Leonard\u27s A sense of the heart: Christian religious experience in the United States (Book Review)

A review of Leonard, B. J. (2014). A sense of the heart: Christian religious experience in the United States. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 379 pp. $44.99. ISBN 978142675490

The Evolving Role of Information Literacy in Higher Education: A Case Study

The desire of librarians at Nyack College, like other academic librarians, is to play a significant role in the development of effective research and critical thinking skills in the community we serve. But the challenges of having no room for a 1-credit required course in the core curriculum, cultivating faculty and student ownership of a campus-wide information literacy program, the integration of information literacy skills at the discipline, course and assignment levels, and development of appropriate assessment tools for measuring the effectiveness of the information literacy program seemed daunting

The Face of ACL in 2010

As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Association of Christian Librarians, it is exciting to dream about the next fifty years. What will the library profession look like? Where will technology take us? What kind of legacy will we leave? But five years are a bit more realistic and most of us will still be around in five years! It was to this end that I gave an assignment to each of the Board of Directors at the mid-year October 2005 Board Meeting. We spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning answering two questions. First, “Where do we want the Association of Christian Librarians to be in five years?” and secondly, “What will it take to get there?

Moving Target: Academic Library Design and Services in Response to Evolving Technologies and Student Expectations

This article provides a brief overview of several current trends in academic library design, a description of several paradigms for library services, and a discussion of the impact on library design of evolving technologies and changing student expectations for library resources and services. The article explores opportunities and challenges that new technologies provide and the impact of the digital environment on academic libraries and the learning experience of students. Observations from a focus group and site visits to six academic libraries constructed, renovated or planned within the past five years provide examples of factors influencing library design and address both positive and negative outcomes of various designs

Challies\u27 Visual theology: Seeing and understanding the truth about God (Book Review)

Challies, T., & Byers, J. (2016). Visual theology: Seeing and understanding the truth about God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 155 pp. $17.99. ISBN 978031052043

The Word and Words in the Abrahamic Faiths

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are “word-based” faiths. All three are derived from texts believed to be revealed by God Himself. Orthodox Judaism claims that God has said everything that needs to be said to humankind—all that remains is to interpret it generation by generation. Historic Christianity roots itself in “God-breathed scriptures” that are “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Islam’s Qur’an is held to be a perfect reflection of the ‘Umm al-Kitab – the “mother of Books” that exists with Allah Himself. In addition, both Christianity and Islam share the concept of “The Word” – a concept that moves the idea of communication beyond mere linguistics. Both the Scriptures and the attendant writings of these faiths (i.e., the Talmud, creeds and traditions) are all word-based documents, in many cases taking centuries to forge. This essay explores the Abrahamic faiths’ characterization of “The Word” in textual form and the implications for this characterization in the culture of modern media. What is the prognosis for the future of such emphases in societies that are increasingly characterized by graphics-based media as opposed to text-based literacy? What, if anything, is lost in a media-based literacy? How are critical thinking and cognitive processes with respect to scriptural hermeneutics affected by a digital environment? How are credibility and authority maintained when the playing field is leveled for both novice and expert? Can the purveyors of the Abrahamic faiths maintain the richness of their past literary emphases and, if so, how might this be done

The Kahal, Zawiya, and Monastic Multiplexes: Informational Centripetalism as Medieval Mission

The missiological strategies developed in the Middle Ages by the adherents of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity were centripetal in approach, drawing persons inward to a central structure. Multiplex institutions—kahals, zawiyas and monasteries—were constructed as outposts for the spread and/or maintenance of these religions’ respective beliefs and practices. In addition to the standard religious structures were collections of religious documents – libraries, in other words – that served as repositories for both Scriptures and other spiritually-oriented information. Those who made use of such collections added to them and in their comprehensive form they served as resource material for the education of successive generations. In this essay the origins and histories of the Jewish kahals, the Muslim zawiyas and the Christian monasteries will be explored with particular attention paid to the role played by the document collections in each. The authors will show how these institutions operated on the basis of a combination of both centripetalism (i.e. “coming in to a center”) and centrifugalism (i.e. “going out from a center”). The Muslim zawiyas and the Christian monasteries were intentionally spread throughout their respective regions as “missionary outposts.” The Jewish kahals were spread less intentionally but served in certain cases as “advertisements” for Judaism. All three institutions played vital roles in shaping, maintaining and spreading their respective religious beliefs and practices, and their equivalents can still do so in the present day