Integrite Sp 2026

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

Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 2026

© 2026 Missouri Baptist University. All rights reserved.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Volume 25 Number 1 Spring 2026

CONTENTS

ARTICLES

3 The Bride, the Bridegroom, and the Friend: A Comparative Literary Analysis of the Biblical Book of Ruth and the Middle English Pearl

Jane Beal

The following papers were presented at the Annual Faith and Research Conference, held at Missouri Baptist University on March 30-31, 2026. Theme: Stewardship + Creation: How Ought We Treat our Fellow Creatures?

17 “Much Study Is a Weariness”: R.F. Kuang’s Dark Academic Duology and the Practice of Hospitality

Julie Steinbeck

26 The Earth Groans: Patristic Hearings of Romans 8:18-23

Timothy Bitz

35 The Emotional Laborers in Charles Williams’ The Greater Trumps

Colin Moll

43 The Hidden Dangers of Fast Fashion: Effect of Microfiber Pollution on Environmental and Human Health

Evelyn Sevick

49 You Shall be as Gods: Modern Technology and the De-naturing of Human Creatureliness

W. Jackson Watts

64 “Dear Little Brownie”: Horses as Symbols of Christian Stewardship in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction

John J. Han

70 Biotechnology: Loving Neighbors and the Environment

David A. Lee

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

78 Jesus Christ as the Model Trauma-Informed Social Worker: A Framework for Christian Stewardship and Human Flourishing

Kristen Nugent

BOOK REVIEWS

81 Ivan Mesa and Elliot Clark, editors, Faithful Exiles: Finding Hope in a Hostile World (2023)

Aaron S. Halstead

84 Mike McKinley, Friendship with God: A Path to Deeper Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit (2023)

Aaron S. Halstead

87 L. Michael Morales, Numbers (2024)

Joshua Wilson

90 Kevin B. McCruden, A New and Living Way: Christ in the Letter to the Hebrews (2025)

Matthew C. Easter

95 Philip C. Kolin, Evangeliaries: Poems (2024)

Matthew Bardowell

99 Nadya Williams, Christians Reading Classics: An Introduction to Greco-Roman Classics from Homer to Boethius (2025)

Julie Ooms

CREATIVE WORKS

103 “Evening Walk” and other poems

Jianqing Zheng

105 “I Hear – Resurrection” and other poems

Todd Sukany

108 “Come, Lord, into This Fickle Time”

Philip C. Kolin

109 Henning, Tennessee: The Childhood Landscape of Alex Haley (A photo essay)

John J. Han

121 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

125 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Jane Beal 3

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 3-16

ARTICLES

The Bride, the Bridegroom, and the Friend: A Comparative Literary Analysis of the Biblical Book of Ruth and the Middle English Pearl

Jane Beal

The book of Ruth had a significant impact on the cultural imagination of medieval Christians.1 This essay explores just how powerful that impact was. So, the first goal is to explain the transmission of Ruth in the Latin Vulgate and the allegorical interpretation of the book in the medieval Christian commentary tradition. The second is to consider the reception of Ruth in late-medieval English biblical translations, paraphrases, and vernacular poetry. The third is to consider how the allegorical interpretation of Ruth is a likely, and likely important, context for interpreting an extraordinary Middle English dream-vision poem known as Pearl.

Indeed, the medieval Christian allegorical interpretations of Boaz as a type of Christ, Ruth as a type of the Bride of Christ, the Church, and the unnamed kinsman-redeemer who steps aside as a type of John the Baptist have significant parallels in Pearl. In that poem, the three main characters the Lamb, the Maiden, and the Dreamer stand for Christ, the bride of Christ, and the friend of the bridegroom, a role that was specifically attributed to John the Baptist in collections of medieval saints’ lives, including Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (that is, in Latin, the Legenda aurea).2 The agnus Dei or Lamb of God has been consistently seen as Christ or as standing for Christ in the history of Christian symbolism,3 and today, literary scholars increasingly recognize the PearlMaiden as an individual sponsa Christi or bride of Christ in Pearl. 4 In contrast, however, virtually no attention has been paid to the Dreamer’s connections to John the Baptist or the significance of those connections for interpretation of Pearl.

To understand the impact of the biblical book of Ruth on Pearl more fully, it is relevant to remember the story of Ruth first.

The Story of Ruth

The biblical book of Ruth begins with tragedy and ends with joy. It is set in the time of the Judges, when a famine struck Israel, and a man of Bethlehem, named Elimelech, took his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to live in Moab. The sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, but they fathered no children before they died, and when their own father died, three women Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth were left as widows. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, taking her daughtersin-law with her, but on the road, she realized her poverty, and therefore she urged her daughters to return home to their families. Orpah went home, but Ruth refused to leave Naomi. Ruth took a vow, saying, “May the Lord do so to me and more if anything but death parts me from you.”5 So Naomi said nothing more to her, and when they returned to Bethlehem, Ruth labored in the fields of a man named Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s, gleaning and gathering during the barley harvest and the wheat harvest.

Ruth found favor in the eyes of Boaz, and indeed, with everyone in Bethlehem, for she was recognized as a virtuous woman. Eventually, with the encouragement of Naomi, Ruth approached Boaz one evening at his threshing floor and asked him to “spread his wings”6 over her, a way of asking for his protection as her kinsman-redeemer (that is, in Hebrew, go’el)7 nd as a way of proposing marriage to him. Boaz acknowledged her great kindness, told her not to be afraid, and promised to redeem her if a kinsman who was nearer than Boaz himself refused to do so.

The next day, Boaz met the other, unnamed kinsman-redeemer at the gate of Bethlehem, in the presence of witnesses from the town, and asked him if he would buy property of Naomi. The man was interested in the property, but when told that it also came with the obligation to marry Ruth, he declined the offer. To show he was ceding his rights as a kinsman-redeemer to Boaz, he took off his sandal and gave it to Boaz,8 which was a traditional way to confirm the transaction. After this, Boaz and Ruth were married, and Ruth later gave birth to a son, Obed, whom she placed in Naomi’s lap so that she became his nurse. Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of David, the King who was the ancestor, according to genealogies in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, of Jesus the Christ.

I. Ruth in the Vulgate and Medieval Christian Commentary Tradition

The book of Ruth is a pastoral romance included in the Bible in part because of the genealogy that concludes it and foreshadows the kingship of David. In Hebrew biblical tradition, Ruth was included in “the Writings” (that is, in Hebrew, the Ketuvim) while Jerome argued in his preface to his translation of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (called the Prologus Galeatus) that it was part of the book of Judges (which proceeds Ruth in the Catholic

canonical order of biblical books). According to Frans van Liere in his excellent study An Introduction to the Medieval Bible, in some liturgical sources, Ruth may be included in the reference to a “Book of Women” that presumably encompassed Ruth, Esther, and Judith9 and it is worth noting, after considering some extant manuscript collections, that such a book may also have included Susannah and Tobit. In all cases, the book of Ruth is regarded as a standard, canonical part of the Scripture, though not as authoritative as the Pentateuch (or, in Hebrew, the Torah) and the Gospels.

As D.R.G. Beattie has demonstrated, Ruth is the subject of fascination among medieval Hebrew exegetes,10 and this interest was shared by medieval Christian exegetes as well. In the medieval Christian commentary tradition, no lesser thinkers than Jerome, Isidore of Seville, Peter Comestor, Hugh of St. Cher, and Nicholas of Lyra created commentaries on the book, and additional commentary appeared in the Glossa ordinaria. 11 The commentaries on Ruth progress along the lines of the fourfold method of scriptural interpretation, seeing a literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical sense in the text. The literal love story of Boaz and Ruth, a relationship that aids the widow Naomi so greatly in restoring her fortunes and providing her with an heir, Obed, is explained alongside the allegorical interpretation that reads Boaz as a type of Christ, Ruth as the Church, and the kinsman who steps aside for Boaz as a type of John the Baptist.

For scholars familiar with medieval allegorical interpretation of Scripture, the idea that Boaz and Ruth represent Christ and the Church will not seem strange: many of the love relationships between men and women in the Hebrew Bible were interpreted similarly, including not only the most obvious couple, the Lover and Beloved of the Song of Songs,12 but also less obvious couples like Adam and Eve, Jacob and Rachel, and even Esther and Xerxes. But if Boaz and Ruth stand for Christ and his Bride, it is not equally clear why the kinsman-redeemer, who had the responsibility of marrying Ruth but did not, should come to stand for John the Baptist. In the medieval Christian commentary tradition, the connection developed, in fact, from a single word that occurs in Ruth 4:7 in the Hebrew Bible and occurs again in John 1:27 in the Greek New Testament: the word “sandal” (that is, in Hebrew, na’al or na-a-low).13

In Ruth 4:7, we read: “Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel.” In this verse, the Hebrew word na-a-low is translated into Latin as calciamentum suum, meaning “his shoe” or “his sandal.”

• Hebrew: ֹו֖לֲעַנ

• Transliterated: na a low

• Latin: calciamentum suum

• English: his sandal (his shoe)

For comparison, in John 1:27, we read: “He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” The Greek word is hypodematos, which is translated in the Latin Vulgate as calciamenti, meaning “of his shoe” or “of his sandal.”

• Greek: ὑποδήματος

• Transliterated: hypodematos

• Latin: calciamenti

• English: of his shoe

In the Latin Vulgate, the second declension, neuter noun calciamentum / calciamenta is common to both verses. This caught the eyes of medieval Christian biblical commentators, who made an allegorical connection between the two. This interpretation was preserved in the widely circulating Glossa ordinaria on Ruth:

This sandal is a veil of mysteries. The Old Law released the sandal from his foot, and gave it to Christ, because it could not show the sacraments to the magistrates of the people, but reserved this for Christ to do. John, therefore, did not claim the sandal for himself but for Christ, because he understood Christ alone to be fit for the bride, whence he says I am not worthy to loose the thong of his sandal. 14

This seemingly small detail was imbued with significance by medieval Christian commentators looking for allegorical connections between the Old and New Testament.

The overall allegorical interpretation of the book of Ruth, as well as the importance of this specific detail, was known through the commentators to readers and contemplative thinkers in late-medieval England. This was the time in which the exquisitely beautiful, fourteenthcentury, Middle English Pearl was written. The allegory was transmitted in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and possibly Middle English biblical translations and paraphrases, both in prose or verse writings.

Notably, the book of Ruth was read by the clergy in its entirety as a series of lessons during the Divine Office in the third week of September (as opposed to the Jewish tradition, when it was read during Passover, that is, in Hebrew, Shavuot, in springtime). These readings from Ruth can be found in the Sarum Breviary.15 The Sarum Rite, originating from Salisbury Cathedral, was used throughout late-medieval England. The Sarum Breviary was intended to be sung or read aloud by the clergy, though certain parts could be read silently. There are musical notations in extant breviary manuscripts and early printed books that demonstrate it was intended for choral singing and vocal prayer. While a single priest could, at need, recite the readings of the Divine Office alone, it was more

common for the reading and singing to be done communally, as it certainly was done at Salisbury Cathedral. The oral performance of the readings from the book of Ruth annually in September may well have been heard not only by the clergy, but by devout Christian laypeople who attended the singing of the Divine Office, especially on Sundays. This is important to note because the story of Ruth, and sermons on its spiritual or allegorical significance, would have been shared not only with a limited number of literate, clerical readers but to a larger audience of devout, lay listeners in England, annually, in the month of September. The Pearl-poet, an anonymous writer whose extant work demonstrates his biblical knowledge and Christian faith, may very well have been in church when the book of Ruth was read aloud. Its powerful story apparently influenced him.16

II. The Reception of Ruth in Middle English Translations

The book of Ruth circulated in late-medieval England in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English prose biblical translations and paraphrases, some highly glossed and others less so. The book of Ruth was translated into French in the Anglo-Norman Bible and into English in the Wycliffite Bible, where a brief prologue focusing on the literal sense introduces it.

‘Prologue on the book of Ruth. This book Ruth shewith the feithfulnesse and stidefast loue of this wumman Ruth to the moder of her hosebonde, after the deeth of her hosebonde and sones, turnynge азеп fro the lond of Moab in to Bethleem of Juda; wherfor God dide merci to Ruth, and sche was weddid to Booz, a wurthi man of Bethleem, and is rekened in the genologie of Dauith and of Crist.’17

Prologue on the book of Ruth. This book Ruth shows the faithfulness and steadfast love of this woman Ruth to the mother of her husband, after the death of her husband and sons, turning again from the land of Moab into Bethlehem of Judah, which is why God had mercy on Ruth, and she was wedded to Boaz, a worthy man of Bethlehem, and is reckoned in the genealogy of David and Christ.

Considered overall, these renditions of Ruth imply that, most often, the book of Ruth was received literally by translators of the Bible into Middle English prose, but the book was not highly valued as history in comparison to other biblical texts. Indeed, it is only briefly alluded to in the Polychronicon, a universal history of the world compiled from Latin sources by the Benedictine monk Ranulf Higden of St. Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester and translated into Middle English by the priest John Trevisa of Cornwall in the later fourteenth century, in a single sentence: “In his [Eli’s] daies felle a greet hunger in the londe of Israel, and the storye of Ruth that was of Moab felle [in his tyme].” (In Eli’s days, a great famine

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 8

took place in the land of Israel, and the history of Ruth, who was from Moab, took place in his time.)18

As James Morey has shown, although there are many prose Middle English paraphrases of the Bible, including the Wycliffite Bible, only one paraphrase is a verse summary of the book of Ruth: the so-called Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament. 19 This text is worth considering for its literal rendering of the story in English translation, along with the brief connections it makes between the book of Ruth and the life of Christ. The poem is literal overall, but it does emphasize in its conclusion how the marriage of Boaz and Ruth resulted in the lineage of Christ coming from both Jews and Gentiles.

In the spowsall ware thei copyld clene; os God wold, so was done in dede. He was Ebrew and scho panym, bot by Goddes law ther lyfe thei lede.

A sone thei hade sone them betwen, qwylke Obeth heyght, who wyll take hed.

And of hym withowtyn wene Jesse was rutt; of hym we rede How sythyn com Davyd Kyng, that was chefe Juge of Jewys. Thus Jesus Crist wold spryng of paynyms and Ebrews.20

They were cleanly joined in marriage;

As God willed, so it was done indeed.

He was Hebrew and she pagan, But by God’s law their life they lead. A son they had between them, Who was called Obed: who will, take heed.

And of him without doubt, Jesse was begotten; of him we read How since King David came Who was chief Judge of Jews. Thus Jesus Christ would spring Of pagans and Hebrews.

Although the metrical Middle English version of Ruth does not provide the allegorical gloss, it directly connects Boaz and Ruth to Christ, as his ancestors, and notes Ruth’s status as a non-Jew. This is important because the medieval Christian Church was also, largely, non-Jewish or Gentile and Ruth, in addition to being the ancestress of Jesus Christ, stands for the Church in the received wisdom of the medieval Christian commentary tradition.

Despite the relatively tenuous place of the book of Ruth in vernacular Middle English prose and poetry in general, the allegorical interpretation of Ruth may have influenced at least one exceptional poet, the Pearl-Poet. This essay now turns to explore the relationship between the book of Ruth, its allegorical interpretation, and Pearl. Comparative literary analysis will help readers to understand the poem more fully.

