INTEGRITE FALL 2025 by Missouri Baptist University

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Editor

John J. Han, Missouri Baptist University

Editorial Review Board

Matthew Bardowell, Missouri Baptist University

Todd C. Ream, Indiana Wesleyan University

C. Clark Triplett, Missouri Baptist University

Advisory Board

Bob Agee, Oklahoma Baptist University & Union University

Jane Beal, University of La Verne

Eric Shane Bryan, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Andy Chambers, Missouri Baptist University

Arlen Dykstra, Missouri Baptist University

Matthew Easter, Missouri Baptist University

Lorie Watkins Massey, William Carey University

Darren J. N. Middleton, Baylor University

John Zheng, Mississippi Valley State University

Editorial Assistant Webmaster

Susannah Cerutti

Joel Lindsey

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal (ISSN 1547-0474 and 1547-0873) is published each spring and fall by the Faith & Learning Committee and the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. Published both online at https://www.mobap.edu/aboutmbu/publications/integrite/ and in print copy, the journal examines historical, philosophical, theological, cultural, and pedagogical issues related to the integration of Christian faith and higher learning. All submissions are critically reviewed for content and substance by the editor and the editorial review board; in some cases, scholars in specific fields are invited to evaluate manuscripts. The opinions expressed by individual writers in this journal are not necessarily endorsed by the editor, editorial board, or Missouri Baptist University.

SUBMISSIONS: Submissions of scholarly articles, short essays, book reviews, and poems are welcome. Send your work and your 100-125-word author bio as e-mail attachments (Microsoft Word format) to the editor, John J. Han, at john.han@mobap.edu. We accept submissions all year round. For detailed submission guidelines, see the last two pages of this journal.

SUBSCRIPTIONS & BOOKS FOR REVIEW: Intégrité subscriptions, renewals, address changes, and books for review should be mailed to John J. Han, Editor of Intégrité, Missouri Baptist University, One College Park Dr., St. Louis, Missouri 63141. Phone: (314) 392-2311. Subscription rates: Individuals $10 per year; institutions $20 per year.

INDEXING: Intégrité is listed in the Southern Baptist Periodical Index and the Christian Periodical Index

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Volume 24 Number 2 Fall 2025

3 Teach this Music: Faith and Learning in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core

Darren J. N. Middleton, Frieda H. Blackwell, Candi K. Cann, David Justice, Justin King, Robin Wallace, Jason Whitlark, Cécile Yézou, and Colleen Zori

The following papers were presented at the Seventh Annual Faith and Research Conference, held at Missouri Baptist University on April 3-4, 2025. Theme: After Humanism?: Defining the Human for the Modern Age

21 Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power: Paul’s Anthropology in 1 Corinthians 15 and the Promise of Resurrection Life

C. Eric Turner

28 Artificial General Intelligence and Its Effect on Human Meaning, Worth, and Purpose

Karen Kannenberg

36 Pacificism and the Second Amendment: The Early Church Father’s Contribution to the Discussion on Gun Control

Rubin McClain

49 Tradition and Technology: Ambivalence Toward the Railroad in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction

John J. Han

57 To Err Is Human, Knowing Is AI: Human Ways of Knowing in a Post-Human World

Matthew Bardowell

66 Myth, Storytelling, and Belief on the Borders of Technological Change

Eric Shane Bryan

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

74 Network Theory, the Pauline Mission, and the Christian Professor

Matthew C. Easter

BOOK REVIEWS

83 David I. Smith, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom (Eerdmans, 2025)

C. Clark Triplett

90 John D. Currid, The Case for Biblical Archaeology: Uncovering the Historical Record of God’s Old Testament People (P&R Publishing, 2020)

Josh Wilson

94 Matthew C. Heckel, His Spear Through My Side into Luther: Calvin’s Relationship to Luther’s Doctrine of the Will (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2025)

T. Chris Crain

101 John Warner, More than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI (Basic Books, 2025)

Julie Steinbeck

CREATIVE WORKS

105 Photo Art and Creative Writing

Michael Shoemaker

112 “Worship in a Living Room” and Other Poems

Todd Sukany

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 3-20

ARTICLES

Teach this Music: Faith and Learning in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core

Darren J. N. Middleton, Frieda H. Blackwell, Candi K. Cann, David Justice, Justin King, Robin Wallace, Jason Whitlark, Cécile Yézou, and Colleen Zori

Baylor University undergraduates are supposed to complete their general education requirements through traditional departmental core courses. But the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) offers something different.1 Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary in 2025, the BIC, which is one of several opportunities in Baylor’s Honors College, inspires highly motivated students to explore primary sources in various subjects by employing a global perspective in a team-taught, discussion-based, and collaborative environment. We offer more than a replacement core. The BIC’s cohort community fosters deeper friendships and a nurturing sense of togetherness through a shared intellectual adventure. For their first two years, then, BIC students take two BIC classes each semester. Thus, they journey together as learners while also taking other courses in their more specialized interests and major.

Our students enjoy that BIC courses assemble the content and methodology of many specialties English, History, Religion, Art, Political Science, and so on in one space.2 Institutional research confirms that undergraduate exploration and growth occur in small classes (15:1 in the BIC), the hallmark of Honors education. The BIC’s interdisciplinary approach also offers extracurricular opportunities all within a cohort model. Visiting art museums, attending plays, watching films, assisting local non-profit agencies, and field trips to synagogues, temples, and mosques are crucial to the BIC student’s journey. We even have study abroad programs in long-established locations in England, Greece, Türkiye, and Italy. The BIC also reserves spaces in the newly created Baylor in Korea study abroad program.3

Recognizing our shared humanity is the golden thread running through the BIC’s five major sequences: The Examined Life, World Cultures, The World of Rhetoric, Social World, and Natural World. From understanding civilization’s roots to investigating recent ethical issues, our courses are designed to expand each student’s perspective, sharpen their critical thinking skills, strengthen as well as promote the wisdom of

connected knowing, and help students realize the Honors College vision to “love truth, kindle faith, and cultivate virtue in friendship, study, and service to Christ and neighbor.”4 The integration of learning and faith animates our pedagogy, and affiliated as well as core BIC faculty have connections to campus institutes and initiatives that reflect this mission.5 Inspired by Baylor’s Strategic Plan, Baylor in Deeds, we believe our thoughtful Christian faith spurs our interdisciplinary work, which equips students to flourish in their own calling to build a vibrant, caring, and global community.6

Music helps us tell our story. And so we often invite others to dive into our musical world to better engage our hopes and fears. Music also serves as our neighbor’s hymnal. 7 Exploring the music that intones their life potentially amplifies our understanding of their identity and purpose. BIC faculty often use music as a soundtrack to our curriculum’s challenging journey through the questions and answers that have shaped human exploration. This article shows how select BIC faculty deploy music broadly construed within most of our five major course sequences, investigating how sounds and words help students challenge time-honored assumptions, reflect on their own values, and connect their Baylor adventure to the wider world, marked as it often is by the walking wounded.

The academic investigation of the alliance between faith, learning, and music is growing and becoming increasingly sophisticated. Recent studies repay close attention.8 And we hope our succinct and assorted examples from time spent teaching in the BIC offer a fresh perspective on engaging faith and learning through a wide range of music, including American rap, heavy metal, ambient jazz-blues, film score, French hiphop, classical music, Afropop, English rock, Spanish Christmas carols, and Argentine folklore.

The Examined Life I-III

Self-inventory lies at the heart of a BIC education. Each student’s BIC journey involves an opportunity to reflect on the transition from high school to college life (Examined Life I); to critically assess moral and spiritual values, especially as they relate to a wider Biblical heritage (Examined Life II); and to integrate the learning derived from other course sequences into a wide-ranging capstone experience (Examined Life III). Here we provide three examples of the use of music within the Examined Life sequence, two from Examined Life II and one from Examined Life III.

Justin King: The Bible, Ethics, and Our World

The basic story of Abraham and Sarah, the central couple in the book of Genesis, is well known. To remedy Sarah’s barrenness despite

God’s promises (Gen 15:1-6), Sarah gives to Abraham her Egyptian slave, Hagar, as a means to an heir. Abraham obliges, a child is conceived, tensions rise between Sarah and Hagar, and Sarah objects to Abraham (16:1-5).

While teaching BIC 3358: Biblical Heritage and Contemporary Ethical Issues (Examined Life II), with some rapport having already been established, I have suggested at this point that one of our more contemporary poets managed to capture the gist of Abraham’s retort quite accurately. A single line from Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” then plays throughout the room: “If you’re having girl problems, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but…” the music ends there, and I fill in “Hagar ain’t one. ‘Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please’” (Gen 16:6).

Jay-Z’s The Black Album (2004) recording of “99 Problems” is a revision of the original and even more misogynistic record from Ice-T’s album, Home Invasion (1993). Jay-Z has commented that his hook line’s inclusion of “b****” refers to drug-sniffing canines.9 The full lyric quoted above and the song’s origin, however, render it impossible to divorce that one word from its more readily overt and pejorative reference to women. To be sure, in classrooms large and small, the provocative song gets the audience’s attention. The question that remains, of course, involves how the musical inclusion might profitably and positively improve our discussions of Hagar, Genesis, the culture of the Ancient Near East, and contemporary ethics.

Most students readily recognize the injustice in referring to women in this way. Though much remains to be achieved, history has progressed in significant ways, and the contemporary world has sought to improve upon the culturally situated perspectives of the past. The student’s encounter with Jay-Z’s line stresses this dissonance between the present and past and situates students in a place to view Genesis and its ethical bearing with more awareness. To begin, it brings awareness to Hagar’s plight. As a foreign enslaved person, Hagar is subordinate in gender, social, and ethnic terms. She possesses neither sexual autonomy or opportunity to voice consent or dissent (cf. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror).10 Hagar is but a commodity to be used (Gen 15:1-6, 21:9-14). While the text reports Abraham’s concern about his son, Ishmael, God even directly instructs Abraham that “this matter about the boy and your slave girl should not pose a problem in [Abraham’s] eyes” (21:11-12).

In this light, the biblical text becomes clearer; it belongs to a patriarchal culture and operates within the power dynamics of enslaver/enslaved conventions. This, in turn, fronts the hermeneutical demand and creates opportunities for bountiful conversations. Given the worldview out of which the text emerges, and cognizant that similar experiences still manifest today, how can modern students bring the Bible into contemporary thinking about ethics and the modern world? Engaging with our biblical heritage and moral dilemmas is central to BIC 3358. And perhaps, by exploring the past, identifying justice-centered improvements across time, but recognizing that some ancient realities have not been

completely resolved, we might be able to look at the present and collaboratively dream about ways to progress moving into the future.

Jason Whitlark: Human Experience Outside Christ

Teaching ancient texts, such as the Bible, often poses challenges of relevance to contemporary experience. Teaching Romans 7:5-24 is especially daunting. When Paul writes, “For I don’t understand what I do. I do not do what I wish but I do what I hate” (7:15), “to desire to do good is present in me but the doing of the good is not. For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want this I do” (7:18-19), or “Wretched man that I am” (7:24), to what experience does he speak? He is certainly plumbing the paradox of human experience that touches the mystery of evil. Interpreters debate whether Paul relates his own personal experience as a Christian or whether he is portraying his pre-Christian experience under the Law. Maybe Paul even performs a hypothetical speech as Adam in Genesis 3 who is reflecting upon his own rejection of God’s command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Current Pauline scholarship has made a strong case for reading these experiential “I” statements in terms of the experience of a person, like Adam, who lives outside the realm of God’s grace and Spirit. This, however, is not the interpretation that often predominates in church pews. How might we understand the trending perspective of Pauline scholarship in our contemporary setting?

Let us consider “Jekyll and Hyde” from the album Got Your Six (2015) by the heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch.11 The title of the song comes from the eponymous character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) who struggles with his own internal demons and angels.12 With driving distortion, aggressive rhythms, relentless intensity, and both melodic and screaming vocals, the song captures the deep angst and darker side of human experience of Romans 7. If we first examine the lyrics, the song begins by acknowledging the crushing weight, even futility, of life: “There’s just so much g-dd n weight on my shoulders, all I am trying to do is live my motherf ing life. Supposed to be happy but I am only getting colder.” This weight and drudgery of living brings inner reflection, “Wear a smile on my face but there is a demon inside.” This leads to the chorus that crystallizes this inescapable duality of experience, “There’s a demon inside just like Jekyll and Hyde.” As I share with my students, we do not have to stretch our imaginations too far to see a link with the lament in Romans 7:15, “For I don’t understand what I do. I do not do what I wish but I do what I hate.” Indeed, the final verse of the song concludes with a kind of despair, “If I wasn’t so deranged could I ever face the pain? If I ever were to change would the song remain the same.” Surely, this captures something of the anguish that verse 24 exclaims, “What a wretched man that I am. Who can save me from this body of death?”

Darren J. N. Middleton et al. 7

These lyrics embed Romans 7 in our contemporary setting with the reading I am proposing. The screaming and melodic vocals, the drop tuning, and the heavy grooves also engage the emotions that agitate angst and intensify the sense of combative dualities that compete within a person. Heavy metal, deathcore, and other metal subgenres have always had the tendency to explore and even embrace these paradoxical, darker sides of human experience.

I can imagine this song being assigned alongside reading Romans 7 for BIC 3358 students to engage before coming to class (with a ML rating issued beforehand). Upon coming to class, the song would be playing in the background. The conversation might start with where the students recognized Paul’s reflection in “Jekyll and Hyde.” Many of my students might ask at the front end of the assignment what “godless” heavy metal has to do with the Apostle Paul. Listen to Five Finger Death Punch; maybe Paul is relating what is common to human experience outside Christ.

Darren J. N. Middleton: Memoir, Music, and Meaning

Narrative is the art form of our hard-wired desire for meaning. We live by the tales we tell; and memoir helps us find significance, as well as develop empathy, as we move through our world’s sorrows and joys. In my version of our program’s capstone course, BIC 4389 (Examined Life III), we ponder as well as read sacred-haunted memoirs, or parables of the remembered past. Our purpose involves assessing the genre and better understanding how this form of writing assists select authors, who represent wide-ranging backgrounds, experiences, and cultures as they encounter life’s deepest mysteries and struggle with its unknowns. Memoir is also an invitation to thoughtfulness. Thus, in the process of reading, we too pose our own questions of identity, belonging, and meaning, participating in the genre’s exploration of “who am I” in relation to God and others, and wrestling with “what really matters” in life.

One of our assigned memoirs, Daniel Mendelsohn’s An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and An Epic (2017), engages the search for significance by blending tales from the Mendelsohn family’s troubled past with Homer’s poetic account of Odysseus’s arduous return to Ithaca. 13 An Odyssey is a tender memoir. And BIC students admire it. They first read Homer’s classic poem in BIC 1314 (World Cultures I), so using their later capstone course to analyze a memoir based around The Odyssey stimulates them to integrate their learning. One pivotal player operates at the center of Homer’s family drama: Odysseus. And his story involves a lifetime of coming undone as well as realizing himself in what he experiences. He is a man of constant sorrow, like Mendelsohn’s father, even if Odysseus knows what it means to move through life and in the process learn to see himself as satisfyingly real, sensing the call to grandeur as well as knowing the depths of misery.

I instruct my students that Mendelsohn’s memoir and Homer’s poem are quest narratives stories that appeal to us because they seem

universal; most of us are on adventures marked by twists and turns as well as false starts and delayed destinations. Homo viator to be human is to be on the move, our souls like a ship with its prow pointed toward Ithaca. Besides reading poetry and memoir, listening to music also helps my students ponder the art of pilgrimage. For example, I often ask them to come to class with a song or a score reflecting their life’s journey. Several enjoy this show-and-tell exercise, playing both renowned tracks and deep cuts that capture their own story of wanderlust: from Coldplay’s “Adventure of a Lifetime” to Morgan Page’s “The Longest Road” and from Taylor Swift’s “Out of the Woods” to Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Since I never ask students to do something I am not prepared to do myself, I play them my own pilgrimage song, David Sylvian’s “Thalheim.”14

Taken from Sylvian’s Dead Bees on a Cake album (1999), “Thalheim” is an aural gesture to a small town in Germany associated with Hindu and Christian holy figures, Mother Meera and the Virgin Mary. BIC students and I listen together, the words and sounds combining to facilitate introspection, the journey inwards. Here, the music’s gentle rhythms and muted instrumentation unite with Sylvian’s lush baritone to encourage quiet contemplation of the spiritual ecology of place. I share with my students that I once interviewed Sylvian about his existential formation, which seems to be as circuitous as the labyrinthine lives of Odysseus or Daniel Mendelsohn, if somewhat different or distinctive.15 I also note how others have since explored how “Thalheim” registers an emotional turning point, some sort of joyous or epiphanic moment that Sylvian credits with setting him on the spiritual path he now walks.16 In the end, “Thalheim” helps me to cultivate honest classroom conversations about travel to those sites of peace and power, whether in Greece or Germany or elsewhere, when our experience seems characterized by a separation from everyday existence, a focus on special time and even holy ground, and an intense yearning for something beyond oneself. My students have never been to Thalheim. But Sylvian’s music transports them there:

When I’m all at sea

You never let me down I’ll just keep coming back to you ’Til I walk on solid ground

From the foothills to the mountains

On the waters of the Rhine Face to face in Shahbagh gardens In communion, out of time

Thalheim

From the lilies of the valley

To the grapes upon the vine

The well of speculation Is it his or hers or mine?

Thalheim

In the everything and nothing In disharmony and rhyme In the sound of shot and echo Who’s the victim, what’s the crime? What’s the crime?

Be my, oh be my sunshine

In the keening cries of evening Unforgotten, underlined We slipped into the water Out of focus, out of time

Thalheim.17

Like the various memoirs that students in my BIC 4389 class read, David Sylvian’s music takes the form of an engaging, pensive amalgam of spirituality and skepticism, crafted on the contested borderlands between belief and unbelief, and his art seems important to those of us who struggle with religious doubt when confronting searching questions of meaning in our frequently callous yet often enchanting world.

Social World I-II

Scrutinizing primary texts in economic, political, and social thought, this two-course sequence probes the foundations of human society and the possibilities for human flourishing. Students answer as well as articulate those questions that pulsate at the heart of individual and community life: What is the alliance between the city and the soul? What is modern liberalism’s origin story? And how can we serve as fairminded arbiters of the ongoing debate between “ancient” and “modern” thinkers regarding the nature and function of human persons? Here we provide two examples of the use of music within the Social World sequence.

David Justice: Concerning Hobbits

Music has the power to affect how we feel and act in a given space. In particular, I have found that it is helpful to set the right tone for classroom activities. Indeed, research cited by music therapist Adrienne

Brodeur has found that music can “enhance mood, attention, and behaviour in order to optimize a student’s ability to learn and interact.”18

The primary way that I use music in my BIC 2330 Social World I: The City and the Soul classroom is to facilitate discussion during times when I break students into small groups. They form their small groups at the beginning of the semester and stay with the same group throughout the semester. My goal is to give them the chance to have more in-depth discussions in a comfortable setting. Not all students are inclined to speak during a discussion with the whole class, but nearly all are willing to speak to a few of their trusted peers.

I use a variety of background music when my students are working in small groups, but the most effective piece I have found is Howard Shore’s “Concerning Hobbits,” which he wrote for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.19 Most of my students are familiar with these movies, and I regularly hear from students that they enjoy this particular background music. “Concerning Hobbits” is associated with the Shire, the homeland of the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings, who are a sometimes silly but generally happy and kind agrarian race of small humanoids. In the Lord of the Rings, it is the hobbits’ hardiness and willingness to shun power that brings victory.

“Concerning Hobbits” is described by the Australian Broadcasting Company as “pastoral, it is genial, and, crucially, it does not share an orbit with any musical danger. Shore’s Hobbit music provides a hope in the darkness, a melody to anchor these films and remind our heroes that all is never lost.”20 Students in my classes are often dealing with demanding questions regarding justice, racism, sexism, etc. Moreover, the American Psychological Association reports that “younger people report the deepest consequences of stress” with “two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds [stating] stress makes it hard for them to focus (67%) and feel as though no one understands how stressed they are (66%).”21 Gen Z in particular struggles with mental health.

Our students need a safe, pastoral place to be able to engage with difficult issues. In my experience, students want to engage with deep, meaningful topics that face them and their world but don’t always have the mental wherewithal to do so. I use several methods to try to make these heavy foci accessible, but one of the most effective I’ve found is the creation of a safe discussion space with friends, in part facilitated by the music of the Shire. For me, and I hope for my students, the Shire represents hope. Not a trite hope that avoids the dangers of the world, but one that confronts them and earns the right to hope.

Cécile Yézou: Liberation Struggles and Art

On May 29, 2016, rapper Black M was set to perform for France’s WWI centenary of the Verdun battle, but right-wing pressures on the mayor led to his removal from the celebration, for fear of “trouble à l’ordre public. ”22 This incident was the French iteration of a tale that marks the

history of hip hop and the mainstream on a global scale its existence as a counterculture, as an expression of emotions the state seems intent on repressing. French artist Kery James’s sixth album, Mouhammad Alix, was released in September 2016, and it includes the provocative song “Musique Nègre,” which I teach in BIC 2340 Social World II: The Conditions and Possibilities of Human Fulfillment.23

Mathurin (a.k.a. James) was born in 1977, to Haitian parents in the French Antilles country of Guadeloupe before moving to continental France in 1985. As a young rising star in the French rap soundscape in the early 2000s, he lost a close friend and then found faith in Islam, converting at the age of twenty-two. His commitment to Islam became and has remained central to his art. As I tell the students in my class, religion’s healing and peace enables James to pen scathing critiques of a French society in which he believes, even as it seems wrongly invested in its colonial history, presenting a humanism that remains profoundly exclusionary.

“Musique Nègre” derived from a remark hopeful presidential candidate Henry de Lesquen once made, calling rap music “n-word” music, which ought to be removed from public radio.24 The song opens with a narration by Juliette Fievet, a pioneering Black French journalist, in a manner reminiscent of Pascale Clarke, whose voice became emblematic of the French radio landscape in the 1990s. Fievet describes the song as James’s response to Lesquen, closing her opening with: “safe to say the Black rapper isn’t shooting blanks.” James then continues:

Sur le boulevard de la vie, je suis dans l’angle mort

Un nègre qui les défie est un nègre mort

Depuis le bruit et l’odeur je sens que je dérange la France Je fais un tour chez Guerlain, je mets du parfum de violence. 25

In the music video that accompanies the song, the featured performers refer to the international nature of “negrophobia,” and depict historical figures that stake the global quest for justice. Kery James initially stars in Leïla Sy’s video as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lino as Huey P. Newton, and Youssoupha as Toussaint Louverture; Sy’s lens then pans to see Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, “Senegalese Tirailleurs,” Thomas Sankara, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos. They employ ideographs, visual and textual, to place themselves within a tradition of denouncing the interconnected nature of oppressions across time and place under the same anti-Blackness that came in the wake of colonial terror, genocidal expansionism, and chattel slavery. Sy’s masterful interplay of color with Black and White, and the sequences in groups contribute to the message of Pan-African unity undergirding this powerful lyrical masterpiece. The lyrics themselves could develop a whole unit on contemporary global Black struggles and demonstrate the artists’ deep knowledge of our shared histories, as well as their acute understanding of the power of their words and their music in a time of profound political upheaval and repression.

Kery James’s art is an instructive example of the use of various mediums song lyric and music video in context, providing ideographs that undergraduates can identify and understand. BIC 2340 Social World II introduces students to Latin American liberation theology, through the writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez and Saint Oscar Romero, and Kery James’s devout Muslim faith allied with deeply activist art creation offers another example of the many manifestations that religiously motivated political and social commentary can take in our interconnected world.

World Cultures I-V

The World Cultures I-V course sequence represents the spine of the BIC, some might say, and certainly, our students spend several classes focusing on the roots of history, religion, and culture; the consideration of the modern world’s emergence as well as the exploration of the United States in a global context; and, the scrutiny of the non-Western world through a detailed case study or studies. Life’s interconnectedness serves as the common denominator between all five courses. Here we describe four examples of the pedagogical use of music within the World Cultures course sequence, three from World Cultures III and one from World Cultures V.

BIC 2334 World Cultures III: The Modern World is the third in a sequence of interdisciplinary core courses on the humanities, with this covering the seventeenth century to the present. While instructors draw substantially on Western visual arts, music, and primary texts in history, philosophy, and literary genres such as poetry, novels, and short stories, student engagement with original source materials derived from other world cultures fosters critical comparative approaches and global perspectives. Study of outlooks both emic and etic from Japan and Africa shed light on the cross-cultural contact and colonial/post-colonial experiences that define modernity. Below, we discuss the range of pedagogical functions fulfilled by considering music as cultural text in the World Cultures III course. Examples of the musical pieces include Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, John Cage’s 4’33”, and two pieces protesting apartheid in South Africa: “Soweto Blues” and “Biko.” In the final class meeting, we conclude by singing selected Christmas carols together.

Robin Wallace: Music as Text in Teaching Romanticism, Realism, and Post-Modernism

When teaching music in an interdisciplinary course like World Cultures III, I consider it crucial to show that music doesn’t just reflect the ideas central to each period we study, it helps to define them. This is particularly true for the Romantics, who held music in profoundly high regard. I present Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony as a defining document of

Romanticism.26 I ask the class how many believe music is a universal language. Almost everyone raises their hand. I then ask how many believe music is a form of personal expression. The same hands go up. How many, I continue, realize those two statements contradict each other? There is some bafflement. I then demonstrate that music is anything but universal by playing them a recording of an Australian didgeridoo, and that it need not be personal by playing them Gregorian chant. Beethoven’s Eroica, I suggest, takes a standard (although still undefined in Beethoven’s time) musical structure sonata form and explores its potential as a heroic journey. I illustrate how it maps commonplace thematic material onto a triumphant outline that every listener can align with their personal experience, either real or desired. Thus, Beethoven’s music grounded the idea, still prevalent in today’s culture, that music is both personal and universal. Students are accustomed to seeing their tastes in music as a reflection of both their personal and shared identities, a legacy of Romantic musical culture.

I then present Carmen as a Realism-based challenge to the heroic outline established by Beethoven, and as a bridge between Romanticism and Realism.27 The male lead, Don Jose, is an anti-hero. The presumptive heroine Carmen boldly defies adherence to social convention and alternatively can be seen as a feminist icon or as the dangerous “other” who must be controlled for the plot to resolve, albeit tragically. Bizet’s music defines her disposition, with its provocative rhythms and unstable harmonies, and structures the nature of the interactions that she and other characters bring to life on the stage. The students connect with the Romantic emotional intensity, tragedy, and themes of individualism and freedom in Carmen, and trace how they find outlet in the gritty Realism of the poverty, alterity, and the bounds of societal rules against which chaff the opera’s characters.

