Monthly Newsletter of Christian Scholars Review - Issue #7

It always amazes me that one can work in a field for twenty-five years and still have so much to learn. I only discovered, within the last month, two books of relevance to my work: one is two-years old, but the other has been around for two-decades. Discoveries like these, as they should, promote a renewed sense of humility within an experienced scholar.   

The books I discovered were The Faithful Librarian: Essays on Christianity in the Profession (McFarland, 2019) and Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Profession (McFarland, 2002). As always, it is encouraging to find academic disciplines working out the implications of Christianity for their profession. We did have the Association for Christian Librarians on our list of Christian Professional Academic Groups, but if you see any other groups missing from our list, or books missing from our list of top faith-learning books, please let us know.

Due to my recent small stroke, I have been reminded, especially by those who love me, of my need to take exercise more seriously. Andrew Borror’s recent article on the subject, “Playful Seriousness: The Quandary of Exercise in a Technological Age,” reminds us that exercise is work, but he shares how it can be a redemptive form of work. It’s worth a read on the treadmill.

For those looking for a faith-learning online conference, we recommend checking out the online Kuyers/INCHE conference addressing Christian Teaching and Learning for the Common Good. It starts this Wednesday. You can register here.

Unfortunately, CSR’s 50th Anniversary was cancelled due to various Covid concerns. Nonetheless, Baylor IFL’s conference addressing the virtue of Accountability is still taking place. You can learn more about the conference taking place from Oct. 27-29th here.

Speaking of accountability, or actually the lack of it, I had my class this past year read a helpful and forthright book on the matter: Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education (Oxford, 2019). If you want a little taste, here is an opening quote:

“From a business ethics standpoint the average university makes Enron look pretty good….Most academic marketing is semi-fraudulent, grading is largely nonsense, students don’t learn much, students cheat frequently, liberal arts education fails because it presumes a false theory of learning, professors and administrators waste students’ money and time in order to line their own pockets, everyone engages in self-righteous moral grandstanding to disguise their selfish cronyism, professors pump out unemployable graduate students into oversaturated academic job markets for self-serving reasons, and so on” (p. 3).

They make a provocative case that higher education perhaps needs to get its own house in order first before it starts throwing accountability stones. Christians, certainly, should be some of the first to ask hard questions.