III. The Allegorical Interpretation of Ruth and Pearl

The Middle English dream vision poem called Pearl develops in three ascending, contemplative stages.21 In the first stage, a man, called the Dreamer, falls asleep in a garden in August, grieving over a pearl he has lost. In the second stage, his spirit “springs into space”22 and into the paradisial landscape of a dream where the tree trunks are blue, the leaves on the trees are silver, and the gravel under his feet is all composed of pearls. He comes to a stream he cannot readily cross, the streambed of which is bedazzling because it is covered in jewels, and he beholds on the other side of it the beautiful Pearl-Maiden: his pearl, the one whom he lost.23

The two engage in a long conversation in which he asks questions and she answers him, and it becomes clear from this conversation that the Dreamer loved the Maiden, but the Maiden died when she was young, which resulted in the Dreamer’s feelings of pain, loss, sorrow, distress, and anger. While he languished on earth, the Maiden was taken into heaven, where she became one of the sponsae Christi: a bride of Christ. The Dreamer first objects to this, but he later asks to cross the stream and see her “blissful bower.”24 The Maiden warns him that he may not. Instead, she asks for him to be shown a vision of the New Jerusalem.

In the third stage of the poem, the Dreamer sees heaven opened and describes it in terms of the Revelation of St. John. He also sees the Lamb of God with blood pouring out of his side yet showing a joyful countenance. The Dreamer marvels at this. However, his focus shifts to the Pearl-Maiden, who is in a procession with many others following the Lamb. All of a sudden, he cannot contain his desire for her, and he attempts to cross the stream. Before he can set one toe in the water, he is awakened to meditate on the significance of his dream. Whereas before he was angry at God over the loss of his Pearl-Maiden, near the poem’s conclusion, he says he has found the Lamb to be not only his God and Lord, but his Friend.25 The poem concludes with the awakened Dreamer’s meditation on the Eucharist.

The medieval Christian allegorical interpretation of the book of Ruth provides an important context for understanding Pearl. Notably, the poem makes several direct references not only to John the Revelator but also to John the Baptist. For late medieval Christians, John the Baptist was understood not only in terms of his depictions in the Gospels, but also in terms of figures in the Hebrew Bible who foreshadowed him: Elijah, to whom Jesus compared him directly,26 and, interestingly, the unnamed kinsman-redeemer in the book of Ruth. A direct reference to John the Baptist in Pearl occurs in the fourth stanza of section XIV of the poem, in which the Pearl-Maiden is describing Christ’s death on the Cross.

In Jerusalem Jordan and Galalye Þer as baptysed þe goude Saynt Jon His worde3 acorded to Ysaye

In Jerusalem, Jordan, and Galilee, There baptized the good Saint John, His words following Isaiah.

When Jesus con to hym warde gon

He sayde of hym þys professye

Lo, Gode3 Lombe as trwe as ston

Þat dot3 away þe synne3 dry3e

Þat alle þys worlde hat3 wro3t vpon

Hymself ne wro3t neuer 3et non

Wheþer on himself he con al clem

Hys generacyoun quo recen con

Þat dy3ed for vus in Jerusalem27

When Jesus came toward him, He said of him this prophesy: ‘Lo, God’s Lamb, as true as stone, who does drive away the sin that has been wrought upon all this world.

He himself never wrought yet any (sin),

Yet on himself he took them all. Who can reckon his generation Who died for us in Jerusalem?’

This reference to John the Baptist did not occur in Pearl in a vacuum, but rather in the rich cultural imagination of the late-medieval period. Medieval people inherited a clear picture of John the Baptist from the Gospels, biblical commentaries (including those on the book of Ruth), and collections of saints’ lives – not to mention manuscript paintings and church art and architecture. In the widely circulating Golden Legend, compiler Jacobus de Voragine devotes two chapters to John the Baptist. In the first, the Baptist is explicitly identified by several well-known titles, including “friend of the bridegroom.”

John the Baptist has many titles. He is called prophet, friend of the bridegroom, lamp, angel, voice, Elijah, baptizer of the Savior, herald of the judge, and forerunner of the king. Each of these titles denotes a particular prerogative of John: the title of prophet, his perogative of foreknowledge; this title of friend of the bridegroom, his prerogative of loving and being loved; burning light, his prerogative of sanctity; angel, his prerogative of virginity; voice, his prerogative of humility; Elijah, his prerogative of fervor; baptizer, the wonderful honor of baptizing the Lord; herald, the prerogative of preaching; and forerunner, the prerogative of preparation.28

As Susanna Fein has noted in her essay, “Of Judges and Jewelers: Pearl and the Life of Saint John,” the Dreamer of Pearl is portrayed as a “friend” of the Lamb, too, a role she sees him taking in imitation of the other Saint John: Saint John the beloved disciple, identified by medieval people as the author of John’s Gospel and the book of Revelation. 29 Of course, John the beloved disciple was one whom Jesus called a friend, along with all his other disciples, when he said at the Last Supper, “I no longer call you servants […] but friends.”30 Yet the title, friend of the bridegroom, was explicitly associated with John the Baptist, not John the Revelator, in medieval hagiography. This association comes from John the Baptist’s own words: “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of

the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.”31

Given that the Pearl-Maiden is depicted as a sponsa Christi, and the Maiden refers to the Lamb who appears in the poem as her beloved, and given that the Dreamer calls the same Lamb his friend in line 1204 near the end of the poem, and he gradually makes progress throughout the poem toward becoming a friend of God, it appears that there is a major correspondence between Pearl, the New Testament representation of John the Baptist, and the allegorical interpretation of the book of Ruth. For, just as Boaz, Ruth, and the unnamed kinsman-redeemer represent Christ, the Bride of Christ, and John the Baptist, so too do the Lamb, the PearlMaiden, and the Dreamer.

• Boaz – Ruth – Kinsman

• Christ – sponsa Christi – John the Baptist

• Lamb – Maiden – Dreamer

Of course, at the beginning of the poem, the Dreamer does not accept the Pearl-Maiden’s marriage to the Bridegroom at all but instead is greatly distressed over her loss. In the ascending stages of the poem, however, he makes spiritual progress until his failure at the stream, when he awakens and reflects and at last concludes that Jesus is his “friend.”32 In a sense, the Dreamer is becoming more like John the Baptist until his attitude can approach that of the humble saint who was willing to take second place to Jesus, saying he was the friend of the bridegroom and not the bridegroom himself.33

Recognizing this major correspondence between Pearl and the allegorical interpretation of the book of Ruth allows readers of Pearl to understand various aspects of the poem that may be contextualized by the book of Ruth and its medieval interpretations. For example, the allusion to grain in the opening lines of Pearl is often associated with Corinthians 15, but it should also be viewed in light of the book of Ruth, which depicts both the barley and wheat harvests. In allegorical interpretations of Ruth, the barley harvest symbolized Christ as “firstfruits,”34 representing redemption and inclusion of the Gentiles (like Ruth herself) while the later wheat harvest was interpreted as symbolizing the ultimate ingathering of believers, spiritual discernment, and the final redemption.35

Furthermore, the theological consideration of baptism in Pearl, while long recognized by scholars as important, has primarily focused on the youthful baptism of the Pearl-Maiden and her disquisition on baptism in Section XII of the poem. But if the Dreamer is being represented as a man allegorically following in the footsteps of John the Baptist, isn’t his inability to step into the stream at the poem’s conclusion all the more significant?36 He is still on the way to entering his own Jordan River, still on the way to entering the Kingdom of God, but he is being shaped and spiritually formed for his destiny in the wilderness of suffering and loss.

Finally, when Pearl is contextualized by the book of Ruth, the PearlMaiden herself clearly has a larger, non-literal, allegorical role as a representative of Christ’s bride, not only individually, but corporately, as the Church. Allegorical readings of Pearl have mostly fallen out of fashion, but they are integral to understanding the poet’s purpose, which was multi-leveled and multi-layered.37

Conclusions

As this essay has shown, medieval Christian interpreters of the book of Ruth saw Boaz, Ruth, and the unnamed kinsman-redeemer as figures of Christ, his Bride/the Church, and John the Baptist (in part because of the sandal connection). In general, the book of Ruth did not garner an excessive amount of attention in Middle English literature: it was translated and interpreted fairly literally in both prose (Wycliffite Bible) and verse (Metrical Paraphrase). However, in one brilliant and exceptional case, that of Pearl, the allegorical interpretation of Ruth provides an important context for understanding a masterpiece of Middle English dream vision literature. When examining the medieval tradition of allegorical interpretation of Ruth, we see that it provides a relevant cultural context for understanding the three main characters of Pearl: the Lamb as Christ, the Pearl-Maiden as Bride, and the Dreamer as Friend.

Notes

1 See Lesley Smith, Medieval Exegesis in Translation: Commentaries on the Book of Ruth (Commentary), TEAMS (Medieval Institute Publications, 1997). See also Julie Barrau, “Ruth in the Twelfth Century: The Multiple Identities of a Foreign Converted Widow from Scripture,” in Lives, Identities, and Histories in the Central Middle Ages, ed. Julie Barrau and Daniel Bates (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 203-26.

2 See “86 The Birth of St John the Baptist,” in Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, Vol. 1, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton University Press, 1993), 328-36. There John is introduced with careful attention to his role as “friend of the bridegroom”:

“John the Baptist has many titles. He is called prophet, friend of the bridegroom, lamp, angel, voice Elijah, baptizer of the savior, herald of the judge and forerunner of the king. Each of these titles denote a particular prerogative of John: the title of prophet, his prerogative of foreknowledge, the title of friend of the bridegroom, his prerogative of loving and being loved ...” (328, italics added).

3 For general discussion of the Lamb as a symbol for Christ, see chapter 2 “Jesus the Lamb of God: Blood Sacrifice and Atonement” in Robert Cummings Neville, Symbols of Jesus: A Christology of Symbolic Engagement (Cambridge University Press, 2001). For a specific discussion of the agnus Dei in Pearl, see Jane Beal, “The Jerusalem Lamb of Pearl,” Glossator 9 (2015): 264-85.

4 See Beal, “Jerusalem Lamb” (see note 3); Cynthia Kraman, “Body and Soul: Pearl and Apocalyptic Literature,” in Time and Eternity: The Medieval Discourse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 355-62; and Liz Herbert McAvoy, “Relocating Mechthild’s Garden Hermeneutics: The Middle English Poem Pearl,” The Enclosed Garden and the Medieval Religious Imaginary (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2021), 195-261.

5 Ruth 1:17.

6 Ruth 3:9.

7 See Ruth 3:9 in the Interlinear Bible online: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/ruth/3-9.htm.

8 Ruth 4:7-8.

9 van Liere, Frans, An Introduction to the Medieval Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 28.

10 D.R.G. Beattie, Jewish Exegesis of the Book of Ruth (University of Sheffield Press, 1976).

11 See Lesley Smith, Commentaries on the Book of Ruth (see note 1).

12 See E. Ann Matter, The Voice of my Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992, repr. 2010). See also Ann Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), esp. chap. 5, which considers Pearl in light of the biblical Song and the sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

13 See Ruth 4:7 in the Interlinear Bible online: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/ruth/4-7.htm.

14 Glossa ordinaria, trans. Lesley Smith (see note 1), 27.

15 The Sarum Rite: English Scholarly Breviary, ed. William Renwick (Gregorian Institute of Canada, 2014). See https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/items/6a277976-5d0b-4cc4-9822f442889401e3. Cf. the Latin version, Breviarium ad usum insignis

ecclesiae Sarum, ed. Francis Procter and Christopher Wordworth (Cambridge University Press, 1879).

16 It is reasonable to assume that the Pearl-poet, like many other devout English people in the late-medieval period, knew the story of the book of Ruth. The Pearl-poet had extensive biblical knowledge, as can be seen from his many biblical quotations and paraphrases, not only in Pearl, but also in the other poems attributed to him: Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and St. Erkenwald. Various scholars have analyzed the poet’s biblical poetics, including Cecilia A. Hatt, God and the Gawain-poet: Theology and Genre in Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2015). It is clear from many references in the poems that the poet heard the Bible read aloud at least as much as he read it silently – if not more often.

Therefore, the liturgical contexts of his poems – the days, times, and seasons when certain passages of scripture were read in the medieval English church, following the Sarum Rite – are important for understanding his work. For example, on the importance in Pearl of other liturgical dates, like the feast of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption (August 15th) and Septuagesima Sunday (three weeks before Lent begins), and seasons like Ordinary Time and Easter, see Jane Beal, “The Signifying Power of Pearl,” Quidditas 33 (2012): 27-58. With that being said, it is important to note that, unlike many other biblical books, Ruth is not directly quoted in Pearl. For that reason, my essay is a comparative literary analysis rather than a source-and-influence study.

17 Book of Ruth: Wycliffite Bible, ed. Rev. Josiah Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1850). Available from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/ENGW850_DBS_HS/page/n741/mode/2up.

18 See Polychronicon, Book II, chap. 27 in John Trevisa, trans., Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Churchill Babington and J. Rawson Lumby, 4 vols., Rolls Series (London: Longman, 1865-1886; repr. Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1975).

19 James Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois, 2000), 146, 149. The Metrical Paraphrase has been edited by Michael Livingston (see note 20, below). Notably, it relies heavily on Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica.

20 The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament, ed. Michael Livingston, TEAMS Middle English Text Series (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011), stanza 385, lines 4609-20. https://metseditions.org/read/1jPDx4AsDaZdh4r0CzZWBSy5vmxMbME.

21 For detailed literary analysis of the dream vision genre of Pearl, see Jane Beal, “Miraculous Revelation in the Middle English Pearl: The Vision, the Saint, and the Lamb,” Miracles and Wonders, Science and Faith in the Pre-Modern Age: The Experience of Transcendence – Reality or Imagination, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and Boston, MA: Walter de Grutyer, 2025), 375-404.

22 Pearl, line 61. See Pearl: Text and Translation, ed. and trans. Jane Beal (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2020).

23 The nature of the relationship between the Dreamer and the PearlMaiden is debated. The predominant view has been that the relationship is between a father and a daughter, although there is insufficient textual evidence to draw this conclusion: she never calls him father; he never calls her daughter; and the poet never specifies exactly what the relationship is. It is possible that the relationship is one between a lover and his beloved, albeit unconsummated in life (given the emphasis on the Maiden’s virginity in the poem). The latter view was held by Mother Angela Carson, as expressed in her article, “Aspects of Elegy in the Middle English Pearl,” Studies in Philology 62 (1965): 17-27. See also Jane Beal, “The PearlMaiden’s Two Lovers,” Studies in Philology 100 (2003): 1-21.

24 Pearl, line 964.

25 Pearl, line 1204.

26 See Matthew 11:14, 17:10-13 and Mark 9:11-13; cf. John’s denial in John 1:21.

27 Pearl, lines 818-29.

28 The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan (see note 2), 328 (bolding added for emphasis).

29 Susanna Fein, “Of Judges and Jewelers: Pearl and the Life of Saint John,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 36:1 (2014): 41-76. DOI: 10.1353/sac.2014.0010.

30 John 15:15

31 John 3:29.

32 Pearl, line 1204.

33 Sic John 3:29.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning

34 Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:20.