Finally, I use John Cage’s 4’33” to define postmodernism musically.28 It is imperative to perform the piece: when students hear it described, they assume it is a joke. In an actual performance, it stops being funny after about 30 seconds, and they begin to understand that what they are hearing is not silence but their own breathing, other ambient noises, and anything else that happens to take place during the span of the performance. Cage thus calls the students’ attention effectively to the subjective, personal, and unrepeatable nature of every musical experience, and of all human communication, serving as an experiential example of post-modernism.

Colleen Zori: Using Music to Teach History, Empathy, and Activism

In 2020, World Cultures III incorporated a new (albeit short-lived) section exploring the intersections between colonialism, race, religion, and indigenous agency in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Music played a fundamental role in galvanizing resistance to apartheid, both at

home and abroad, and similarly ignited feelings of empathy, compassion, and righteous anger in the World Cultures III students. Our discussion focused on music based on two events: the Soweto Uprising and the death of activist Stephen Biko.

From June 16-18, 1976, students in Soweto township protested the government’s efforts to make Afrikaans the language of instruction in schools. Police brutality against the 20,000 student protestors led to the death of an estimated 200 young people. The protest song “Soweto Blues,” written by jazz musician Hugh Masekela and performed by singer and civil rights activist Miriam Makeba, was key in fueling anti-apartheid sentiment both inside and outside Africa.29 It publicized the otherwise suppressed account of the lethal police violence against children in Soweto and gives voice to the pain and terror experienced by the survivors:

The children got a letter from the master It said no more Xhosa, Sotho, no more Zulu Refusing to comply they sent an answer That’s when the policemen came to the rescue Well, children were flying, bullets, dying Oh, the mothers screaming and crying.

Students found poignance in Makeba’s use of her native Xhosa language in asking the heartrending question:

Benikuphi na? [Where were you?]

Abantwana xa bejikijela ezizimbokodo [When the children were being shot].

This prompted a discussion of “where were you” moments in the students’ own lives, many of which concerned receiving news about student deaths in school shootings.

The second musical text discussed was Peter Gabriel’s “Biko,” sparked by the fatal beating of anti-apartheid leader Stephen Biko by South African police in September 1977. As with the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Biko’s death became a flashpoint for global outcry against injustice. This was propelled in part by Gabriel’s powerful and defiant lyrics and his emotive live performances of “Biko.”30 Students examined the instrumentation, such as the African drumbeats layered with the military sound of bagpipes, and how Gabriel performed the anthem as his finale, explicitly challenging concert audiences: “I’ve done all I can do. The rest is up to you.”

Students connected with the notion that a single death can serve to draw attention to larger constellations of institutional violence, racism, and injustice as Gabriel writes, “And the eyes of the world are / Watching now” and ignites the hope of change through collective action:

You can blow out a candle

But you can’t blow out a fire

Once the flames begin to catch The wind will blow it higher

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko.

Frieda H. Blackwell: Carols, Community, and Closure

In addition to being appropriate to the season, Christmas carols sung together on the final day of World Cultures III a class that occurs in the Fall semester serve to reinforce cultural lessons and build unity. I introduce the carols by telling students that I want to leave them with three ideas: 1) take intellectual risks, the essence of teaching and studying in the BIC; 2) be wary of making cultural assumptions; and 3) after studying other cultures, it is possible to return to your own with a renewed appreciation for what is wonderful and special about it.

I bring my guitar along for accompanying the Christmas carols and tell students that I’m not a musician: I am a Spanish professor. Nonetheless, music brings me great joy and I have studied it throughout my life. I explain that I’m taking an intellectual risk playing music in front of 160 students.

The first song is “Brincan y bailan,” a traditional Spanish villancico that I learned as an undergraduate when I joined the choir at the University of Sevilla. I had been singing “Brincan y bailan” for about two months before I realized that it was a Christmas song because the subject matter and minor key sounded nothing like the Christmas carols to which I was accustomed: it had challenged many of my cultural assumptions. We project the lyrics in both the original Spanish and their English translation on the screen as I sing the verses and lead the students as they join the chorus.

I then turn our focus to the beloved Christmas carol “Silent Night.” Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber originally penned “Stille Nacht” in 1818 in their native German. By 1868, an American pastor had translated it to English as “Silent Night,” closely following the original German to compose the rhyming verses we sing today. Other translations differ notably from the original. For example, the opening line in the Spanish translation is “Noche de paz, noche de amor.” The words “night of peace, night of love” capture the essence of the song’s message but are far from a literal translation of “Stille Nacht.” After discussing the history and translations of “Silent Night,” I ask them to sing with me in Spanish and then for us to sing all together the English version. Exploring both “Brincan y bailan” and “Silent Night” helps to reinforce valuable lessons gained across our study of world cultures, while simultaneously drawing students and faculty closer as we sing all together as a community. One year, a student came up to me after class to tell me that she thought hearing everyone singing “Silent Night” together was “one of the most beautiful things [she’d] ever heard.”

Candi K. Cann: Breaking

Down Barriers Between Self and Other

BIC 4374 World Cultures V: Differing Visions and Realities is the fifth in a sequence of interdisciplinary core courses on the humanities, with classes delving into case studies in non-Western cultures.

As an eighteen-year-old taking American History at the University of Guam, I walked into my small dimly lit classroom expecting another course filled with dates, places, and names, and having to memorize a long list of key events. You can imagine my surprise, then, when my instructor walked in carrying a boombox and cassette tapes, supplementing his lectures with sounds and music from every era, alongside slides that illustrated history in ways that our books could not. I particularly remember the lecture on the American depression, Roosevelt’s resulting New Deal, and the ways that lecture intersected with jazz from the Harlem Renaissance. Talk about making history come alive!

My turn came years later at Baylor, when I taught World Cultures V, on the contemporary history of Brazil and Argentina. I utilize music throughout the course, but especially in the section on military dictatorships in the 1960s and 70s, to highlight the leftist voices protesting oppression. Because there have been a few iterations in the United States (Joan Baez in 1974 and Kacey Musgraves in 2021, and even a translation by writer Alice Walker) “Gracias a la Vida” is a song that may already be familiar to some students, providing an ideal starting point for the course material.31

“Gracias a la Vida” was originally composed and written by Chilean singer, Violeta Parra, who is considered the mother of Latin American folk music, and who emphasized the importance of traditional indigenous instruments, and was an activist against right-wing oppression. Fellow activist and Argentine, Mercedes Sosa, then recorded a version in homage to Parra in 1971, following Parra’s death by suicide in 1967. Both the instrumentation of the song, and its lyrics emphasize the importance of indigenous identity in Latin America, while underscoring the role of nature and landscape in Latino narratives. Many scholars argue that it is one of the most important songs in the Latin American cannon, and it has become a well-known protest anthem. As the song exclaims,

Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto: me ha dado el sonido y el abecedario; con él las palabras que pienso y declaro…

Thanks to life, which has given me much: It has given me sounds and the ABC’s; Which I use for the words that I think and declare.

Starting with the phrase “Gracias a la vida/Thanks to Life,” each stanza sounds like a prayer but to life, rather than a god. The repeating chorus followed by contrasting images throughout the song (night and

day, crickets and canaries, sound/writing; beaches and deserts; mountains and plains, etc.) serve to reinforce the idea that each thing comes to life through its contrast to the other. Night becomes night because of day; crickets sing at night while canaries sing in the day, etc. By the end of the song, the singer concludes that the two contrasting materials throughout the song are one and the same:

Los dos materiales que forman mi canto y el canto de ustedes, que es el mismo canto y el canto de todos, que es mi propio canto. Gracias a la Vida…

The two materials that create my song And your song is the same song And everyone’s song is really my song. Thanks to Life….

Ultimately, “Gracias a la Vida” seeks to break down barriers between self and other, while interrogating the dualisms we have created, questioning how those dualisms might serve to destroy, rather than unite, us. A military dictatorship that turns on its own people through its reliance on foreign intervention and dollars has lost the ability to see itself and to recognize its own beauty and importance in the world. “Gracias a la Vida” gives thanks to the people and culture of Latin America with an unflinching appreciation of indigenous culture and music and is a perfect starting point for examining the many layers in studying Latin American history.32

Notes

1 For an overview of the BIC, see: https://bic.honors.baylor.edu/.

2 On the BIC curriculum, see: https://bic.honors.baylor.edu/academics/curriculum-overview-0.

3 For the BIC’s study abroad opportunities, see: https://bic.honors.baylor.edu/academics/study-abroad.

4 For the Honors College vision, see: https://honors.baylor.edu/.

5 For examples, see: https://ifl.web.baylor.edu/ and https://bica.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/.

6 For details, see: https://strategicplan.web.baylor.edu/.

7 We owe this insight to Jeff Keuss. See Jeffrey F. Keuss, Your Neighbor’s Hymnal: What Popular Music Teaches Us about Faith, Hope, and Love (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011).

8 See Clive Marsh and Vaughan S. Roberts, Personal Jesus: How Popular Music Saves Our Souls (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012); John S. McClure, Mashup Religion: Pop Music and Theological Invention (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011); Anthony Pinn, My Jams: Reflections on the Relationship Between Music and Religion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2025); and Christian Scharen, Broken Hallelujahs: Why Popular Music Matters to Those Seeking God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011).

9 For Jay-Z’s “99 Problems,” see: https://youtu.be/il7DAixsKrQ?si=1btQGCECjxznrLlM.

10 Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

11 For Five Finger Death Punch’s “Jekyll and Hyde,” see: https://youtu.be/HCBPmxiVMKk?si=6Zmv_9iynBviQhSv.

12 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1886).

13 Daniel Mendelsohn, An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and an Epic (New York: Vintage, 2017).

14 For David Sylvian’s “Thalheim” video, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqliNzv_lQw.

15 For Darren J. N. Middleton’s interview with David Sylvian, see: https://www.davidsylvian.com/texts/interviews/questions_of_spirit_200 3.html.

16 See David J. Nibloe’s instructive essay: https://sylvianvista.com/2021/01/15/thalheim-the-church-bells-strike/.

17 David Sylvian, Hypergraphia: The Writings of David Sylvian, 19802014 (London: Samadhisound Publishing, 2015), 316.

18 Adrienne Brodeur, “It’s More Than Just Music: Using Music Therapy Strategies in the Classroom,” A Fine FACTA 15. 2 (2016): 47.

19 “Concerning Hobbits” is only about 3 minutes long, but various versions and mixes of it can be found online to facilitate longer discussion periods.

20 Dan Golding, “Seven Ingredients That Make the Lord of the Rings Sound like the Lord of the Rings,” ABC Classic, January 24, 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/classic/read-and-watch/music-reads/thelord-of-the-rings/11897010.

21 Anna Medaris, “Gen Z adults and younger millennials are ‘completely overwhelmed’ by stress,” American Psychological Association, November 1, 2023, https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/generation-z-millennialsyoung-adults-worries.

22 Le Monde avec AFP, “Black M et la bataille de Verdun: retour sur une polémique,” Le Monde, May 13, 2016. https://www.lemonde.fr/musiques/article/2016/05/13/le-rappeur-blackm-et-la-bataille-de-verdun-retour-sur-unepolemique_4919120_1654986.html.

23 Kery James was born Alix Mathurin, and decided to title his album with a name sonically reminiscent of Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. In 1964, Ali embraced the Nation of Islam and rejected his birth name, adopting Muhammad Ali under the mentorship of Elijah Muhammad. For James’s “Musique Nègre,” see: https://youtu.be/rOvHghBZ1Yw?si=WYg_3t8Nx9DKWpH5.

24 Lucas Burel, “Présidentielle: Henry de Lesquen, ce candidat qui veut "bannir la musique nègre" et revenir au 19e siècle,” Le Nouvel Obs, April 12, 2016.

https://www.nouvelobs.com/politique/20160411.OBS8244/presidentielle -henry-de-lesquen-ce-candidat-qui-veut-bannir-la-musique-negre-etrevenir-au-19e-siecle.html.

25 Translates as: “On the boulevard of life, I’m the dead angle; A n*gger who defies them is a dead n*gger; Since ‘the noise & smell,’ I know I bother France; I stop by Guerlain, put some violence perfume.” The second verse refers to comments made by French president Jacques Chirac and perfume maker Jean-Paul Guerlain. In June 1991, Chirac gave what came to be known as the “Discours d’Orléans,” in which he went on a xenophobic rant about the presupposed “smell and noise” that accompanied immigrant workers and their families moving in with them in French urban centers’ public housing. “Il est certain que d'avoir des Espagnols, des Polonais et des Portugais travaillant chez nous, ça pose moins de problèmes que d'avoir des musulmans et des Noirs”; translates as: “It is clear that having Spanish, Polish, or Portuguese workers in France poses less issues than Muslims and Blacks.” The second part of the verse refers to Guerlain’s racist words on France 2, a French national television channel, in October 2010. While discussing working harder than he ever had on the conception of a particular perfume, Guerlain noted, “I

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

started working like a n*gger. I don’t know if n*ggers ever really worked that hard, though…”

26 For this symphony, see: https://youtu.be/DWwppYEEdcI?si=ayKm57EWkAmCmoVT.

27 For the full opera of Carmen, see: https://youtu.be/u_VkfIthWHo?si=OjKqlzqzzTcpixW1.

28 For a performance of John Cage’s “4’33,” see: https://youtu.be/JTEFKFiXSx4?si=j-k1QKXX9qJke8nS.

29 For Miriam Makeba’s “Soweto Blues,” see: https://youtu.be/7kHtWuVwZSs?si=pRPfwY1ToWfJ7dyl. The lyrics, including the translations used in the main body of this text, may be found here: https://genius.com/Miriam-makeba-soweto-blues-lyrics.

30 For Peter Gabriel’s “Biko,” see: https://youtu.be/luVpsM3YAgw?si=xzYeqan0QTOgqV3z.

31 For Mercedes Sosa’s “Gracias a la Vida,” see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIrGQD84F1g.

32 Translation mine Candi K. Cann’s throughout.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 21-27

Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power: Paul’s Anthropology in 1 Corinthians 15 and the Promise of Resurrection Life

C. Eric Turner

Introduction

What does it mean to be a human being? One might answer, “I am not sure if I can provide a strict definition, being human means many things, however, I know one when I see one.” We might do well to be reminded at the outset of C. S. Lewis’s words,

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization these are mortal, and their life is to ours like the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.1

As Christians, we reply, “See! Of course. There it is. It is easy. We are immortal souls made for the glory of God and His worship and splendor. Case closed.” However, what seems like an intuitively simple question for Christians to answer is much more complex in our current cultural milieu. We face, for instance, the very real possibility of merging man and machine via AI integration and even talk of uploading our consciousness to a computer, thereby achieving eternal life.2 Gender is viewed as a spectrum. Technocratic companies corrupt and manipulate their customers as objects through algorithms that reduce people to 1’s and 0’s. We observe this daily when we see the person in the McDonald’s drive-through throwing a fit and screaming at the teenager in the window who forgot to put ketchup packets in the bag. We have an anthropology problem.

The good news found in the gospel is that now we know what it truly means to be a human person. One of the neglected elements of soteriology is its intended effect upon our anthropology, not just in the transcendent but also the immanent. We speak of the eternal state of the believer in ethereal, abstract terms. Grandma is “up there” watching over us. We return to the earth what is of the earth, but we commit to heaven what belongs to heaven. You see, Mommy, every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. I see dead people. Yes, our anthropology is broken in culture, but it is also misunderstood in the church. Take courage, this is not a new development. Even the early church struggled with an embodied

anthropology, both in their daily life, but also in their eschatological beliefs. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Paul’s teaching on the resurrected state in 1 Corinthians 15.

This paper will seek to explore Paul’s understanding of how our humanity will still be reflected in the state of resurrection. Drawing on his argument from 1 Corinthians 15, we will look at the unique Pauline agrarian metaphor of resurrection as our grounding for a robust resurrection anthropology. Special attention will be given to the misunderstanding that the Corinthians have regarding the resurrection of the dead and how that contributes to Paul’s correction in the chapter. The paper will also explore the modern applications of Paul’s anthropology as it relates to modern and postmodern beliefs about what it truly means to be human. Before proceeding to the Corinthian context, a brief glance at metaphor theory is needed.

A Brief Glance at Metaphor Theory

The study of metaphor has experienced dramatic shifts in the last twenty years, especially in the domain of linguistic modeling. These new methods are making it easier to examine the biblical metaphors which occur in the Greek New Testament (GNT). However, a divergence often occurs between the existence of these objective methods and the application of them by researchers to the biblical text. In other words, New Testament scholars have neglected available linguistic tools for studying metaphors more accurately, especially with respect to the discipline of systemic functional linguistics (SFL).3

SFL holds promise for how metaphors are identified objectively, rather than subjectively, a cornerstone of proper research methodology. Various answers are given for how to find metaphors in a literary text. For example, an interpreter could rely on simple intuition and often, this practice is all that is needed. However, simply locating a metaphor and arriving at a proper interpretation of it are not always guaranteed, particularly when the interpreter is working in a non-primary language such as Koiné Greek. The problem is that much of the current research on Pauline metaphor is limited to texts read through the grid of cognitive intuition.4 Furthermore, few scholars state their objective methodology for metaphorical analysis, primarily because they do not believe one is needed.5

Metaphor is often described as nothing more than a rhetorical flourish of the pen or as verbal gymnastics, a sly turn-of-a-phrase. It has even been described as an ornamental decoration that a writer adds as a finishing touch.6 If these opinions are true, then someone might ask, “Why does metaphor seem to be everywhere?” In modern culture, metaphor is not found just in literature, but also in music,7 movies,8 and certainly, in daily conversations.9 Metaphor is as much a part of everyday life, it seems, as breathing and eating. As a result, metaphor is either ignored or

misunderstood for the contribution it produces in linguistic communication and comprehension.

Paul is no exception to the utilization of metaphor as a rhetorical device in his letters. We observe this fact both on micro and macro levels. For example, the metaphor of a building rooted in construction imagery dominates the letter of Ephesians.10 Paul’s employs metaphors of military warfare throughout Philippians.11 Stewardship terminology dominates the landscape of the Pastoral Epistles.12 Arguably, these metaphors are key to understanding the macro themes of his letters which influences the reader’s theological understanding.

However, when Paul wants to emphasize a specific theological doctrine, he uses what is referred to as an active metaphor. Briefly, these are metaphors that are located in a specific cultural framework and are constructed with creative semantic potential yet are unpredictable with respect to their interpretation because of an amputated lexical relationship. Buss and Jost describe active metaphors as ones that possess innovative power to view the world differently, “For they produce strikingly novel, yet unheard of similarities.”13 In our text under examination, Paul uses an agrarian-based active metaphor to correct their theological (and anthropological) error regarding the resurrection of the saints. Before turning to this metaphor, it is critical we understand the nature of the Corinthian error.

The Misunderstanding of the Corinthians

To say that the Corinthians had disconnected theology from pragmatics, especially in the ethical realm, is an understatement. A quick glance across the surface of the letter reveals shocking behavior on the part of these “saints.” They are divided (1:10). They boast about worldly wisdom rather than the foolish message of the cross (1:18). Immorality, incest, and promiscuity with prostitutes is celebrated in their midst (5:1-2; 6:12-20). The church is defrauding one another through frivolous lawsuits taken before unrighteous judges (6:1-8). Marriages lack self-control (7:17). Christian liberty is being abused (8:1-9:27). Idolatry abounds in their midst (10:1-31). Spiritual gifts are ranked according to prominence of usage rather than corporate edification. (12:1-14:39). But the pinnacle issue arrives at the end of the letter where Paul asks, “How can some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (15:12)

If, as we will argue, the Corinthian misunderstanding of the resurrection is not that it doesn’t exist at all (i.e. annihilationism), but rather they are denying a physical resurrection of the corpse body, then it is safe to conclude at the most basic level that they have an underdeveloped and confused view of anthropology. Such a reality would shed light backwards in the letter on their convoluted behavior now that they are a new creation. How can they behave so poorly? Answer: they have an anemic anthropology. They view the body as perishable and the soul/spirit as good. They have bifurcated God’s view of the physical and

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 24

thus have concluded that what a person does in the body is irrelevant to the resurrected state. To this end, Paul employs a powerful corrective metaphor in 15:42-49, that of a seed sown in the ground.

Paul’s Correction: An Agrarian Metaphor

Paul begins his argument with an analogy about earthly and celestial realities. For those at Corinth who misunderstood the nature of the resurrection, Paul argues in 15:35-41 that from the inception of the created visible order that there has always been a differentiation of bodies whether it be animals or the sun, moon, and stars. Why would Paul establish the claim that God created a diversity of bodies that are visible to humans? Perhaps it is because the Christians at Corinth believed that God would reanimate corpses that were unrestored, what we might call a conscious. permanently decayed zombie. Thus, if you entered the grave missing an eye, you would be resurrected to forever only have one eye instead of two.

Paul’s response to this is dramatic in 15:36, “You fool!” The Corinthian desire to know what kind of body is answered directly, God gives a body just as He desires. This reality is explained through the metaphor of sowing a body into the ground, as if the Corinthians are planting a field of corpses and awaiting a resurrection harvest. Paul argues in 15:37, “that which you sow, you do not sow the body, which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.” The Corinthians should quickly understand the analogy. The seed of wheat does not look the same when it is fully matured and ready for harvest as it did when the farmer placed it in the ground.

The link Paul makes between the natural body and the spiritual body is further strengthened in the next section, 15:42-44. The difference Paul points out here is that the body is sown in corruption and raised incorruption. God’s design here is to link here the fleshly body with the resurrected body by virtue of death. The argument runs something like this: if God can create distinct kinds of earthly bodies (plants, animals, sun, moon, stars), then he can certainly create a different kind of resurrected body from this earthly body. It is here at this point that Paul employs the agrarian metaphor as it applies to anthropology. The earthly body is “sown” in corruption (i.e., in the ground) but is raised in incorruption (15:42).

The nature of this change is from a corruptible body to an incorruptible one. However, the correction that Paul offers is that this new body will possess physicality. It is, quite literally, a spiritual body (15:44). The ground (context) of the metaphor is that this earthly body is sown in weakness and dishonor – an analogy that the Corinthians who lived and labored in an agrarian society would clearly comprehend. Preparing the soil and planting was not light/easy work. They would understand that what grows out of this work is something holistically different and so it is with God’s work in raising the dead to new life. In the words of F. Alan

Tomlinson, “This body would clearly not be a reanimated corpse – some cleaned up version of the earthly physical body. It would be a corporeal body that would be incapable of undergoing decay, suffering, or persecution.”14 What then might this mean for our understanding of resurrection anthropology?

The Everlasting Man: Our Anticipated Resurrection Anthropology

The great English theologian and satirist G. K. Chesterton once quipped in his work The Everlasting Man, “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave. ”15 It would seem that Christians today have a healthy theology of the way out of the grave, but a biblically truncated view of our ontology as we journey ever closer towards it. Our dualism is exposed as we abuse and neglect our earthly bodies, thinking bodily discipline is of no profit (1 Tim 4:8) in light of God ‘s ability to snatch our souls out of the current and future corruptible state. Let us run with endurance is surely metaphorical protest the Christians on their third trip through the buffet line at the monthly church fellowship. We have lost the deep connection between the physical and the spiritual in the hope that God will rescue us from our corruptible, fleshly indulgences. How then should we view our anthropology in the now time? Or, to say it in a different way, in light of our already/not yet resurrected body, what should our actions reveal towards ourselves and others as embodied souls? We are to possess both an internal and an external perspective.

First, our internal perspective should center not just on soul care, but care of the physical. Here is what this does not mean. The viewpoint being advocated here is not to neglect the soul in favor of bodily discipline. For some the pendulum has swung too far in that direction. For example, hang out on a Saturday with your local CrossFit club or join up with a group of ultrarunners for a Sunday morning trail run. We are not advocating here for a David Goggins brand of Christianity. On the other hand, we are not suggesting a Jiminy Glick lifestyle where we shove donuts in our face ad nauseum. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 6) and a gift from God. Yes, we must strive for progress in holiness, but not to the neglect of the physical tent in which we reside.

Second, the external perspective is the opposite of the internal one. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5 that we recognize no one any longer according to the flesh (i.e., in a fleshly way). But he doesn’t stop there. He tells us how we are to recognize and view others – as new creations of God. The great challenge for us as Christians is to flip the object-based secular worldview on its head for a subject-based one. Thus, Lewis’ admonition returns to the forefront. You have never met a mere mortal. In other words, the people you encounter every day are not objects to be exploited by us for our selfish ambitions or pleasures. The gospel compels us to reject fleshly dualism in favor of embodied, new creation souls who

possess intrinsic value in the eyes of their Creator. The fundamental anthropology of every Christian should be image-based, not earthy-based. What does it mean to be human? To be an immortal, embodied soul who will worship Jesus for all eternity. We live in a critical time where biblical anthropology is needed both in the church and the public square. The choice we face is a real one. Will we unite ourselves with the creature and worship it or will we unite ourselves with the Creator and worship him forever in both body and spirit? May we choose the latter?

Notes

1 C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (1941).

2 The idea of uploading consciousness was the plot of several movies such as Blade Runner, Transcendence, and I am fairly certain but could be wrong is the plot of the current Apple TV show Severance. One of the questions we will struggle with is will we unite with the creature and therefore worship it or will we be united with our Creator. I am indebted here to Michael Mattheson Miller for this thought that was raised during a recent panel discussion Acton Conference on social engineering of the poor.

3 Portions of this article are taken directly or adapted from this author’s dissertation on linguistic metaphor in 2 Corinthians. See C. Eric Turner, “The Signalling and Syntactical Configuration of Active Metaphors: 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 as a Test Case” (PhD diss., Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015).

4 This statement is not meant to imply that intuition could never lead a person to the proper interpretation of a metaphor. The point here is that complete reliance on intuition may be a less reliable subjective methodology than one that is grounded in objectively measured evidence.

5 The following will suffice as representative of studies on Pauline metaphor which rely on intuition: Reider Aasgaard, My Beloved Brothers and Sisters! Christian Siblingship in Paul (London: T & T Clark, 2003); Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006); and Jerry M. Hullinger, “The Historical Background of Paul’s Athletic Allusions,” BSac 161 (2004): 343-59.

