Christianity Commons^™

"The Best-Selling Bibles: What Librarians Need To Know", Stephanie P. Livengood

The Christian Librarian

This article presents guidance for librarians in the selection and recommendation of Bible translations. Pairing a reader with an appropriate Bible requires clear understanding of patron reading level and intended purpose along with a general knowledge of the major translations and their key characteristics. Bibliographic details and annotative summaries of the 10 best-selling Bibles in the United States are included. Ranking is based on the latest unit sales data released April 2014 by the Association for Christian Retail.

"Tutorials: Resource Instruction For Distance Learners", Pamela Greenlee

The Christian Librarian

Academic librarians, devoted to providing resources and services for learners, find both opportunity and challenge in the continuing growth of online programs in higher education. The technology tools available for online courses are also available to librarians seeking to support those courses with research and information literacy skills instruction. Researchers have delineated factors necessary for achieving defined learning outcomes with online tutorials. These factors include assignment relevance, faculty collaboration, and student interaction. A fourth issue emerges as equally critical; there must be a single iteration of the tutorial, posted in a unique online location, and subject to dynamic revision. There …

"Doing Good With A Slice Of Pi: Ideas For Using The Raspberry Pi As A Low Cost Information Platform In Libraries", Michael Wells

The Christian Librarian

In the last decade, librarians have been under pressure to cut costs at every level. These cuts often occur in acquisitions, while other areas such as technology demand fiscal expansion just to meet user demand. In the last few years, University of Cambridge computer science researchers have developed a credit card-sized computer, affectionately known as the Raspberry Pi. Intended to serve as an educational platform for children learning Python programming, the project has far exceeded its original scope. At $35, this small computer can now serve as a creative solution in various areas of librarianship.

Investing In The Student Staff Development Process, Jeremy Mcginniss, Joshua B. Michael

The Christian Librarian

This paper argues for the need for librarians to invest in the student staff development process, particularly in the context of biblical higher education. The foundational pieces of hiring, training, development and assessment which inform the student staff development process are defined and explored to see how they should fit into the library context. Examples from the library literature coupled with practical experience provide a framework that encompasses theoretical and pragmatic application. This paper narrates how a particular library worked through this process while providing principles from which libraries of varying sizes of collections and staff can benefit.

Acl News & Notes

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Using Prezi As A Library Instruction Tool, Amy James

The Christian Librarian

Prezi is a cloud-based presentation tool that is built with the help of many open source projects. Not only in Prezi free, but users also gain access to video tutorials, live online training sessions and webinars given by Prezi experts; and community forums where users can talk about problems, give tips, and learn from one another. Signing up for the “Edu Enjoy” account with an .edu email address provides additional benefits. This article will cover the features of Prezi, discuss pros and cons, and will conclude with ways to successfully incorporate Prezi into information literacy instruction sessions.

Annotated Bibliography: Faith, Learning And Christian Higher Education In The Twenty-First Century, Joshua M. Avery

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Annotated Bibliography: A Bible Study Reference Bookshelf, Jeannie Ferriss

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editor, Christina Belcher

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Col. 1:17 – He [Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together (NIV).

At the time of virtually penning this letter, I am eagerly anticipating being able to meet many of you at the ICCTE conference this May 28-31 at Redeemer University College in Hamilton, Ontario. The theme of this conference is Faithful Presence and Practice,which flows from the verse cited above. Our pre-conference session with Dr. Ken Badley on writing for publication is wonderful, and I highly recommend it to you as well as the full conference session.

Letter From The Editor, Christina Belcher

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

With the approach of the 2014 ICCTE conference at Redeemer University College in Hamilton, ON, Canada, (we are still accepting proposals and registration), excitement tends to be a prelude to this issue. As manuscripts arrived, and were reviewed a common theme emerged for this issue. The theme probed faithful practice from a secure spiritual identity while navigating post and post-postmodern landscapes in the realm of education. Our final founding paper from reprints of the first published works following an ICCTE conference, explores this within the scope of 14 years prior. Our newer submissions build upon aspects of that discussion.

The Postmodern Paradox: How The Christian Scholar Has Both Declined And Thrived As A Result Of Postmodernism’S Influence In Higher Education, Patrick Otto, Lani M. Malcolm

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

The Christian scholar faces an interesting paradox concerning postmodernism’s influence in higher education (Edlin, 2009). One of the key components of the modernism paradigm was the ability for humans to reason (Pells, 2007). Universities were based largely on a model in which young adults were expected to first acquire knowledge, principles, and skills, and then later apply that which was learned to their career ambitions, citizenship, or professional development (Willis, 1995). But in the 1960s and 1970s, higher education began to face increasing social pressure as the ideas of modernism associated with knowledge acquisition, power, and authority came under scrutiny …

Book Review: The Shaping Of An Effective Leader, Glen Green

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

The Shaping of an Effective Leader has been fundamentally encouraging to me in the area of leadership because I have been fortunate enough to be a recipient of the leadership of the author. Serving on my dissertation committee, Gayle Beebe encouraged me to development a Christian theology of suffering. He recommended reading the works of Diogenes Allen, Lawrence Bowker, Herbert Lockyear, Henri Nouwen, as well as others. In our meetings to discuss these works, it did not take long for me to discover that I was in the presence of one of the most Christlike individuals I had ever encountered. …

Theme And Variation: Prayer, Enstrom's Grace, And Calvin, Howard Schaap

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Schaap's journey to and exploration of what prayer means.