35 For discussion of this symbolism, see https://biblehub.com/topical/b/barley_and_wheat_harvests.htm.

36 For a discussion of the stream in Pearl being related to the oceanum mare on medieval world maps, and how entering the water symbolizes death (mors), which enables the human soul to cross over to eternal life, see Jane Beal, “The Dreamer’s Contemplative Experience of a Mappamundi in Pearl,” in Becoming the Pearl-Poet: Perceptions, Connections, Receptions, ed. Jane Beal (New York: Rowman & Littlefield / Lexington Books, 2022, 2023; repr. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), 13-43.

37 For extended analysis of literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical meanings in Pearl, see Jane Beal, The Signifying Power of Pearl (New York: Routledge, 2017). For discussion of how to teach the allegorical sense of Pearl, see Jane Beal and Ann Meyer, “Teaching the Allegory and Symbolism of Pearl,” in Approaches to Teaching the Middle English Pearl, ed. Jane Beal and Mark Bradshaw Busbee (New York: MLA, 2017): 87-95.

Julie Steinbeck 17

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 17-25

“Much Study Is a Weariness”: R.F. Kuang’s Dark Academic Duology and the Practice of Hospitality

Julie Steinbeck

The phrase “dark academia” probably rings few bells outside of the consumption of popular literature. A subset of Gothic literature, it evokes images of darkened libraries, ancient lecture halls, the scratching of pens on paper, and the rediscovery of knowledge hidden for centuries. These images are accurate: “dark academia” is an aesthetic that centers around education, magic systems, and the fantastical, all with a gloomy, sinister undertone. The romanticization of learning and discovery are contrasted by the seedy underbelly of the establishment and the misuse of academic knowledge. Accompanied by such novels as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, R.F. Kuang’s works Babel and Katabasis in particular use the dark academic genre to showcase how academic work that can be used for human flourishing is easily turned into a tool for harm. A scholar of language herself, Kuang’s experiences in elite universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale lay the foundation for her exploration of how a boon for humanity turns to a detriment. While study and knowledge creation are to be used to open new worlds and provide a path for greater appreciation of God and of each other, R.F. Kuang’s duology shows how misplaced values can move from the helpful stewardship of knowledge to the idolization of knowledge.

In true academic form, Kuang gives her works subtitles; in this case, the full title of the first in the duology is Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. As the novel, set in the 1830s and 1840s, begins, the main character, a Chinese boy on the verge of dying from cholera, is taken from his home by Professor Richard Lovell, a member of the faculty at Oxford University. Lovell raises the boy in his own house, allowing him to choose an English name and providing a strict education in Greek, Latin, and Robin’s native Chinese in preparation for his admittance to Babel: the Royal Institute of Translation at Oxford, where students study foreign languages not just for the translation of written works or to aid traveling dignitaries and religious figures, but for the ability to pair words in specific languages with a tangible effect. For example, using the Chinese word for “invisible,” carved into a bar of pure silver, would have the effect of making the speaker disappear (Babel 66). Other silver bars are used for travel, for protection, or for destruction. Because of its utility, engraved silver is used in all

settings for the benefit of the British Empire leading to political subterfuge and conflict using the translation students’ work. What Robin originally thinks is “the loveliest place on earth” gradually morphs into a symbol of oppression and injustice (Babel 56). Because the Crown must expand its power and its ability to hoard silver, the Academy is used to colonialist ends using the linguistic magic of elite academic institutions to mine resources around the world. Oxford is originally a haven for Robin and his cohort; however, he soon struggles with what he knows is unjust and what he wants to achieve as an Oxford scholar. This internal conflict only grows after helping thieves steal silver from the Babel tower. Robin then meets his half-brother, Griffin, a former Babel student-turned-leader in the Hermes Society, an organization devoted to the removal of silver bars from the clutches of the wealthy in England. Griffin believes this theft will right the wrongs of the Empire:

Let me paint you a picture, brother. You’ve noticed by now that London sits in the center of a vast empire that won’t stop growing. The single most important enabler of this growth is Babel. Babel collects foreign languages and foreign talent the same way it hoards silver and uses them to produce translation magic that benefits England and England only. […] The newest, most powerful bars in use rely on Chinese, Sanskrit, and Arabic to work, but you’ll count less than a thousand bars in the countries where these languages are widely spoken. […] (99)

In other words, Griffin has discovered that translation is less a means of cultural outreach and more a demand on other cultures touched by the Empire. Speakers of different languages, such as Robin and the others in his cohort, are brought to Oxford to use their native tongues as resources. Robin, later, is assigned to China to do translation work between a British trade ambassador and the Emperor’s office. China refuses the deal that England offers, which, it is revealed, was anticipated and intended to start a war between China and the British Empire: “These talks were merely the pretext for hostilities. Those men had funded Professor Lovell’s trip to Canton as a final expedition before they introduced the bill to Parliament” (348). The full intention is to use the academic knowledge built up by Robin’s years of hard work and the veneer of academic integrity not to build diplomatic relationships but to rob China’s coffers.

In this way, translation is a symptom of the greater problem of the misuse of academic knowledge in the service of colonialism. What begins as an academic pursuit morphs into a tool for empire-building. Michael Dodson writes that language translation specifically from other languages into English is a means of “constructing European authority,” sanitizing cultural works in the colonized region and cementing a European heritage for academic achievement (Dodson 809, 811). Furthermore, earlier

linguistic philosophies and theories on the development of languages grew to imply a national hierarchy:

This basic thesis of language formation could then be extended from individuals to nations, and further, from language to culture. In sum, language became closely linked to the minds of the people who gave rise to that language, and the historicity of the language itself is borne in changes introduced by the mental or civilizational development of its common speakers. The characteristics of language, as such, can be made to mark distinctions in mental development and civilizational status. (813)

In the evolution of the process of translation, these theories have then grown to imply that “to study language is to study culture,” resulting in the study and appreciation of the culture surrounding the language being “set aside” (Robinson 2). In Babel, little attention is paid, then, to the cultures surrounding the languages spoken by Robin or the other students in his cohort, let alone appreciating the contributions of those cultures and languages of study.

In fact, this “setting aside” of non-English cultures is common in the novel, and Professor Lovell winds up being a stand-in for how academic misuse becomes a tool for these extreme ends. From the beginning, readers see Lovell erasing the identity Robin had before being brought to London. When Robin attempts to tell Lovell his given name, he is cut off and told that “No Englishman can pronounce that” (Babel 10). He also insists that Robin pick a surname “that will do in London” despite Robin knowing that “Family names were not things to be dropped and replaced at whim […] They marked lineage; they marked belonging” (11). Lovell, however, insists that “The English reinvent their names all the time. The only families to keep theirs do it because they have titles to hold on to, and you certainly haven’t got any” (11). Already, the necessity of Robin’s original language is downplayed and erased in favor of the dominant surrounding culture. Lovell sets up Oxford University as “the center of all knowledge and innovation in the civilized world” (23). In beginning Robin’s studies in Latin, he rebuff’s Robin’s frustrations at the complexity of Latin and his missing the simplicity of Chinese: “Every language is complex in its own way. [… Latin is] much more elegant, you see?” (25). Make no mistake: Lovell loves his studies, his field, and his job. Lovell venerates knowledge but does so at the expense of the people that it directly influences. Nowhere is this more evident than when Lovell, knowing the intentions of Robin’s trip abroad for trade negotiations, is fine with the unfavorable results. He has known about the real reason for the failed trade deal but did nothing to stop it. He is, clearly, fine with the hoarding of these resources and with the lower status of those that his knowledge would do well to serve. He tells Robin that “I am where I am because I believe in knowledge and scientific progress, and

I have used them to my advantage. They are where they are because they have stubbornly refused to move forward with the future” (210). Finally, Lovell catches Robin in his under-the-table dealings with the Hermes society and mocks him for wanting fairness for others: “And are we obligated to distribute silver bars all around the world to backward countries who have had every opportunity to construct their own centres of translation? […] Why must it be Britain’s problem if other nations fail to take advantage of what they have?” (263).

Such an attitude was certainly not uncommon, and it still thrives in some circles. Sultana describes a 2017 publication in Third World Quarterly entitled “A Case for Colonialism.” Sultana writes that “The piece advocated the recolonization of the so-called Third World (or Global South) by European countries and argued that the benefits of colonization outweighed the cost” (Sultana 237). Of course,

[t]he false claims that colonialism led to a host of advantages for the colonized are regularly presented by colonial apologists to intentionally obfuscate colonialism’s real objectives: to subjugate others for the gain of the colonizers and to justify wealth accumulation. (238)

The sentiment of that original publication matches what Lovell and others at elite places like Oxford display in the pages of Babel: knowledge developed in academia belongs to the dominant power of the time and so can be used to grow the surrounding culture’s stores of wealth. The erasure of culture, identity, and language thanks to the over-veneration of academic knowledge ends up being the death of Lovell and, eventually, of Robin as he loses his life at the hands of the state.

With that, we turn to Kuang’s other work, Katabasis: A Fantastical Descent into Hell, Rivalry, and Redemption in the Pursuit of Academic Glory. The premise of this satirical novel, considered the spiritual successor to Babel, is simpler: Alice Law, a graduate student of Cambridge in the 1980s, witnesses the death of her advisor, Dr. Jacob Grimes, in a freak magical accident. Because she needs a committee chair and later letters of recommendation, she devises a way to follow Grimes’ soul into Hell to bring him back up. Alice and her fellow classmate and Grimes advisee, Peter Murdoch, then journey through the Dante-esque levels of Hell to find Grimes’ soul and bargain with the Lord of Hell to allow him to return to the world of the living for the time it takes for Alice to finish her degree.

Most would agree that the dogged pursuit of a degree in a field that one is passionate about is a laudable effort. However, the story of Katabasis covers other ways in which the pursuit of knowledge can be misused. Like Babel, Katabasis shows what happens when the thrill of the chase becomes an idol. However, where Babel focuses mainly on the tragedy of colonialism in academic settings, Katabasis emphasizes the cost

of academic pride; namely, the dehumanization of others and the self, as well as discrimination against others.

Alice is the typical overworked graduate student who spends hours in the lab, subsists on peanut butter sandwiches, and has her eye on a tenure-track position in a high-ranking institution. But when she considers what price she will need to pay to retrieve Grimes from Hell, she does not care that she will lose half of her natural remaining lifespan. She muses that “no one outside the academy could possibly understand. She would sacrifice her firstborn for a professorial post. She would sever a limb. She would give anything, so long as she still had her mind, so long as she could still think” (Katabasis 8). Simply learning and discovering how the magical world works is not enough for Alice. Instead, she needs the status of a high position in an elite place to consider all the work that she does as worth it. Her teaching work is only a formality, calling the undergraduate students she supervises “naïve, eager things” for whom “ignorance was truly the secret to bliss” (30). Of course, never mind that Alice was an undergrad once upon a time, but that is not explored as she considers what work is actually necessary for her to do. And who can blame her? Such an attitude is displayed by those with authority over her, particularly in Jacob Grimes.

Grimes is considered in the novel to be the greatest at what he does. Alice describes him as ignoring the smaller details of his work, because

he’d long reached the stage of his career where one left that sort of grunt work to graduate students. Professor Grimes’s days were devoted to profound, deep thinking. He saw above the mountains and clouds to discern the truth, and then he descended to utter pronouncements like Moses coming down Mount Sinai. (9)

Because he has reached an exalted point in his career, Grimes can now afford to sit back and let the “grunt work” be done by those he deems beneath him: his graduate assistants and advisees. Here, readers can easily guess that the lower academic status one is, the less likely they are to be treated as a human worthy of consideration. When working for Grimes, Alice becomes a proverbial “ghoul that lived on canned soups and crackers” (59). She is dragged into an experiment where Grimes tattoos pentagram symbols on her arm to see if its effects will hold longer than one etched in chalk. Alice isn’t a valuable student or someone with a will of her own. Rather, she is a lab rat, a test subject, to stay in the good graces of a man who she associates with power and success (150). When Alice and Peter are discussing how terribly he treated his students before his death, they still affectionately describe Grimes as “our tyrant” (161). Their desire for a piece of the academic success Grimes has attained makes the journey and resulting struggle seem almost reasonable. Such is the result of the tunnel vision from the over-veneration of academic knowledge, when

someone as prideful as Grimes is still seen as someone who has succeeded in that world.

Again, such situations are not uncommon in academia and are even considered commonplace: “[Grimes] was not the only neglectful professor, after all all the faculty in the department cut corners when it came to teaching duties” (30). Students in Alice’s position often wind up overworked, underpaid, and disrespected to the point of mental illness and poverty. Smith et al. describe working class students (those that often go without material comforts and must work to keep themselves from losing their housing or other opportunities) as consistently feeling “isolated and overwhelmed” on campus, with greater amounts of stress and lower graduation rates, often with little support (Smith et el. 131-2). Alice, as a textbook working-class graduate student from the US, would then feel even more isolated in a UK institution, leading to more susceptibility to accept the treatment she is given.

What’s more, Alice is a female student, meaning she has to achieve more than a male student in her field to be taken seriously:

Every now and then a research paper surfaced on why male voices were better suited for magick, citing reasons of pitch, depth, or steadiness, and they always sparked a big hubbub involving outraged statements from women-in-magick societies and apologetic statements from journal editorial boards. Alas, no one had managed to conclusively prove these studies false. (Katabasis 14)

The implied question here is whether these studies are actually disputed, or if they are implicitly accepted despite the bad public optics. Once again, these trains of thought are not unusual in academic settings. An article from Knights and Richards explains how in UK institutions, women are more likely to have short-term contracts instead of longer ones, with 50% of women in academia on a fixed-term contract, compared to about 38% of men (Knights and Richards 217). The pay gap between male and female academics is also on the rise, more so than the general labor market, particularly in the sciences (218). Why does this happen? Knights and Richards posit that men are more likely to be appointed to higher academic posts, leading to the higher pay (218). If Alice wants a highpaying position with a long-term contract, she absolutely must have visible successes part of the reason she wants to fetch Grimes back from oblivion in the first place: “She wanted everyone to know where she had gone, if only so that when she returned in triumph, Professor Grimes in hand, there would be no doubts about her success” (Katabasis 22). Sex-based discrimination seems so normal that it becomes “such a boring truism that Alice was no longer disturbed by the fact” (301).

Perhaps the greatest academic sin shown in Katabasis is not done to Alice; instead, rival student Peter Murdoch becomes of a victim of academic theft. After working on his dissertation on categorization and its

implications on a particular paradox, he winds up in the hospital with a severe flare-up of Crohn’s disease. Upon returning to campus six weeks later, he finds that Grimes has taken his paper and published it under his own name, not naming Peter as a coauthor. Peter, having not told anyone about his chronic illness and why it caused him to be away for a month and a half, barges into Grimes’s office “with full confidence that he could set things right” (353). Instead, Grimes refuses to acknowledge his misconduct:

From my point of view, Mr. Murdoch, you were a happy collaborator until you quit. You haven’t signed into the lab since January. I have called and written many times, to no response. You have offered no explanation and no apologies. You dropped off the face of the map for over a month and expected me to do nothing with our findings? […] Listen, Murdoch. I will make many excuses for talent. Great minds work at their own tempos. I know this. But you are getting lazy. And laziness does not get you published in Arcana. It gets you expelled. (353-54)

What should be an offense worthy of dismissal from one’s post instead would net Grimes more academic accolades if he didn’t then die the next day as a result of not checking his proofs.