6 This view, of course, is not new. The classical definition of metaphor as a “deviant use of words” possessing “just an ornamental function in discourse” was first established by Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric 1475b.7 (Freese, LCL).

7 Kevin Cronin, the lead singer of REO Speedwagon, once wrote, “It is time to bring this ship into the shore and throw away the oars forever.” See Kevin Cronin, “I Can’t Fight this Feeling,” by Kevin Cronin, recorded on November 11, 1984, with Gary Richrath, Neal Doughty, Alan Gratzer, and Bruce Hall, on Wheels are Turnin´, Epic Records, 331/3 rpm. Clearly, Cronin was being metaphorical. No one imagines that he is writing a song about leaving behind nautical equipment after a difficult day of sailing.

8 It is sometimes argued that James Cameron’s movie Aliens is actually a metaphor for the Vietnam War where a group of American soldiers are sent to a strange land by incompetent leaders and as a result, they are slaughtered. See Aliens, directed by James Cameron, screenplay by James Cameron (20th Century Fox, 1986), DVD (1987).

9 If you overheard the sentence, “Carson is a night owl,” then you more than likely would not assume that the person is describing their new pet owl. You would correctly understand that the person being spoken about is someone who likes to stay up late at night. Because the metaphor is a common one in English, its meaning is taken for granted. In other words, you do not need to know anything about what species of owl the person is talking about to arrive at the correct interpretation.

10 Jermo Van Nies, “Under Construction: The Building of God’s Temple according to Ephesians 2,19-22,” in Paul’s Graeco-Roman Context, ed. Cilliers Breytenbach (Peeters: Paris, 2015), 631-44.

11 Dierk Mueller, Military Images in Paul's letter to the Philippians (PhD diss., University of Pretoria, 2013). He writes, “The major unified theme of Philippians is the mutual military-partnership for the advance of the gospel in a hostile context (Phil. 1:7-12; 1:20; 2:19-24; 2:25-30; 3:12-15; 4:3; 4:10-19). Paul in his letter to the Philippians uses consistently military imagery and not once athletic imagery, as typically assumed by exegetical scholars to demonstrate that the courageous sharing of the faith will always result in victory for the one who proclaims Christ.

12 See F. Alan Tomlinson, The Purpose and Stewardship Theme within the Pastoral Epistles,” in Entrusted with the Gospel: Paul’s Theology in the Pastoral Epistles, ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Terry L. Wilder (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010).

13 Mareike Buss and Jörg Jost, “Rethinking the Connection of Metaphor and Topos,” Metaphorik de 23 (2013): 1-14.

14 F. Alan Tomlinson, Notes on the HCSB (personal copy).

15 G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1993), 250.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 28-35

Artificial General Intelligence and Its Effect on Human Meaning, Worth, and Purpose

Karen Kannenberg

This paper investigates one very ancient area and one very contemporary reality. The first relates to the ongoing endeavor of humans to find meaning in life. Meaning in life has long been associated with finding individual worth and purpose. Therefore, finding meaning, worth, and purpose will result in a satisfying and happy life. This is as true today as it was a thousand years ago. Often, we associate meaning, purpose, and worth with our work. Rarely are we introduced to someone new and not asked within the first or second question, “Where do you work?” or “What do you do for a living?” This appears to indicate that the importance of work and the development of identity (and perhaps meaning, purpose, and worth) is prevalent and perhaps inculcated in humanity since our work is often associated with our survival. The most recent threat to many jobs is from Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or more specifically, the principal technology underpinning AGI, which is machine learning. Not to be confused with Generative Artificial Intelligence, which Marr (2024) describes as “[…] capable of mimicking complex patterns, producing diverse content, and occasionally surprising us with outputs that seem creatively brilliant. […] However, Generative AI does not truly ‘understand’ the content it creates.” AGI becomes a threat to jobs because this technology will soon be capable of duplicating the human brain in structure and function. Furthermore, this AGI evolution will continue to dwarf human intellectual capabilities and, with robotics, human physical abilities. If this evolution does occur, how will it impact this ongoing human search for meaning, worth, and purpose? It is difficult to argue that meaning, worth, and purpose are not intricately linked to our paid or unpaid work efforts. However, our work is not the only way in which humans can attain meaning, worth, and purpose in life.

Humanism, Christianity, and Meaning

According to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), humanism is defined as “a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values. Especially: a philosophy that rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.” This suggests that the truth about our identity is a function of

coming to understand self-reasoning. Truth, therefore, is defined by and the product of human efforts. In secular humanism, morals, values, purpose, and worth are also products of human efforts, not absolute but rather relative and ever-changing.

Christianity, according to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), is “the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture. […]” Christianity accepts supernaturalism in its belief in God. Truth is absolute and defined by God, not humans. Values, morals, worth, and purpose are likewise not attained or defined by humans or their efforts but rather by God.

Meaning, according to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), is defined as a “significant quality.” When applied to human existence, meaning is the measure of the significant quality of human life. For the humanist, it is the human that determines the level and degree of quality of human life and meaning. Since truth and meaning are not absolute for the humanist, neither are any aspects that relate to truth or meaning. Therefore, morals, values, worth, and purpose are relative and ever-changing if they exist at all. In Christianity, it is God who determines the level and degree of quality of human life and meaning. Truth and meaning are absolute and unchanging creations of God for the Christian, as are any aspects of human existence that relate to life and meaning. Therefore, morals, values, worth, and purpose are all absolute and unchanging.

Work, Economics, and Innovation

Throughout the history of the American capitalist, or free market, economy humans have reacted to the introduction of innovations, especially in the form of new technology, as a threat to some or many jobs. While new technology is a threat to some jobs, it has traditionally been confined to one or a few industries whose jobs needed to be replaced or upskilled. In the 21st century, the fear associated with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) relates to the magnitude and rate of change that this technological innovation is currently having on redefining jobs in almost all industries, whether skilled labor or knowledge labor. Work that requires high levels of education and intellectual ability are, for the first time in history, under great threat. In addition, unskilled labor requiring a limited knowledge base, but considerable physical ability is also under threat due to ongoing advances in robotics. As a result, our society is expressing an increasing amount of fear about the impact it will have on their jobs and their children’s job opportunities in the future and therefore, to some extent, their meaning, worth, and purpose. At the same time, history has shown that without the forces of innovation and change facilitated only through a free market economy, human flourishing would not have advanced. Each time there is a significant innovation, jobs have been impacted. Each time, the fear of job loss is a common thread as the new innovative technology begins to be

implemented in how jobs are performed and applied commercially, creating new products and services. To address these concerns, Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist known as the father of entrepreneurship or, perhaps more commonly, the father of the theory of creative destruction, wrote extensively about the real and perceived problem. Schumpeter (1939) introduced the theory of creative destruction. His theory stems from the work of soviet economist, Nikolai Kondratieff, the godfather of the grand macroeconomic patterns predicting long-cycle booms and busts. Kondratieff’s research developed the Kondratieff Cycles or K-cycles of technology and economic growth. I borrow from Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction to frame concerns over the impact of AGI on jobs, now and likely in the future. The phrase “creative destruction” is utilized to define the impact of innovation on industries and jobs. Schumpeter’s work reviews the historical impact of significant technological changes (representing innovation) on economic outcomes throughout the major economies. He observes and contrasts centrally planned economies versus free market economies. Technological change qualifies as innovation if the application results in entirely new products and services; or new levels of supply and demand for existing product’s as compared to the output under the old method of production. Schumpeter sites examples of creative destruction with the cotton gin’s impact on the supply of cotton and the locomotive engine replacing the steam engine for railway expansion.

Miller (2021) provides cautionary insight into the perceived rate of technological change in the implementation of technological innovation for commercial applications:

When it comes to focusing on a forecast of growth following the birth of an entirely new technology say the first rocket, or aircraft, or computer, or vaccine one needs knowledge about the trends in all the associated enabling or limiting components. ‘Disruptive innovations’ that come from foundational shifts, once they occur, don’t happen overnight, even though it looks like that in hindsight. (p. 10)

For example, it took twenty years from the first fission to the first commercial nuclear reactor in 1958. Then another twenty years passed to use nuclear energy to supply even five percent of the world’s electricity. From the first rocket reaching the moon, it took twenty years before the space program began and space travel remains fraught with challenges to be commercially applicable for the consumer. Miller reminds us that there is a structure to technological revolutions.

To further support the true rate of technological change, Miller (2021) provides examples of the “rule of threes” tied to technological advancement over time. Take the iPhone for example. He reminds us that three technologies had to advance, that Apple had nothing to do with, before the iPhone could be invented. These technologies were the silicon

microprocessor, a pocket-sized TV screen, and the lithium battery. Without any one of these technological advancements, there would be no iPhone. Each of these technologies had been years in development before it was able to contribute to the iPhone. Each of the three technologies had seen decades of refinements. The microprocessor was invented in 1959 by Jack Kilby; known as the silicon large scale integrated circuit. The highresolution, wrist sized TV screen had been envisioned in the 1950s but it was George Heilmeier at RCA who invented the liquid crystal display (LCD) in 1964. However, it took another decade before Kato and Miyazaki at Sharp Corporation added color to the technology. Lithium-ion batteries began development in the 1970s and were introduced in the 1990s for commercial applications. More current support for the lag in AI impacting jobs comes from Medici (2024) who reported research showing that AI is still not prevalent in job skills requirements except for some computer scientist jobs.

Biblical and Ethical Considerations

The impact of AI on human values and ethics is already profound. As Christians, we believe our worth and purpose lies in our Creator and salvation through his son, Jesus, our Savior. The giver of every good and perfect gift. Are we able to trust Him through significant threats to our identity as it is tied to work and earning a living? Will there be enough Christian computer scientists to influence the use of AGI for good and seek to limit its capabilities, or will predominantly nonbelievers remain at the fore of its development? Many computer scientists developing this technology are not professing Christians. According to Lawrence (2024), most computer scientists pursuing AGI seek to understand and replicate human intelligence, which is believed to be the ultimate goal to conceivably replace the human. Few would argue that the future likely holds computers and robots that can out-think and outwork all humans. These robots will be faster, better, and cheaper than humans.

We are already witnessing the change in the human condition to pursue the use of these computer-generated life-like forms to, for example, displace loneliness with, at times, catastrophic effect. Take the case of 14year-old Sewell Setzer III, who committed suicide because his parents wanted him to spend less time with the Character.AI app. This app already has 20 million users. This role-playing program, released in 2022, allows users to interact with computer-generated characters. These chatbots mimic the behaviors of real people when they speak. While the app provides a disclaimer that the characters and their interactions are not real, this young man’s reality was altered. He was interacting, no had arguably developed a relationship, with a Game of Thrones character named Daenerys Targaryen. One day, he asked the bot, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” The bot replied, “[…] please do, my sweet king.” The AI character did not have the gift of sight to see that Sewell was

holding a gun when he asked the question, nor the gift of human discernment to ask Sewell what he meant by that question and then pursue a line of conversation to persuade him back into reality and out of the act of suicide. (Dodd, 2024)

What is to stop or limit AGI and its uses, which are not constructive to human flourishing? Already, there is talk of this technology being able to learn and think on its own, achieving Superintelligence. Superintelligence was first introduced in 1956 by I. J. Good, who served as a statistician on the code-breaking team of Alan Turing during World War II. Good (1966) introduced the concept he called ultraintelligence, which has now been termed superintelligence. The idea was that machines could be designed to design themselves and would continually improve at rates that far exceed man’s capacities. Therefore, his concern was how well man could set boundaries on the machine learning so they would keep us informed as to how to control them.

This superintelligence once achieved is feared to then lead to “singularity.” Kurzweil (2012) describes singularity as the moment in time that leads to doomsday where humanity loses control of computers and robots. AGI robots will be sentient machines, fully human achieving consciousness, except for a soul. Will humans respond by relying on the belief known as determinism? The idea that animal and human behavior is totally the result of, or determined by, genetic predisposition and or environmental learning? With this position, humans do not choose their thoughts and behaviors. Instead, their behaviors are fully determined by (or a result of) their physiology and environmental experience. If this is true, then humans are the same as or like other forms of life. Differences become merely differences in complexity, organization, or abilities to learn and remember.

On the other hand, for those who believe in God given free will, humans are free to choose their behavioral direction. Christians understand that our souls are given by God at conception. The belief that humans have free will suggests that humans are influenced by their physiology and environment. However, humans can transcend these forces and influences and freely choose their direction in life. The uniquely human ability to freely choose is needed to set limits on the design capacities of artificial intelligence, knowing, to date, AI cannot discern context, as in the case with young Sewell. Alternatively, will God intervene? To non-believers in God and Jesus Christ as their savior, there are no consequences of pursuing the replication of human intelligence or even replacing the human. Thacker (2020) draws our attention to this point, stating,

The popularity of the materialistic understanding of humanity in our society is one of the main reasons that the singularity has gained so much notoriety in the last few years. The thinking is that we have computers that can become masters at chess […] so we must be near the

singularity where an intelligent machine supplants us as the highest order of creation. (p. 177)

As a believer, I parallel this pursuit to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:1-9 (NIV). In rebellion, based on the original sin of pride, the people pursued renown for themselves and a desire to dominate God’s creation, considering equality with God achievable. This level of pride and rebellion against God’s order and laws led to God’s intervention in the form of confusing their language by creating many languages and scattering the people throughout the earth. Yet, man finds ways, throughout history, to undo God’s order. Today, language barriers are essentially non-existent. There’s an app for that. As a believer, I see this technological pursuit stemming from AGI in need of great submission to the laws of God and His glory and authority. The question then becomes, can the unbelievers AGI pursuits in computers and robotics be constrained by believers speaking into AGI advancements and parameters for displacing the human.

Conclusion

This paper has investigated the possible impact that AGI and sophisticated robotics might have on the American and global workforce. Throughout history, technological advancements have always resulted in product replacements or improvements. These product replacements or improvements have resulted in workforce shifts while the overall number of workers continued to grow. But current technological advancements are quite different from those in the past. AGI and robotics are not merely advancements or replacements in existing production; they are the permanent replacement of workers. These worker replacements will result in broad economic and behavioral effects on society.

The work has also discussed the centuries-old relationship between an individual’s work and their perception of meaning, worth, and purpose in life. If the individual derives their meaning in life from their worldly work environment, then their ability to find meaning, worth, and purpose outside of their work could be diminished or eliminated if AI advancements replace their work. However, there are alternative sources of meaning, worth, and purpose. Some of these are worldly, based on our human abilities and relationships. But there are other sources of meaning in life. One of these non-worldly endeavors is Christianity. While the worldly position (humanism) finds meaning in worldly endeavors, Christians find meaning in life that transcends the limitations of the individual and the world. While humanists are confounded by ever changing morals and values focused on human endeavors, Christians are focused on the absolute and stable morals, values, and truth of God. This focus on human truth is ever-changing, resulting in individual and societal

behavioral instability and chaos. Focus on the truths of God results in stable behavioral guidelines for both individuals and society.

In addition, it is an assumption that AGI robots will replace most if not all human workers. This assumption is based on the presumption that humans do not possess any qualities that are competitive or greater than their machine competitors. There is no doubt that AGI robots will eventually dwarf the worldly abilities of humans. However, most Christians understand that the gifts from God to humans are not limited to the human genome and environmental learning abilities. If human behavior is limited to the outcomes of our genetics and environmental learning then it would be possible to argue that human abilities are limited due to the limitations of our genetics, environmental learning, and our memory capacities. AGI robots have no limitations in these deterministic areas and will far surpass humans. However, Christians believe that God created humans in His image and endowed humans with free will (autonomous choice). This gift of free will transcends and will never be attained by our AGI robotic competitors. Free will, if utilized, will always place humans in an advantageous position to our non-human competitors with deterministic and non-spiritual limitations.

References

Dodd, J. (2024, November 24). My child was collateral damage. (Vol. 102/Issue 20). People.

Good, I. J. (1966) Speculations concerning the first ultraintelligent machine. Advances in Computers, ed. Franz L. Alt and Morris Rubinoff, vol. 6 (31-88).

Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to create a mind: The secret of human thought revealed. Viking.

Lawrence, N. D. (2024). The atomic human: What makes us unique in the age of AI. Hachette Book Group.

Marr, B. (2024, May 8). The important difference between Generative AI and AGI. Forbes.

Medici, A. (2024, December 12). The hottest jobs heading into 2025 have a common thread and it’s not AI. St. Louis Business Journal.

DOI:

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2024/12/12/hottestjobs-fast-growing-pay20242025aichatgpt.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_ campaign=me&utm_content=SL&ana=e_SL_me&j=37836822&se nddate=2024-12-13&empos=p16.

Mills, M. P. (2021). The cloud revolution: How the convergence of new technologies will unleash the next economic boom and a roaring 2020s. Encounter Books.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved January 10, 2025, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/

Schumpeter, J.A. (1939). Business cycles: A theoretical, historical, and statistical analysis of the capitalist process. (Vol. I, pp. 87-88, 220279). McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

Thacker, J. (2020). The age of AI: Artificial intelligence and the future of humanity. Zondervan Thrive.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 36-48

Pacificism and the Second Amendment: The Early Church Father’s Contribution to the Discussion on Gun Control

Rubin McClain

Introduction

Gun violence in the United States remains a highly contentious subject. The constitutional right to bear arms is a cornerstone of American identity, fiercely defended by its advocates. However, proponents of gun control have highlighted a disconcerting gap between widespread gun ownership and public safety. Even international human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, have depicted the devastating portrait of gun violence in the United States, declaring that gun violence is at odds with the fundamental human right to life.1 In 2023, for example, almost 47,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States.2 Nevertheless, there is also cause for optimism. A recent Pew Research study indicates a shift in American perspectives regarding gun violence and violent crime, with increasing recognition of these issues as significant problems in the United States, a trend that spans both ends of the political spectrum.3 The simultaneous worsening conditions and growing awareness, raises important questions about how Christians should response to gun violence.4

However, even as public discourse shifts, there are still substantial barriers to affecting long-term change. For example, some of these realities include lobbyists groups and religious communities that are ardent defenders of gun ownership.5 But the most formidable barrier to comprehensive gun control is the Second Amendment.6 An influential contribution to this discourse is Allan J. Lichtman’s thought-provoking work, Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America, where he contends that the Second Amendment is the core issue for gun legislation.7 The Second Amendment simultaneously provides the constitutional right to bear arms, while providing a barrier to comprehensive gun legislation.

Part of the framework by which Christians can address this constitutional barrier is the pacifistic teachings of the New Testament and early Christian literature. Although guns are an anachronistic reality, that is unknown to the ancient world, violence is an unfortunate universal human experience. Thus, based on an evaluation of certain early Christians authors on war and violence which are notably broad, this

presentation contends that a focus of Christian ethical action should revolve around repealing the Second Amendment to secure comprehensive gun legislation. By instituting comprehensive gun control, it would reduce gun violence by restricting access to guns. In this framework, less access to guns equals less gun violence, including suicides, mass shootings, and gang related activities. The three main sections are (1) a brief history of gun legislation, (2) a biblical and early Christian ethical framework, and (3) an appeal toward political activism.

Short History of Gun Legislation

This first section will highlight a brief history of gun legislation and the shift in legal cases in the 20 and 21th centuries that makes sense of how our contemporary understand of gun rights.8 Although opposing interpretations did exist, the primary legal understanding of the Second Amendment was to protect gun ownership in relationship to militias, not individuals.9 Notably, the case, United States v. Miller (1939) stands as an early example where the court ruled in favor of militia interests over individual gun ownership. In this ruling, the Supreme Court stated, “Only weapons that have a reasonable relationship to the effectiveness of a wellregulated militia under the Second Amendment are free from government regulation.”10

This understanding also extended to organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA). In fact, as recently as 1975, they asserted that the Second Amendment played a minimal role in shaping gun control policies and that the prevailing interpretation of the Second Amendment was rooted in a collective and militia-focused understanding.11 Exemplifying this understanding was the case Lewis v. United States (1980), which ruled that a prior felony could in fact, prohibit someone from gun ownership.12

However, a significant transformation occurred in the mid-1980s, marked by a decisive shift in lobbying efforts spearheaded by the NRA and constitutional interpretations of the Second Amendment by some legal experts. One of the pivotal moments in this shift occurred in 2008 during the Supreme Court case of D.C. v. Heller, where a narrow 5–4 ruling established an individual’s right to possess firearms, independent of their affiliation to a militia.13 This landmark case reshaped the landscape of gun rights in the United States.

Furthermore, the case of Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) expanded on these protections to encompass all “bearable arms,” even those arms not originally considered at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. Concurrently, the proliferation of “stand-your-ground” laws across many states offered legal protection to individuals using deadly force in self-defense, creating a challenging environment for prosecuting the shooter when self-defense claims are made.14 Complementing these legislative changes, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts

(PLCAA), ratified in 2005, provides legal safeguards for weapon manufacturers and gun dealers.

Biblical and Early Christian Framework

The biblical text provides us with a foundation for constructing a framework that engages the contemporary issue of gun violence. Given that firearms are anachronistic, having not existed in antiquity, we must develop a framework based on the broader use of violence, war, and killings, then contextualize that to our contemporary circumstances.15 When consulting the biblical text, it becomes evident that one can find justifications for the use of weapons or violence based on a variety of factors, including capital punishment and engagement in warfare.16 Our ethics can be shaped depending on what we choose or omit. One of the most compelling pacifistic frameworks emerges from the example set by Jesus himself, who willingly journeyed to his crucifixion without retaliation or opposition.17

Furthermore, we discover another wellspring of wisdom that is the early Church.18 Before the Constantinian shift in war ethics, numerous voices from this period shed light on the complex discourse surrounding the prevailing attitudes toward violence.19 During the formative years of the Christian movement, a multitude of voices emerged, denouncing violence and advocating for a peaceful way amid a world of brutality, including Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and early martyrological texts.

To be fair, it is also important to acknowledge that early Christian perspectives on matters of violence and military participation were not monolithic.20 For instance, the New Testament records John the Baptist’s statement that a soldier should be content with his wages, implying that some continued their service to the Roman Empire (Luke 3:14; Acts 10).21 Historical evidence also suggests the presence of Christians within the Roman military.22 One notable instance, dating back to the late 2nd Century, involved Marcus Aurelius’ legion, famously known as the “Thundering Legion.” An account emerged of a miraculous thunderstorm which repelled their enemies during a battle. One major interpretation of this account associated the victory and the miraculous storm with the Christian God.23

Along with this attitude by some to allow for military participation, the Just War tradition aligned Christians more favorably with the Roman Empire, challenging the notion that they were fundamentally antiimperial.24 A pivotal transformation occurred in Christian theology with the emergence of Just War Theory, notably championed by Ambrose and Augustine.25 Augustine’s Just War Theory posits that, given the fallen nature of the world, humanity is justified in resorting to war considering that certain criteria be met. This shift of perspective was exemplified during the reign of Constantine.26 For example, at the Council of Arles

(Aarl), Constantine’s inaugural council, soldiers who laid down their weapons during peacetime faced excommunication.27 Although there are differing opinions about this canon, the most straightforward interpretation is that soldiers were required to serve in the military, even in the absence of conflict, emphasizing the importance of one’s obligation to serve the State.

However, a resounding chorus of early Christian voices continued to denounce warfare and violence. For instance, Lactantius, in his work, Divine Institutes, forcefully contends that not only are spectators of gladiator games immoral, but also those involved in capital punishment and any form of military service.28 According to Lactantius, the legality of an action is inconsequential, as the act itself is prohibited under any circumstance.29

Another aspect of this broader discourse on what was permitted for the Christian community is the third-century CE church order known as the Apostolic Tradition. 30 This church order explicitly advises that gladiators, teachers of gladiators, pagan priests, magi, or military personnel should not seek instruction from the ecclesial community.31 In fact, individuals associated with the military are instructed to refuse commands to take the lives of others and to abstain from any oaths related to such actions. Failure to adhere to these guidelines resulted in expulsion from the community.32

Tertullian stands as a pivotal figure in the discussion about nonviolence as well.33 He sought to address the inherent tension between being a Christian and the potential for interactions with idolatry in a pagan society.34 Tertullian authored key texts on the subject, including Spectacles, The Crown, and Idolatry. Tertullian contends that Christians who have been baptized must either leave the military or navigate the ethical complexities arising from their service as Roman soldiers.35 His concerns extend beyond state idolatry to encompass the act of violence itself.36 This idea is clear as he chastises those that attend gladiator games, perceiving them as denigrating the sanctity of life, where people created in God’s image are being killed by others.37 In Idolatry, he goes so far as to claim that when Christ disarmed Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, he symbolically “disarmed every soldier.”38

Irenaeus, on the other hand, believed that turning away from war and violence fulfils prophecy. In other words, Christians who renounced violence and war fulfill the eschatological vision of Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2 where swords will be transformed into ploughshares.39 Illustrating this prophetic fulfillment, Irenaeus directly cites the idea that Christians turn the other cheek, which fulfils the prophetic language of nonviolence in the Hebrew Bible.40 In another instance, Irenaeus comments on the role of the State and argues that it will face judgment if it undermines the justice it was meant to enforce in society.41

Origen, a prominent early Christian theologian, consistently emphasizes the Christian commitment to love their enemies, renounce personal revenge, and abstain from participating in acts of war or military

service.42 He perceives a fundamental contradiction between entrusting revenge to God and Christians engaging in violence through military involvement.43 In another place, he asserts that Christ never provided guidance for his disciples to take another person’s life.44 Origen underscores that Christians can contribute to battles in a different manner by offering prayers and intercessions on behalf of soldiers without physically participating in violence and thus remaining pure in the eyes of God.45

Finally, in the martyrological work titled, The Acts of Maximilian, illustrates the inherent incompatibility between Christian identity and military service.46 The narrative revolves around Maximilian, a young man who refused to enlist in the military and was executed because of his conviction. Similarly, in Acts of Marcellus, the story unfolds around a centurion named Marcellus, who cast aside his weapons and refused to fight for the Roman military.47 His unwavering refusal to engage in combat also led to his own execution. In both cases, a stark conflict emerges, highlighting the divide between embracing Christianity and joining the military. But this divide is not just focused on Christians identifying closely to the State, but on the implications of military service and killing others made in the image of God. Violence itself is condemned.

Repealing the Second Amendment

The ethical framework embraced by many early Christians, characterized by prohibitions against killing, refusal to join the military, and a consistent condemnation of violence as antithetical to Christian life, reflects a major theme of their time. While this framework does not directly pertain to the modern phenomenon of gun possession or usage, it provides a foundation from which to denounce all forms of gun violence. It also allows us to scrutinize the institutions that enable such acts, and to address legislative and constitutional barriers hindering any efforts to address the conditions of those adversely affected by gun violence. Considering this, my contention is that Christians should broaden their ethical perspective to encompass gun legislation and the Second Amendment.

