Academia as Missions: Our Adventures in Romania

Dr. Michael S. Jones, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University, shares his experiences of teaching philosophy at the flagship Romanian university in Bucharest, 2014-2015, thanks to a Fulbright grant

The Impacts of Political Policies, Criminality, and Money on the Criminal Justice System in the United States

As Convict Criminologists we draw upon our experiential knowledge as prisoners held within the American criminal justice system. That experience provides us with a substantial emersion within the material conditions of life within prison as politics, criminality, and the impact of money substantially altered the criminal justice system in the USA that surrounded and controlled our lives. Combined, our experience goes back to the 1970s as convicts, then up to the present as academic faculty and researchers. We review what we believe is the best evidence that explains the inter-relationships between policies (political), criminality and money, and their age-old dance with race, class, and ethnicity in the United States. We first provide a general introduction outlining our research, followed by the historical overview of core policy changes that led to the vast expansion of corrections and their social impacts. Then we take a closer look at research examining intersections of race, money, and politics in USA on drug and crime polices. Conclusions follow

Evangelical Christianity and the Philosophy of Interreligious Dialogue

In this essay, the author, an evangelical Christian, seeks to analyze the arguments for and against evangelical participation in interreligious dialogue. He finds that, while the arguments against evangelical participation in dialogue suggest some important boundaries for dialogue, they do not completely militate against it. Conversely, the arguments for dialogue form a persuasive case for evangelical participatio

Imago Dei and the Appreciation of Beauty

Man does not live by bread alone ... Human life embraces more than just \u27living\u27 (material survival); the human soul thrives on many ambiguous metaphysical elements. One of these elements is beauty. The question motivating this article is the ubiquitous \u27why\u27; why do people find beauty in various elements of their environment? Put another way, what is it that enables one to appreciate beauty? The thesis of this article is that a person\u27s ability to appreciate beauty is a result of being created in the image of God