The question a reader might then have is why Peter did not report Grimes to anyone. Becker focuses on the reasons why graduate students might not seek justice when their work is plagiarized; namely, power differentials and fear of retaliation (Becker 253). While the literature surrounding the amount of plagiarism of student work by professors is murky at best, Becker notes that much of the work stolen was from PhD students and that participants in her study had to seek recourse outside of the university (257). When there is little hope of justice being given, it is no surprise that Peter would not try to report Grimes’s misdeeds. As such, Grimes shows how little he thinks of his students and their work of discovery by instead passing it off as his own.

In these two novels, Kuang shows readers a devastating pattern: academia can easily become a hostile place not because the pursuit of knowledge is valued. It is because the people are not. Students’ humanity is valued less than what they can produce, and their work is stolen from them. Power differences make students unable to refuse tasks given to them by those that hold their careers in their hands. Their ethnicity makes them useful for the dominant culture while at the same time preventing them from achieving their full potential. In all these cases, students’ humanity is valued far less than what they are able to give to those in power. Thus, acting against these impulses in the pursuit of academic knowledge becomes imperative. Sultana emphasizes the following:

In the instances when an academic publication or a research project either openly or indirectly promotes violent subjugation of Other peoples, utilizes flawed and dubious argumentation, or does not engage with existing scholarly work with any substance, all academics have the duty to critique and safeguard academic integrity. (250)

In other words, the colonialism of Babel and the theft, dehumanization, and discrimination of Katabasis will enable academia’s detractors and leave those outside the academy with a greater sense of distrust. Safeguarding against these types of ideologies that get in the way of appreciation and hospitable treatment of others will help the relationship between academia and the general public. Robinson suggests that language work be done in a context where the culture is at the forefront of study, rather than left as an afterthought, considering each one’s complexities rather than presuming primitivity (Richardson 3). Mohamed Mousa suggests taking into account the additional barriers that female faculty can face in university hiring practices (Mousa 753-54). Knights and Richards imply that academic discovery does not have to be considered “a conquest of knowledge” or a “competition for scarce material” (Knights and Richards 231). Finally, those in faith-based institutions can advocate for seeing the students as lovingly, wonderfully created in the image of God.

Ultimately, good stewardship comes from knowing the true worth of things. In academia, it is easy to let the pursuit of knowledge itself a good thing become greater than the people involved. The thrill of discovery is a gift we are given. But when that gift is allowed to ascend higher than its place, as Kuang’s novels each warn, then it stops being stewardship and can only be called an idol.

Works Cited

Dodson, Michael S. “Translating Science, Translating Empire: The Power of Language in Colonial North India.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 47 no. 4, October 2005, pp. 809-35. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3879344

Kuang, R.F. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. Harper Voyager, 2022. Kuang, R.F. Katabasis: A Fantastical Descent into Hell, Rivalry, and Redemption in the Pursuit of Academic Glory. Harper Voyager, 2025.

Knights, David, and Wendy Richards. “Sex Discrimination in UK Academia.” Gender, Work, and Organization, vol. 10 no. 2, 10 March 2003, pp. 213-38. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0432.t01-1-00012.

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Mousa, Mohamed. “Academia Is Racist: Barriers Women Faculty Face in Academic Public Contexts.” Higher Education Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 4, October 2022, pp. 741-58. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12343.

Robinson, Douglas. Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Routledge, 2011.

Smith, Laura, et al. “‘Talking Across Worlds’: Classist Microaggressions and Higher Education.” Journal of Poverty, vol. 20, Dec. 2015, pp. 127–51. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/10875549.2015.1094764.

Sultana, Farhana. “The False Equivalence of Academic Freedom and Free Speech: Defending Academic Integrity in an Age of White Supremacy, Colonial Nostalgia, and Anti-Intellectualism.” ACME: A Journal for Critical Geographies, vol. 17 no. 2, May 2018, pp. 22857, https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i2.1715.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 26-34

The Earth Groans: Patristic Hearings of Romans 8:1823

Timothy Binz

Introduction

Have you ever heard a surfer stand in awe of the ocean and her waves? They do not need to acknowledge a Creator to acknowledge the ocean’s own immensity or power. They hear what the Earth is saying. What about a New Age practitioner who may not hear the audible voice of the trees whisper to them, but still claims to be in sync with the creation around them? Perhaps you remember how a progressive seminary made the news by asking their student body to practice confession to potted plants.1 All the while they acknowledged that the plants present did not have a voice.2 Or even in pop culture, where killer planets become peoplelike creatures who can impregnate women, manipulate their sons, and even scheme for universal domination.3 Are you sure Creation does not groan?4 We those that subscribe to the historic, orthodox, Christian faith once for all delivered to all the saints have a rich heritage of people hearing creation groan. How they heard creation groan had significant implications for how they lived in creation.

The task here is to take a brief look at a familiar passage, Romans 8:18-23, that presents God’s creation longing for redemption. This essay employs three patristic interpreters Origen, Augustine, and John Chrysostom to show how each one understood the referent of κτίσις and the scope of future redemption. Origen and Augustine view κτίσις through humanity, though using different interpretive tools. Chrysostom, on the other hand, maintains a literal, non-human, non-rational reading through Antiochene exegesis5 and prosopopeia6 as a rhetorical device. And we will have a glimpse of how κτίσις anticipates, and participates, in the renewal of all things.

Before we proceed, it would serve well to have the modern understanding on the table. Does creation have rationality? Does creation have a voice? You may likely assume that modern and contemporary NT scholarship would interpret κτίσις as non-rational, sub-human creation. And you would be correct. Douglas Moo,7 Leon Morris,8 Colin Kruse,9 and Thomas Schreiner10 all share the same sentiment: Creation is non-rational but personified within the text. This is not what we find with the first two Fathers we are exploring below.

Origen11

Born in the late second century (c. 185), he flourished throughout the third century as he pushed back against the notion of Valentinian Gnosticism. It does not seem that he is able to detach himself from it entirely though, as he develops more than just unhelpful positions on humanity and embodiment. Origen was influenced by two distinct figures. Clement of Alexandria, and modern scholarship indicates that he was taught by Ammonius Saccas the same philosopher who taught Plotinus.12 Origen is important to us in this conversation for several reasons. Not only is he the first systematician of the Christian faith, his theology deviates in certain respects from orthodoxy. It is how he views creation that he is relevant to this subject.

Working out of Origen’s Romans Commentary, he considers κτίσις in the passage to mean a rational creation. That is, it thinks, hears, remembers. Since creation has a mind, it would groan when it could and needed to do so (4.6). He explains why creation groans by giving two reasons. First, creation has been subjected to involuntary futility due to the Fall. Second, creation longs for coming glory (4.7). The Spirit bears witness to the rational mind, or spirit. He includes angels in his model of creation (5.3). The spirit, or reasonable aspect of creation, is to be considerably better than the soul or body because of its thinking faculties (2.2). He gives a cataloged list of the needs of the body:

Embarrassing process of digestion, the sense of shame associated with procuring offspring, how children are conceived, born, and raised. And behold, what great futility is contained in these things, what great corruption to which the creation of the soul, noble and rational, has been subjected, although unwillingly. (4.10)

They become “embarrassing” or “shameful” as creation was subjected to servitude as its lower-ordered needs override its higher capacity. Humanity was overcome by futility, or the needs of the body (4.9). Origen is fine saying that the soul and spirit are being renewed currently by the Holy Spirit. Yet the struggle for freedom will continue as the body feels hunger, fear, and pain (4.8). It seems that hunger and pain are somehow evil, not just happenings that tell us something is wrong.

Human existence is dotted with what Origen calls “seeds of future glory.” Farming and agricultural language give way to a helpful reimagining of suffering. The garden of suffering will yield fruit. And torn bodies will become glorious. The glory in store for future sons of God is weightier as suffering increases (4.3). And God grants gifts to his people. Roles based around giftings denote and justify God's design in this (5.2). The Spirit does not negate or prevent suffering in any way. Rather, God gives gifts and relates the sufferer to future glory (5.5). This gifting and

role-making is to help ground the would-be son of God that He is not alone in the world, and God is with him through his life of suffering. These gifts and roles are not for one another alone. They are for the community of faith.

Origen notes that rational creation looks at the present pain and battles of life and grieving because of it. Rational creation also rejoices when those pains and battles are overcome. Suffering and pain are current realities though, which necessarily means that groaning will persist. This must be because physical bodies exist. Origen struggles to reconcile both the text and his theology. When the current body is present, groaning will occur. And if groaning occurs, all of creation participates in that groaning (4.15). And redemption for Origen is not the resurrection, but something like the beatific vision heightened, unfailing virtue, love and union with Christ (5.11). Creation’s groaning though is not cosmic, but in its body’s groaning. It is almost as if the natural world disappears into anthropology.

Augustine13

We now turn to Augustine. There appear to be three important features of Augustine’s theology worthy to note. First, he prioritizes a healthy sense of trust in Christ and primacy of the Scriptures. Second, note that Augustine is a churchman. He was steeped in the African martyr tradition, who placed a high priority on suffering and death as a gift honoring a select number of Christians.14 Finally, Augustine is not Origen reincarnate, but the similarities between the two are notable. There remains some Neoplatonic flavor in Augustine.15 He will follow aspects of Origen’s interpretation as he responds to his friend’s question on the examined passage.

Augustine was not using Greek at this time; he is pulling from the Latin Bible. Creatura should appropriately be rendered creation, and not creature. ἡ κτίσις and τῆς κτίσεως gives no indication as to why the text needs to read with humanity being the sole focus here. The more natural reading of the text has all of creation in mind. Verse 23 provides a hermeneutical clue: Not only the creation, but we ourselves [...] groan inwardly as we await adoption as sons.” Augustine wants to be biblical here. His pastoral instincts point toward a broad redemption, but his anthropology prevents him from getting there.

He unfolds his system before us. Creation can represent creation because of a tripartite anthropology. He takes cues from Origen's theology and hermeneutics. Augustine makes an interpretive jump to collapse creation into the image-bearing creature, humanity. Augustine's anthropology is conceptualized in three facets. First, corpus, or that which is extended physically. It is time-and-space bound. Next is anima, that is, the life-giving aspect of humanity. It is what animates humanity. Finally, spiritus, or the rational component of humanity. Humanity falls because the corporeal, or, better said as, fleshly, desires of the human drive down

into the soul and spirit. Instead of the rational driving the person, the inverse happens (76.5). And if humanity still groans and suffers, creation will as well.

African martyrs were lionized in Augustine’s day (and rightly so). And now that martyrdom was becoming less of a threat in the church in his day, there needed to be another way to differentiate from the populace. Suffering is a clear way to differentiate from nominalism. He explains that putting to death “the deeds of the flesh” brings pain or suffering. He then applies a spiritual reading to this: Fasting, chastity, public beatings, toiling for the sake of the Church, ignoring one’s own pleasures (76.2). The denier chooses to suffer for the sake of coming glory. Redemption is total comprehensive (comprehensi sunt and comprehendantur).16 He applies the passage pastorally, reminding that groaning signals the redemption of both humanity and all of creation (76.6). But not all will receive the adoption as sons. Augustine is careful to qualify the statement those with the fruit of the Spirit will be called sons and daughters of God.

Chrysostom17

Origen and Augustine reduce κτίσις to humanity, albeit inconsistently, through a variety of means. John Chrysostom offers a different reading of the text that will feel more familiar to contemporary readers. Like many of the Church Fathers, Chrysostom was primarily a pastor. His project is theology made practical, giving handles to the local congregation. He does this by prioritizing a literal reading of the text à la the Antiochene school. This is the fruit of his interpretation on Romans 8. First, how does Chrysostom interpret κτίσις? He understands it to mean the world. This is the first departure from Augustine and Origen. The world is non-rational to Chrysostom. He says, “We are not to fancy them alive, or ascribe any reasoning power to them […]” (8.19-20). How does a non-rational creation groan? He employs prosopopeia, giving voice to an inanimate object. The earth groans. And it groans because it is subject to a curse of not bringing forth its full fruit, instead producing thorns and thistles. The suffering creation experiences now is not because it had acted poorly, or wrongly. It is because humanity has acted evilly. But just as creation was made for us, and corrupted by us, God will redeem creation again for our sakes. Chrysostom does not downplay the present suffering of humanity. Hopeful theological realism is what softens the blow, though, as the future glory is incomparable to what is currently experienced. Future hope is prioritized through three concerns that he highlights (8:18). First, he calls believers to exhibit contempt for today. Second, he calls for them to desire future glory. Finally, he explains that God both loves and honors humanity. Humanity and the non-rational κτίσις are co-laboring to the same end; there is a synergistic partnership in place. If humanity suffers, κτίσις will suffer. The goal is not to cease suffering per se. Rather, it is to

participate together in suffering until glorification takes place (8:22). Creation shames the hearer as they hear the longing of redemption. This is a challenge to not be “less” or “worse” than creation in suffering. Because if we are glorified, creation will be too (8.22).

Creation persists to serve, however, by continuing to hope that humanity may long for cosmic redemption, which includes adoption as sons. Chrysostom uses a nurse analogy to describe its service, and how it receives its reward. The nurse of a king's child may receive good things as she cares for the offspring. She genuinely cares, is genuinely blessed, but would not otherwise experience benefit without caring for the King's child. So, too, is it with the Earth.

Conclusion

Though Origen and Augustine both miss a critical thrust of Romans 8:18-23, as it speaks to creation specifically, their instincts regarding representation are not bad. We can appreciate the different views from which they address the topic. Both Origen and Augustine care about creation’s representation through humanity. While this is not the text to utilize to support their claim, we can look to other biblical texts that clearly teach representation considering recent scholarship. The Tradition would argue for rational or intellectual capacity as a key component to being made in the image of God. Fair enough. The Hebrew Bible provides far more stable grounding for Origen and Augustine’s representative instincts. Modern ANE scholarship argues, however, that co-regency is a massive component to understanding the imago Dei. To be made in the image of God, regardless of how distorted by the Fall we may be, implies that the human creature was designed to be a cultivating and keeping picture of royalty.18 This is good news to people with disabilities. Rationality is not the crown of creation; all image-bearers can serve as co-regents over creation.

And yet Chrysostom appropriately diverges from Augustine and Origen at this salient point. Creation is not collapsed into humanity. Nor is creation just a spectator to coming glory but will actually experience cosmic redemption. Creation both serves and is a beneficiary to humanity’s eventual glorification.

Chrysostom’s thoughts on 8:24 are worth mentioning. The world does not want us to have it as its goal or treasure. “For if thou demandest to have everything in this world, thou hast lost that well-doing of thine, through which thou didst become bright [...]” (8.24). To treasure the world above the great gift of the Spirit, or adoption as sons, is a desire to forfeit both creation’s lofty goal and your transformation. Do not make it your reward. Instead, help creation by stewarding your suffering for its good, too.

Creation expects a reward. If you can imagine creation sighing and groaning, it is because of our shared state in futility. And if you could

imagine creation sighing, could you also imagine creation hoping for redemption, too? Creation suffering means that creation hopes. May we not hope less than the non-rational creation around us.

Notes

1 Credit is due to Dr. Matthew Bardowell for reminding me of this chapel service. Union Seminary, “Worship At Union,” Union Theological Seminary, September 18, 2019, https://utsnyc.edu/blog/2019/09/18/worship-at-union/.