Thus, considering the ethical structure of this chorus of early Christian thought, we can reasonably devise a position on guns that both recognizes the freedom of Americans to possess firearms while simultaneously advocating for reform and dismantling of the constitutional barriers for legislation. Here are six concluding yet tentative thoughts on approaching this modern-day ethical quandary in reference to early Christian thinkers:

1) Although guns have multiple purposes, they are often wielded to end the lives of people created in the image of God. This grim reality plunges people affected by gun violence into despair and hopelessness. But this

also presents an opportunity for Christians to contribute meaningfully to society by helping reduce these tragic deaths, by advocated for a restriction of access to guns. The Christian witness, like the early Church, can offer an alternative vision of peace that is rooted in the coming eschatological age.

2) Unlike the dynamic between the Roman State and early Christians, the modern U.S. governmental system allows for large-scale, democratic, and grassroots movements which can initiate change. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution, while important, is not a sacred text for Christians. Thus, repealing an amendment should not pose a theological dilemma for believers. Christians worshiped Jesus during large-scale and regional State persecutions in opposition to the State, and so, the U.S. Constitution, much like the Roman State, does not have the final say on Christian witness and activism, regardless of the pushback.

3) The contemporary interpretation of guns as an individual right is a relatively recent development. Until the 1980s, the prevailing understanding of the Second Amendment was held in connection to local militias.

4) Early Christians’ rejection of violence and their pursuit of peace were considered prophetic fulfillments of Scripture. Their pacifistic leanings were not mere utopian aspirations but deliberate efforts to initiate an eschatological reality governed by God. Christians abstaining from violence serve as a prophetic testament to the ultimate good brought forth by God’s reign. Today, Christians can further the prophetic activism led by their predecessors by calling out the reality of gun violence and by offering solutions.

5) Much of the tension that Christians today feel about gun rights is the individual freedom to bear arms. Yet, Christians are guided by a framework that values sacrificing personal freedoms for the well-being of others, with the ultimate paradigm of sacrificial love being the person and ministry of Jesus. Therefore, advocating for restrictions on gun ownership for everyone including themselves, aligns quite well with the Christian principle of self-sacrifice. Surrendering the constitutional right to bear arms can reflect a Christian commitment to prioritize the welfare of others over one’s own personal freedoms.

6) Repealing the Second Amendment neither nullifies nor implies that gun ownership or self-defense are improper actions for Christians to undertake. Removing the constitutional barrier to gun ownership paves the way for comprehensive gun reform and does not outlaw the possession of guns. Many other countries around the world that lack constitutional freedom to possess firearms still maintain ownership of them, but with reasonable measures in place.

Notes

1 Amnesty International. Gun Violence. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/.

See also Charles W. Collier, “The Death of Gun Control: An American Tragedy,” Critical Inquiry 41 (2014): 102-31. Collier laments, “In this case, it seems, nothing substantive can be done at all. Because of who and what we are, we bring this tragedy upon ourselves; and we cannot help doing so inevitably, inescapably, and irreversibly (Simmel’s ‘tragedy of culture’). The notion of tough gun laws in America is the product of wishful if not delusional thinking the ‘farce’ to which Marx refers” (pp. 130-31).

2 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-datasays-aboutgun-deaths-in-the-us/.

3 Gun Violence Widely Viewed as a Major and Growing National Problem. Pew Research Center. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/28/gun-violence-widelyviewed-as-a-major-and-growing-national-problem/.

4 Others have helpfully suggested solutions to reducing these tragic deaths. Randy Borum, Dewey G. Cornell, William Modzeleski, and Shane R. Jimerson, “What Can Be Done About School Shootings? A Review of the Evidence.” Educational Researcher 39 (2010): 27–37. The authors suggest out using threat assessment based on more nuanced criteria such as the motivation and type of threat can help reduce gun violence. See also Philip J. Cook, and Harold A. Pollack. “Reducing Access to Guns by Violent Offenders.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3 (2017): 2–36; Other suggestions are wide ranging, such as arming teachers, see Douglas Yacek, “America’s Armed Teachers: An Ethical Analysis,” Teachers College Record 120 (2018): 1–36; Lana M. Minshew, “From the Editorial Board: On Arming k–12 Teachers,” The High School Journal 101 (2018): 129–33. Or allowing concealed carry firearms on university campuses, see M. Deiterle and W. John Koolage, “Affording Disaster: Concealed Carry on Campus,” Public Affairs Quarterly 28 (2014): 115–45; For a list of States that allow concealed carry firearms, see Amy Rock (2024, April 26). An Updated List of States That Allow Campus Carry. Campus Safety. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/university/list-of-states-thatallow-concealed-carry-guns-on-campus/.

5 Which Senators have Benefited the Most from NRA Money? United Against Gun Violence. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://elections.bradyunited.org/take-action/nra-donations-116th-

congress-senators ; see also US Gun Control: What is the NRA and Why is it so Powerful? BBC. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35261394; Stephen M. Merino, “God and Guns: Examining Religious Influences on Gun Control Attitudes in the United States,” Religions 9 (2018): 1–13; Abigail Vegter and Kevin R. den Dulk, “Clinging to Guns and Religion? A Research Note Testing the Role of Protestantism in Shaping Gun Identity in the United States,” Politics and Religion 14 (2021): 809–24.

6 One might point out that the second amendment does not necessarily preclude attempts toward reasonable gun legislation, see Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller, “What Is Gun Control? Direct Burdens, Incidental Burdens, and the Boundaries of the Second Amendment,” The University of Chicago Law Review 83 (2016): 295–355. Here the authors explore the boundaries and confines of the Second Amendment and its relationship to gun control.

7 Allan J. Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2019), 4. There are other advocates of this idea as well, see John Paul Stevens. (2018 March 27). Repeal the Second Amendment. New York Times. Retrieved May 17 2024 from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevensrepeal-second-amendment.html.

8 Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 60–73, 113–36.

9 Michael Waldman, The Second Amendment: A Biography (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2014); cf. Clayton E. Cramer, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nashville, TN: Nelson Current; 2006); See also Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 42–59; Jack N. Rakov, “The Second Amendment: The Highest State of Originalism,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 76 (2000): 103–166.

10 United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). Justia. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/307/174/.

11 As cited in Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 115.

12 Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980). Justia. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/445/55/.

13 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Justia. Retrieve May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/ .

14 German Lopez (2016, December 12). What “Stand Your Ground” Laws Actually do. Vox. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/12/13875124/standyour-ground-castle-doctrine-law.

15 Consequently, the conversation regarding a Christian ethic toward gun violence is intricately tied to the broader realm of Christian ethics, theories of warfare, and political discourse. See Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994); James A. Reimer, Christians and War (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010); Sohail H. Hashmi, ed., Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Laury Sarti, Perceiving War and the Military in Early Christian Gaul (ca. 400-700 A. D.) (Madrid: Brill, 2013); Caron E. Gentry, Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013); Millard C. Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980); Anthony F. Lang, Cian O'Driscoll, and John Williams, Just War: Authority, Tradition, and Practice (Washington, District of Columbia: Georgetown University Press, 2013); Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Interfaith just Peacemaking: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives on the New Paradigm of Peace and War (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Joseph L. Allen, War: A Primer for Christians (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014).

16 Some of these texts require more nuance and discussion, but one could certainly cite them to construct a just war theory. See Exod 15; 21:24; 22:2–3; Deut 7:2; 20–26; Josh 6:20–21; 8:26–28; 10:40; 11:13; 1 Sam 15:2–3; 2 Kings 9–10; Psalms 11:5–6; Psalm 33:16–19; Lam 2:17, 21; Matt 10:34–39; Mark 12:17; Luke 22:35–38; John 2:15–16; Acts 10; Rom 13:1–7; Rev 16–17.

17 Pacifistic texts include Isa 53; Micah 4:3–4. Cf. Joel 3:9–10; Matt 5–7; Rom 12:14–21; 1 Pet 3:9, and I think preeminently instructive is Jesus’ life and ministry. In both cases, whether for pro or anti-violence positions, these are not exhaustive references. Jesus’ prophetic act in the temple is one such place where “violence” in a broad sense is done, but nowhere is it clear that anyone was physically injured or killed, which is obscured in the wording of “εκβάλλω”. However, we can say that this act was economically and socially disruptive (Mark 11:15–17). Another place that requires comment is Jesus’ eschatological return (Rev 19:11–21). But since this text is an eschatological one, it is not clear that it justifies war for believers today.

18 Ronald J. Sider, The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012); John H. Yoder, The Christian Witness to the State, 2nd ed (Kitchener, ON: Herald Press, 2012); Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2003); Adolf von Harnack, Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981).

19 Other early Christian texts that are important for this discussion. Some of these texts outright condemn violence, others reiterate Christ’s teachings, while others are interpreted as indifference toward being soldiers, etc., see Did. 2.1–2; 2 Clem. 13.4; Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 14–17, 39; 2 Apol. 4; Dial. 85, 96, 110; Tatian, Or. Graec. 11; Athenagoras, Leg. 1, 11, 35; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 3, 10, 11; Paed. 1.7, 12; 2.4, 10, 12–13; 3.3, 12; Strom. 4.8, 12; Minucius Felix, Oct. 30; Did. apost. 18.

20 Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 20. Meeks states that later generations of Christians dealt with this question far more than the earliest generations. This picture of Christian participation in the military is further examined, see Niko Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition, NovTSup 179 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 138–228. Huttunen points out the underlying bias that many scholars seem to possess when dealing with early Christian participation in the military is their anti-military bias; see also Jonathan Koscheski, “The Earliest Christian War: Second- and Third-Century Martyrdom and the Creation of Cosmic Warriors,” JRE 39 (2011): 100–124.

21 For sources with a historical approach where soldiers have a more or less positive portrayal in Luke-Acts, see Laurie Brink, Soldiers in LukeActs: Engaging, Contradicting, and Transcending the Stereotypes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014); and Alexander Kyrychenko, The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel: The Role of the Centurion in Luke-Acts, BZNW 203 (Boston: De Gruyter, 2014). See also Rebecca Runesson, “Centurions in the Jesus movement? Rethinking Luke 7:1–10 in Light of the Gaianus Inscription at Kefar ‘Othnay,” JBL 142 (2023): 129–149. Runesson argues that this passage shows how centurions related to the local cults and how it could reorient us to view the relationship military personages and Christ groups differently; Nigel Pollard, Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).

22 See Sider, The Early Church on Killing; Encapsulating the pushback from other scholars are notably the bias that pacifist readings have, including the way in which source material is collated, see Geoffrey Dunn, “Book Review: The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook

on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment. Edited by Ronald J. Sider,” TS 75 (2014): 954–955. But this critique seems to be overstated and does not appropriately deal with the evidence at hand.

23 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.5. Eusebius seems to fuse two different miracles together. See also, Ido Israelowich, “The Rain Miracles of Marcus Aurelius: (Re-) Construction of Consensus,” GR 55 (2008): 83–102.

24 See James Turner Johnson, The Quest of Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010); J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005). See also, Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire, where this exact question is addressed.

25 Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (Nashville: Abington, 1979). Bainton helpfully points out that this tradition did not originate with Augustine but was derived from earlier thinkers such as Plato. This framework was also taken in part from Cicero, and the logic of defending the State. See also Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire, 138–228. He argues that Christian participated in the military from the very beginning; see also John F. Shean, Soldiering for God: Christianity and the Roman Army (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Despina Iosif, Early Christian Attitudes to War, Violence and Military Service (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2013), esp., 213–286. Iosif states, “The early Christians were not all pacifists. They never were of one mind as to how they understood heavenly and earthly authorities and institutions.” (p. 305). To see a critique of both Shean and Iosif, see Ronad J. Sider, “The Early Church on War and Killing: Distinguishing Speculation from Historical Fact,” Books & Culture (2016): 24–26.

26 Reimer, Christians and War, 65–75; Timothy David Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014); Stanislav Doležal, The Reign of Constantine, 306-337: Continuity and Change in the Late Roman Empire (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022); Noel Emmanuel Lenski, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Raymond Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Raymond Van Dam, Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); David Potter, Constantine the Emperor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); see also, Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Constantine, Constantine and Christendom, ed. M. J. Edwards (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003).

27 Counc. Arles Can. 3. Although this canon is noteworthy, there are two others that excommunicate charioteers and actors a practice reminiscent of other early Christian prohibitions (see Lactantius, Institutes 6.20). It also is odd since it does not seem consistent, leading some to question whether it has been corrupted or not. Works that argue that Early Christians were mostly opposed to acts of violence and participation in military service, see George Kalantzis, Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012); Sider, The Early Church on Killing.

28 Lactantius, Inst. 6.20.

29 Lactantius, Inst. 6.20.

30 See Paul Bradshaw et al., The Apostolic Tradition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002).

31 Trad ap. 16.

32 Trad ap. 16.9. Other authors like Tertullian take this attitude even further (Tertullian, Cor. 12).

33 Tertullian and Robert D. Sider. Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian. Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 2001); Stephen Gero, “Miles Gloriosus: The Christian and Military Service According to Tertullian,” CH 39 (1970): 285-98.

34 Tertullian Apol. 42. Here, he says that there are Christian’s who are in the military, and in other forms of occupation and society against the accusation that they are retreatists. I take this to mean that he is observing the fact that Christians are well-integrated into society, not that he is necessarily approving acts of violence, which he so vociferously rejects elsewhere. Other early authors also make similar defenses, see Justin 1 Apol. 12, 17; also, in older Jewish apologetics as well, Philo, Embassy 356.

35 Tertullian, Cor. 11.4. For a source that look at the different religious makeup of the Roman military, see I.P. Haynes, “The Romanisation of Religion in the ‘Auxilia’ of the Roman Imperial Army from Augustus to Septimus Severus,” Britannia 24 (1993): 141–157.

36 Some argue that Tertullian’s aversion toward being a soldier is exclusively tied to idolatry, not violence itself, see John Helgeland, “Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173–337,” CH 43 (1974): 149–163, 200, esp. 152, where he states, “Nowhere does Tertullian prohibit Christians from enlisting on the ground that they will be forced to take

A Faith and Learning

part in combat… Tertullian’s problem with Christian military service was idolatry, not bloodshed.” Cf., Gero, "Miles Gloriosus,” 294–295. See also, see also Apol. 46; Pat. 3–10; Marc. 3.14, 21–22; 4.16; 5.18.I; Scap. 1.

37 Tertullian, Spect. 2.2, 7–12; 18.1–3.

38 Tertullian, Idol. 19.

39 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.34.4.

40 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.34.4. see also 2.32, wherein Irenaeus articulates the ongoing prophetic fulfillment done by the Church. He also comments on killing in general, see Epid. 96.

41 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.24.

42 Origen, Cels. 2.30; 3.7–8; 5.33; 7.26; 8.35; 8.70, 73. Some argue that Origen’s critique against Christians serving in the military is exclusively tied up to idolatry and emperor worship, see Helgeland, “Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173–337,” 152–153.

43 Origen, Cels. 2.30.

44 Origen, Cels. 3.7.

45 Origen, Cels. 8.73–74.

46 For the account of The Acts of Maximilian, see Herbert A. Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 245–249. In this account, there is also a reference to other soldiers in the military, which ultimately does not sway Maximilian one way or the other; see also Peter Brock, “Why Did St Maximilian Refuse to Serve in the Roman Army?” JEH 45 (1994): 195–209.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 49-56

Tradition and Technology: Ambivalence Toward the Railroad in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction

John J. Han

The railroad reached North Springfield, Missouri, on April 21, 1870, as part of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, affectionately known as the Frisco. In chapter 9 of his first Ozarks novel, That Printer of Udell’s (1903), Harold Bell Wright (1872–1944), a New York native and preacherturned-novelist, describes the sound of the train: “[F]ar away, an evening train whistled for a crossing” (94). When Springfield and North Springfield merged under the name Springfield in 1887, the railroad became an integral part of the expanding city (“History”). Wright traveled by train from Cincinnati, Ohio, arriving in Springfield in 1896. Wright’s move to the Missouri Ozarks served two purposes. First, he sought relief from tuberculosis, hoping the milder climate would ease his chronic lung problems. Second, he wanted to reconnect with his father, Uncle Ben, and other relatives living in the Springfield area. In his autobiography To My Sons, Wright writes that he “wanted to feel a human tie that was closer than mere friendship” (195). Despite being abandoned by his father after his mother’s death when he was just 11, Wright and his father occasionally reunited in New York and Ohio. As his sense of isolation grew, Wright likely yearned for the comfort of family nearby.

When Wright published his first Ozarks novel, more than thirty years had passed since the railroad had reached the region. The railroad brought waves of tourists to southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, and Wright likely witnessed both the benefits and drawbacks of this transformation. This paper examines Wright’s ambivalent view of the railroad a symbol of modernity in his Ozarks fiction. While posthumanism and the critique of technology gained academic traction only in the latter half of the twentieth century, writers like Harold Bell Wright were already engaging with these themes. He portrays the railroad as a double-edged force: a convenience he relied on, having traveled to Missouri by train after surviving perilous adventures on the Ohio River, yet also a threat to the untouched beauty of the landscape.

Brief Summaries of Wright’s Six Ozarks Novels

Before discussing the role of the railroad in Wright’s Ozarks novels, it is helpful to summarize these six works for readers who may be unfamiliar with them. That Printer of Udell’s (1903), set in Pittsburg,

Kansas, and the Ozarks, follows Dick Falkner, a determined young man seeking a fresh start after a troubled childhood. The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), set in Branson, Missouri, tells the story of Dad Howitt, a mysterious outsider who finds purpose among the local hill people. Its sequel, The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909), centers on a young Ozarks minister who embraces the Social Gospel; Lebanon and Bennett Spring State Park, located about twelve miles west of the city, serve as the novel’s primary settings. In The Re-Creation of Brian Kent (1919), a disgraced bank clerk who embezzles money flees down the river to the Ozarks to escape his past, ultimately finding redemption through honest labor, selfreflection, and the guidance of those who believe in his capacity for change. God and the Groceryman (1927) a sequel to The Calling of Dan Matthews, set in an unspecified Ozarks town follows the now older and more contemplative minister as he seeks to rescue his community from materialism, commercialism, and the erosion of family life through the Social Gospel. Finally, Ma Cinderella (1932) introduces Diane, a cultured New York artist who uncovers the remarkable story of Ann Haskel, an Ozark backwoods woman of strength and mystery. Together, these novels explore enduring themes of faith, integrity, and the tension between spiritual and material values within the Ozarks landscape.

The Railroad Leading to Modern Civilization

Wright acknowledges the benefits of modern transportation for Ozarkers, who gain increased access to the broader world through the railroad. In his fiction, trains often bring benevolent and culturally refined figures who help transform Ozark communities. In Chapter 3 of The Calling of Dan Matthews, for instance, the title character an Ozark native returning home after receiving a seminary education in the city arrives in Corinth by train to begin his role as the town’s new pastor. His arrival stirs excitement and high expectations among the congregation, while he is determined to serve in a way that uplifts the needy and the marginalized. On the same train comes Hope Farwell, a nurse from Chicago, who later plays a key role in defending a poor, ostracized girl. Together, Dan Matthews and Hope Farwell embody the moral and social progress that modern transportation makes possible. Their presence signals a hopeful shift toward compassion, education, and public service. At the same time, Wright subtly contrasts their urban refinement with the narrow-mindedness of certain local figures, highlighting both the promise and the challenge of change. As he notes in chapter 13 of The ReCreation of Brian Kent, the railroad makes it possible for Ozarkers come to meet superior urbanites: “And the deformed mountain girl [July Taylor], who stood before him [Brian Kent] with twisted body and oldyoung face, grew fearful as she watched the suffering of this man whom she had come to look upon as a superior being from some world which she,

A railroad track runs parallel to the Meramec River, which flows along the southwestern corner of St. Louis County, Missouri. Typical of the Ozarks, the area features bluffs and gently rolling hills. Photo by John J. Han, March 14, 2022.

A railroad track along the Mississippi River in Festus, Missouri. Recent maps include Jefferson County, where Festus is located, as part of the Ozarks. Photo by John J. Han, March 11, 2024.

An eastbound freight train passes through West Plains, Missouri. The city, the county seat of Howell County, lies about 100 miles southeast of Springfield the unofficial capital of the Ozarks and roughly 20 miles north of the Arkansas border. West Plains is the birthplace of novelist Daniel Woodrell (b. 1953), author of Winter’s Bone (2010), and country singers Porter Wagoner (1927-2007) and Jan Howard (1929-2020). Photo by John J. Han, 20 September 2025.

in her ignorance, could never know” (169). This encounter, made possible by modern transportation, underscores the cultural distance between rural and urban worlds while highlighting the potential for cultural transformation.

As an Arcadian thinker viewing the region through an urbanite’s lens, Wright desires the Ozarks to embrace what he regards as the higher culture and refinement of urban life. For example, in the opening chapter of The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, Wright presents railroads as vehicles leading to a successful, fulfilling life:

And so, in time, it came to be known that those letters written by Auntie Sue went to men and women who, in their childhood school days, had received from her their first lessons in writing; and that her visitors, many of them distinguished in the world of railroads and cities, were of

that large circle of busy souls who had never ceased to be her pupils. (21-22)

Rather than staying in the isolated mountains, these students actualized themselves in the modern world, achieving success in urban environments and industries shaped by the railroad. Wright clearly associates movement, both literal and metaphorical, with personal growth and cultural elevation. The train, then, is not merely a mode of transport but a metaphor for transition from rustic limitation to urban sophistication. In Wright’s Ozarks novels, the railroad also represents economic opportunity for the inhabitants. At the beginning of The Calling of Dan Matthews, the narrator says that the railroad was the defining force in Corinth’s history. When the tracks reached the Ozarks, the town relocated from its original well-drained site to a muddy flat beside the right-of-way, lured by promises of prosperity. Judge Strong, who owned the land, profited greatly. Corinth’s heart now beat in sync with the railroad, with trains stopping to take on water while blocking its few main streets. The constant noise the whistles, bells, and heavy rumbling became an inescapable part of daily life. The railroad’s promise never fully materialized, as neighboring towns flourished while Corinth stagnated. Yet, the railroad gave Corinth its identity its struggles, its stubborn pride, and its sense of both possibility and limitation. In this novel, the railroad brings visibility, advancement, and connection to the Ozarks.

Nostalgia for a Vanishing Way of Life

Conversely, in his fiction, Wright reflects on the destructive power of technology, expressing a deep nostalgia for a time when people lived in harmony with God-given nature. His portrayal of the Ozarks landscape is often framed in Christian terminology, emphasizing a spiritual connection between the land and its people. In The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), for example, Dad Howitt extols the Ozarks as a place where God resides: “One could see far from here, I am sure. We, who live in the cities, see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors’ hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made” (29). This contrast between urban life and the natural world underscores Wright’s belief in the spiritual nourishment that nature provides. For him, the encroachment of industrialization signals not just a physical transformation but a deeper moral and existential loss.

Near the novel’s end, Dad Howitt acknowledges that modern technology is inevitable and expresses relief that he will not live long enough to witness the railroad’s encroachment on the Ozark hills: “Before many years a railroad will find its way yonder. Then many will come, and the beautiful hills that have been my strength and peace will become the haunt of careless idlers and a place of revelry. I am glad that I shall not be

here” (190). The novel ends with a scene where the tranquility of the Ozarks is destroyed by modern technology: “[M]en were tearing up the mountain to make way for the railroad. As they looked, another blast sent the rocks flying, while the sound rolled and echoed through the peaceful hills” (191). Wright presents this moment as an elegy for a vanishing way of life, reinforcing his fear that progress often comes at the expense of nature’s sacred harmony. The railroad, a symbol of industrial expansion, is both a harbinger of economic growth and an omen of cultural and environmental disruption.

In Wright’s novels, which can be classified as spiritual thrillers, the train symbolizes progress and industrialization while also serving as a destructive force within their moral drama. Many pivotal events unfold on trains or at depots. In chapter 20 of That Printer of Udell’s, for example, Amy Goodrich, a young woman wounded by pride and anger at her father’s injustice, decides to run away from home. After a tense exchange with her mother, she packs a few belongings, leaves a brief farewell note, and sneaks out late at night. At the train station, she encounters Jim Whitley, an antagonist in the novel. He recognizes her, watches her closely, and upon learning of her departure, boards another train, determined to make her marry him.

Similarly, in The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, Jap Taylor, a violent and greedy moonshiner, takes the train to Chicago after discovering the title character’s identity a good man who, under pressure from his wife’s spending habits, stole money from the bank where he worked. Hoping to claim a reward, Jap Taylor sets out to turn Brian in. Meanwhile, Auntie Sue, a retired schoolteacher who has sheltered Brian from law enforcement and helped him rebuild his life in the Ozarks, now fears for his future. Acting swiftly, she warns Homer Ward, a banker and one of her former students, before Jap can reach him. As a result, Jap Taylor disappears from the Ozarks, his fate left uncertain. The novel suggests that he never returns, reinforcing the connection between the city and the perils of his corrupt ways. Here, the train serves as a vehicle of moral downfall, carrying him from a place of peace to one of chaos.

Both Jim Whitley and Jap Taylor illustrate the negative consequences of the railroad’s arrival in the Ozarks. Before its construction, Ozarkers lived in seclusion but in relative peace. Trains made mobility easier, not just for the well-intentioned but also for figures like Jim Whitley and Jap Taylor, whose actions bring disruption and moral peril to the region. Wright mourns the inevitable destruction of traditional country life that accompanies this progress. His portrayal of the railroad reflects a broader anxiety about industrialization’s threat to regional identities, suggesting that modernization carries a hidden cost often overlooked in the name of progress. In this regard, Wright resembles his contemporary Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie, who depicts the train as a force that exposes impersonal and dangerous aspects of modern life. Similarly, in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the

train to symbolize class disparity and disillusionment despite its convenience.

Conclusion

Overall, the railroad in Wright’s Ozarks fiction is depicted as both beneficial and harmful, reflecting his ambivalence toward progress. This duality highlights Wright’s complex view of modernization, where he acknowledges the advantages of increased connectivity and economic opportunity while expressing concern for its disruptive effects on the natural landscape and traditional ways of life in the Ozarks. On the one hand, he shares the naturalist ideals of figures like Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden (1854), and John Muir (1838-1914), who champions the vital connection between nature and spiritual life in My First Summer in the Sierra (1911). Yet, Wright also recognizes the allure of progress and the transformative possibilities it offers, even as it comes at a cultural and environmental cost. This tension invites readers to question whether the costs of modernity outweigh its benefits.

