Intellectual Engagement
November 15, 2018
Friday Night Lights
Freshman Welcoming Campaign Attracts a Crowd
by tom campisi, managing editor
At the start of the fall semester, Christian Union at Brown’s faculty wanted to extend its Freshman Welcoming Campaign beyond students who would typically attend a Bible course or leadership lecture series.
To reach a “festive” demographic late on a Friday night, Ministry Fellows Justin Doyle and Laurel Copp, Intern Gianna Uson, and student leaders brought grills and burgers to Wayland Arch, which is located between Frat Row and a freshman dorm quad. Christian Union at Brown set up camp in the midst of partying students, handing out about 150 sliders and bottles of water.
November 13, 2018
Summer Book Study
Students Encounter The Prodigal God
by catherine elvy, staff writer
The parable of the Prodigal Son points to distinct forms of spiritual lostness, one marked by wanton sinfulness and another by self-righteousness, and reveals the lavish grace of God in redeeming them both.
These insights emerged when students involved with Christian Union’s ministry at the University of Pennsylvania spent a portion of their summer probing The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith,by Tim Keller. In the 2008 book, Keller highlights how Christ provides the answer to lifestyles ensnared by immorality, as well as the hidden traps of hypocritical religiosity.
November 11, 2016
Christianity in Economics
Sadly, many Christians have a stunted understanding of economics, with some even insisting that the Bible doesn’t really concern itself with such topics. In reality however, the Bible bestows upon us a wholesome worldview to which we can apply and shape our different spheres of life, whether they be economics, politics, or culture.November 8, 2016
Changing Cultural Norms Are Eroding Religious Freedom
The First Amendment is receiving a massive amount of pushback, not just from a specific group, but by the culture as a whole. Trevin Wax, in his article ‘4 Cultural Trends Leading to the Decline of Religious Liberty’, states: October 20, 2016
The Christian Address to Relativism
The idea of the university has long been that of a community dedicated to discovering truth and its application to life. Guided by this mission, students and teachers were enabled to find the noble and beautiful things in the world, discover their relationship to one another, as well as establish a concrete structure from which all thoughts, words and actions flowed in their proper order. October 18, 2016
Man does not live on sex alone: Tolkien’s Words of Wisdom
Tolkien dearly loved his children, and he left a literary legacy in the form of letters. Many of these letters were written to his sons, and these letters represent, not only a hallmark of literary quality, but a treasure of Christian teaching on matters of manhood, marriage, and sex. Taken together, these letters constitute a priceless legacy, not only to the Tolkien boys, but to all those with whom the letters have been shared.October 6, 2016
Lawyers Forbidden to Practice Religion
In an era that celebrates certain forms of diversity under the banner of acceptance, it is ironic that large swathes of American society—those who affirm traditional sexual ethics—are increasingly unwelcome. Now, there is a movement to exclude those holding such beliefs from the legal profession, or force them into conformity to secular sexual ethics. Recently, the American Bar Association initiated a horrifying change to their ethics rules. Under the new rules, any speech or activity that could be traced to organizations that endorse traditional sexual ethics, is punishable. October 5, 2016
Generation Snowflake: How We Got to This Point
In a thoughtful article entitled ‘Understanding Generation Snowflake’, writer Carl Trueman reviews and dissects a book entitled I Find That Offensive. In the book, Claire Fox covers in-depth the present plight of many Western universities. She points out the weakness of modern day students and their need for “safe spaces,” while also identifying the significant changes in Western culture itself in the last few decades that have produced such a sensitive generation:September 22, 2016
The Role of Christians in Economic Freedom
According to one major index of economic freedom, by country, the US has been in steady decline since the early 2000s. In the Economic Freedom of the World 2016 Annual Report, the US has dropped from second best in the world to sixteenth or eighteenth. How does this happen? Anne Bradley, a Christian economist, offered her insights into this phenomenon during an interview with Joe Connors: September 20, 2016
Autonomy Is Not the Freedom We Need
In recent decades, American culture has so fetishized autonomy as a moral good that the once-beneficial idea, taken to excess, is now harming individuals and threatens to tear apart the fabric of society itself. Devotees of radical autonomy assert that individuals can define the relationships they have with others on their own terms, and cast aside traditional definitions of friendship, marriage, or parenthood. September 14, 2016
Help Wanted: Christian Intellectuals Needed
In today’s world, we need unabashed Christian leaders in the realms of intellectual pursuits. However, this is difficult because of the particular antagonism Christianity generates in secular academia.September 12, 2016
‘Born That Way’ and Other Myths Disproved
A new, eye-opening report has surfaced on the sexuality and “gender” front. The report’s authors are Lawrence S. Mayer, MB, MS, PhD, a scholar in residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University, and Paul R. McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. August 31, 2016
C.S. Lewis on Prayer
Why do we pray?Even those of us who pray regularly have sometimes wondered if we should not ask God for things in prayer because, since He is all-wise, doesn’t He know already what is best? And if He is all-good, won’t He do it whether we pray or not?
August 25, 2016
Where Is the Line Between Ethical and Legal?
When former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli raised the price on the drug Daraprim by 5,000% earlier this year, he also raised the question of whether pharmaceutical should be held to higher ethical standards than companies in other industries.August 1, 2016
Bill Threatens California Colleges’ Religious Freedom
California SB 1146 threatens the existence of around 40 faith-based colleges that rely on the state government for funding. Christianity Today explains how the bill, which purports to advance equality by curtailing important exemptions for religious schools, disproportionately harms students who most depend on grants to attend faith-based schools, while forcing these schools to promote sexual ideology explicitly at odds with their mission: July 21, 2016
Transhumanism Is the New Gnosticism
Transhumanism, the belief that we can use technology to alter our lives in order to outlive our natural lifespans, shares its core beliefs with the ancient Christian heresy, Gnosticism, which rejects the body as evil. James Hoskins, writing for CAPC, explains the connection between the two erroneous beliefs.July 19, 2016
Highlights from Nexus 2016
Christian Union’s 2016 Nexus conference brought together students from all eight of the nation’s leading universities for a life-changing weekend of dynamic worship and world-class speakers. The weekend challenged students to think deeply about their faith, to consider how they might put that faith into action right now on their campuses, to recognize how God can use them in the vocation they pursue to impact culture for Christ, and to grow closer in faith and devotion to Jesus Christ in fellowship with like-minded peers.
July 15, 2016
What Does Jesus Mean: “The Poor Will Always Be with You?”
When Jesus tells His disciples “The poor you will always have with you,” it may seem like He is telling His disciples that caring for those in need is a secondary concern. Some may use this passage as justification for tight-fistedness, but Jesus’ message is actually the opposite.July 5, 2016
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person
When looking for a spouse, young men and women often make the mistake of looking for a person who shares their exact tastes, strengths, and faults. Marriage, however, is more about a commitment to another person than it is about the romantic connection formed early on in a relationship. June 30, 2016
Can We Redefine Reality?
From the legality of transgender bathrooms to the morality of physician-assisted suicide, a series of social issues have become emblematic of the stark differences between worldviews vying to be cultural norms in the United States. More fundamentally, these hot-button issues illustrate a gap between starkly different ways of understanding right and wrong. As these differences play out in the public square, too little attention is given to the most basic assumptions made by the opposing positions. 