2 Murray Campbell, “We Harvest What We Sow,” The Gospel Coalition | Australia, September 19, 2019, https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/we-harvest-what-we-sow/.

3 Ego is a powerful cosmic entity in the Marvel Universe that has a planet functionally serve as his body. James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

2 (Marvel Studio, 2017), Film, 137 mins.

4 I am grateful to Dr. Aaron Halstead for noting that viewing creation as sentient and rational does not put someone outside of the pale of orthodoxy.

5 Antiochene and Alexandrian are the primary two ways in which the Patristic era read the Scriptures. The Alexandrian tradition gave focus to spiritual readings of Scripture and was championed by the likes of Clement and Origen. Antiochene prioritized the literal sense (think authorial intent) of the Scriptures. Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1999). 72-73.

6 Prosopopeia is an example of personification; not all personification is prosopopeia. The sense of the term is to give a voiceless object or ideas a voice. Douglas Mangum, “Prosopopeia,” in The Lexham Glossary of Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

7 Moo interprets creation to be subhuman and non-rational while intensifying the disaster of the Fall. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010). 514.

8 He leans comfortably against a personified, non-rational reading of creation. Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, A Pillar Commentary (1988; Digital, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005). 320-321.

9 Kruse connects Genesis 3 to Romans 8. The earth was not cursed because it itself was guilty. “Subjection” language personifies creation, exemplifying great violence done to it because of human sin. Colin G. Kruse, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), Digital. 343.

10 Schreiner believes personification is the rhetorical device used in Romans 8:18-23. Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), 2nd ed., Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Robert Yarbrough and Joshua Jipp (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), Digital. 425.

11 Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 6–10, vol. 104, trans. Thomas P. Scheck, The Fathers of the Church (2002; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2014), Digital. 60-79.

12 Mark J. Edwards, “Origen,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2022, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2022), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/origen/.

13 Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine: Eighty-Three Different Questions, vol. 70, trans. David L. Mosher, The Fathers of the Church (1982; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2014), Digital. 149–157.

14 Michael A.G. Haykin, “Augustine” (Seminar, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, January 28, 2026).

15 It is good enough to say that Neoplatonism is in Augustine’s background. Scholars should be careful though to not overstate its contribution to Augustine’s life and theology. For example, this is one significant challenge with Brown’s titanic work on Augustine. For all of Augustine’s quirks and faults, he sought to first serve Jesus by working from the Bible. With that said, there are several sources that trace the multiple, different connections that tie Augustine to Plotinus and Origen. One example is Cary’s work on the inner self in Augustine. He follows a line through Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and Locke and how they detail the interiority of humanity. Origen borrows language from the first two, utilizing sensory language for the “inner man,” or heart. And Augustine takes this language, building upon it something seemingly brand-new that would go on to form Christian Spirituality even to today. Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 4-5, 48.

16 Augustine of Hippo, Eighty-Three Different Questions, vol. 70. 155.

17 John Chrysostom, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1.11: Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans, vol. 11, trans. Philip Schaff, Early Church Fathers (1889; Christian Literature Company, 2001), Digital. 439-446.

18 G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), Digital. 81.

Bibliography

Augustine of Hippo. Saint Augustine: Eighty-Three Different Questions. Vol. 70, translated by David L. Mosher. The Fathers of the Church. 1982; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2014. Digital.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. New Studies in Biblical Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Digital.

Campbell, Murray. “We Harvest What We Sow.” The Gospel Coalition | Australia, September 19, 2019. https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/we-harvest-what-we-sow/ Cary, Phillip. Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Chrysostom, John. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1.11: Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans. Vol. 11, translated by Philip Schaff. Early Church Fathers. 1889; Christian Literature Company, 2001. Digital.

Clark, Elizabeth A. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Edwards, Mark J. “Origen.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2022, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/origen/ Gunn, James. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Marvel Studio, 2017. Film, 137 mins.

Kruse, Colin G. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. Digital. Mangum, Douglas. “Prosopopeia.” In The Lexham Glossary of Theology. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.

Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans. A Pillar Commentary. 1988. Digital. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 34

Origen. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 6-10. Vol. 104, translated by Thomas P. Scheck. The Fathers of the Church. 2002; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2014. Digital. Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament). 2nd ed. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Robert Yarbrough and Joshua Jipp. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018. Digital. Union Seminary. “Worship At Union.” Union Theological Seminary, September 18, 2019. https://utsnyc.edu/blog/2019/09/18/worship-at-union/

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 35-42

The Emotional Laborers in Charles Williams’ The Greater Trumps

Colin Moll

The sociologist, Dr. Arlie Russell Hochschild, teaches us that emotion is the heart of sociology (d’Oliveira-Martins & Hochschild 4). With her 1983 publication of The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, the sociology of emotion subdiscipline was born. This monograph offers a theoretical framework and social basis to emotion processes. Hochschild interviewed flight attendants in the late 70’s and discovered the “heart” to be the location of their labors and that, to succeed in their work, those hearts must be managed (Hochschild 5-7). Flight attendants must generate feelings of warmth and welcome in the cabin, and those feelings must be felt to be sincere by those immediately present. Failing in this leads to what passengers might perceive as inauthentic greetings, hollow gestures and shallow encounters. This leaves the passengers feeling somehow slighted, perhaps because the cabin does not feel effortlessly cared for or maybe because the passengers were not able to catch some of that warmth and reproduce it within themselves. Another consequence of this could be isolation or alienation from colleagues. Imagine how your own estimation of someone can change when something they say sounds “phony.” Also imagine a time when you were trying to communicate something of importance, only to hear yourself expressing it with a tone that suggests that it does not matter. All this emotional labor can lead to burnout and an impaired ability to express emotion outside of a professional context. Hochschild predicted that the marketplace would continue to demand greater emotional labor from the work force, and that seems abundantly true.

But what does it mean for emotion to be the heart of sociology, or the scientific study of society and social interaction? How are we to think about this? To answer these questions, it seems necessary to define “emotion” a word that, in my view, eludes definition by standard propositional terms. This is the strength of this Faith and Research conference, because it seems to me that only the humanities can hope to perfectly account for this garden variety word.

In this present attempt to get closer to a more complete understanding of emotion, I will draw from three theological philosophers: St. Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and William Torrey Harris and then from the Oxford Christian Charles Williams. Williams’ novel, The Greater Trumps, presents a magisterial story that suggests there is little difference

between emotional and spiritual forces. The Christmastime setting alone hints at this suggestion. Is there any more emotionally dense time of the year, or any day of greater importance in the liturgical calendar? It is my view that Williams’ work gives life to a conceptual understanding of emotion based in the writing of these three theological philosophers. My claim in this paper is that a perfect definition of emotion requires the propositional knowledge supplied by these philosophers, plus an account from the softer side of the humanities, and I think The Greater Trumps is the perfect literary companion for this job.

I will begin with the intellectual heritage of Augustine, Edwards and Harris. Augustine’s philosophy of memory divides the mind into three: there is the understanding, the will and the memory (Confessions 10.8.12). It is within the memory where emotion and the affective capacities reside (10.14.21-22). In searching his own memory, Augustine likens what he finds to a cavernous unconscious space where the will places things before the conscious awareness of the understanding. William Torrey Harris, a nineteenth century idealist philosopher and educator with a rich St. Louis history, goes a different direction in his account of emotion. Harris also divides the mind into three, but he treats the memory differently. His division of three is the intellect, will and feeling. Memory, for Harris, is a function of the mind (Harris 162). Memory is an activity of the mind that is ‘coordinated’ by the intellect and the will. Feeling, for Harris, is will and intellect in an unconscious form. Feeling, moreover, has biological and physiological components. Here is a passage from what Harris’s biographer, Dr. Kurt F. Leidecker, considers Harris’s magnum opus, Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind, which was published in 1898 (536):

On the side of unconscious intellect we have all the feelings that are passive or contemplative sensations, emotions, and affections. On the side of unconscious will we have instincts, appetites, and desires. On one side the feelings look toward the intellect, and tend to become conscious and pass over into cognitions, motives, and reflections. On the other side, the feelings tend to rise into conscious volition, and become deliberate and responsible.

A. On the intellectual side we have (a) sensation, which is partly physical, using the five sense-organs and the general or common sense sometimes called the feelings of vitality (as in such sensations as rest and weariness, sickness and health), (b) Emotions (1) hope, terror, despair, fear, contempt, etc.; (2) aesthetic pleasure in the presence of the beautiful and sublime; (3) the religious emotions, (c) Affections, benevolence (or kindness, sympathy, pity, mercy, etc.), gratitude, friendship, family love, philanthropy, etc.,

and the opposite affections of malice, wrath, jealousy, envy, etc.

B. On the will side we have (a) instincts which move us unconsciously to acts performed by us as animals laughing, crying, winking, dodging a missile thrown at one, etc. (b) Appetites for food and drink, sleep and exercise, etc. (c) Desires for happiness, or pleasure, or knowledge, and such other desires as ambition, avarice, vanity, pride, etc. (Harris 162-163)

Conscious intellect and will, moreover, can turn back into unconscious feeling. This is the only way that feelings can be educated that is indirectly through the intellect and the will. In other words, heart culture (one of Harris’s favorite terms) can only come about through good lessons and habits (163). Jonathan Edwards argues in The Religious Affections that it is the affections or emotions that mediate personal relationship with God, and that love is the fountain of all emotions (Edwards 23-35). He goes on to characterize the saints as having complete possession of their emotions during their earthly lives (37).

How are we to tie together these spiritual and conceptual ideas, strengthen them, and keep them from separating apart? How are we to grasp them in our minds? A story can enable us to “think down the metaphysical ladder” to borrow a phrase from the philosopher Dr. Eleonore Stump. It is much easier to go down the ladder than to go up, but going down can open the mind to what going up would be like. Stump made use of a story to help explain eternity as God’s mode of existence a mode of existence that is exceedingly difficult to comprehend for those of us with time as our mode of existence (Stump & Kretzmann 470-472). I would say that a game, such as the one subserved by a deck of tarot cards, can be just as useful as a story as an explanatory tool. Charles Williams makes use of both a story and a game in The Greater Trumps, and they both support one another in forming Williams’ account of emotion. Before looking for the intellectual insights therein, let me share a synopsis of both the story and the game included within the novel.

A standard deck of tarot cards is split into two: there are the greater trumps and the lesser trumps. These are also known as the major and minor arcana. The major arcana number 22, while the rest are split into four suits of 14. Each of these 78 cards has a traditional meaning and significance, and the tarot deck within Williams’ novel does not differ all that much from the standard tarot decks that are still in wide circulation today. The major arcana are the most significant of them all, and each of the cards has a traditional ranking or order with one noteworthy exception. Here is a copy of The Circular Order included in Nancy Lou Patterson’s 1974 paper: The Triumph of Love: Interpretations of the Tarot in Charles Williams’ The Greater Trumps.

Patterson argues that this is the order most favored by Williams, because it best conveys the central importance of the Fool to the Tarot system (20). It reveals something of his theology, and I think it also hints at what Hochschild means when she places emotion at the heart of sociology. Another way to think about this is to think about a circular procession all centered around the Fool. The procession or parade starts with the Juggler, followed by the Popess, and ultimately ends with the World. Patterson argues that Williams would also favor this way of thinking about the circular order, and this is because the Tarots are likely modeled after the Roman Triumph parade. The word “trump” is just a reworking of the word “triumph” (21).

The traditional use of a tarot deck involves drawing cards at random from the deck to create a spread (there are many different spreads), then reflecting on the spread as part of a meditation on a question about life. The meaning of the drawn cards, plus the spread especially where the cards fall in that spread and the reader’s immediate experience all mediate the tarot’s contribution to answering the question.

The story of The Greater Trumps revolves around the two families of a soon-to-be-married couple: Nancy and Henry. Nancy, and her family, are unknowingly in possession of the original tarot deck. Henry, and his family, are seeking this original tarot deck to exploit its supernatural powers. Henry’s family invites Nancy’s family for a Christmas weekend at their English country home as part of their plot to take possession of the original tarot deck. It should be noted that, despite Henry and his family’s covetous desire for the tarot deck, Nancy and Henry really do seem to be in love with one another. In any case, Williams draws important connections between the major arcana and these two families. In particular, he goes to great lengths to imbue supreme mystery and meaning into the unnumbered card the Fool and into Nancy’s elderly aunt, Sybil

Coningsby. Williams also weaves a kind of strange and charming unity between Sybil and the Fool throughout the novel. In an early scene, the two families are sorting through the original tarot deck and admiring the different cards. Sybil, who is described as a “saint” by Nancy and a “mystery of self-possession” by Henry, breaks with the rest of the gathered family when she expresses her thoughts on where the Fool ought to fall in the ranking of the major arcana (Williams 8, 53).

“Nought usually comes at the beginning,” Ralph said. “Not necessarily,” said Sybil. “It might come anywhere. Nought isn’t a number at all. It’s the opposite of number.” (17)

The Fool, moreover, is described in this same scene in this way:

[Nancy] picked up the last card, that numbered nought, and exhibited it. It might have needed some explanation, for it was obscure enough. It was painted with the figure of a young man, clothed in an outlandish dress of four striped colours black and grey and silver and red; his legs and feet and arms and hands were bare, and he had over one shoulder a staff, carved into serpentine curves, that carried a round bag, not unlike the balls with which the Juggler played. The bag rested against his shoulder, so that as he stood there he supported as well as bore it. Before him a dragon-fly, or some such airy creature, danced; by his side a larger thing, a lynx or young tiger, stretched itself up to him whether in affection or attack could not be guessed, so poised between both the beast stood. The man’s eyes were very bright; he was smiling, and the smile was so intense and rapt that those looking at it felt a quick motion of contempt no sane man could be as happy as that. He was painted as if pausing in his stride, and there was no scenic background; he and his were seen against a flatness of dull gold. (20)

It is through passages like this that Sybil is differentiated from the other characters, and the Fool is differentiated from the other major arcana except for the relationship between the Fool and the Juggler, which you may recall being the first card in the major arcana. The reader never once has needed to doubt Sybil’s status as saint, and Williams goes on to draw additional points of connection between Sybil and the Fool. Henry’s family gradually becomes aware of the affinity between these two, and they begin to see Sybil as the key to mastering the full supernatural powers of the original Tarots. Henry’s family has accumulated a wealth of information about the original Tarots, but Henry’s father tells us “there are no writings which tell us anything at all of the Fool“ (30). This is an early clue that there could be some element of the unconscious about the Fool, or perhaps

that his significance can only be understood through immediate experience. I want to direct your attention to this point of dissimilarity between the Fool and the Juggler a card that the family does understand. Even though Henry’s family has no information about the Fool, they know he plays an important role in the tarot deck and this is why they start plotting a way to enlist Sybil in their cause.