Wright anticipates some post-humanist concerns about modern technology, highlighting the ongoing tension between tradition and progress. He points out the potential degradation of the environment, the erasure of the traditional way of life, and the alienation from nature. As critics such as Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Neil Postman (1931-2003), and Bruno Latour (1947-2022) have noted, technological advancement often distances humans from nature, replacing ecological responsibility with artificial constructs, eroding cultural memory, and creating a crisis of meaning.1 Similarly, Wright’s Ozarks novels suggest that while technological advancement is not inherently harmful, it must be weighed against its cultural and environmental consequences. His fiction engages in a broader literary discourse on modernization’s impact through these themes.

Note

1 Herbert Marcuse argues in One-Dimensional Man (1964) that while technocratic societies achieve material progress, they simultaneously weaken humanity’s bond with nature, substituting it with artificial systems that diminish ecological responsibility. In a similar vein, Neil Postman suggests in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992) that continuous technological advancement has distanced people from the natural world’s rhythms, contributing to a loss of meaning and environmental harm. Likewise, Bruno Latour asserts in Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (2005) that modern notions of progress often fuel environmental destruction and cultural forgetfulness, severing ties to nature and traditional communities. Taken

together, these comments highlight the urgent need to reimagine our relationship with technology, nature, and the meaning of human life.

Works Cited

“History of the Area.” City of Springfield, https://www.springfieldmo.gov/709/History. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to ActorNetwork-Theory. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press, 1964.

Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Knopf, 1992.

Wright, Harold Bell. The Shepherd of the Hills. 1907. A Harold Bell Wright Trilogy: The Shepherd of the Hills, The Calling of Dan Matthews, God and the Groceryman, Pelican, 2007, pp. 17-191.

_______. The Re-Creation of Brian Kent. Book Supply Company, 1919.

_______. That Printer of Udell’s. 1903. Pelican, 2011.

_______. To My Sons. Harper, 1934.

Matthew Bardowell 57

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 57-65

To Err Is Human, Knowing Is AI: Human Ways of Knowing in a Post-Human World

Matthew Bardowell

Over Thanksgiving, my father-in-law read me a Hemingway quote that went like this:

In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.

Please don’t try to fix me. Don’t take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as I work through my own inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach for as I find my way.

My pain is mine to carry, my battles mine to face. But your presence reminds me I’m not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It’s a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken.

This went on for two more paragraphs. These are wise words. Sentimental words. Words to live by, even. But if you’ve read even a few sentences of Hemingway, you might be forgiven for wondering if he really wrote this at all. And your suspicion would be justified. It does not appear that Hemingway is the author of this bit of prose. No source can be found except the numerous, ubiquitous images, mostly on social media sites, that attribute it to him.

They look like this:

An old Norse scholar, Roberta Frank, once cautioned against this sort of error a presumption all too easy to make when dealing with old texts. She called these mistakes “speculations hallowed by repetition” (12). I always liked that phrase. It’s true, isn’t it? Ideas, even false ones, gain a

kind of gravitas simply by being repeated. It reminds me a little of the old saw “a lie gets halfway round the world before the truth has time to put its shoes on.” This post-human age in which we find ourselves raises some important questions not just about what we think we know, but how we come to know anything at all.

Here’s another story with a similar outcome. I was at church one day wearing my Lord of the Rings jacket, which my sister got for me last Christmas. One of my friends saw it and said, “I have a Tolkien quote that I bet you’d like.”

Later, he sent it to me, and this is what it said: “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” Observe the digital placard that always seems to accompany this sort of thing. Is there a citation? There is not. Are there quotation marks? Yes, indeed there are. Set next to this lovely image of Tolkien, there is simply no other conclusion to be reached than that this is a direct quote from the man himself. But, as I’m sure you’ve already surmised, this quote is not from Tolkien. It is from the screenwriters of The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro. Now wait a minute, you might be thinking. Does it really matter if those words didn’t come from Tolkien himself? Isn’t his entire collected works focused to some degree on the unlikely hero doing a small but faithful deed to overcome the forces of evil? Even if he didn’t write it, isn’t this the sort of thing Tolkien might have written? You may be right about all this, and then again, you may not be. But it’s that last thing that troubles me: the sort of thing a person might have said but didn’t. What happens to us when we lose our interest in this kind of fidelity to reality?

This is the topic of my paper, and it’s the question I’d like to invite you to think about with me for the next few minutes. Why do these falsehoods, hallowed by repetition, matter? And how do these bits of potential misinformation affect the way we think we know things. These are the kinds of questions we, as a culture, are dealing with right now with respect to Large Language Models (LLMs) of AI. It seems like an excellent definition of generative AI to call it the sorts of things a human might say. AI does not, at least as far as I’m aware, offer citations for the human sources from which it draws. At least it doesn’t do this well, so checking becomes an impossible task. And what happens to our knowledge if it is gained in this way? Can we even call it knowledge? These are questions of epistemology: the study of how we know what we think we know. One vital ingredient for knowledge in epistemology textbooks is that it is justified. Here’s a little thought experiment that I learned by way of John Greco, a philosophy professor at Saint Louis University. Imagine that your mother tells you that there’s milk in the fridge. You can open the door and look for myself. You can see with your own eyes that there is milk in the fridge, and so you can claim to have justified knowledge that there is indeed milk in the fridge. But what if you say to yourself: I don’t need to check to see if there’s milk in the fridge. I know there is because my mom told me so. She loves me, and she is trustworthy. Can you claim to have justified knowledge if you learned something on the basis of someone else’s testimony? Well, since we’re talking philosophy, let’s answer that question with another question. What if your crazy Uncle Jimmy, who just loves to trick children, tells you there’s milk in the fridge? If you believed him, could you claim to have justified knowledge? The point here is that knowledge gained through testimony can possibly be considered justified, but it depends on the source. Maybe it would be better to say that it depends on your relationship with the source. You know your mother. You know she is trustworthy. Believing her is pretty reasonable. Likewise, you know your Uncle Jimmy. You know that he is not trustworthy, and so you conclude that his statement about there being milk in the fridge is probably not worth very much.

It is easy to think of knowledge as existing within a vacuum. Truth is truth, regardless of the source. That is an easy calculation to make when we know in advance that the statement is true, but what if we are still trying to figure that out? Suddenly, the source becomes relevant, and perhaps the person speaking is one of the factors that we ought to weigh when reflecting on whether our knowledge is justified. But who is speaking when we ask AI a question?

Let’s return to the Hemingway quote for just a minute. When my father-in-law read it to me, I was immediately doubtful that this was a true quote. But why? It wasn’t because of a general disposition toward doubting things on the internet. Didn’t Abraham Lincoln say something to that effect?

A disposition of doubt toward information acquired this way is probably a good and healthy thing, but that’s not why I was suspicious regarding the Hemingway quote. Why then? Well, it was because I had read Hemingway quite a bit. I’m familiar with his work, his voice, his style. It may seem silly, but I guess I feel that I have some kind of relationship with Hemingway at least to his writing. I feel I’ve gotten to know him. Now, this does not mean that a Hemingway quote could never surprise me, but I guess what I’d like to say it means is that I put in the work through my undergraduate and graduate studies to justify my knowledge of what I think is a likely Hemingway quote and what is not. It doesn’t mean that I could never be wrong. To err, after all, is human, but I hope we don’t allow knowing to be AI.

It was the same for the Tolkien quote, really. I have tuned my ear to his voice over many years. The quote on the slide next to Tolkien’s picture sounds close to the voice I’ve come to know, but it still rings false to me. Here again, knowledge arises from relationship. But increasingly, it seems to me that generative AI and the other post-human ways of knowing (e.g. crowdsourcing a question to strangers on the internet) is a way to know outside the context of a relationship. You can’t have a relationship with Chat GPT. You can’t understand why it thinks what it thinks because it doesn’t really think. It’s just the sort of thing a human might say. So, I wonder this: when we lose our appetite for justified knowing, if we simply take the Hemingway quote at face value because we like its sentiment or the Tolkien quote because it aligns with our own feelings on the same topic, aren’t we really severing a relationship? Are we rejecting truth? Maybe. But are we also rejecting relationships. We’re rejecting the very

real dependence we have on others to learn the things we know in exchange for the illusion of independence from them.

So far, I have argued that human learning takes place in relationship to others, but I’d also like to claim that knowing through relationship can mean something more expansive than that. Learning through relationship is a broad sort of epistemology in that we think and understand ideas by understanding their relationship with other ideas. This is something, notably, that Large Language Models do not do. Angus Fletcher, a self-described Story Scientist, offers some helpful analysis on this point. Using neuroscience and rhetorical narrative theory, Fletcher urges us to reconsider how we think about what the “intelligence” in “artificial intelligence” really means. The key idea here is that AI models operate by logic, but as humans we operate so often by way of story. I would like to propose that to learn in a truly human way, we must acknowledge the ways in which we learn in relationship. Learning in relationship can help us know in two ways: it can help us discern whether something is true by considering the person teaching us, and it can also help us know why something is true by considering how two ideas relate to each other.

Fletcher offers a fascinating cultural analysis of how we ended up thinking of Artificial Intelligence as “intelligent” in the first place, and it extends back, as so many things do, to the Middle Ages. During the thirteenth century, Fletcher explains, logic had been adopted as the “foundation of medieval science” and from there it was extended to all manner of mathematical disciplines (126). The equivalence between logical processes and intelligence, Fletcher suggests, posits an incomplete vision of what knowledge is. It wrongly views all “cleverness,” wit, and truth as arising from the processes of “induction, deduction, interpretation, arithmetic, statistics, pattern recognition, Bayesian probabilities, and other algorithmic operations” (126). And when we view intelligence this way it’s no surprise that AI seems so much smarter than we are. I hear all the time from students (and some colleagues) that AI writes papers or leaves student feedback “so much better than I can.” I think it would be good for us to consider whether the way we’re using “better” in those instances actually reflects finer quality, stronger relational connection, or more comprehensive understanding of the subject. But what AI definitely does do is utilize the logical processes mentioned above far more quickly and efficiently than any human can.

But if AI models are built on the foundation of symbolic logic, then they have some pretty significant limitations. Fletcher explains it this way: “As smart as logic [is], it [is] capable of only certain tasks. It could do correlation but not causation (that is, it could do if-then but not why) making it a whiz at pattern finding and spatial memory but useless at mechanism invention and temporal sequencing” (Fletcher 128). To put it another way, AI “learning” is, of course, rooted in binary code. Such programming allows for zeroes and ones, ON and OFF, YES and NO, THERE and NOT THERE (126). It thrives on data. We feed a program as

many instances of the written word that we can find so that it can draw upon countless iterations of human speech and respond to an inquiry with the most probable result. It computes and yields an answer like A = B. We see this result and claim that the program is “learning” or “thinking” because it appears to mirror the way our brains yield answers to questions. But, according to Fletcher, our brains don’t just yield the answer A is B, they can understand why A leads to B. This idea of understanding why A leads to B is something Fletcher calls “narrative thinking,” but I think we can just as readily call it relational thinking (129). Either way, whether we call it narrative or relational thinking, it is something uniquely human.

Narrative thinking, Fletcher explains, “rel[ies] on techniques such as imitation, speculation, and feedback to improvise original behavior sequences” (128). It is the soul of creativity. As it turns out the very thing that makes us poor data processers makes us remarkable artists. We may look at a data set and impose our own biases upon the information we find there. We may come up with stories to explain the trends we observe that are not really derived from the data set. AI is exponentially faster at this kind of analysis and also qualitatively better and discerning patterns. But it is this same human impulse to relate ideas together and create narratives out of them that gave us the works of Shakespeare. Here’s one final example before I conclude. I recently watched a documentary on the 70s punk band “The Descendents.” Afterwards, I started listening to more of their music, and they sounded like some other bands I knew from the 90s. What I wanted to know was whether “The Descendents” were an influence on the 90s rock band “The Offspring.” So, I did what anyone does when they want to know something quickly. I popped my question into google: “did the descendents influence the offspring.” At the top of my search results popped up this AI summary:

“Yes, the Descendents are widely cited as a major influence on The Offspring.” Then the AI summary helpfully went on to explain that some other influences on offspring are “parental trauma” and “epigenetics.” You see what happened there? A lack of narrative thinking. AI went into its vast stores of data to determine whether I wanted to know about the band the offspring or genetically related offspring, and it ultimately decided on both. What it didn’t compute was the relationship I intended between the words “descendents” and “offspring,” and it certainly didn’t factor in why I was asking. That is something that could only be achieved by learning through relationship, both to us as people and to our words as ideas.

Generally, I try to not to play the prophet. I leave that to the social media sages of our age. But I do wonder about a few things. One of the

things I wonder often is what Christians have to offer an age determined to ignore the problems AI models may pose. Is there a more Christian epistemology that would, in the end, be a more human epistemology. After all, Christ is the quintessence of what it would mean to be human as God made us to be. And consider our faith at least for those of us born too late to have walked with Jesus. We have only ever known our faith in the context of a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ through testimony. Remember what John writes as he opens his gospel: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known” (John 1:18). We don’t accept our faith merely as a series of propositions but as part of the character and person of Jesus Christ who is himself the Word. Who should know better what knowing in relationship means than us? And if we are content to live in world of non-human, human-seeming things, have we, as Christians, failed to grasp a central aspect of how truth is constituted? If the world lets go of knowing through relationship, they will miss its loss and not know why. But if we Christians choose to let go of relational knowing, we will miss it having known better.

Works Cited

Fletcher, Angus. “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves That There’s More to Intelligence Than AI.” IN The Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, eds. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley. Routledge, 2024. 125-135.

Frank, Roberta. “The Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1993, pp. 1136.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 66-73

Myth, Storytelling, and Belief on the Borders of Technological Change

Eric Shane Bryan

“[T]he birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”1

–Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”

There is a real sense in which the development of generative artificial intelligence affirms everything that post-structuralists have said about the death of the author. The above quotation from Roland Barthes neatly typifies that view: While the person we refer to as “the author” might have generated the text, the author does not generate meaning, which is developed solely and completely via the interpretive agency of the reader. Michel Foucault adds further that, historically, the author has never really existed and that the person we refer to as the “author” is in fact merely a constructed image of the author which serves a certain function the author function in the mind of the reader, who again has control over the development of meaning.

Embracing a post-structuralist approach to authorship in a generative AI world is tempting because it helps rationalize and even celebrate widespread usage of AI in the authoring process. If the “author” is a mere fallacy, as the post-structuralist argues, then we needn’t trouble ourselves with whether, or how, AI works as an author. There has never really been such a thing as an author, so what’s the point in looking for one in AI-generated text? This approach, to me, is quite problematic and even dangerous. Today, I would like to highlight some of the problems that result from associating AI authorship with post-structuralism and, perhaps, offer some corrective to how we understand the author. Namely, I’d like to see the author as not just the utilitarian generator of text but rather an essential part of a language community in which narrative works as a fundamental building block of the community.

Although post-structuralism originated more than half a century ago, the fervor for its application to authorship has not waned in recent decades. In many circles, it has simply become the standard interpretation of the author. Some scholars have, in fact, seen the introduction of generative artificial intelligence as the affirmation of the work of Foucault and Barthes. David J. Gunkel, for instance, suggests,

though Barthes and Foucault did not address themselves to [Large Language Models] and [Generative Artificial Intelligence], their work on authorship accurately anticipates our current situation. [. . .] we now confront texts with no identifiable author. [. . .] But, instead of this being a criticism concerning what these AI generated texts lack, it shows us the extent to which the authority for writing any writing whether human or machine has always and already been a socially constructed artifice.2

Foucault indeed says at one point, “[w]e can easily imagine a culture where discourse would circulate without any need for an author.”3 Now, Foucault was not prophesying the coming of AI; he was describing what he imagined would be a discourse community liberated from the need of authoritarian authorship, which was offensive to him. One of the problems with the post-structuralist view of the author, however, is that they’re so occupied distaining the author that they never actually talk about what it means to be an author. Barthes comes closest at times,4 but he too tips his hand with is well known, hyperbolic statements about killing authors. Even though Barthes and other post-structuralists have argued that they are not calling for the literal execution of the author once they have written anything,5 the disenfranchisement of the author for the sake of the reader remains, to my mind, problematic. It is in fact Roland Barthes who best exemplifies the problems with Roland Barthes’s view of authorship. It is well known that throughout the course of his career Barthes made the significant transition from a structuralist to a post-structuralist approach to language, myth, and culture. His earlier work on myth, published a decade before his work on the author, was deeply rooted in the ideas of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who took a rather straightforward approach to the linguistic sign. (In fact, I think we often overcomplicate Saussure’s view much more than it need be.)

Barthes, at least early in his work, seemed to value the simplicity and elegance of Saussure’s sign and applied it to a semiological view of myth. There, Barthes argues that the Saussurian linguistic sign which is made up of a sound pattern (the signifier) and a mental concept (the signified) functions in certain contexts as the signifier connected to the mythic concept of the mythological sign. Barthes’s work in this area is well known, but a review and exemplification of Barthes’s approach in his 1957 work Mythologies6 will assist in pointing out the problems with his later, post-structuralists view of authorship.

Let us suppose that my wife and I are celebrating our anniversary, and we have a nice dinner planned for 6:00PM this evening. Perhaps understandably, when I show up to dinner at ten-past-six, my wife is not pleased and asked for an explanation. I say something to the effect of, I’m sorry, my dear, as I was coming home from work, I stopped to admire a beautiful tree. At this point, I have not improved my situation. When I

utter the word tree, the sound pattern [TREE] joins the mental concept of a tree that my wife and I share to make the Saussurian linguistic sign: TREE. Now, my wife and I might have slightly different mental concepts of a tree (she might think of an oak, and I might think of a maple); we might even utter the sound pattern [TREE] slightly differently if we have different dialect histories; but because we are a part of the same linguistic community, we share the linguistic sign: TREE. At least linguistically, my wife understands what I mean and is, consequently, supremely angry with me. A TREE?!? she says, you mean you came late to our anniversary dinner because of a TREE?!? So far, so Saussure. We have merely demonstrated how the concept and sound pattern come together to make the linguistic sign.

But suppose I answer my wife’s very reasonable complaint by saying, Well, yes, a tree, but it wasn’t just ANY tree. The realization then dawns upon my wife, her eyes soften and tear up a little, and she says, Oh, Eric . . . was it OUR tree? And I say, Yes, it was OUR tree. I thought we could have our anniversary dinner under it as a picnic. Now, what has happened? According to (early) Barthes, the regular old, commonplace linguistic sign, TREE, has been elevated, made into something more than what it was to begin with. It has, according to Barthes’s early view, become a mythical sign: what was once a commonplace linguistic sign, TREE, has now become in that specific situation and for that specific community (my wife and me) a communal representative not of the image of a tree but rather a representative of eighteen years of marriage and everything that goes along with it: of ups and downs, the joy and sadness of a lifelong relationship, of three children, of birthdays and sleepless nights, and all kinds of other experiences, memories, fears, and joys that could not possibly be relatable in a simple word. To understand that the full meaning that this linguistic sign, TREE, has been elevated to the mythical sign [OUR] TREE, you would have to understand the mythical context and shared community for whom that mythic sign bears weight. You would in fact have to be either me or my wife.

Barthes’s earlier work clearly broadens the definition of myth to encompass more than what most would consider mythical, such as those typical stories defining supernatural origins or creation of things or the stories that describe the actions of gods or semi-divine heroic figures (and of course we have to dispense with any sense of myth being an ‘lie’). In fact, this broader definition of myth would include cultural phenomena like (as Barthes himself suggests) professional wrestling, a shopping mall, movies, and indeed, novels and storytelling. Yet, the illustration I’ve used here should be enough to demonstrate what happens with the mythical community (the mythological correspondent of a language community outlined by Saussure) fragments: Suppose when my wife said is it our tree? I were to respond, “our” tree? I have no idea what you’re talking about?!? My wife would be more than just angry at me for being late; she would be heartbroken at my inability to share what is for her a central mythical sign that commemorates the fullness of our life together.

Now, here’s the point: mythical signs, like linguistic signs, require a relationship (or a speech/mythic community, to use language more in line with Saussure’s terminology) to be fully comprehended. That’s true for the tree in my illustration, and it’s true for stories as well. The sort of rupture my wife would feel if I’d forgotten the mythical sign [OUR] TREE is the same sort of relational rupture we would feel when we insist that a nameless, mindless actor devoid of meaningful agency originates a meaningful narrative for us (mind you, I’m not talking yet about AI; I’m talking about the post-structuralist view of the author). Post-structuralism tells us that dismissing the author as a formative member of that community is to be acknowledged as an inescapable reality and even to be celebrated as such. A relational view of authorship has a much different understanding of the speech and mythic community in which stories are told.

To elaborate on that relational view, I’d like to turn to a perhaps surprising place: Kentucky. In his essay entitled “The Work of Local Culture,” Wendell Berry laments what he sees as a drastic shift in the function of stories and storytelling in his rural Kentucky town. Thinking back to his youth in the mid-twentieth century, Berry reflects that members of his local community would use storytelling to build community:

[. . .] the oldtime people used to visit each other in the evenings, especially in the long evenings of winter. There used to be a sort of institution in our part of the country known as ‘sitting till bedtime.’ After supper, when they weren’t too tired, neighbors would walk across the fields to visit each other. They popped popcorn [. . .] and ate apples and talked. They told each other stories. They told each other stories [. . .] that they all had heard before. Sometimes they told stories about each other, about themselves, living again in their own memories and thus keeping their memories alive.7

As certain types of cultural and technological shifts occurred, however, that communal function of storytelling is dismantled. Nowadays, Berry continues,

most of us no longer talk to each other, much less tell each other stories. We tell our stories now mostly to doctors or lawyers or psychiatrists or insurance adjusters or the police, not to our neighbors for their (and our) entertainment. The stories that now entertain us are made up for us in New York or Los Angeles or other centers of such commerce.8

Berry’s reflection reveals three elements of storytelling that I’d like to emphasize. First, although Berry locates this “institution” of storytelling in

rural Kentucky, there are indications that such practices are more widespread and essential to the human condition. For instance, Berry’s storytelling institution is strikingly similar to the post-medieval Icelandic (which is one of my main areas of interest) practices of kvöldvaka (literally, ‘night-waking’), in which farmhands and family members would come together during the long winter evenings to tell stories, read sagas aloud, sing hymns, and read religious letters known as postilla to pass the time. There is, then, some evidence that institutions of this sort reflect something more essential about storytelling in the history of human development. Second, the institution Berry describes, and others like it, highlight the importance of storytelling to the relational elements of communal living. Storytelling, Berry suggests, is essential to building and maintaining relationships; it allows for laughter, vulnerability, intimacy, and a sense of shared, communal history. It is also not insignificant that some of the stories are told more than once, because it allows for the codification of certain stories as especially formative and relevant. Third, Berry’s reflection indicates that technological innovations influence more than just the media used to deliver a story (e.g., oral versus literate, print versus television and cinema); technology also affects the cultural and communal function of how stories impact the storyteller and audience. (**So I’m pushing back on the idea that tools are just tools: some tools are just tools; other tools are weapons.**) As technology changes, the locus of storytelling moves away from the local-interpersonal to the globalanonymous.

While Berry’s reflection upon communal storytelling illustrates the value of storytelling in an oral setting, the desire to relate to the author of a book written and published in either digital or physical copy is entrenched in our readerly psyche.9 As Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor have recently highlighted, despite the efforts of literary scholars and theoreticians to do away with the author, there remains in the popular mind “a deep-seated public desire to relate the work of a writer to that writer’s identity, age, gender, and her/his life story.”10 This “desire to relate” to the author cuts to the heart of the type of relationality illuminated by Berry.

It is not clear, though, how this sort of relationality is affected by the usage of ChatGPT or other generative artificial intelligences. Scholarly reflections on AI authorship are already well underway.11 Sara Bimo signals the need for such endeavors, arguing that the choice to embrace one theory of Generative AI authorship over another “is a political decision about what kind of cultural authority and power GPAI [general purpose artificial intelligence] systems can wield.”12 That political decision is a haunting one, however. As Mustafa Suleyman has argued, given the nature of the technology, the only political system capable of regulating the capacities of generative AI would have to be a massive, global, extremely powerful, centralized, political system that ignores current national and ideological borders.13 As worrying as an extremely powerful, worldwide governing body might be, there is more at stake than just a political

concern. Berry published his thoughts on storytelling and local culture in 1989, before widespread usage of email, the internet, and cell phones, and long before the introduction of Large Language Models and generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, yet the three elements of storytelling in the modern era extracted from Berry’s work here essential human experience, the communal element of storytelling, and the influence of technology on relationality may be all the more relevant since the introduction of these formative technological and cultural changes.

It must be noted, too, that Berry’s remarks on technology surpass the simple notion of technology as a material innovation the new gadget or smartphone or vehicle or industrialized mechanism that is meant to make things more efficient. In fact, Berry’s understanding of technology is notably similar to what the twentieth-century thinker Jacques Ellul describes as technique, by which he means not only simple technology but, more broadly, the total effect of a technology on ways of living: “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.”14 If the goal of technology is efficiency, then it is inevitable that some aspect of the human experience will be expended when a certain technology advances. The presumption of the technological society, Ellul argues, is that this trade off of experience for efficiency is always for the benefit humanity even though the promised efficiency often costs far more than it is worth.15

There is, then, more at stake in the question of AI authorship than whether generative AI can produce writing indistinguishable from human composition, whether it reflects a consciousness, whether it is truly creative, or what proprietary and plagiarism issues might arise all of which have been cited as concerns over genAI authorship. Because the relationality of the author has been under attack for so long, it will be a ground-easily-lost in the struggle to understand the benefits and consequences of generative AI. Storytelling and, more generally, the narrative generation of meaning through text are intensely relational acts, much more like a dance than a tug of war. When one of those dance partners is impersonated, there is a loss of relationality. The value of that relationship is as important for the author as it is for the audience. It may be for this very reason that instructors tend to be reluctant to accept written work completed by someone (or something) other than the student whose name is at the top of the page. Generative AI might be an efficient way to produce text. It is less clear that it can foster relationships.

Notes

1 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” trans. Stephen Heath, in Image, Music, Text (Hill and Wang, 1977), 148.

2 David J. Gunkel, “Does Writing Have a Future?” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, ed. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley (Routledge, 2025), 31.

