Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation

Rating:
Summary: Positive & insightful
Review: A lot of books have been written about Christianity and higher education in the past decade and this is the most positive book by far. The authors manage to be optimistic, insightful, critical, and creative all at the same time without ever moaning about how much the academy is prejudiced against religion. That is totally refreshing, and Martin Marty underscores that point in his foreword. However, this book delivers much more than that. The authors/editors have a chapter on different kinds of scholarship in general (they call these analytic, strategic, and empathic) which have nothing directly to do with faith, but which will be helpful to anyone involved in college or university life. People who might not be interested in reading other books dealing with religion and scholarship should read this one.

Rating:
Summary: Great book to read through at a weekly faculty-lunch
Review: The authors are challenging the narrow definition of "integration of faith and learning" as being too reformed-ish. They intend to "enlarge the conversation" and broaden the definition. They want to include things like integration of "faith and hope" or "faith and love" not just integrating sterile faith and the sterile disciplines. They want to add the hands and heart to the head stuff the integrationists talk about. Written by a wife-and-husband team (Psychology and Church historian) they are provoking a stir in the reformed dominated educational cartel. It is probably good these writers are from an Anabaptist heritage where they are accustomed to being persecuted-I bet the wonderfully brilliant Calvinists who are given to "the life of the mind" will burn Rhonda and Jake Jacobsen at the academic stake! Hint to speed-readers: 80% of the book's contribution is in the first Chapter and 10% is in the epilogue. Great book to read through with other faculty at a book-lunch, that's how I did it. Raises great issues. Now it is time for the non-reformed people to do the heavy lifting of outlining is detail their (our) alternative approach... this book is (like Arminianism) not a true alternative approach--but a complaint against the accepted (reformed) approach. --Keith Drury, Associate Professor of Religion, Indiana Wesleyan University.