Henry’s family eventually gains possession of the original tarot deck and conjures (somewhat by accident) a supernatural snowstorm. Utter chaos ensues throughout the country home as the cards begin coming to life bringing with them all sorts of reality-bending mischief. As the rest of the novel progresses, only Sybil can navigate the supernatural upheaval and restore order. As a point of illustration, she is singular in her ability to close heavy doors blown open by the supernatural snowstorm. Near its end, the story comes to a climax of meaning and illumination with this scene:

Then suddenly they [being the Tarots] were gone, and the cloud was gone, and everywhere, breaking from Sybil’s erect figure, shone a golden light, as of the fullness of the sun in his glory, expanding in a rich fruition. Over the snow spread and heaped around, over Aaron and the others with him, over the stairs and the landing and those who were on it, and on over and through the whole house, the light shone, exquisite and full of promise, radiant and full of perfection. The chaos of the hall was a marvel of new shape and colour; the faces of those who stood around were illumined from within. It was Christmas night, but in the sunlight, between Sybil and Joanna, seriously engrossed, two small strange children played. The mystery which that ancient seer had worked in the Greater Trumps had fulfilled itself, at that time and in that place, to so high a point of knowledge. Sybil stood there, and from her the sun of the Tarots ruled, and the holy children of the sun, the company of the blessed, were seen at least by some of the eyes that watched. For Annabel saw them and was ignorantly at peace; and Aaron saw them and was ashamed; and Nancy and Henry saw them, and Nancy laughed for mere joy of seeing, and when he heard it Henry felt his heart labour as it had never done before with the summons and the power; and Sybil saw them and adored, and saw beyond them, running down the stairs between herself and Nancy as if he were their union, and poised himself behind Joanna as if he supported and protected her, the vivid figure of the Fool. He had come from all sides at once, yet he was but one. All-reconciling and perfect, he was there, running down the stairs [receiving and bestowing light] as he had run down the storm. (228)

A calm Christmas night in the English countryside is how the story concludes.

Now to piece together the story, the game and the intellectual collateral presented on emotion. It is Sybil’s emotional capacities the power of the saints as Edwards might say that gives her spiritual strength and mediates her connection with the Fool. The Fool, who is both inside and outside the major arcana, is, in Patterson’s view, also the subconscious counterpart to the Juggler, who is the conscious creator within the system (Patterson 29). The Fool is to our numinous spiritual experiences as the Juggler is to our theological accounts of God, and their embrace is the full accounting of the divine. The thesis of my brief paper is this: the Fool, the ultimate bringer of reconciliation and perfection in the story and in the game, is the personification of emotion as it is understood by Harris –unconscious feeling rising to the conscious intellect. It is our emotions that form the union between persons, and it is our emotional connection with God that perfects our lives. Augustine himself muses upon the compelling similarities between the three components of his philosophy of mind and the Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (The Trinity 15.21.41). Harris likewise muses about the Trinity as a metaphor for mind (Leidecker 236). Williams concludes his novel with something to say about this too:

The three great orders of grace and intellect and corporal strength […] gathered round the place where Sybil kneeled […] and the search within and the search without were joined. (229)

I am not trying to claim that Williams read Harris and then wrote The Greater Trumps. But I do think The Greater Trumps does an excellent job of taking the reader down the metaphysical ladder to explain the back and forth between unconscious feeling, and conscious intellect and will. I also think it does an excellent job of explaining the spiritual strength that pours out from the hearts of the saints. It is unfortunate that Harris fell out of academic and cultural memory, but his Psychologic Foundations was published late in the hour of idealism. Pragmatism was the dominant pattern of thought at the close of the nineteenth century and it continues to be the case up to our present moment (Leidecker 533535). I see a kind of parallel between Harris and Williams, who also fell into a kind of obscurity outshined by the other Oxford Christians. It is my hope that this paper might reignite some interest in these two brilliant thinkers.

In closing, the humanistic knowledge conveyed through these works shines light on what it means for God to be love. It also shines light on what it means to live the moral imperatives of loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. Conceptually speaking, I think all of this confers authority to Harris’s philosophy of mind and the central importance of feelings to who we are, and how we are to interact

with the world. To combine these theological and philosophical points is to strengthen Hochschild’s claim that emotion is the heart of sociology. Emotion, just like the Fool, ought to be placed at the center of it all. Emotion, just like the Fool, is both inside and outside of the system. It is sometimes conscious, and it is sometimes unconscious. This alludes to why scholars will probably never agree on one definition of emotion, and that is because there is something spiritual and unintelligible about it. Charles Williams teaches us that everything is foolish until it is known, and this is the way of it with the emotional forces that make up our professional, academic and personal lives (Williams 196).

Works Cited

Augustine. (1961). Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin. Penguin.

Augustine. (1963). The Trinity, trans. S McKenna. Catholic University of America Press.

d’Oliveira-Martins, M., & Hochschild, A. R. (2014, September 8).

Emotional Labor Around the World: An Interview with Arlie Hochschild. Global Dialogue.

Edwards, J. (1746). The Religious Affections. Banner of Light. Harris, W. T. (1898). Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind. D. Appleton and Company.

Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.

Leidecker, K. F. (1946). Yankee Teacher: The Life of William Torrey Harris. Philosophical Library, Inc.

Patterson, N.-L. (1974). The Triumph of Love: Interpretations of the Tarot in Charles Williams’ The Greater Trumps. Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings, 1(4).

Stump, E., & Kretzmann, N. (1992). Eternity, Awareness, and Action. Faith and Philosophy, 9, 463–482.

Williams, C. (1932). The Greater Trumps. Victor Gollancz Limited.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 43-48

The Hidden Dangers of Fast Fashion: Effect of Microfiber Pollution on Environmental and Human Health

Evelyn Sevick

Introduction

In the last 15 years, global clothing production has doubled, causing a significant increase in plastic pollution (Moorhouse, 2020). Based on this information, why do factories continue to produce fast fashion clothing that will remain in the ecosystem for decades?

More recently, the fashion industry has shifted towards a fast fashion model in which manufacturers produce cheap clothes made from plastic materials at a rapid pace, but the plastic that makes up these clothes contributes to a significant amount of pollution as individuals wash them and dispose of them shortly after purchase. The synthetic fibers release microplastics and dyes into the ecosystem and collect in water systems, seep into soils, and float in the air before it eventually bioaccumulates within the organisms that interact with their environment.

Once these plastic pollutants and textile dyes enter food webs, they remain in organisms for long periods of time and disrupt biodiversity as it kills sensitive organisms and causes reproductive defects, leading to a decrease in biodiversity as affected ecosystems only contain the species that can survive greater amounts of plastic pollutants (Periyasamy, 2023).

The production of fast fashion textiles requires a quick supply of fossil fuels as the plastics used to create fibers that consist of crude oil and natural gas, causing problems within the carbon biogeochemical cycle as increased carbon emissions enter the atmosphere (Abbate et al., 2024). Also, the increased deforestation required to create space for developing industries contributes to an imbalance of stored carbon and atmospheric carbon since trees absorb a great amount of atmospheric carbon.

The fast fashion industry not only harms biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles within ecosystems, but it also threatens human health. Workers in textile industries experience a great amount of exposure to unmanaged plastic pollutants and toxic dyes, and companies often disregard the health of the workers to avoid spending more money than necessary on health of the working environment. Low-income families often inhabit the surrounding areas of factories, meaning that they unfairly receive exposure to the pollutants irresponsibly disposed of into the surrounding environment (Bick et al., 2018).

Although most people fail to realize, humanity ingests and inhales microfibers around the world regardless of distance from textile industries. Microfibers contaminated everything people interact with, including the air they breathe inside and outside, the food they eat, and the water they drink, no matter where food and water originated from (Periyasamy, 2023).

The evolving system of fast fashion contributes to environmental injustice and significantly harms environmental and human health as microfibers easily contaminate and persist in ecosystems over long periods of time, but a transformation in consumer behavior and industry regulations could considerably reduce the rate of plastic textile production and decrease the amount of microplastic released into the environment.

Human Impact

While most of society places the blame for the pollution released by fast fashion factories on the industries themselves, the constant demand for buying cheap, new clothes as social media increases the popularity of trendy fashions significantly contributes towards the success of fashion industries more than society realizes.

More than ever before, as soon as clothes stain or tear, individuals dispose of them instead of repairing or repurposing them due to the immense amount of new clothes available for easy purchase (Koul et al., 2025).

Individuals buy an excess amount of clothes for various reasons, including boredom, social media trends, special events that require specific one-time use clothing items such as Halloween costumes, and a lack of education on the environmental and human health concerns associated with microfiber pollution caused by the fast fashion industry (Koul et al., 2025).

Since the fast fashion system provides industries with a quick flow of income despite the claims towards environmental and human health harm, most successful industries have almost no interest in responsible management of textile wastes and continue to use low-quality materials and carelessly release the pollutants into the surrounding area since business will continue regardless if they spend extra money on more environmentally friendly options or not (Abbate et al., 2024).

In a vicious, unethical cycle, low-income consumers purchase fast fashion clothing since they cannot afford new clothing made from natural materials, which further contributes to the amount of microfiber pollutants in their area as most low-income families live in the cheaper areas around factories. (Bick et al., 2018).

To combat these issues, individuals can complete several simple tasks that do not decrease quality of life. These include avoiding purchasing from fast fashion brands, shopping at thrift stores, repairing damaged clothing or repurposing it into different items such as hand

towels or quilts, purchasing clothes made with natural materials that break down in the environment quickly such as cotton, and most importantly, not buying new clothes at all since most individuals have plenty of clothing available in their closets for one person.

At the large-scale level, governments can enforce policies that ensure fast fashion industries responsibility manage the release of microfibers into the environment and improve the safety of working conditions along with policies that ban the production of synthetic textiles.

Individuals have the greatest impact on the amount of microfiber pollutants released into the environment through their economic decisions, but the lack of knowledge on the impact of these harmful pollutants causes society to mindlessly contribute to the increase in supply and demand for this detrimental source of clothing.

Economy and Policy

The fast fashion industry impacts more than just on environmental and human health as it also collides with the complex economic world. Since businesses often value profit over the environmental effects of their productions, the implementation of one policy cannot completely solve the problem of fast fashion’s environmental destruction.

The current fast fashion industry benefits consumers and producers alike since consumers must only pay a small amount for clothing while producers can use cheap materials to generate high profits, and workers benefit from the job opportunities provided by the industry (Abbate et al., 2024).

On the other hand, since clothing made from synthetic materials falls apart quickly and consumers dispose of them at a rapid rate, landfills increase in size until they can no longer support the great amount of nondegradable waste and governments must build new landfills to support the influx of clothing waste, meaning that the price of the new landfills passes down to the consumers who must ultimately pay the price (Bick et al., 2018).

Consequently, if industries switch to natural but more costly textiles and improve working conditions, then they will not profit from their goods as much as they would with cheap materials and labor, and consumers would have to pay more for their clothing.

To address this issue of profit maximization over serving others and the environment, government entities can introduce subsidies on natural textiles such as cotton and wool to encourage industries to use these sustainable materials over synthetic materials, especially if governments reduce the price of natural textiles below the price of synthetic textiles as businesses most often choose the cheapest options to produce the highest profits.

Specific policies to address environmental and human health harm caused by fast fashion manufacturers include taxes and fees on synthetic

materials, incentives on the purchase and use of natural textiles, and strict chemical regulations as well as several other policies that monitor chemical use and pollutant exposure.

Without the intentional execution of these policies, fast fashion industries may continue to conduct business using their current methods and further contribute to the decline in environmental and human health.

Ethics and Worldview

Opinions on fast fashion differ based on ethical philosophies and worldviews, but the industry raises several concerns about its ethical implications on people and the environment.

Through an anthropocentric view, fast fashion benefits humanity due to its affordability and reliable supply, and therefore the environment must suffer exposure to pollutants to support human development (Enger & Smith, 2021).

Through a biocentric view, every organism impacted by microfiber pollution holds the same value as any human exposed to pollution, meaning that fast fashion unethically harms organisms in both terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Through an ecocentric view, microfibers released into surrounding ecosystems harm the ecosystem as a whole and deprive its ability to perform ecosystem services as the pollutant bioaccumulates throughout entire food webs and travels through water systems (Enger & Smith, 2021).

Since all these perspectives form based on personal morals and opinions, a Christian worldview provides a consistent ethical foundation for both environmental and human health that believers and non-believers alike can apply towards the ethical implications of the fast fashion industry.

In Genesis 1:28, God declares the dominion mandate to Adam and Eve: “‘be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moved on the ground’” (New International Version, 2011).

God’s instruction to have dominion over every living creature on the earth calls humanity to care for the health of the environment rather than to exploit the resources God has provided for His creation.

Instead of mindlessly releasing pollutants into the environment for the benefit of convenience and affordability for humanity, individuals should honor His creation and consider the environmentally harmful implications of their consumer choices towards fast fashion (Bratton, 2018).

In his book A Different Shade of Green: A Biblical Approach to Environmentalism and the Dominion Mandate (2019), Gordon Wilson further establishes the importance of obeying the dominion mandate as he explains the caretaking role in which God has assigned humanity with over

His creation, and people must utilize His resources sustainably and in a God-honoring way as to not judge His creation and to instead support the growth of humanity while also encouraging environmental care.

When viewed through a biblical perspective, individuals can understand that the fast fashion industry fails to steward God’s creation, meaning that individuals within the industry must gain a biblical understanding of the dominion mandate to make ethical decisions that both foster human development and support environmental sustainability to ultimately honor God and His creation.

Conclusion

Overall, the environment cannot support the rapid rate of synthetic textile production and the microfibers released into ecosystems by the manufacturers and the clothes themselves, and humans must experience the same plastic pollution exposure through interactions with the environment and the synthetic clothing.

Consumers and producers promote the success of fast fashion and therefore contribute to an increase in plastic pollution in all aspects of terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Although fast fashion has released an extensive amount of plastic pollution into the environment that the naked eye cannot see, ecosystems can slowly recover through the help of individual and government actions such as altering purchasing habits to support sustainable clothing brands and policies that punish industries for irresponsibly releasing pollutants into surrounding areas.

Anyone can reduce the amount of microfiber pollution simply by reducing their consumption of clothing and instead purchasing clothes made from natural materials, preferably second-hand clothing.

Seemingly harmless economic decisions can significantly harm the environment as they can fund the unethical fast fashion industries to continue producing plastic clothing, so the responsibility lies in the consumers to make the environmentally sustainable decisions that ultimately contributes to environmental and human well-being while also honoring God through the careful dominion of His creation.

References

Abbate, S., Centobelli, P., Cerchione, R., Nadeem, S. P., & Riccio, E. (2024). Sustainability trends and gaps in the textile, apparel and fashion industries. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 26, 2837–2864. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02887-2

Bick, R., Halsey, E., & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, 17, 92. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Bratton, S. P. (2018). Eco-dimensionality as a religious foundation for sustainability. Sustainability, 10(4), 1021.

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041021

Enger, E.D. & Smith, B. F. (2021). Environmental Science (16th ed.). McGraw Hill Education

Koul, M., Tiwari, A., Khanna, K., Bisht, R. R., & Garg, S. (2025). Impact of fast fashion trends and knowledge of environmental impact on consumer behaviour: Promoting process safety and responsible consumption (SDG 12). Environmental Science Archives, 4(2), 521530. www.envsciarch.com/_files/ugd/4b6a78_9b10174bb21f4f 9eb247f4d2ed0c5420.pdf

Kounina, A., Daystar, J., Cordella, M., De Mey, J., Gabrielle, B., Tapia, C., Urrego, J. P., Van der Velden, R., & Boucher, J. (2024). The global apparel industry is a significant yet overlooked source of plastic leakage. Nature Communications, 15, 49441.