3 Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” in Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow, ed. Steven B. Smith (Yale University Press, 2016), 314.

4 See Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text,” in Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Hill and Wang, 1986), 56-64.

5 Barthes, “Death of the Author,” 148.

6 Roland Barthes, “Myth Today,” in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (Noonday Press, 1972), 107-63. I attend here to the most essential description of Barthes’s view of myth, which may be found on pages 10726.

7 Wendell Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” in What are People For? (Counterpoint, 1990), 158.

8 Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” 159.

9 See Angus Fletcher, “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves that There’s More to Intelligence than AI,” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, ed. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Lively (Routledge, 2025), 130-31, for more on what he calls “readerly agency.”

10 Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, “Introduction,” in The Handbook of Literary Authorship, ed. Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 3.

11 Interested readers will find considerable value in Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, eds., Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature (New York: Routledge, 2025) and especially in Sara Bimo’s contribution to the same, “Emerging Models of AI ‘Authorship’ in Popular Discourse,” 49-60.

12 Bimo, “Emerging Models,” 57.

13 Mustafa Suleyman, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma (Crown Publishing, 2023). See especially his chapter entitled “The Future of Nation,” 183-204.

14 Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson (Random House, 1964), xxv. See also Jason E. Hudson’s excellent dissertation which uses Berry and Ellul as a lens through which to understand evangelical worship in relation to technological advances:

Jason E. Hudson, “Works of Jacques Ellul and Wendell Berry and their Theological Implications for Worship in a Western Evangelical Context,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 2023).

15 See especially Ellul, Technological Society, 3-23.

Bibliography

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath, 142-48. Hill and Wang, 1977.

Barthes, Roland. “From Work to Text,” in The Rustle of Language. Translated by Richard Howard, 56-64. Hill and Wang, 1986.

Barthes, Roland. “Myth Today.” In Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, 107-63. Noonday Press, 1972.

Berensmeyer, Ingo, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, “Introduction.” In The Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, 1-10. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Berry, Wendell. “The Work of Local Culture.” In What are People For? 153-69. Counterpoint, 1990.

Bimo, Sara. “Emerging Models of AI ‘Authorship’ in Popular Discourse.” In Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, 49-60. Routledge, 2025.

Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. Random House, 1964.

Fletcher, Angus. “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves that There’s More to Intelligence than AI,” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Lively, 125-35. Routledge, 2025.

Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” In Modernity and its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow, edited by Steven B. Smith, 299-314. Yale University Press, 2016.

Gunkel, David J. “Does Writing Have a Future?” In Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, 27-35. Routledge, 2025.

Hudson, Jason E. “Works of Jacques Ellul and Wendell Berry and their Theological Implications for Worship in a Western Evangelical Context.” Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 2023. Slocombe, Will and Genevieve Liveley, eds. Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature. Routledge, 2025.

Suleyman, Mustafa. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma. Crown Publishing, 2023.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 74-82

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

Editor’s Note:

Below is a transcript of the author’s charge to the faculty delivered at Missouri Baptist University in August 2025.

Network Theory, the Pauline Mission, and the Christian Professor

Matthew C. Easter

As we approach the beginning of another semester, we are faced once again with questions. After all, any transition or new beginning raises anxieties, fears, expectations, or hopes. All of this leads us to ask questions. In this context at the start of a school year, you may be asking, “What will my students be like?”; “How will I write lectures for this new course I’m teaching?”; or “What slang do I need to learn to ‘reach these kids’?” You may have other questions. I don’t know all your questions, but one question that I’m pretty sure all of you are asking is: “Why in the world did the Apostle Paul go to Pisidian Antioch as the second stop on his first missionary journey?” Some of you are laughing, but the joke’s on you: everyone else was totally thinking that. If you’re laughing, you’re the weird one.

After all, Pisidian Antioch was a strange place for Paul to go for the second stop on his first missionary journey, wasn’t it? I know most of you already know this, because you’ve been pondering the question all morning. But for those of you who laughed, and in doing so revealed that you haven’t been pondering this most astute of questions, I’ll fill you in on the details to help us all see why it was so strange for Paul to go to Pisidian Antioch of all places.

The story picks up in Acts 13. We’ll start with verse 13:

Then Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John, however, left them and returned to Jerusalem, 14 but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.1

We’ll stop here for a second. If you’re tracking their journey, they are in Cyprus, then they sail to the southern coast of Turkey. It’s a beautiful part of the country; it’s a resort area now. All the spring breakers head there to

party (or, at least I assume they do). But, really, it’s a great place to be in Turkey. If you’re looking for a vacation (or mission trip), check it out. This would have been a great place for Paul to do his mission trip. The weather is great, and the water is warm. There are plenty of people in good moods because of the great weather and warm water. What a great place to talk about Jesus!

However, Paul doesn’t stay in Perga or in Pamphylia on the lovely southern coast. Instead, he heads north into the rocky, mountainous, and less populated region of Phrygia and Galatia in central Turkey to this town that’s been occupying our mind today: Antioch in Pisidia. On the face of it, this makes little sense. The weather isn’t as good, there’s no beach, and there are fewer people. Paul’s not the kind of guy you want planning your mission trips, it seems. Anyway, let’s continue, back in Acts 13:14:

And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, give it.” 16 So Paul stood up and with a gesture began to speak:

Then Paul gives this great speech. But it’s long and we don’t have all day, so we’re going to skip it.

Picking up the story again in verse 42, some people liked what Paul and Barnabas had to say, so they came back the next Sabbath and gave another talk. This time, the Jews gathered at the synagogue were not as impressed, so Paul and Barnabas informed them that they are turning their attention to the gentiles (Acts 13:46). The gentiles were thrilled to hear it, and many became believers. Eventually, the Jews kicked Paul and Barnabas out, and they headed to Iconium to the southeast (where they were almost killed), and then to Lystra and Derbe further southeast (where they were, once again, almost killed). They headed home to Syrian Antioch (not to be confused with Pisidian Antioch) after this. They took the long way around, but they eventually got there. That’s the first missionary journey.

So, back to our question that you’ve been asking yourself all day: why did Paul go to Pisidian Antioch in the first place? It’s not as nice and there’s fewer people there. Why would they go there? To begin to answer this question, we need to talk about the Moonies and the Mormons.

Network Theory

In the early 1960s, sociologists Rodney Stark and John Lofland studied how people convert from one major religious movement to another.2 They wanted to find a new religious movement small enough to study, and they landed on a fledgling group of about a dozen young adults

who recently moved to San Francisco. The group was led by a Korean woman named Young Oon Kim. “Miss Kim” (as she was called) and her followers were the first American members of the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies.

Stark and Lofland learned a lot about conversion from the Moonies. They discovered that all of the members were united by close ties of friendship predating their contact with Miss Kim. The first three converts had been young housewives, next-door neighbors who became friends with Miss Kim after she stayed with one of them. After this, several husbands and other friends joined the Moonies. In fact, during their period of study, the Moonies never converted a stranger! And they tried. They tried radio spots, press releases, and public meetings, but nothing worked until Miss Kim befriended that first housewife.

The same phenomenon holds with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). The Mormons are, of course, famous for sending young people as missionary teams. However, these missionaries find little success. These two-by-two missionary ventures, where they ride bikes and knock on strangers’ doors, leads to one conversion for every thousand calls (a 0.1% success rate). And yet the LDS church has been growing at a 4% rate for decades. How? The same way as the Moonies: through social networks. When these Mormon missionaries connect with a person living with a Mormon or related to a Mormon, the 0.1% conversion rate jumps to 50%.

Now, if you asked a Moonie why they converted, they would describe a spiritual emptiness that the Divine Precepts of the Unification Church addressed. Same with the Mormons. But, in reality, they were attracted to the group because their friends were part of it. It should be no surprise, then, that Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s first converts were his brothers Hyrum and Samuel and his friends Oliver and David. As Stark puts it, “We soon realized that […] conversion is not about seeking or embracing an ideology; it is about bringing one’s religious behavior into alignment with that of one’s friends and family members.”3 We see a similar phenomenon outside the Moonies and Mormons. Muhammad’s first convert was his wife, then his cousin, then his slave, and then his friend. Scot McKnight’s study of Christian conversion finds the same, suggesting that “for many Christians conversion is a process of socialization. ”4 In the pastoral ministry context, Nelson Searcy has also noticed how potential converts tend to “belong before believing.”5 And I’ve argued at length elsewhere that the author of Hebrews understands conversion and deconversion as social relocation.6

In short, people typically convert not merely because of a moving Gospel presentation, a solid apologetic argument, or to fill a selfprescribed “god-shaped hole” in their heart. People typically convert because that’s where their friends and family are.

And, it turns out, this is how Paul did his missionary activities too.

Paul’s Networks

This brings us back to that question you’ve been pondering all morning: why did Paul go to Pisidian Antioch? Well, it turns out he was following his networks.7

Earlier we picked up Paul’s first missionary journey at his second stop. Let’s start at the first stop now. We’re back in Acts 13, starting in verse 4:

So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

Their first stop is Cyprus. This makes sense from a network point of view. Barnabas is from Cyprus, so they are working his family and friends. And Paul and Barnabas are both Jews, which makes sense of the next verse:

When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. And they had John also to assist them (Acts 13:5)

They are working their ethic-religious networks by going into the synagogues.

The story takes a strange turn next, though:

When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But the magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9

But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

11 And now listen the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun.”

Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he fumbled about for someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

The Holy Spirit intervenes to expand Paul and Barnabas’ network. Ancient people would have understood this encounter with Bar-Jesus as a contest of magical powers. The magician tried to put the hex on Paul, but Paul struck him blind. Probably hoping to avoid the same fate, the proconsul Sergius Paulus believed and converted.

This is a major convert for Paul and Barnabas. Proconsuls like Sergius Paulus were drawn from the uppermost echelons of Roman society. Before he was a proconsul, Sergius Paulus would have been a “praetor,” which is a group of only ten high-ranking and extremely wealthy senators elected every year. So, Sergius Paulus is kind of a big deal. It’s as if Paul just converted a member of the Supreme Court.

But then, back to that most vexing of questions, they leave Cyprus to go to Pisidian Antioch. They don’t hang out in Cyprus or on the southern coast of Turkey. They head north into the mountainous central plateau of Turkey to Pisidian Antioch. Why did they go there?

This question puzzled scholars for generations, but recent archaeological excavations of the ruins at Pisidian Antioch found the answer. Several inscriptions have been found in the town. These inscriptions were like the billboard advertisements of the ancient world. It’s akin to our “this highway adopted by” signs. Rich people liked funding public works and telling everybody about it. The inscriptions in Pisidian Antioch reveal that one of the dominant families in this little town was the Sergi Pauli family.

The Sergi Pauli family were wealthy sheep herders. Wool was expensive. The land around Pisidian Antioch was perfect for sheep herding, and families like the Sergi Pauli family made bank by selling the wool from these sheep.

As we put the pieces together, then, it appears that Paul and Barnabas went to this random sheep-town because of Sergius Paulus back on Cyprus. Sergius Paulus got saved, and he told Paul and Barnabas to go tell his family about Jesus. He probably gave them a letter of recommendation and instructions on who to stay with when they arrived.

So that’s the answer to your big question this morning. Why did Paul and Barnabas go to Pisidian Antioch for the second stop on their first missionary journey? They were following their networks, because that’s how most people convert.

This is how networks function. Sergius Paulus had a huge untapped network foreign to Paul and Barnabas. However, when Sergius Paulus got saved, his network became an avenue to spread the Gospel further. This is the pattern: the Holy Spirit leads, and Paul follows. God moves in a powerful way, making a convert. Then Paul taps into this convert’s social network to map out his next steps.

We see this pattern repeated several other times in Paul’s journeys, but for the sake of time I’ll give only one more quick example. In Acts 16, Paul is back in the region of Phrygia and Galatia (around Pisidian Antioch). Paul had a dream of a man from Macedonia asking him to come help. Paul wakes up, and heads to Macedonia. They cut across central Turkey to Troas on the northwestern coast and then sailed further northwest to Neapolis and eventually to Philippi. We’re seeing the first step of the pattern: the Holy Spirit moved, and Paul is following.

Paul arrives at Philippi and starts working his networks. Let’s pick up the story in Acts 16:13:

On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

You see Paul working his networks again. He’s going to where the Jews are. But then he meets a gentile next:

A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Lydia is described as a “god-worshipper,” a gentile who worships the Jewish God. She gets converted under Paul’s preaching and then invites Paul (and Silas) to stay with her.

Then, just as Paul and Barnabas used Sergius Paulus’ network to go to Pisidian Antioch, it appears that Paul and Silas use Lydia’s network to take them to their next stop. After a stay in prison, Paul and Silas head to Thessalonica. This is a natural enough next stop, as it is a major city on the Via Egnatia. What is curious, though, is what Paul does when he gets there. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 2:9:

You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

Paul says he was working alongside the Thessalonians doing manual labor. How did they get connected with this group? The merchant and labor classes were tight-knit and extremely suspicious of outsiders. They structured society in such a way to keep outsiders from weaseling their way into the local trades. Each town had trade guilds that all laborers had to be part of if they wanted to buy and sell their wares. So how did Paul weasel his way into this group?

This is where Lydia’s networks come into play. Lydia was, Acts 16:14 tells us, “a dealer in purple cloth.” She probably connected Paul with artisan friends in Thessalonica, asking them to welcome him and provide him with work.

In this example, then, we see a new network Paul is exploiting. He started with family, which is why they went to Cyprus and then to Pisidian Antioch. He worked his ethnic-religious networks by sharing the Gospel in synagogues. Now, he’s working through a network of artisans. Each conversion opened new networks to explore. As people in those new networks are converted, this opens even more networks, and so on it goes.

Our Networks: Students in our Classrooms

So, what does this have to do with our work in the classroom? We’ve learned from Paul (and, I suppose, the Moonies and the Mormons too) that people typically convert because of their network connections. It’s about friends and family. And, dare I say, classmates and professors. I submit to you that one of the single best ways you can integrate your teaching into your faith is by how you interact with your students. It’s not as much about what you say or incorporating Jesus into your lectures (although, please do that too). It’s about being present with these students, connecting with them in a personal way, and then from that basis of connection, walking with them to our Messiah. In short, curriculum apart from connection rarely makes converts.

Don’t be deceived. Those of you who have been at MBU for a while know this already, but for those of you who are newer: MBU is a Christcentered school, but a great number of our students are not actively following Jesus. When you enter a given classroom, there’s a better than decent chance that the room is filled with as many or more unbelievers than believers. This means you are a missionary as a professor. Like a good missionary, you need to find your unique ways of embedding in the classroom’s culture, studying the students under your care, and finding creative ways to connect with them to win the right to share the love of Jesus.

And here’s the cool thing: as you connect with these students, and these students get excited about Jesus, they have networks that none of us are going to reach. Our students are on teams. They’re working on and off campus. They have families. They have roommates. These are their networks. These are their Pisidian Antiochs. If you can get the students in your classroom network excited about Jesus through your connection with them, they can take that excitement into their networks that are currently unreachable to us. That’s how the Gospel spreads: through friends, families, classmates, and professors.

But this means we need to take the extra step to form relationships with our students. The sociological data doesn’t lie: Information transfer without relationship is rarely effective.

A Final Word: Nurture

“Strange Friendships”

As we start to wrap up, I’d like to leave us with one final thought. We’ve been talking about the importance of connecting with our students. But we must also avoid a temptation here. Here’s the temptation: to connect only with the students we like.

As Stark and Lofland found, “Most new religious movements fail because they quickly become closed, or semiclosed networks. That is, they fail to keep forming and sustaining attachments to outsiders and thereby lose the capacity to grow.”8 If we want to spread the Gospel further, we

must always be looking for new connections, or what New Testament scholar Douglas Campbell calls “strange friendships.”

Let’s return to Acts 13, this time starting in verse 1:

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a childhood friend of Herod the ruler, and Saul.

Here’s a little picture of Paul’s network. It’s a diverse group of “strange friendships.” You have Paul (here called Saul), who was a trained Pharisee from Tarsus in southeast Turkey. Barnabas is a Jew with priestly lineage from the island of Cyprus. Simeon nicknamed “Black” is likely from Africa. Lucius is from Cyrene, which is modern-day Libya. He has a Roman name, so he was a Roman citizen like Paul. And then you have Manaen, who was raised with Herod Antipas. It’s like the opening of a bad joke: “A priest, an African, a Roman, an aristocrat, and a Pharisee all walked into a bar.”9 We see already that Paul has been nurturing diverse friendships.

Sergius Paulus was a strange friend. As a member of the most elite class, he was a strategic friend, to be sure, but he was strange all the same. As Paul later reminds the Corinthian believers, not many converts were powerful or of noble birth (1 Cor 1:26). Sergius Paulus is the outlier. Most Christians weren’t wealthy elites like him.

Lydia is more typical. She has means now and appears to run her own business. However, her name suggests she was previously a slave. Slaves were often named after the town or region where they were purchased. Lydia probably came from the region of Lydia in western Turkey. So, although she has some independence now, she was still a lowstatus person. She’s a foreigner in Philippi, a freed slave who worked manual labor, and a woman. Another strange friendship for Paul.

As I conclude, I want to encourage you to keep your eyes open for strange friendships such as these. A surefire way to know if a church or organization is on a downward spiral is to look at their diversity (or lack thereof). If everyone looks the same, talks the same, and is interested in the same stuff, then this suggests the network potential is tapped out. We should pursue diversity for more reasons than just this, of course, but one reason to value connections with diverse students is because of the ways God can use all types of people to reach all types of people for God’s glory. Sometimes we must leave the comforts of the warm beach to go to a sheeptown like Pisidian Antioch, make connections with people unlike us, and see how God can use these “strange friendships” to change the world.

Notes

1 All translations from the New Testament are from the NRSVUE.

2 Unless otherwise cited, all data in this Network Theory section comes from Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) 15-21.

3 Stark, 16-17.

4 Scot McKnight, Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 5 (italics his).

5 Nelson Searcy, Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012) 80–83.

6 Matthew C. Easter, “‘Profane Like Esau’: Sexual Immorality, Bitterness, and Community Abandonment in Hebrews 12:14-17,” NovT 66 (2024) 11225.

7 The material in this section comes from Douglas Campbell, Paul: An Apostle’s Journey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018) 41-50 or Douglas Campbell, Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God’s Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020) 443-72.

8 Stark, 20.

9 Credit to Campbell for the joke (Campbell, An Apostle’s Journey, 41).

Bibliography

Campbell, Douglas. Paul: An Apostle’s Journey. Eerdmans, 2018. _______. Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God’s Love. Eerdmans, 2020.

Easter, Matthew C. “‘Profane Like Esau’: Sexual Immorality, Bitterness, and Community Abandonment in Hebrews 12:14-17.” Novum Testamentum 66 (2024): 112-25.

McKnight, Scot. Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels. Westminster John Knox, 2002.

Searcy, Nelson. Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers. Baker, 2012.

Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton University Press, 1996.

C. Clark Triplett 83

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 83-104

BOOK REVIEWS

Smith, David I. Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom. William B. Eerdmans, 2025. ISBN 9780802883001. 227 pages, $22.99.

Reviewed by C. Clark Triplett

David I. Smith is the founding director of the Kuyers Institute for Teaching and Learning and professor of education at Calvin University, where he also coordinates the DeVries Institute for Global Faculty Development. He received his M.Phil. from the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto and his Ph.D. from the University of London. Smith is the author of Spirituality, Social Justice, and Language Learning (with Terry A. Osborn, 2007), Learning from the Stranger (2009), Teaching and Christian Practices (with James K. A. Smith, 2011), Teaching and Christian Imagination (with Susan N. Felch, 2016), John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools (2017), On Christian Teaching (2018), and The Gift of the Stranger (with Barbara Carvill,

2020), among other works. He currently serves as editor of the Journal of Christianity and Education. Smith has also been regularly involved in professional development for schools, colleges, and universities, both nationally and internationally, with a focus on the relationship between faith, teaching, and learning.

This most recent work takes the reader on a journey through an entire semester of learning, from beginning to end. It includes what many might consider peripheral or even mundane elements, such as the writing and presentation of a class syllabus. The book is not primarily about a universally applicable teaching method or even about practices that are distinctly Christian. Instead, the author borrows Abraham Heschel’s metaphor of the “architecture of time” as a way of shaping practices and behaviors over a period “to reflect and nurture [our] faith rather than just crunching in mechanical increments from one task to the next” (185). Reflecting on how faith shapes time allows readers to view teaching and learning not simply as a linear process but as a story that unfolds through various movements that the author identifies, including “beginning, connecting, framing, assigning, pausing, repeating, and ending” (186).

Throughout the book, Smith makes it clear that teaching and learning are more than a set of tasks or the development of abstract truths. Quoting the reformer John Calvin, he argues, “Christianity is ‘not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life’ and ‘will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures’” (qtd. in Smith 6). For Smith, Christian education is neither about finding a value-free position nor about a unique set of Christian maneuvers such as using random Bible verses, praying, or adding sermons into the classroom. Rather, it emphasizes the how of numerous pedagogical choices and “grasping faith as a way of leaning into the whole of life […]” (5). It is a way for the teacher, through his own responses, to demonstrate how convictions and values shape interactions with students and reveal how to live life in the world. This practice involves repeated tacking back and forth between convictions and practices so that each challenges the other, opening more possibilities for understanding faith and life (10).

Throughout the book, Smith draws on two classic works John Amos Comenius’s Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658) and James Greenwood’s The London Vocabulary (1765) to illustrate how different approaches to the learning process are framed. Both works make liberal use of images to shape ways of thinking about life. The images in Comenius’s book invite students to “reflect on the connections between intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation and the pilgrimage toward responsibility and service on which teacher and learner are to travel together” (34). His presentation of humanity as an integration of intellect and spirit, oriented toward the development of wisdom, becomes clear in his use of images. Greenwood’s illustrations, in contrast, portray a static sense of humanity, offering pictures of various objects and elements with little sense of movement or integration. Rather, “the text catalogues God in

the midst of a list of nouns to be memorized, just one of many things in the world” (35). Both texts suggest a story about what it means to be human, and both include God as a component of learning. The real issue, however, is which provides a better account of what it means to be a Christian and, as Miroslav Volf argues, whether it demonstrates that “at the heart of every good theology lies not simply a plausible intellectual vision but more importantly a compelling account of a way of life” (qtd. in Smith 37).

Smith begins his course in a deliberately personal way by inviting a group of strangers to learn each other’s names. He asks students to pair up, share two interesting facts about their partner, and then introduce that person to the class. At first glance, this resembles any other small-group icebreaker. However, Smith has an ulterior motive: he wants students and teacher alike to listen attentively. As he explains, “I wanted to signal the value of each person present and lay some initial groundwork for talking later about Christian understandings of community and how they might relate to classrooms” (40).

Afterward, Smith asks students to journal their reflections on the exercise. What emerged most clearly from these responses was the importance of relationships and how this practice created a context in which students could complete projects and assignments without remaining strangers. For Smith, this activity reflects his larger aim of “building a community of mutual care […] informed by my faith” (43). Rather than beginning with prayer or devotion, he sought “to build norms of interaction that could sustain us in humble, reflective, honest inquiry” (ibid.). In doing so, he fostered an atmosphere of shared learning between teacher and students, rather than one of distance or authority.

This book emphasizes cultivating community and, to some extent, the concept of recapitulation, since the idea of community articulated in Scripture reflects how humanity was created to be. This perspective shapes how the teacher approaches relationships and activities in the classroom: “Choices as concrete as where to sit, how to arrange the furniture, how we interact, and who gets to speak reveal a sense of why others matter and shape students’ experience of learning” (52). Such choices become concrete expressions of the “gift of Christ” worked out in mutual interactions between teacher and students, as well as among students themselves. These practices are not accidental; rather, they are intentional and consistent throughout the semester. Craig Dykstra, former professor of Leadership Education at Duke University, observes that “practices and disciplines are […] gifts to the community, by means of which God may use the community to establish and sustain all people in the new life given by the Spirit” (qtd. in Smith 55). According to Smith, this dynamic cannot be imposed upon the classroom; rather, teaching must experiment with and adapt it in order “to test ourselves against an ethic of mutual service” (Ibid.).

Smith identifies several traits and practices that illustrate how faith connects with classroom teaching and learning. These practices embody what teachers truly value in the learning process: “They reveal how we

think learning fits into students’ lives. They reveal how we think the world should be known” (69–70). Such practices also shape how teachers use time in the classroom throughout the semester. They include beginning, connecting, framing, assigning, pausing, repeating, and ending. The remainder of the book considers what these practices might look like in practice. According to Smith, they may be carried out in a mechanical, task-oriented way, or “we can approach them as architecture, as the creation of a pedagogical home whose shape and texture, though different each time and place, are plausible extensions of what we hold to be true and who we are called to be” (186).

The intentional practices that Smith outlines in this book emphasize process rather than mere technique. His concern is not simply with the mechanics of teaching but with the deeper, formative habits that shape the lives of both students and teachers. The hope, as he frames it, is that these practices will ultimately cultivate a community built upon mutual service and shared responsibility. This commitment to living with and serving others provides the foundation for what Smith calls Christian teaching:

I teach at a Christian university, and if students are going to engage in learning that advertises itself as Christian, they should be helped to trace the threads between stated beliefs and the learning practices they experience and they should have opportunities to engage in ways that might support their own spiritual growth. (58)

For Smith, then, Christian education is not primarily about imparting doctrinal content or enforcing moral codes. Instead, its focus lies in the process of supporting one another’s flourishing as created persons. Teachers and students alike are called to recognize and learn from the gifts that each brings to the classroom. This mutual exchange of service and learning establishes what Smith describes as a trajectory over time, “a trajectory that insistently nudges us toward attending to one another” (58).

In this sense, the classroom becomes more than a site of knowledge transmission; it becomes a workshop for practicing hospitality, attentiveness, and care. By foregrounding process over technique, Smith reframes education as a spiritual discipline, one in which teaching and learning are inseparable from the formation of a community that seeks to embody love, justice, and service.

Practices such as framing, assigning, pausing, and repeating are not merely strategies intended to expedite the learning process. Rather, they establish a pedagogical context that, sustained throughout the academic year, fosters reflection and interaction, thereby deepening the connections between faith and learning. These practices shape the relationship between teacher and student in ways that embody Christ and invite transformative experiences. Although a full account of each practice

exceeds the scope of this discussion, a few brief examples will demonstrate their significance within the classroom and beyond.