Women And Evangelical Individualism, Danielle C. Kuehn

All Master's Theses

By comparing the way male ministers presented their faith in gendered terms during the First Great Awakening to the responses of women who embraced their doctrine, the study examines whether women gained autonomy from the evangelical emphasis on individual choice and responsibility. Primary sources were the foundation for the research and included sermons from the most prominent ministers of the era, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Journals of women evangelicals were invaluable resources providing first hand accounts of the implications of gender roles and religious ideology in evangelicals' lives during and following the Great Awakening. The primary documents studied here …

The Stories Behind The Story (Foreword And Introduction To Introducing Evangelical Ecotheology: Foundations In Scripture, Theology, History, And Praxis), Daniel L. Brunner, Jennifer L. Butler, A.J. Swoboda

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Excerpt: "Nathan and I (Dan) pulled into the Mbanhela community in the Gaza province of Mozambique and were greeted by the high-spirited singing of six women who form the livestock association of that small community. A Christian relief and development organization, of which Nathan is the country director, provided funds for a large chicken coop, feed, supplies, and 300 chickens for the Mbanhela community. In addition, it furnished training in basic animal husbandry and marketing. Every two months the community starts a new cycle with 320 chicks. Raising chickens for income empowers that community and helps it toward health and …

Church Launch: Start Small, Stay Small—Launch Large, Grow Larger!, Dave Page

Great Commission Research Journal

Launching churches is the new paradigm for church planting in America for the twenty-first century. The old school paradigm was to plant a church and watch it grow slowly, like a tree. The new church planting metaphor is launching a church, like launching a rocket ship into space. This article argues that launching large churches is the most effective means of evangelism in the short and long run. Start small, and the church will stay small, as most do. Launch large, and the church has an opportunity to keep on growing. By launching large, churches can break church growth barriers …

Moving The Conversation Forward: Open Questions And New Directions (Chapter In Communities In Dispute : Current Scholarship On The Johannine Epistles), Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Given that R. Alan Culpepper has fittingly summarized the essays in the introduction to the present collection, such an overview will not be necessary in this concluding essay. Rather, my charge is to comment on how the above essays move critical conversations forward as well as noting new directions and open questions regarding state-of-the-art understandings of the Johannine Epistles. As such, this essay will progress through the developments achieved in the three parts of this collection, but then return in reverse order, from the third part to the first, considering the open questions and new directions that emerge.

Glen Pettigrove, Forgiveness And Love. Reviewed By Travis Pickell., Travis Pickell

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of Glen Pettigrove, Forgiveness and Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). xvi + 174pp., ISBN 978-0-19-964655-5.

Hannah Arendt famously called forgiveness ‘redemption from the predicament of irreversibility—of being unable to undo what one has done’ (The Human Condition, p. 212). Because right action is not always easy to discern, and when discerned not always easy to enact, we are all likely to be repeatedly in need of forgiveness—of extending it and receiving it. Forgiveness, then, would seem to play an enormously important role in sustaining relations among people, at both the individual and the societal levels—a truth reflected in …

Victor Lee Austin, Christian Ethics: A Guide For The Perplexed: Reviewed By Travis Pickell, Travis Ryan Pickell

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Review of Victor Lee Austin, Christian Ethics: A Guide for the Perplexed, Bloomsbury T&T Clark: London, 2012; 177 pp.: 9780567032195, £50.00 (hbk), 9780567032201, £14.99 (pbk), 9780567639998, £14.99 (ebook)

How does one write an introductory text without being overly reductive, on the one hand, or unnecessarily bogging down the reader with finer points, on the other? Imagine trying to make a topic as expansive as Christian ethics intelligible to the ‘perplexed’ among us. Victor Lee Austin, Theologian-in-residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC), admirably navigates between these twin pitfalls in this useful and concise volume.

Socrates And St. Paul: Can Christian Apologetics Be Public Philosophy?, Mark Mcleod-Harrison

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Can popular Christian apologetics be public philosophy? This paper argues that it can be partly because the criteria for what counts as public philosophy are so vague but also partly because popular Christian apologetics parallels much that counts as public philosophy both in terms of its historical roots in Socrates but also how public philosophy is practiced now. In particular, there are parallels on the role of amateurs vs. professionals, the sorts of topics, the quality of the discussions, and the passion vs. the neutrality of its practitioners.