Moorhouse, D. (2020). Making fashion sustainable: Waste and collective responsibility. One Earth, 3(1), 17–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.002

New International Version. (2011). BibleGateway.com. https://www.biblegateway.com

Periyasamy, A. P. (2023). Microfiber emissions from functionalized textiles: Potential threat for human health and environmental risks. Toxics, 11(5), 406. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics11050406

Wilson, G. (2019). A Different Shade of Green: A Biblical Approach to Environmentalism and the Dominion Mandate. Canon Press

W. Jackson Watts 49

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 49-63

You

Shall be as Gods: Modern Technology and the Denaturing of Human Creatureliness

W. Jackson Watts

In 2024, philosopher Matthew Crawford described a memorable experience at a dinner party. He sat beside a man whose daughter had recently married. The father found it difficult to find the right words to say at her wedding reception. He had many memories, anecdotes, and basic facts about her life, yet he struggled to compose a fitting toast. He then told Crawford that he turned to ChatGPT, providing it with material simply to see what it offered. Not surprisingly, it produced what would have amounted to an average to above-average wedding toast perhaps preferrable to what he would have written himself. Ultimately, he opted not to use it. Crawford writes that “the intuition that stopped him from deferring to AI” is revealing.1

Human beings are the type of creatures for whom language is constitutive. Other mammals and members of the animal kingdom communicate in ways that we colloquially call “language,” yet humans are unique in the nature and sophistication of their language. They exercise care, intentionality, and engage in meaning making. 2 Crawford writes, “unlike an LLM [large language model] or a parrot, things have significance for us, and we search for words that will do justice to this significance.” Moreover, self-articulation seems fundamental to human nature. The father of the bride takes pen and paper and “strives to encompass in words the elusive truth of his daughter, as seen from the unique vantage of a father, in a way fitting for this pivotal movement in the progression of her life.” In articulating this relationship, it becomes more “fully revealed to him.”

We need not strain to see how different this is from an LLM calculating and acting on probabilities in word selection. Yet consider Crawford’s most startling claim: “If we accept that the challenge of articulating life in

1 MatthewֹB.ֹCrawford,ֹ“AIֹasֹSelf-Erasure,”ֹhttps://hedgehogreview.com/webfeatures/thr/posts/ai-as-self-erasure. Accessed 22 August 2024.

2 Yuval Noah Harari aptly illustrates the suppleness of human language in contrastֹwithֹotherֹspecies.ֹHeֹsays,ֹ“Weֹcanֹconnectֹaֹlimitedֹnumberֹofֹsoundsֹ and signs to produce an infinite number of sentences, each with a distinct meaning. We can thereby ingest, store and communicate a prodigious amount of informationֹaboutֹtheֹsurroundingֹworld.”ֹSeeֹSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (NewֹYork:ֹHarper,ֹ2015),ֹ22.ֹHarari’sֹnarrativeֹofֹhumankindֹisֹ fascinating, if also highly speculative and not altogether convincing.

the first person, as it unfolds, is central to human beings, then to allow an AI to do this on our behalf suggests self-erasure of the human.”

“Erasure of the human” is both an ominous and ambiguous phrase. From at least the time of Francis Bacon in the early seventeenth century, Westerns have adopted the narrative of technical progress that emphasizes the improvement of human life. (Increasingly, we’re told that human nature itself can be improved through our manmade interventions.) Yet we’re increasingly warned by politicians, educators, social critics, and even technologists themselves that our devices are undermining us.

These harmful effects have been widely documented. They include the strain on relationships and the body politic.3 Economic dislocations are a major theme in tech criticism as widescale automation and artificial intelligence intrude on many industries.4 Mental health has also become a prominent theme in recent literature.5 The well-being of adolescents and adults alike is a growing concern, so much so that the last U.S. Surgeon General sounded the alarm.6 While the negative political, economic, and mental health effects of new technologies are a concern, something deeper is being missed. Far too few accounts of so-called “tech criticism”, especially from Christians, show how technological engagement reorients and erodes other features of creaturely life. Particularly, modern technologies often diminish our awareness of human contingency and finitude, especially as these are illustrated by our dependence upon and embeddedness within the natural world.

To state it another way, human creatureliness, especially as characterized by physical embodiment (and therefore human finitude and dependence), is undermined and contradicted by the dominant technological ethos.7 It is particularly at odds with the stated goals of such a society. Accordingly, Christians committed to preserving and honoring

3 Cf. Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World (New York: Back Bay Books, 2022); Johann Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention And How to Think Deeply Again (New York: Cross, 2022); Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

4 Cf. Darrell M. West, The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution 2018).

5 Cf. Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. (New York: Penguin, 2024).

6 MichelleֹChapman,ֹ“Tobacco-like warning label for social media sought by US SurgeonֹGeneralֹwhoֹasksֹCongressֹtoֹact.”ֹhttps://apnews.com/article/surgeongeneral-social-media-mental-health-df321c791493863001754401676f165c Accessed 20 August 2024.

7 Adam Kirsch says that the two prevailing narratives are that of (Anthropocene) antihumanism and transhumanism. See Kirsch, The Revolt of Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2023), 11.

God’s good intentions for human creatures must be vigilant about the denaturing forces around us and upon us.

The Trouble with Nature

The linguist Raymond Williams famously asserted that “nature” and “culture” were “among the two or three most complicated words in the English language.”8 It’s not too surprising that these words make the cut. Christians often define nature as those things which occur in creation by Divine design, whereas culture refers to the ways humans interact with and create new things from nature. However, both words have a wide semantic range.

Nevertheless, when I speak of something like human nature I don’t intend it as a moral description, as in human depravity. Instead, I mean more generally “the way human beings are by virtue of their design.” Humans are creatures. God made them, even if procreation mirrors (by analogy) something like making. 9 Human creatures have a particular constitution which makes certain ways of being in the world possible, and other ways impossible. We eat, drink, wear clothing, exercise, fight, and engage in romantic relationships. Conversely, we don’t jump over buildings, physically occupy multiple spaces concurrently, procreate with other species, or absorb oxygen from water. Collectively, we can call these possibilities and limits our “nature.” As the sociologist Christian Smith explains, “human beings as they exist in the world embody a particular constitution they have a human nature rooted in nature more broadly.”10

However, both the tools with which humans interact, as well as the larger values and assumptions associated with their social environment, can de-nature humanity. That is to say, they have a material effect on how humans think and act in the world. To be precise, it may be best to say they re-nature. Human beings certainly aren’t always dehumanized in the run-of-the-mill happenings of everyday life. Instead, they are reoriented in how they experience the world as embodied creatures, creatures who are inherently finite and dependent.

“You shall be as gods” harkens back to the words of the Serpent in Eden. He falsely promises Adam and Eve something which was never God’s intent for them. While this false promise is associated with the discernment of good and evil, it conveyed a deeper message: what you are and what you have is insufficient. You could have and be more. The

8 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 49, 219.

9 OliverֹO’Donovanֹcallsֹthisֹbeingֹ begotten.ֹSeeֹO’Donovan,ֹ Begotten or Made? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).

10 Christian Smith, What is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 10, 15. Emphasis mine.

implication is clear: God’s gifts and designs are stingy, cruel, or at the very least, limiting. As Genesis 3-6 will make clear, failing to listen to God leaves us not only as “not-gods,” but creatures diminished in their imagebearing vocation.11

Anne Snyder wisely reminds us, “Limits are something we learn to respect, typically by experiencing the consequences of exceeding them.”12 There’s no truer example of this than Adam and Eve. But in modernity the concepts of nature, limits, and personhood are under assault.

What Do We Want?

No one needs to be convinced that the digital landscape has changed dramatically in 14 years.13 What hasn’t changed is the obsession with human mastery over time and space. We grow more anxious and less patient even as we enjoy computing speeds previously unimaginable. Data storage options are generously available for our digital needs. And the explosion of video platforms from Google Meet to Marco Polo to Microsoft Teams to Zoom make transcending physical space a daily experience. The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated this trend, but it was already occurring prior to 2020.

What has changed? Our ability to wait for things is still being eroded by our engagement with “high-speed” everything.14 Attention spans continue to shrink. 15 And anxiety rates soar, even as we grow more prosperous, accessible, flexible, and supposedly efficient in our professional and personal experiences. However, consider two notable developments.

First, not only do the functionality of and assumptions surrounding modern technologies seek to transcend time and space. They increasingly transfigure the way we think about matter, or materiality. Second, the quest to transcend time, space, and matter is often invisible to us in its effects on both the natural world and on human beings, who are

11 OneֹnightֹrecallֹhereֹD.A.ֹCarson’sֹpoignantֹphrase,ֹ“theֹde-godding of God. See D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2002).

12 AnnֹSnyder,ֹ“Embodiment’sֹGrace,”ֹComment 39:3 (Summer 2021), 4–5.

13 Inֹ2010,ֹVerizonֹWirelessֹlaunchedֹtheirֹ“Ruleֹtheֹair”ֹcampaign.ֹThisֹwasֹ certainly a harbinger of technical mastery of the digital landscape.

14 Johann Hari, Stolen Focus

15 This claim is well-established in the literature, but how this has happened in conjunction with email checking would be an easy example to illustrate how ubiquitous the problem is. See Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload (New York: Penguin, 2021), 3–93.

themselves embodied and embedded in nature. I’ll provide two illustrations of both developments.

“Gender-Affirming Surgeries”

Contemporary America is the most visible host to one of the greatest crises imaginable: a rejection of biological sex as a good and normative pathway to discovering and expressing gender. The roots of this crisis are deep, arguably at least two hundred years old.16 It’s not merely a cultural conflict, but a debate which touches the heart of civilization and human identity: what is a person and what is a body?

Perhaps the first major indication that the crisis was deeper than a handful of preteens with “the wrong kind of friends” is whenever the main medical procedure in question migrated from “sex-change surgery” to “gender-reassignment surgery” to “gender-affirming care.” Orwellian vibes aside, the distress created by feeling that one’s gender identity differed from one’s “assigned” biological sex cannot be remedied by conventional therapeutic interventions. Instead, otherwise healthy bodies must be acted upon. A natural process must be stopped (puberty). Bodies need a different set of hormones. Such bodies require a scalpel to remove and/or manipulate breast tissue, genitalia, and more. The body isn’t a natural given to help discern one’s identity; it is an impediment, a mistake, a prison.

More than intellectual, psychological, or expressly theological errors underwrite modern gender confusion.17 The ability and willingness to perform such “medical interventions” on largely healthy bodies has created a plausibility structure wherein we believe that because we can do something, we should do something.18 While many won’t recognize this as a technological problem, it is. Τεχνή, from which we derive technology, refers to human craft, skill, or art. It’s more than a thing. In fact, it’s much more about capacity than objects or devices. This speaks to what underlies

16 Carl Trueman, Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020).

17 Part of the underlying theological error which views the body as a problem, or even a prison, has deep roots in church history. Some of the ancient confusion can no doubt be attributed to the influence of the early Gnostics, while some of the modern confusion, I believe, stems from a simple but unfortunate translation of sarx (σαρξ)ֹasֹ“flesh.”ֹ(ModernֹEnglish-speakers think first about materiality and bodiesֹwhenֹtheyֹhearֹtheֹword,ֹnotֹ“fallen,ֹunredeemedֹhumanity.”)ֹWhateverֹ the specific source of the error, it remains: the body is bad, or at best, a limitation to be overcome. Few English speakers would deny that the most common connotationֹofֹtheֹwordֹ“limits”ֹisֹnegative.

18 This insight is expressed well in Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage, 1993).

all so-called technological advancements: the human ability and, eventually, the drive to make things.

In a culture which prizes not only its tools but its techne, solutions like “gender-affirming care” become plausible. As many tech critics in the last century warned, in a means-driven society, ends get lost, or at least become irrelevant.19 If we don’t know what a body is for, then what we do with it becomes secondary, subject to personal fulfillment and selfactualization.

“Brain Computer Interfaces”

Neuralink is a neurotechnology company Elon Musk founded in 2016. It’s not the only company in this market space, but it’s by far the best known. Its primary product is a brain-computer interface that is “fully implantable, cosmetically invisible, and designed to let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go.”20 They assert that their technology intends to “restor[e] autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today” Yet they also seek to “unlock human potential tomorrow.”

To these ends they are conducting clinical trials, having implanted their device in several individuals coping with either spinal cord injuries or ALS.21 This innovation would have sounded like science fiction ten or 15 years ago, but this possibility is now here. Regardless of how fascinating these developments may be, a larger question remains: what assumptions about materiality, and the body specifically, are at work?

Imagine someone crippled at birth or due to an auto accident. They could be able to manipulate the space around them to lead a normal life. Companies such as Neuralink seem to offer a second chance at something like a normal life. If people can navigate their homes, education, and public life generally through interface with a computer, this seems lifeaffirming. While these devices will not restore function to a particular limb, they minimize dependence upon nurses, family, and well-meaning neighbors to perform everyday tasks. Moreover, they seem to fall within the scope of what most Christians would consider ethical medicine. However, recall the other side of Neuralink’s promise: “unlock human potential tomorrow.” What starts as meeting a need gradually enables an aspiration. What often begins by addressing a legitimate

19 I am indebted to Dr. Bruce Little for first sharing this insight with me. Little is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He was channeling the insights of figures like Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman.

20 https://neuralink.com/ Accessed 22 August 2024.

21 Theֹrecentֹcallֹforֹparticipantsֹinֹaֹclinicalֹtrialֹputsֹitֹplainly:ֹ“redefiningֹtheֹ boundariesֹofֹhumanֹcapabilitiesֹrequiresֹpioneers.”

medical need easily migrates into a trans-humanistic venture.22 How will we respond when implantable devices which work in tandem with our brains are implanted into entirely healthy bodies? If this enhances one’s experience of online gaming, is that a sufficient moral basis for proceeding? Or, what if we allow our bodies to sleep at night, while some functionality could be reserved via device for composing a grocery list for the next day? In 2026, these thought experiments aren’t so experimental. Tony Reinke summarizes the distinctions well:

In response to debilitating challenges, neurological implants may help remedy strokes, brain seizures, blindness, deafness, and even paralysis. They may even help alleviate depression, anxiety, and addictions. But ethics are sketchier when we talk about the use of these implants to augment healthy people.23

The distinction between restoration and augmentation or enhancement is no small one.24 Restoration puts back in place something that previously functioned or that currently fails to attain an established standard or norm. Note that this idea assumes something like a givenness, design, or a nature. Conversely, to augment or enhance refers to expanding something’s existing capabilities. This seems innocuous. Doesn’t weighttraining augment or enhance, not restore? Aren’t some forms of exercise doing more than restoring?

The answer lies in bodily design itself: muscle mass matters to our overall picture of bodily health and well-being. Lung capacity certainly matters to bodily health and well-being. Stretching or “pushing ourselves” is well-within the framework of what our bodies are capable of under normal circumstances. In fact, they seem quite well-suited to some degree of lifting, pulling, jumping, and the like. They do not seek to transcend the given body. They draw forth the potential already embedded within it.

To summarize, the contemporary technological ethos increasingly sees the body as a limit to be overcome, not a gift to be received. It does not see finitude as a good or even an inescapable fact, but an unfortunate biological constraint that we should rightfully aim to surpass.