Pausing is a significant pedagogical practice that cultivates attentiveness and mutual respect in the classroom. By creating space for silence and reflection, pausing allows students to both listen to and genuinely respond to one another. As Smith observes, learning unfolds through “hesitations, silences, reflective moments, things lingered over” (125). Such hesitations are not interruptions to the learning process but rather essential features of it, shaping the rhythm of intellectual engagement. Smith describes these moments as temporal markers that form part of the “eloquent rhythms that become part of the landscape of learning” (125).

These pauses carry a profound sense of hope. Each moment of silence anticipates the possibility of a thoughtful response, a gift of serious engagement offered by one student to another. When a peer responds with careful consideration or an earnest answer, the exchange initiates another pause, creating a rhythm of dialogue that continually moves the conversation forward. In this way, pausing fosters reciprocity that transforms the classroom into a space of shared discovery. Moreover, the practice of pausing reshapes the relationship between teacher and student. It enables educators to ask more incisive questions and to expect deeper responses, cultivating respect for the intellectual and spiritual capacities of all students. Importantly, Smith highlights that this practice extends to those who may otherwise feel marginalized minority students, newcomers, or “strangers” who, when treated as “images of God,” are affirmed as full participants in the learning community (129). Pausing, then, is not merely a technique but a practice of hospitality, one that honors everyone as capable of contributing meaningfully to the shared pursuit of knowledge.

Repetition may initially appear to be a mundane and mechanical feature of classroom instruction; a technique most often associated with memorization or the reinforcement of subject matter. Yet, as David I. Smith suggests, when repetition is practiced intentionally, it becomes far more than a tool for retention; it is transformed into a practice that nurtures the imagination and cultivates a flourishing life. In this sense, repetition is never neutral. It reflects a deliberate pedagogical choice that reveals what the teacher deems most valuable in the world. As Smith observes, “repeated attention to a single part of creation (a painting, a place, a person) communicates that this was valued by the teacher and worthy of the student’s focus” (161). Repetition, therefore, is not simply about revisiting information, but about directing attention toward what deserves contemplation and sustained engagement. Smith is also careful to distinguish between the worthwhile and the trivial. Not everything in the world merits repetition, nor does every object of study deserve prolonged focus. Instead, repetition becomes an act of discernment, a means of identifying what truly matters and forming students in ways that orient them toward care, delight, and responsibility.

As he notes, “educators who value delight in creation, care taken with the work of others’ hands, and love of neighbor have good reason to repeat themselves in other idioms” (162). Repetition, then, becomes both formative and ethical, shaping habits of attention that foster reverence for creation, respect for others, and love for what is good and true.

Consider, for instance, the student who returns to a difficult text they have read before. At first, the experience may seem burdensome, a mere requirement to be fulfilled. Yet, through repetition reading again, questioning again, lingering over passages that resist easy understanding the student learns to see with greater depth and nuance. What was once opaque may gradually yield wisdom, complexity, and beauty. This practice moves beyond task completion; it trains the student in patience, humility, and attentiveness, virtues necessary not only for intellectual growth but also for life itself.

In this way, repetition, far from being a dry or perfunctory technique, emerges as a practice of renewal. It cultivates habits of attention that anchor students in what is most worthy of their time and energy, allowing them to participate more fully in the unfolding of knowledge, imagination, and life.

In time, everything must come to an end. Even enjoyable courses, like memorable stories, eventually reach their conclusion. Yet, as with literature, endings may take different forms: they may be predictable or surprising, satisfying or unsettling. As Smith notes, “Endings may come last, but they cast a retrospective shadow over everything that came before” (173). The conclusion of a narrative or a course shapes how the entire experience is remembered and interpreted. If endings diverge from what was anticipated, and closure is not fully achieved, students may feel disappointed or even disoriented. Such reactions reveal that expectations about endings are deeply tied to one’s broader view of the world and of meaning itself.

For Smith, the conclusion of a course is not merely a formal closure but rather the culmination of a pedagogical narrative. It is a story that deserves an ending consistent with its trajectory. This is especially true in contexts where faith and learning are intentionally connected. In such settings, Smith proposes that the conclusion of a course should be considered through a liturgical lens: does it end in blessing and commissioning, or in judgment and dismissal? (185). This framing shifts the focus from the classroom as an isolated experience to the classroom as part of a larger narrative of vocation, formation, and community.

To end well, then requires attentiveness to both the wholeness of the course and the ongoing lives of students. As Smith observes, the question is not only whether the course has reached its formal conclusion but whether it prepares students for what follows: “finding ways of relating that sense of the wholeness of things to a specific context and then being attentive to what unfolds” (185). Thus, a course may either stop abruptly, severed from the rhythms of students’ ongoing lives, or it may open outward, equipping students to carry forward new insights, habits, and

commitments. A well-crafted ending, therefore, functions not as a termination but as a transition, inviting students to see learning not as something concluded but as something that continues to shape who they are becoming.

Smith’s Everyday Christian Teaching ultimately reminds readers that the classroom is not merely a space for information transfer but a formative environment where faith, time, and community intersect. By attending carefully to the ordinary movements of teaching beginning, pausing, repeating, and ending Smith shows how even the most routine pedagogical practices can become opportunities for cultivating attentiveness, hospitality, and mutual service. His vision challenges teachers to see their work not as a series of isolated tasks but as participation in a larger narrative of Christian formation. For educators seeking to integrate faith with pedagogy in ways that are both theologically grounded and practically sustainable, this book offers a compelling guide. In the end, Smith’s account of teaching is not about adding explicitly “religious” content to the classroom but about shaping habits of attention and care that help students and teachers alike to imagine what it means to live faithfully in the world.

Currid, John D. The Case for Biblical Archaeology: Uncovering the Historical Record of God’s Old Testament People. P&R Publishing, 2020. ISBN 9781629953601. 288 pages, $30.00.

Reviewed by Josh Wilson

John D. Currid serves as Chancellor’s Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is well known in the field of biblical archaeology and Old Testament and has published numerous books and commentaries related to both disciplines. This review covers his recent book, The Case for Biblical Archaeology: Uncovering the Historical Record of God’s Old Testament People. In it, Currid intends to show how archaeology enhances our understanding of the bible, writing, “It is our contention that the purpose of archaeology (and related fields) is not to prove the Bible. The Bible doesn’t need to be proved. It stands well enough on its own. […] Biblical archaeology serves to confirm, illuminate, and give ‘earthiness’ to the scriptures” (p. 3). Currid lists two primary reasons for why an informative book like this is important and necessary. The first is that we live in a generation that is ahistorical, viewing history as biased and propagandistic, and thus, unknowable. The second is that we live in a generation that is also uninformed, easily duped by sensationalized historical claims. Therefore, “[biblical archaeology] helps to demonstrate that the events related in the biblical accounts actually took place in history” (p. 3).

Currid’s book features three main sections or parts. Part 1 gives the “Setting” (chaps. 2-5), Part 2 offers “A Journey Through the Land” (chaps. 6-12), and Part 3 presents “Aspects of Society” (chaps. 13-19). Parts 2 and 3 comprise the largest portions of the book with the former covering 81 pages and the latter 79. The book is peppered with helpful color photos and humorous flavor texts, and concludes with appendices, indices, a glossary, and a select bibliography.

The purpose of Part 1, “The Setting,” is to prepare readers for Parts 2 and 3. Here, Currid introduces the reader to the broad geography of the land of Palestine from Galilee in the north to the Negev in the south and from the Transjordan in the east to the Mediterranean coast in the west (chap. 2). Readers are also introduced to the history of archaeological study and techniques in the land of Palestine from the phase of the early Christian pilgrims in the land to the present phase of information explosion (chap. 3). Currid also introduces the concept of an archaeological tell, an occupation mound, and the rationale for its location and formation (chap. 4). Finally, readers are introduced to a brief history of the land of Palestine from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age (chap.5).

In Part 2, “A Journey Through the Land,” Currid presents an overview of the many archaeological sites in Palestine. Each chapter in this section briefly examines the sites of a major geographical region (introduced in chap. 2). Each site, being itself an archaeological tell (introduced in chap. 4), is then examined from its earliest archaeological age up to, but no later than, the Iron Age (introduced in chap. 5). Finally, each examined site concludes with a list of helpful articles and books that offer a more in-depth study of the site. Throughout each site’s description, Currid also provides gleanings of information that are explained more thoroughly in Part 3 of the book. Thus, readers may find it more helpful to read Part 3 before reading Part 2. Nevertheless, there is great value in this first section for readers who are looking for a helpful resource and guide for researching the various places that played a role, be it major or minor, in the history of the Old Testament.

In Part 3, “Aspects of Society,” Currid gives readers an overview of certain facets of ancient life that are important for the study of archaeology. These include agricultural and herding practices (chap. 13), water collecting (chap. 14), architecture (chap. 15), ceramics (chap. 16), language and inscriptions (chap. 17), burial practices (chap. 18), and the making of common and sacred items (chap. 19). This section in and of itself is of valuable for readers who are interested in the practice of archaeology and daily life in ancient Palestine. One of the most insightful chapters in this section, and possibly the whole book is the chapter on ceramics. In this chapter, Currid explains the immense value of the common pottery of the ancient world for interpreting and dating each stratum in tell excavation. Its value, explains Currid, is due to its ubiquity, durability, and changeability over time. Currid writes, “Pottery, then, is the most fundamental tool for developing the dating sequence of a site (pp. 196).

While the value of Currid’s book is evident from cover to cover, in its presentation of information, it does suffer from a handful of frustrating inconsistencies that may have been overlooked in the editorial process. The majority of them were in Part 2 with the presentation of the names of the various archaeological sites given in text of the book and their correspondence with the reference map of archaeological sites (pp. 70-71). The first type of inconsistency is that there are several instances in which certain sites are given in the text but do not appear on the reference map. For example, the very first site described in this section of the book is Abel Beth Maacah (pp. 73-74), yet this site does not appear on the reference map of archaeological sites.

The second type of inconsistency is that when sites are listed on the reference map, there are instances in which the name of a site given in the text, does not match its name given on the map. For example, in chapter 6 is the description of the site Tel Beth Yerah (p. 76). However, this site only appears on the reference map (p. 71) as Kh. al-Karak (Philoteria). It is not possible for readers to connect the site with these two names until nearly the end of the second paragraph of the site’s description. It is there that Currid makes an indirect reference to the other name of the site by making mention of its unique ceramics that are called “Khirbet Kerak ware” (p. 75). Even then, the other name of the site that is indirectly given in the text is not quite the same as its name given on the reference map. With respect to the site Tel Hadar (p. 78), either it does not appear on the reference map, or it does, but it bears the name T. Sheikh Hidr (p. 71). This is a possibility given the similarities between the names Hidr and Hadar and given that the book has already demonstrated that archaeological site names in the text do not always match up exactly with their names on the reference map. However, the book gives readers no way of knowing if this site is identified by both names.

The third type of inconsistency is in how the names of each site are presented. For example, in the key to the reference map (p. 70), it states, “For consistency where applicable, the modern Arabic name is listed first.” This consistency on the map is not reflected in the text of the book. For example, on the reference map (p. 71), the site T. al-Matusallim (Megiddo) is listed in the text of the book (p. 89) as Megiddo (Tell elMutsellim). Contrary to the map, the text of the book gives the biblical name first and the modern Arabic name second. (Note again, the inconsistency in the spelling between the reference map and the book’s text.) However, on the reference map (p. 71), the site T. ash-Shari‘a (Ziklag) is listed in the text of the book (p. 106) as Tell esh-Shari‘a (Tell Sera‘). Consistent with the map, the text of the book gives the modern Arabic name first but then gives its modern Hebrew name second! In fact, it is not until the last paragraph of this site’s description that it is even identified with the biblical town of Ziklag.

These inconsistences may seem mild, but in this section of the book, they are frequent and frustrating, and they do not facilitate matching sites in the text with sites on the reference map. This section would have

been more helpful and useful to readers if the text had listed the biblical names of sites first, whenever possible, and the modern Arabic names second while still maintaining some kind of consistency with the list of sites on the reference map. Perhaps a second edition of the book will resolve some of these listed issues.

These inconsistencies in the presentation of the information, however, should not take away from the rich content of this work. Currid’s book unquestionable accomplishes its overall purpose of laying out a case for biblical archaeology. For its content alone, it would be a great addition to the libraries of readers wanting to learn about ancient Near Eastern society in the land of Palestine during the time of the Old Testament. It would be a great reference tool for readers seeking to learn more about the various archaeological sites that played a role in the books of the Old Testament. Lastly, it would be a great resource for readers who are simply wanting to enhance their understanding of the Bible.

Heckel, Matthew C. His Spear Through My Side into Luther: Calvin’s Relationship to Luther’s Doctrine of the Will. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2025. ISBN 9783525501061. 333 pages, $150.00.

Reviewed by Rev. T. Chris Crain

In this in-depth study, Matthew Heckel explores the relationship between John Calvin and Martin Luther on the doctrine of the will. Calvin claimed that he fully agreed with Luther on this issue but wanted to soften the fiery rhetoric of the reformer from Wittenburg. Heckel argues that Luther also influenced Calvin in more formative ways as demonstrated by Calivn’s use of a number of specifically Lutheran expressions and ideas. The title of this work derives from Calvin’s debate with Albert Pighius, the Roman Catholic apologist. Pighius sought to defeat the German Reformer for his views on the denial of human free choice by attacking Calvin first. Thus, Calvin writes that “Pighius’s intent was to drive ‘his spear’ through him ‘into Luther and the rest of our party’” (16).

In examining the relationship between Calvin and Luther on the will, Heckel proposes the use of a nuanced historical method. He wants to couple older scholarship, which highlighted the continuity between the two reformers with modern scholarship, which is often more sensitive to differences. He says, “continuity and discontinuity are both important issues in historical research as historians try to determine cause and effect

relationships” (18). Past studies were too quick to assume agreement while more recent analyses have underscored supposed tensions between Luther and Calvin.

Heckel situates his interpretation on Luther and Calvin over against other contemporary scholars. Anthony Lane has argued that Calvin sought to salvage solidarity between himself and Luther through special pleading and that Calvin, in his later writings, distanced himself from Luther on divine necessity. Harry McSorley denied that Luther even believed in divine necessity, and Paul Helm and Richard Muller do the same with Calvin. Heckel disagrees, showing that Calvin held to divine necessity and defended Luther’s views on divine necessity in chapters seven, “Were Luther and Calvin Necessarily Necessitarians” and eleven, “Is Augustine Totally Theirs?”

The linchpin of Heckel’s comparison of Luther and Calvin depends on the strength of his proposed historical method. In The Bondage and Liberation of the Will (1543) Calvin claims that he is in full agreement with Luther on divine necessity and free choice, though he admits to softening Luther’s rhetoric. Lane says that Calvin was embarrassed by Luther’s view of absolute necessity and took a more moderating position while maintaining an air of collegiality and brotherly agreement (67). Heckel disagrees with Lane, and his book is a detailed defense showing Luther’s influence on Calvin and Calvin’s use of Luther.

Heckel asks, “How does one properly assess Calvin’s claim of consensus and the separate question of Luther’s influence?” (67-8). He suggests a “two-way hermeneutic” to detect influence; first, a strict hermeneutic of suspicion that requires distinct elements of thought and language as evidence, and second, an accumulation of evidence, that when weighed leads to a historical conclusion that is beyond reasonable doubt even if not beyond a shadow of doubt (68, 71). Using a legal definition of “preponderance of the evidence,” Heckel believes that there is enough support to justify reaching the standard of better than fifty percent likelihood (73). It is up to the readers, as jurors in a trial, to decide if he has proven his case (74).

Heckel dialogues on historical method with Lane. Lane argues that there are three types of studies that relate Calvin to his predecessors. First, there are those who compare Calvin to earlier theologians (e.g., Aquinas) systematically on specific issues. Second, others focus on Calvin’s use of earlier theologians in how he views them or quotes from them. Third, other scholars seek to show how earlier theologians influenced Calvin’s thought and method.

To these options Heckel offers a fourth approach: studies which combine all three. The first type can still be historical because the historian can put two thinkers in dialogue with one another by placing them in their historical context first and then in the history of ideas. Heckel appreciates Lane’s approach as a needed counterbalance to scholars who were too quick to posit influence. Lane wisely notes that the problem of influence is a many headed hydra. Parallels or similarities alone prove nothing. Later

writers sometimes reach the same or similar conclusions independently from earlier authors. They may have depended on a third source (or more), separate from the supposed influence. Even if one author knows another well, that does not prove influence either. At times, thinkers develop their ideas independently.

To aid the reader in deciding on the success of the case, Heckel notes three categories of comparison: those so common in the tradition that they are useless in making a substantial connection (e.g., the bondage of the will), those so uncommon in the tradition that they do point to an influence (e.g., the bondage of the will to divine necessity), and those not found in the tradition but which Luther used and Calvin also adopted. The last category is the weightiest for proving influence. It provides “promising ‘precise evidence’” for Luther’s influence on Calvin (72). In short, what are these distinct Lutheran ideas? They are “Calvin’s adoption of Luther’s view, contra the medieval viae, that contingency and necessity are mutually exclusive categories, Calvin’s use of Luther’s dictum that God uses wicked tools, the explicit distinction between necessity and coercion, his use of the will as beast of burden in the characteristically Lutheran way, their use of the distinction between the law and gospel, and his formal denial of the term ‘free choice’” (72-73).

Of the second category, ideas uncommon in the tradition, Heckel summarizes twenty-one ways his study shows that Calvin followed Luther (299-302). As noted, proving “following” equals “influence” is difficult inasmuch as Heckel notes that fifteen of the similarities could have come from elsewhere in the tradition. Here are a few of the second category similarities: Calvin followed Luther in speaking of the sensitive conscience, in arguing for the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, in his negative attitude to Aristotelian philosophy in theology (though both used Aristotle when he supported their theology), in affirming three aspects of reason, and in stressing that the Spirit makes the Word effective by imparting faith to hearing and is uniquely connected to ministry of the Word (299).

It is suggestive, though, for those who doubt substantive influence that there are fifteen similarities, and Heckel concludes that the accumulation of these “demonstrates a preponderance of the evidence or a strong probability that Luther had a formative influence on Calvin as interpreter and defender of the reform of the church on their doctrine of the will” (302). More importantly, Heckel discerns six unique third category Lutheran ideas Calvin employed in his writings on the will. These are: the denial of human free choice for being a misleading term, humans possessing free choice in what is below in the created order, contingency as a human way to view seemingly chance events, divine omnipotence as the activating power of necessity for all events, the distinction between the hidden and revealed God, and distinguishing of law and gospel (302-3). While Calvin utilized these ideas, he was no copycat. He rather took Luther’s ideas and molded them to fit his context and his concerns.

Chapters five, “Reevaluating Calvin’s Agreement with Luther’s Doctrine of the Will,” and six, “Responses to the Common Cause,” demonstrate how Calvin appropriated Luther and exemplify where and why Heckel disagrees with much current scholarship. Luther asserted that all things related to humanity happen by a dual necessity: mankind’s fall into sin and God’s choice (81). For Luther, the fall corrupts human nature and thus humans are incapable of good works. Calvin agreed with Luther on original sin and the corruption of human nature, defending Luther’s conception and stating “‘there is nothing in those words of which is not straightforwardly and unambiguously true’” (81). As mentioned, Lane argues that Calvin was embarrassed by Luther’s position and that Calvin adopted a more moderate position. Why does Lane think this and what is Heckel’s argument against him?

In Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (EP) published in 1552, Calvin addresses specific criticisms of Pighius. In EP Calvin uses absolute necessity and employs the scholastic distinction between the necessity of consequence (necessitas consequentiae) and the necessity of the consequent (necessitas consequentis), a distinction Luther had rejected in Lectures on Romans (1516), his Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517), and in The Bondage and Liberation of the Will (1525). Lane contends that Calvin uses this “scholastic subtlety” to distance himself from Luther (83). But Heckel shows that Calvin used the distinction only to affirm that humans see events as contingent even though God does not since he has determined them by necessity. The necessity of consequence refers to contingent necessity when at least one other option is open. It is an event that occurs by a choice that could have been otherwise. For instance, Heckel says, a man who chooses to be a monk could have chosen to be married (88). The necessity of consequent deals with things which are true by nature. Thus, a monk, by definition, is unmarried. Calvin used the distinction to describe Christ’s bones. Human bones are breakable, but Christ’s bones were not because God, by a necessary consequence, had chosen that his bones could not be broken. Luther threw away the distinction as medieval pedantry with no real use, but Calvin thought otherwise. Luther was especially concerned with scholastics who used the necessity of consequence to preserve human contingency in salvation. Luther wanted to argue that there is no such thing as chance. To this, Calvin agreed but he expanded upon Luther by saying that for God there is only absolute necessity and no chance. From the human point of view, it looks like there is contingency even when there is not. The lot is from the Lord because he determines what will occur (93). This book is a re-working of Heckel’s 2005 PhD thesis at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis. Thus, in chapter six, Heckel takes up Kiven Choy’s and Anthony Lane’s arguments against his dissertation on Calvin’s agreement with Luther. Choy points to Calvin’s use of the two kinds of necessity as a “significant difference” between Luther and Calvin. But Heckel convincingly shows that Calvin used the distinction with regards to the breaking of Christ’s bones and not to human free choice. Luther

despised the distinction when it was applied to free choice in salvation and, Heckel demonstrates, so did Calvin (108). Calvin used the distinction to support Luther on unfree choice in salvation and free choice in matters below salvation while still affirming absolute divine necessity in all things.

Heckel also addresses Lane’s contention that “While I don’t question his [Heckel’s] argument that Calvin is substantially in agreement with Luther on this issue, I am not persuaded that this requires 100% agreement without even a minor point of divergence, as argued here” (112). Heckel responds that he is not claiming 100% agreement in everything but only substantial agreement. The issue of Calvin and Luther on the Lord’s Supper is significant here. In his original dissertation, Heckel argues that since Calvin was not scared to admit differences when they were present on the Lord’s Supper, he was likewise not afraid to do so on the will, if such differences were present.

But Lane has pointed out that Calvin claimed solidarity with Melanchthon on the will when they actually disagreed. Heckel admits “This rebuttal is sound” (115). So, does this substantially weaken Heckel’s argument? Does Calvin differ with Luther on the will in substance while claiming that he is in agreement?

Heckel argues that Calvin should have admitted he disagreed with Melanchthon but that he considered himself a friend and was constrained by “Renaissance politeness” (117). Nevertheless, Heckel establishes that whereas Calvin was polite with Melancthon, he championed Luther on the will and was never embarrassed with Luther’s provocative language as Lane claims. Lane and Heckel’s scholarly engagement leads to moderation and qualifications on both sides, but Heckel still disagrees that Calvin wanted to put “clear water” between himself and Luther by using the scholastic distinction on two necessities (118). Heckel concludes, “Calvin’s Luther was the real Luther, but Calvin’s Melanchthon was a hopeful vision that eluded Calvin’s ability to reclaim his friend for the common cause on the will” (120).

This review has only focused on Heckel’s method and one issue, absolute necessity, he examines. His book offers much more for the reader interested in Luther and Calvin and their milieu. He includes analysis of their use of reason, the role of renaissance humanism, and their contentious relationship to medieval scholasticism, all which add depth to his work. Particularly stimulating are Heckel’s analysis of how Calvin employs two Lutheran doctrines, the hiddenness of God and the distinction between law and gospel. Heckel also shows the differences between Geneva and Wittenburg on several issues, including their views on the relationship between foreknowledge and foreordination. Luther held that God’s willing and knowing are the same thing, but for Calvin God foreknows what he wills. For Luther God actively knows and wills, and for Calvin God passively knows what he actively wills. “This in an example of finding different nuances between Luther and Calvin within fundamental agreement” (203). He devotes an entire chapter to show that on the issue

of the will Luther and Calvin were deploying Augustine’s doctrine while disagreeing with the doctor of grace on justification.

Heckel’s penultimate chapters, twelve and thirteen, focus on seven doctrinal spears of Pighius aimed at Luther through Calvin. Spear seven, God’s law is unjust if man cannot obey it, shows how Calvin uses Luther while altering Luther’s doctrine in a non-polemical fashion. Luther viewed the law as functioning civilly, imposing order on society, and, accusatorily, exposing sin and pointing to Christ. Heckel notes that Luther even spoke once of a third use of the law (283). Calvin also speaks of the law civilly and accusatorily and develops an emphasis “that is not as strong in Luther the law as guide to holy living” (289). Interestingly, while Luther did not distinguish as clearly as Calvin the three uses of the law, in his treatment in Lectures on Galatians Luther stresses good works more than Calvin does in his own Galatians commentary where he is more concerned with emphasizing freedom and peace of conscience (294). This is an example of differing contexts driving exegetical aims within broad agreement.

In closing, Heckel’s work ably demonstrates the nuanced relationship between Luther and Calvin on the doctrine of the will by understanding their theology in its historical context. This work will appeal to Reformation scholars and to those interested in the history of Christian doctrine on the will and its companions like predestination, necessity, limited atonement, foreknowledge, and foreordination. In his analysis of Calvin’s deflection of Pighuis’s spear thrusts, Heckel provides a historical method which other historians could use when considering how one thinker influences another. In weighing Heckel’s argument, the evidence and analysis he provides lead to the conclusion that Luther’s influence on Calvin is beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Top left) The Luther Monument in Wittenberg, Germany. Photo by John J. Han, 13 June 2025.

(Top right) All Saints’ Church (Schlosskirche, “Castle Church”) in Wittenberg, Germany, where Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses in 1517. Photo by John J. Han, 13 June 2025.

(Bottom left) John Calvin’s birthplace museum in Noyon, France. Photo by John J. Han, 20 June 2025.

(Bottom right) Notre Dame Cathedral, Noyon, France. Calvin attended this church in his boyhood. Photo by John J. Han, 20 June 2025.

Warner, John. More than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI. Basic Books, 2025. ISBN 9781541605503. 320 pages, $30.00.

