Durham University

Posted by Joe Creech

The Easter 2013 Cresset: The Lilly Issue

Each year, The Cresset: A Review of Literature, the Arts, and Public Affairs features the papers given at the Lilly Fellows Program’s annual National Conference.  Last fall, we met at the University of Indianapolis for this conference and the theme of it was “Incorporating Service: The Body at Work.”  The speakers were Samuel Wells, Jeffrey P. Bouman, and Regina Wentzel Wolfe.  The Revd. Dr. Wells, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, is currently Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Visiting Professor at King’s College in London, England.  Professor Bouman is Director of the Service-Learning Center at Calvin College.  Professor Wolfe is Associate Professor of Catholic Theological Ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a Wicklander Senior Fellow at the Institute of Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University.

Check out the Easter Issue and read these wonderful talks given at the national conference.  Then continue and read editor James Paul Old’s piece on students from Valparaiso University who make service trips to “Detroit, the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and Harvey, Illinois…[i]nstead of playing with Frisbees on the beach” on their spring break.    Don’t stop there; keep reading The Cresset and the reviews of movies like Les Miserables, music, and books.  There are also essays on religion, politics, and selections of poetry.  Yes, the Easter Issue of The Cresset is filled with marvelous and wonderful things related to the Lilly Fellows Program, but it has many other interesting things to tempt you, as it always does.   The Cresset is published five times a year with its  Michaelmas, Advent/Christmas, Lent, Easter, and  Trinity issues.