Reviewed by Julie Steinbeck

Whenever I tell someone what I do for a living (that is, teaching college writing), I will usually hear one of two responses. The first is “I was so bad at English! You must hate my grammar!” The second and nowmore-common response is “I could never teach writing when ChatGPT exists!” While many might be tempted to throw up their hands in despair at the state of students’ motivation to write, I just can’t follow suit, mainly because I want students to know exactly what they (and generative AI models) are capable of. To do that, I must join the throngs of English instructors figuring out exactly how to “ChatGPT”-proof assignments and encourage students to do the hard work of learning. Those of us in faithbased institutions also remind students that writing is a specifically Godgiven, humanity-enriching activity that cannot be replaced. Thankfully, we writing teachers are not alone in our mission. John Warner, a prolific writer, speaker, and faculty member himself, offers both reflection and correction in his latest work, More than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI. Warner offers practical advice and invites instructors to consider the real point of writing instruction; however, he does not well explain why humans should bother with the effort. Warner thoroughly debunks many pro-AI arguments by explaining precisely what language-learning models (LLMs) such as DeepSeek, Grok,

and Chat GPT are, how they operate, and what such programs cannot do. He also emphasizes the act of writing as “an embodied act of thinking and feeling. Writing is communicating with intention” (8). Thus, one of his foundational points is that “Chat GPT cannot write”; rather, programs like Chat GPT merely synthesize text by making predictions as to which word is most likely to come after a previous one (8). If one has read an essay generated by Chat GPT (as many teachers have by now), the text look all right on the surface but does not hold up to much scrutiny. Such a point provides a bit of rebuttal to those that insist that LLMs can easily replace human writers and do so with less time and effort. Instead, Warner reminds his readers that instead of providing a valuable product, AI instead is a detriment to human living. It exploits human labor, particularly low-paid workers in Nairobi, Kenya. It pollutes the environment, sucking up water and requiring the reintroduction of coalfired power plants. It also steals others’ work by pirating authors’ manuscripts and artists’ images (30-35). Christian institutions especially should be wary of these tendencies toward theft and oppression of the poor especially as LLMs cannot judge truth or accuracy (18). What’s more, these points remind us that Christians should avoid contributing to such conditions.

This point is where Warner steers the conversation to what the human process of writing is and what such a skill requires. He emphasizes that writing is specifically a human process; that is, only humans can write, and that writing incorporates thinking, feeling, and practice:

What I want to say about writing is that it is a fully embodied experience. When we do it, we are thinking and feeling. We are bringing our unique intelligences to the table and attempting to demonstrate them to the world. […] Chat GPT is the opposite, a literal averaging of intelligences, a featureless landscape of pattern-derived text. (58-59)

Warner spends several chapters illustrating AI’s lack of emotional impact and reflection that are required for a strong, thorough writing practice. Without thought, there is no discovery, no caring about what has been written leaving a pattern-following text that is technically correct but devoid of any humanity. Warner also emphasizes the practice of writing, something that English teachers beg their students to understand is slow and at times boring before it becomes rewarding. His insistence on the practice of writing lines up with what faithful faculty know to be true: that God has given language, words, and writing as a means of communing with him. As such, Warner’s work is correct use of Chat GPT and other LLMs in place of real writing can be a spiritual matter, as it disrespects one of the gifts God has given.

A somewhat unexpected point Warner explains is a brief history of the attempts to automate teaching; after all, if writing and grading can be completed with AI programs, why do we need in-person teachers? As it

turns out, the desire to replace classroom teachers with robots and AI programs is nothing new: even Thomas Edison was confident in students’ ability to learn from motion pictures more efficiently than they could from printed matter (134). This chapter shows Warner’s personal experience in the classroom as he emphasizes that “learning is more than being exposed to information” and that a constant goal of the “engineering model of education” has been to “either replace or marginalize the teacher in the classroom, to make them technicians subservient to the technology” (134, 138). Instead of embracing what would theoretically make information transmission easier, Warner correctly warns faculty away from the temptation, instead encouraging the establishment of trust, communication, engagement, and inquiry (145-46).

One of the biggest points that Warner weaves into his text is that the tasks instructors ask of students need meaning, and this is where the advent of Chat GPT allows us to reflect on what we require and why. He argues that it only makes sense that students are tempted to use LLMs to complete assignments: if they believe that they are only jumping hurdles on their way to what they really want to do, the connection between the task and the learning is lost. If the assignment doesn’t impact the learning, why spend the effort? “We have to get down to the root values of what is important and meaningful about the writing we ask students to do,” Warner says (153). He goes on to describe three principles he believes make students less likely to outsource their work: engaging and appreciating material, being given authentic challenge, and reflecting on their learning (154). These principles are strong: they encourage observation, problem-solving, and visible results. On the other hand, this is where the opinion from most Christian faculty will diverge from Warner’s. Where Warner holds writing as the creation of knowledge, we hold knowledge to be the creation of God, and it is our job to communicate that truth in the clearest possible way. Where Warner says that we “interpret the world for ourselves” (157), we hold that we must discover God’s objective truth.

Another point where Christian educators will agree that Warner falls short is in one of the final chapters of the book, entitled “Renew.” What is being renewed? Warner isn’t entirely sure, but he lands on how humans are creatures, that “we are embodied. […] I believe we are going to have to renew our sense of ourselves as examples of [Wendell] Berry’s creatures rather than embrace [E.O.] Wilson’s notion that we are merely complicated machines” (253). Warner just barely misses why it’s important that we treat writing as a human activity: we are created beings in the image of an imaginative author-God. It is impossible to “create ourselves as individuals through acts of personal discernment” (264) if we refuse to know our real essence. We cannot discern that which has no objective truth. In noting this, Warner lays the foundation of why writing is human but seems to have trouble finishing his thought. He even admits he cannot explain why we imbued with these abilities (252). This is the

answer that is left out: the created value given by God is what makes our individual creativity worthwhile.

More than Words is a valuable addition to the shelves of anyone teaching writing or writing-heavy courses. Warner’s work is helpful, informative, and lends context where some may be surprised. While Warner’s reasoning is incomplete in discussing why writing is inherently human, the book has much to offer to instructors needing encouragement in an AI-heavy age, and instructors in faith-based institutions can use More than Words to reaffirm our individual value and God-given creativity.

Michael Shoemaker 105

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 105-114

CREATIVE WORKS

Photo Art and Creative Writing

Looking Towards Panguitch

Michael Shoemaker

Hallgrimskirkja

Magdalen College Chapel-Oxford

Sandavgur Church – Faroe Islands

Hornets Go Before Thee

“And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.” (Exodus 23:28, AKJV)

Hornets and I have an abridged relationship. Each spring, I check the garage for hornet’ nests. Most years, they are there. Less frequently, I will see an “early bird” hornet that has not been frozen in its tracks circling as if in a maze. Then, someone else removes the hives and my sustained imagination that hornets do not exist is supported by another 355 days. But I see enough to know that hornets are real.

When has God driven out hornets in my life? They are more dangerous than wasps because they have larger stingers. It generally takes 1000 hornet stings to kill a human adult. Either the Hivite, Canaanite, and the Hittite were driven out and not killed, or God’s law of abundance amply supplied millions upon millions of hornets for the job.

April 19, 2024, yes, this is when God drove out hornets. The day before, a semitruck going over a rise on a rural two-lane highway in Jerome, Idaho, came over on the wrong side of the road. Riding a bike and clearly being in the way of the state’s commercial trucking industry and prosperity, I had two choices. They were to directly dive headfirst into asphalt or leave my family members counting lilies and not get-well cards.

Next came an ambulance ride where I felt all underneath me uneven and hateful, three medical providers stitched me up at once like it was a quilting bee (sidebar conversations included) and then commanded to sleep with the lights of my interrogation room on all night with blessed nurses prodding and poking once every 20 minutes. There was a place of three inches on my lower right back that if I could have lain with only this spot touching the bed, I would have no pain. No such luck.

At 11 a.m. the next morning, a sunny physical therapist pronounced that this was the day for me to move and get up and out of bed. Ah, moving, yes, this was a key. The night before, during my average 18 minutes of respite from interruption and when I had not dozed, grabbing for sleep, I was talking with God or praying. The topic was mobility. The doctor reluctantly let me stay one night in the hospital, but it did not look like two nights were in the cards.

My left knee was bad. A year after the accident, this is still how I chose to describe it. Being 6 feet, 275 pounds and 54 years old, I had a greater chance of being selected for NASA’s mission to Mars in the 2030s than motating a step or two. There are “tries and hurts” and “tries and no way.” It was a “try and no way” situation. All night I prayed and tried and tried and prayed. Nothing moved except my lips in silent prayer.

So, at 11 a.m., I could hear my thoughts as the buzzing of angry hornets in my head. Prayers of desperation flowed like honey without sweetness. Tears rolled and knees shook, my needs naked before Heavenly Father, a pleading session to One with what was probably my 81st prayer in

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

24 hours. This prayer was different. Explaining is useless; trying to explain is almost irreverent. If, through the corner of your eye, you caught the glint of morning light on a bird’s wing heading seaward, you may know what I mean. By this prayer, God did not change; he worked. I changed; my worries were driven out completely.

Around 1 p.m., with the support of a walker, I was able to slide and sidle, not walk. It must have looked like the motions of the least cared-for stunt double in any action movie. The physical therapist was pleased that his pep talk moved me (although I still failed a three-step stair test) and declared with confidence that I was ready to leave the hospital when my wife arrived later that day from Utah. Two words to the physical therapist, “Thank God.” Two neighbors had to carry me down my stairs and into bed, where I stayed home from work recuperating for five months. Physical therapy lasted a year.

This is my updated report of God’s glory and mercy. Three weeks ago, I climbed 572 steps to the highest viewpoint of an Icelandic waterfall. Two weeks ago, I walked multiple miles in notoriously non-flat Edinburgh, Scotland. My wife and I immersed ourselves for two and a half hours in the grey-emerald pool of fine arts refreshment in the National Gallery of Scotland. On the next page is a sample of what we saw. Let’s just say, I see a flurry of beating wings in front of me with their stingers sticking out.

“

Worship in a Living Room” and Other Poems

Todd Sukany

Worship in a Living Room

The songs we sing to You . . . Selah our offerings – pocket lint children’s coloring books macaroni necklaces on knotted yarn. Words lifting past the ceiling toward the Throne. We seek Your glory. You reply in visions of a rising fog rolling across the carpet a fog deeper than our knees and spilling out onto the street.

A Marriage for His Son

“Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?”

Matt 22:12

Minding my own business both before and during. A servant of the king hailed me to the venue. No promises. No

paperwork. So, I bought myself a satchel of fruits, flakes, and nuts, followed the crowd, milled around –mute and wary – until the Master appeared. I didn’t know him then –before, during, or after.

Plotting Flowers

“. . . and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”

Amos 9:14

Soil, like chilled butter cut into flour, crumbles with a wave of Wanda’s gloved hand. She has paced this space for decades, both before and after Ed passed.

She follows rows of memories: Yucca, Nightshade, Meadow Saffron, Laurestine. On days of gentle rain, she lingers among the For-Get-Me-Nots.

Love Offering

“And the word of the Lord was precious in those days….” I Sam 3:1

Unlike Samuel, Billy heard the call deep inside his head, his heart, some would say. His ears heard,

“Who would give heed to the Lord Almighty?” Billy watched his feet shuffle to the front where the wooden benches, an altar some said, held the tears and tremors of the saints in the building. Only once did his eyes lift toward the rugged cross above the dunking tank, its water ever ready to bury the penitent souls. Since then, Billy looks upward every day,

thankful for his gift and any opportunity to share. Since then, Billy speaks as he was spoken to . . . quietly and freely.

In the Afterglow “They must worship me at a distance….”

Ex 24:1 CEV

We watched our leader, swallowed whole in rising clouds. We looked for words to scroll across screens as colorful as rainbows.

Surrounded by darkness, we circled, held hands high above our heads. Golden. Just golden . . . and sparkling, except for the video crew live-casting to those who remain in Egypt, loving their leeks. We lifted eyes from our phones, up the mountain, and impatiently peeked to see the feet of our very own Moses

pierce the fog, sure-footed with a handful of shatterproof tablets.

Solid Food “…trained to distinguish…”

Heb 5:14

In the first months of being born-again, I wanted meat. They said, “You’ve no teeth for that. Here’s a twinkie.” Now as an elder and pillar of the building, I pony up the same prescription, proven through the years.

This steady diet has sweetened into “You’ve no teeth for that.”

Notes on Contributors

Matthew Bardowell is Associate Professor of English at Missouri Baptist University, where he teaches classes from composition to British Literature. He specializes in Old English and Old Norse poetry and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He is co-editor of Certainty and Ambiguity: Essays on the Moral Imagination of Mystery Fiction. His recent work appears in From Rus' to Rímur: Norse History, Culture, and Literature East and West published by Cornell UP. He has a chapter on G. K. Chesterton in Handbook of Literary Apologetics: The Imagination’s Journey to God (De Gruyter, 2025). Bardowell holds a Ph.D. in English from Saint Louis University.

Frieda H. Blackwell is Professor Emeritus of Spanish in the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. After securing her doctorate from Vanderbilt University, she taught on the faculty of Howard Payne University from 1983-1989 and on the Baylor University faculty from 1989-2025. During her tenure at Baylor, she served as Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences for 25 years. She was on the implementation committee for the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) and taught in World Cultures III for 27 years. Her publications include a book on Torrente Ballester, a text for Spanish majors on literary theory and paper writing, and numerous articles on twentieth-century Spanish authors such as García Lorca and Eduardo Mendoza in essay collections, literary encyclopedias and professional journals including Hispania and Revista de estudios hispánicos.

Eric Shane Bryan received his Ph.D. from Saint Louis University in 2007 and currently serves as full professor in the Department of English and Technical Communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he teaches courses on medieval literature, history of the English language, and medievalism. His recent publications include Discourse in Old Norse Literature (2021), Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change (2021), and a co-edited volume, Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North (2020). He has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation and the American Scandinavian Foundation.

Candi K. Cann is Professor of Comparative Religion in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), which is a program within Baylor University’s Honors College, and serves as Director of the Baylor in Korea study abroad program. With research centering on death, dying, grief, and digital memorialization, she regularly teaches Death and Dying courses and World Religions at Baylor. She authored Virtual Afterlives (2014), Dying to Eat (2018), and Death and Religion: The Basics (2022).

A Fulbright Scholar at Han Nam University in Daejeon, South Korea, in 2023, she can often be found at a local café, drinking coffee and planning her next trip abroad.

Rev. T. Chris Crain (Ph.D., Saint Louis University, M.Div., Covenant Theological Seminary) is an Associate Professor of Historical and Pastoral Theology and the Assistant Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Erskine Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Most recently, he served as an active-duty chaplain in the United States Army for almost twelve years and still serves in the Army Reserves by teaching at the United States Army Institute for Religious Leadership at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He has been married to his wife, Nancy, for thirty years, and together they enjoy reading, cuisine, fitness, and travelling.

Matthew C. Easter (Ph.D., University of Otago) is Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of Christian Studies at Missouri Baptist University. Matt has published academic articles on Luke, John, Acts, the Pauline Epistles, Hebrews, Augustine, Julian of Norwich, and the Anabaptists. His first book, Faith and the Faithfulness of Jesus in Hebrews, was published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press. He recently published the “faith in Christ” entry in the 2nd edition of The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters and a chapter in the book, Hebrews in Context.

John J. Han is Professor of English and Creative Writing and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. Han is the author, editor, co-editor, or translator of 35 books, including Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). He and C. Clark Triplett are co-editing a book manuscript titled Cached in the Hills: Critical Essays on Ozarks Literature. The University of Arkansas Press has accepted their proposal. He earned his M.A. from Kansas State University, his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his Writing Certificate in English from Missouri Baptist University.

David Justice is a Full-time Temporary Lecturer in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), a program within Baylor University’s Honors College. His research is on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and what we must do to make the Beloved Community a reality. He also is interested in liberation theology, virtue ethics, and women’s and gender studies. He serves as the Senior Faculty Bridgebuilding Fellow at Baylor University where he works to promote civil discourse and pluralism on Baylor’s campus and in the surrounding community. His current book project is tentatively titled A Loving Apocalypse: The Militant, Revolutionary Nature of MLK’s Beloved Community.

Dr. Karen Kannenberg is Dean of the College of Business & Entrepreneurship and Professor of Business Administration and Accounting. Her professional experience began in the Marketing and Insurance industries. She spent many years before coming to Missouri Baptist University as Operations Manager and Corporate Secretary for an Accounting Computer Software firm. She serves in the St. Louis Regional Entrepreneur Educators group, where she promotes student startup businesses with area colleges and universities. In addition to teaching, she serves on the Provost Council, Retention and Persistence Task Force, and Graduate and Undergraduate Academic Affairs committees.

Justin King is a Senior Academic Advisor and Lecturer in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), a program within Baylor University’s Honors College. He received his M.A. in Religion from the University of Chicago (2010) and his Ph.D. in Religion from Baylor University (2016), focusing on the New Testament Literature and its diverse historical backgrounds. His revised dissertation was published in Brill’s Biblical Interpretation series as Speech-in-Character, Diatribe, and Romans 3:19: Who’s Speaking When and Why it Matters (BINS 163, 2018).

Rubin McClain is finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow, working on multi-ethnic identities in Greco-Roman and New Testament contexts. He has two master’s degrees from American theological institutions, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Asbury Theological Seminary. Along with his interests in biblical studies, he explores the role of religion, faith, and politics.

Darren J. N. Middleton is the fourth Director of the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), an alternative core program in Baylor University’s Honors College. In addition to his administrative role, he holds a tenured faculty appointment in the BIC as Professor of Literature and Theology. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, and over 50 articles and book chapters, addressing such varied subjects as Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, Japanese author Shusaku Endo, English novelist Graham Greene, and American writer Cormac McCarthy, along with studies of the Rastafari, an interest growing out of childhood friendship with Jamaican immigrants to his hometown. He is at work on a book about Rastafari history and reggae music, out in 2026.

Michael Shoemaker is a poet, photographer, haikuist, and editor from Magna, Utah, where he lives with his wife and son and enjoys looking out on the Great Salt Lake every day. His poems have appeared in Seashores Haiku Journal, Blue Lake Review, Under the Bashō, and Haiku Commentary. He is the author of three poetry/photography collections and a nominee for the 2025 Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards, Best of the Net Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize. In October 2025, he served as the Woolf Cottage Writer-in-Residence, sponsored by

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, Alabama. https://michaelshoemaker.crevado.com/.

Julie Steinbeck is a St. Louis-area native. After graduating from Truman State University with her Master of Arts in Education, Steinbeck began teaching college English in 2016 and is now the Director of First-Year Composition at Missouri Baptist University. Most of her teaching work centers on showing freshmen how to write and seniors how to parse sentences and finalize their capstone projects. Her poetry and nonfiction writing appear in Cantos, Fireflies’ Light, Intégrité, and The Right Words. Steinbeck enjoys the English language, dogs, hot beverages, music, and new recipes. She cannot be left unsupervised in bookstores.

Todd Sukany, a two-time Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. His work has appeared in Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, eMerge Magazine, and The Ekphrastic Review. Sukany authored Frisco Trail and Tales as well as co-authored four books of poetry under the title, Book of Mirrors, with Raymond Kirk. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, loving three children, their spouses, seven grandchildren, caring for a rescued dog, and four rescued cats.

C. Clark Triplett is Emeritus Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Psychology at Missouri Baptist University. He served as co-editor of The Final Crossing: Death and Dying in Literature (Peter Lang, 2015), a coeditor of Worlds Gone Awry: Essays on Dystopian Fiction (McFarland, 2018), and a co-editor of Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). Triplett’s poems have appeared in Cantos, Fireflies’ Light, and the Asahi Haikuist Network. He earned a BA from Southwest Baptist University, an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary, an MSEd from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and a PhD from Saint Louis University.

C. Eric Turner is Chair of the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, Chair of the Christian Studies Department, Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek, and Director of Church and Denominational Relations at Hannibal-LaGrange University. He has taught numerous classes, including Elementary Greek, Apologetics, Christian Doctrine, Gospels and Acts, Pauline Epistles, General Epistles to Revelation, and the Missionary Methodology of Paul. Author of Hollow Gods: Idolatry in a Postmodern Context (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2016), he earned his Ph.D. in Biblical Studies with a New Testament emphasis from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Robin Wallace is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at Baylor University. He is the author of Beethoven's Critics: Aesthetic Dilemmas and

Resolutions During the Composer's Lifetime (1986) and Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery (2018), as well as the introductory textbook Take Note: An Introduction to Music Through Active Listening (2015), and many articles, reviews, book chapters, and translations. He taught in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) for 20 years. Many BIC students will recall his performance of John Cage’s 4’33”, even if they don’t remember a note of the music.

Jason Whitlark is Professor of New Testament in Baylor University’s Honors College where he teaches in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) program. He also directs the Baylor in Greece and Türkiye summer study abroad program. Jason graduated with a B.S. in molecular biology from Auburn University, an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Baylor University. Jason studies early Christianity with a particular focus on the Letter to the Hebrews. Some of his books include Enabling Fidelity to God (2008), Resisting Empire (2014), and Inventing Hebrews (2018).

Josh Wilson is an adjunct professor of Bible at MBU and lives in Park Hills, MO with his wife, Sarah, and their eight children. He serves as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Park Hills and serves as an adjunct professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at International Reformed Baptist Seminary (IRBS) and Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary (CBTS). He holds a B.A. in Religious Education and Biblical Languages from MBU and a M.Div. in Biblical and Theological Studies from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Through Southern Seminary, he also earned a Ph.D. in Old Testament with emphases in Greek, Hebrew, and Hebrew Literature. Josh has spoken at several regional conferences and has written a handful of articles for Answers in Genesis and the Answers Research Journal.

Cécile Yézou is a Research Assistant at Tulane University. She works for the Tulane History Project, a long-term effort to research and develop a detailed history of the University and its campuses, with respect to its racial history and founding, including slavery and segregation. She was previously a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), after completing her Ph.D. in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the archivist for A Long Walk Home (ALWH), a national art organization based in Chicago that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women. Her research interests are rooted in Black Studies’ interdisciplinarity, with an emphasis on Black Feminist Thought, and the historical intersections of power, race, sex, and violence.

Colleen Zori earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA and has been teaching at Baylor University since 2015. She joined the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC), part of the Honors College, in 2019. A Senior

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Lecturer in the BIC, she is an archaeologist working on how economic systems particularly craft production and trade are transformed during periods of political change. She has researched and published extensively on the metallurgy of the ancient Andes, focusing on how incorporation into the Inka empire altered metal production in the provinces. Her more recent excavations and publications have shifted to medieval central Italy, where excavations at a castle site have provided insight into how glass was produced and traded during the politically dynamic Middle Ages.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Submission Guidelines

Intégrité (pronounced IN-tay-gri-tay) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal focused on the integration of Christian faith and higher learning. Founded in the fall of 2002 with an Institutional Renewal Grant from the Rhodes Consultation on the Future of the Church-Related College, the journal is published both online and in print.

Interested Christian scholars are encouraged to submit academic articles (15-25 pages double-spaced), short essays on faith and learning (8-12 pages double-spaced), book reviews (4-8 pages double-spaced), and poetry (5-15 poems single-spaced) for consideration. Along with your work, we need an author bio of 100-125 words written in the third person and complete sentences. Manuscripts should be sent as e-mail attachments (Microsoft Word format) to the editor, John J. Han, at john.han@mobap.edu. Due dates are March 1 for inclusion in the spring issue and September 1 for inclusion in the fall issue.

Articles should examine historical, theological, philosophical, cultural, and/or pedagogical issues related to faith-learning integration. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• the current state and/or future of the church-related college

• history of Christian liberal arts education

• Christianity and contemporary culture

• artificial intelligence (AI) and Christian education

• a Christian perspective on multiculturalism and diversity

• service learning

• academic freedom in a Christian context

• implementation of Christian truths in academic disciplines

• Christian education in the non-Western world

• global Christianity.

Articles must engage in faith-learning issues or controversies in a scholarly, critical manner. We generally do not consider manuscripts that are merely factual, devotional, or sermonic. Articles are expected to be research-based but must focus on the author’s original thought. We also do not consider articles that use more than twenty-five secondary sources; merely present other scholars’ opinions without developing extended, thoughtful analysis; and/or use excessive endnotes. Direct quotations, especially lengthy ones, should be used sparingly.

Considering that most Intégrité readers are Christian scholars and educators without expertise in multiple disciplines, articles, short essays, and book reviews should be written in a concise, clear, and accessible style. Writers are encouraged to follow the advice of William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White in The Elements of Style: use definite, specific, concrete language; omit needless words; avoid a succession of loose sentences; write naturally; and avoid fancy words.

For citation style, refer to the current edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Articles and short essays should include intext citations in parentheses, a list of endnotes (if applicable), and an alphabetical listing of works cited at the end of the article. Enter endnotes manually instead of using the “Insert Endnote” function in a wordprocessing program. Book reviews need only page numbers in parentheses after direct quotations.

INTEGRITE FALL 2025

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

CONTENTS

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

ARTICLES

Teach this Music: Faith and Learning in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core

The Examined Life I-III

Justin King: The Bible, Ethics, and Our World

Jason Whitlark: Human Experience Outside Christ

Darren J. N. Middleton: Memoir, Music, and Meaning

Social World I-II

David Justice: Concerning Hobbits

World Cultures I-V

Robin Wallace: Music as Text in Teaching Romanticism, Realism, and Post-Modernism

Frieda H. Blackwell: Carols, Community, and Closure

Down Barriers Between Self and Other

Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power: Paul’s Anthropology in 1 Corinthians 15 and the Promise of Resurrection Life

C. Eric Turner

A Brief Glance at Metaphor Theory

The Misunderstanding of the Corinthians

Paul’s Correction: An Agrarian Metaphor

The Everlasting Man: Our Anticipated Resurrection Anthropology

Notes

Artificial General Intelligence and Its Effect on Human Meaning, Worth, and Purpose

Humanism, Christianity, and Meaning

Work, Economics, and Innovation

Biblical and Ethical Considerations

Conclusion

References

Pacificism and the Second Amendment: The Early Church Father’s Contribution to the Discussion on Gun Control

Short History of Gun Legislation

Biblical and Early Christian Framework

Repealing the Second Amendment

Notes

Tradition and Technology: Ambivalence Toward the Railroad in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction

Brief Summaries of Wright’s Six Ozarks Novels

The Railroad Leading to Modern Civilization

Nostalgia for a Vanishing Way of Life

Conclusion

Works Cited

To Err Is Human, Knowing Is AI: Human Ways of Knowing in a Post-Human World

Works Cited

Myth, Storytelling, and Belief on the Borders of Technological Change

Bibliography

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

Network Theory, the Pauline Mission, and the Christian Professor

Matthew C. Easter

Network Theory

Paul’s Networks

Our Networks: Students in our Classrooms

A Final Word: Nurture

Bibliography

BOOK REVIEWS

CREATIVE WORKS

Hornets Go Before Thee

Worship in a Living Room” and Other Poems

Worship in a Living Room

Love Offering

Notes on Contributors

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Submission Guidelines