Unseen Impacts

The second aspect of recent cultural developments is the quest to transcend time, space, and matter. It’s often invisible, both in terms of its

22 Many conscientious citizens warned about the inevitable migration of medical marijuana for chronic sufferers to its legalization for recreational uses. This precise development has happened in many states.

23 Reinke, God, Technology, and the Christian Life, 252.

24 BlakeֹCrouch’sֹ2022ֹnovelֹUpgrade (and ones like it) feels less sci-fi and more of a preview.

impact on the natural world and upon human beings who are themselves creatures embedded in nature.

These two assertions are mutually reinforcing. Human pursuits which do not respect human nature, including embodiment, are almost always disrespectful toward the natural world as well. This in turn undermines humanity in two ways. First, human finitude and dependence are ignored. Second, society also ignores the ways in which humans depend upon the natural world.

I will illustrate these interrelated assertions by highlighting the myth of digital immateriality, and by reflecting on the unique relationship between human creatures and the earth.

“The Myth of Digital Immateriality”

Writing in Comment, Michael Sacasas cautions against a widespread, modern lie. He writes,

There is an evident temptation to imagine that digital media constitutes an immaterial and disembodied realm of human activity. . . Virtual reality and cyberspace, for example, both suggest an abstract realm detached from the sphere of things and bodies. Similarly, when we interact on social media, it is too easy to think of our interlocutors as mere avatars existing in an ethereal realm detached from the so-called realm world. The problem with digital culture, however, is not that it is, in fact immaterial and disembodied, but that we have come to think of it as such.25

The latter claim could be argued as being self-evident. After all, who hasn’t experienced the ways in which modern technology makes us “forgetful of our bodies”?26 Many have found it all-too-easy to sit for hours watching YouTube videos, scrolling on a device, or online gaming, not realizing that a mealtime has passed, or the wee-hours of the morning have arrived. Think of how “binge” has migrated from being a negative way of eating to a typical way of viewing shows on a streaming service. Sacasas has such examples in mind when he speaks of how digital culture disembodies us, causing us not to consider how our technologies engage (or disengage) our bodies.

However, he painfully illustrates the real-world impacts of our pursuit of technological progress and mastery. He writes of the Chinese city of Baotou, where an artificial lake of toxic, infernal sludge exists. More sites like these have emerged around the globe, making the environment

25 L.M.ֹSacasas,ֹ“TheֹMaterialityֹofֹDigitalֹCulture,”ֹinֹComment 39:3 (Summer, 2021): 51–59.

26 Sacasas uses this phrase, citing Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court: 1999), 5.

dangerous and unlivable. Such sites exist because they are practically unavoidable as the mining efforts of rare-earth metals have ramped up to meet the global demand (especially Western demand) for the latest innovations. Many of the essential components of these devices include rare-earth metals. Thus, they must be extracted from wherever they can be found, cheaply, quickly, and often carelessly.

Besides the hazards these sites create for those working or living near them, perhaps the greatest problem is that they are invisible to those who benefit from the bounty which has been extracted. We don’t see lakes of toxic sludge in most American communities. We do not consider their existence. And if we do, we are not sufficiently troubled by them to curb our consumer appetites. We do not see the massive data centers increasingly dotting the natural landscape. After all, it’s really in the “cloud,” or is it? Nevertheless, humanity pays a long-term price for the short-term demands of digital supremacy.

“

Formed from the Dust of the Earth”

One of the more striking Scriptural pictures of human beings is God creating man from the dust of the earth. While it is only when God breathes (ruach) into the dust that man becomes a living creature (nephesh) and bears God’s image, the dust isn’t inconsequential. It gives form to the image-bearer. However, something deeper is at work. Our origins in the dust of the earth heightens our sense of our finitude, our limits, and especially our dependence upon the earth to live the good life God has in mind.

In his book From Nature to Creation, Norman Wirzba argues that God’s existence, human value, and respect for creation hinge upon each other.

27 Wirzba provides two insights that are especially relevant. First, “the way we name and narrate the world determines how we are going to live within it.”

28 Second, “creatureliness is the overarching metaphysical framework in terms of which human life and action receive their significance and value.”

29 Let’s briefly consider both claims.

While Sacasas is concerned about a naïve view of digital culture’s impact, Wirzba is concerned about a naïve view of language, one which sees language as neutral, inert, or inconsequential to how we understand and navigate the world. He invites us to imagine calling a plant a flower instead of a weed. A flower evokes pleasant thoughts and associations. We will be more likely to enjoy, honor, and even protect the flower, whereas we seek to eradicate weed. It is unwanted, harmful, parasitic even. Similarly, what if we describe a plant as a vegetable in development? We

27 Norman Wirzba, From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 7.

28 Wirzba, From Nature to Creation,18

29 Ibid., 96–97.

may come to see this plant “as an indispensable member of [our] household economy because vegetables feed [us] and thus make [our] life possible and potentially a delectable experience.”30 What we call things matters.31

If we apply this thought experiment to terms like “nature” and “creation,” the significance of language to life comes into focus. Too often the use of “nature” to describe God’s world renders the world more vulnerable to being reduced to a mechanism or a resource to be used as we see fit. However, “creation” inclines us to “see it and our involvement with it in a particular, God-honoring sort of way. It is not a material mechanism that runs according to its own laws. It is instead the material manifestation of God’s love operating within it.”32 Perhaps the most vivid way Wirzba reinforces this claim is in saying that “food is God’s love made delectable.” 33 Conversely, the ethos of a technocratic society tends to reduce creation to a world of natural “resources” to keep pace with human desires. However, earth does not depend upon us; we depend upon it. This is where Wirzba’s second claim above comes into view. Some might be tempted to argue that he exaggerates when he claims that “creatureliness is the overarching metaphysical framework in terms of which human life and action receive their significance and value.” However, when we look at the ground we must pause and remember our limits and dependence. We need the earth to give forth its fruit to eat. “Eating is the most intimate act whereby we witness to our need of and dependence on others.”34 These others include people, but also animals, plants, and soil. Consider that Eve comes from Adam’s side, and thus, she does not exist of her own volition. Yet Adam’s origins are in the soil itself. Soil is a marvelous thing which God uses to bring forth life. Even as we understand human creation as a special Divine act, it is striking that soil continues to bring forth life as part of God’s good design for his glorious (and often edible!) creation.35 Indiscriminate use of pesticides, fungicides, and other chemicals all technologies call into question a biblically shaped vision of the earth. Moreover, they presuppose human supremacy over creation, not loving stewardship and interdependence. Quite aside from simple carelessness with chemicals, a milieu in which obsession with techne prevails makes honoring creation increasingly unlikely. Short of radical

30 Ibid., 19.

31 Oneֹneedֹnotֹbeֹaֹpostmodernistֹorֹanֹadvocateֹforֹtheֹ“strong”ֹversionֹofֹtheֹ Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in linguistics to agree with this claim.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.,124.

34 Ibid., 121.

35 Wirzbaֹsays,ֹ“ItֹisֹanֹastoundingֹthingֹtoֹsayֹthatֹtheֹlifeֹofֹGodֹbeginsֹandֹ finds a basic (and abiding) point of contact in the ground beneath our feet.ֹ[…]ֹ The dependence described in the Genesis story is not abstract or optional. It is embodied,ֹandֹsmeltֹinֹeveryֹbreatheֹandֹtastedֹinֹeveryֹswallowֹandֹbite.”ֹ(103)

environmentalism often prone to regard nature as god itself market forces and consumer demands have won the day.36 When we do not see the world rightly, we do not treat the world rightly.37 Conversely, when we do not take seriously human beings as embodied creatures, finite and dependent by nature, we in turn do not take seriously our embeddedness within creation.

Taking God, the World, and Ourselves Seriously

Early Internet and tech pioneer Jaron Lanier once wrote: “In the last year or two the trend has been to remove the scent of people, so as to come as close as possible to simulating the appearance of content emerging out of the Web as if it were speaking to us as a supernatural oracle.”38 This was in 2006. These trends have only intensified as digital life evolves and as the moral significance of the body and the material world is eclipsed.

36 CraigֹGayֹsummarizesֹtheֹhistoricalֹsituationֹwell:ֹ“A mistaken theological conception of the nature of creation may thus lie behind the activistic, manipulative, and thoroughly anthropocentric bent of modern scientific culture. Science’sֹunderstandingֹofֹnature,ֹafterֹall,ֹdoesֹnotֹsimplyֹexposeֹtheֹfactֹthatֹ nature has been disenchanted, but also that nature is theologically mute. Indeed, understood scientifically, nature does not bespeak anything beyond the possibility that God if he exists at all is apparently creative and powerful. This narrowing ofֹcreation’sֹtheologicalֹsignificanceֹhasֹgrantedֹaֹgreatֹdealֹofֹfreedomֹtoֹ scientific inquiry and to the technological manipulation of nature; but it has also contributed substantially to the sterility, barrenness, and impersonality of modern technologicalֹsocietyֹandֹculture.”ֹSee Craig M. Gay, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why it’s Tempting to Live as if God Doesn’t Exist (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,ֹ1998),ֹ121.ֹWhat’sֹespeciallyֹironicֹisֹthatֹclassicalֹbiblicalֹteachingֹ isֹwhatֹprovidesֹtheֹbasisֹforֹmodernֹscience.ֹJensֹZimmermannֹnotes,ֹ“theֹ Judeo-Christian idea of creation assumes the inherent intelligibility of nature, of a rationalֹuniverse.”ֹOnlyֹsuchֹaֹuniverseֹcouldֹbeֹstudied and understood scientifically! See Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2012), 117.

37 Trueman elaborates on the problem of rejecting the normativity and meaningfulnessֹofֹnature.ֹ“Ifֹsociety/cultureֹisֹmerelyֹaֹconstruct,ֹandֹifֹnatureֹ possesses no intrinsic meaning or purpose, then what meaning there is must be createdֹbyֹhumanֹbeingsֹthemselves.”ֹThe Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, 195.

38 JaronֹLanier,ֹ“DigitalֹMaoism:ֹTheֹHazardsֹofֹtheֹNewֹOnlineֹCollectivism,”ֹ citedֹinֹMatthewֹCrawford,ֹ“AIֹasֹSelf-Erasure.”ֹLanier’sֹremarksֹareֹaccessibleֹ at https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maoism-the-hazards-ofthe-new-online-collectivism. Accessed 28 August 2024.

Christians must reaffirm that our faith is a world-affirming faith.39 That is to say, it affirms the goodness of material existence.40 In addition to our doctrine of creation, the doctrines of incarnation, resurrection, ascension, and future resurrection should reinforce our affirmation of the body. These collectively provide a foundation and framework for seeing human embodiment as good, even as that entails finitude and dependence. We are first dependent upon the Creator. Tony Reinke explains, “Creaturely autonomy is a fantasy. God’s providence over the world, his church, and our lives is reality.”41 In a world which prizes speed, efficiency, overworking, and omnipresence, this is a challenging claim to accept. It’s even more challenging to live in light of daily.

If an affirmation of the body’s goodness is biblical, then the entailments of that affirmation must be acknowledged. “Finitude is an unavoidable aspect of our creaturely existence,” writes Kelly Kapic.42 All creatures “are limited by space, time, and power, and our knowledge, energy, and perspective also have always been limited.”43 This is not a concession to the doctrine of sin, even if human sinfulness does alter the dynamic of these limits also. For example, by virtue of God’s design, I cannot be fully present everywhere at once. Due to pride in technological achievement, I increasingly manifest the belief that I can be everyone at once. After all, my digital tools seem to enable that. Pride, then, causes me to reject the limits creation imposes on me. Humility is needed to recognize that I am not God, nor something more or less than human. There are many ways Christian virtue and sanctification aid us in trying to recover the goodness of embodiment in a tech-driven world. However, I’ll conclude with two areas that can condition us to appreciate both the goodness of the body and the goodness of limits and dependence.

Sabbath

Many theologians have recently invited us to situate the Sabbath within a larger theological context and trajectory. 44 Far more than a

39 We should recall that kosmos has at least three distinct meanings in Greek, only one of which refers to the fallen world/unredeemed human activity the world we’reֹtoldֹnotֹtoֹloveֹinֹ1ֹJohnֹ2.ֹ

40 I am reminded of the wonderful adage of Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio Journal:ֹ“Matterֹmatters.”

41 Reinke, God, Technology, and the Christian Life, 267.

42 Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (GrandֹRapids:ֹBrazos,ֹ2022),ֹ6.ֹKapic’sֹawardwinning book is a superb treatment of human finitude.

43 Kapic, You’re Only Human, 12.

44 TwoֹofֹtheֹmoreֹconsequentialֹtreatmentsֹofֹSabbathֹincludeֹNormanֹWirzba’sֹ Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Grand Rapids: Brazos,ֹ2006),ֹandֹMarvaֹDawn’sֹKeepinֹtheֹSabbathֹWhollyֹ(GrandֹRapids:ֹ

narrow, binding principle about limiting human activity one day of the week, many are recovering a notion of Sabbath that has implications for more than Lord’s Day worship.

Joel Biermann argues for a vision of Sabbath which sees it as part of the vita receptiva (“the receptive life”).45 Such a life is one in which God is the giver, and we are the ones who gratefully, humbly, and joyfully receive. Among these gifts are work, rest, and play. As we engage in these practices, we exhibit both a grateful spirit but also a dependent existence. Our work only yields fruit because of God’s good earth. We rest because God gave us bodies which require it quite apart from the sweat of our brows. And we play because God gave us bodies capable of interacting with creation in a joyful and dynamic manner.

By “practicing Sabbath” seven days a week, we honor the body, the earth, and God. There are times when we do cease from particular activities as either a concession to our created finitude, or due to the limits imposed by a fallen world. The pace of life created by technological advances certainly factors in. Reinke writes, “In the age of steam, machines, and computers, the church reminds the world of the Sabbath rest.” 46 Of course, due to human sinfulness we’re capable of getting activities and schedules out of proportion. However, Sabbath entails both active and passive responses to a God who made us embodied, finite, dependent creatures.

Sabbath is only possible when viewed as God’s gift to humanity, not an arbitrary barrier to human flourishing. Seeing created life, particularly the body, as a gift enables us to see Sabbath as a commensurate gift. As Norman Wirzba powerfully argues, “In the most fundamental sense, every body is a place of gift.”47 That gift is accompanied by the rhythms of work, rest, and recreation.

Sexuality

A common complaint lodged against confessional Christians is that they spend far too much time focused on sexuality and gender.48 This

Eerdmans, 1989). For an accessible look at multiple perspectives, see Christopher John Donato, ed., Perspectives on the Sabbath: Four Views (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2011). For a more recent treatment within confessional Lutheranism, see Joel Biermann, Day 7: For Work, Rest or Play (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 2024).

45 Joel Biermann, Day 7: For Work, Rest, or Play (St. Louis: Concordia, 2024), 241–242.

46 Reinke, 282.

47 Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 103. Emphasis his.

48 Readers should note that I am purposely placing gender under the larger heading of sexuality in order to privilege an older understanding of sex as not merely about the act of intercourse.

complaint is ironic on two levels. First, it presupposes that a libertarian understanding of human freedom in these areas is good for society, without further argument. Notice that no one sees the Christian response as fitting, given the fact that liberal societies have staked so much on sexual freedom and gender exploration. (They aren’t the obsessed ones, in other words. The church is!)

However, a second irony is that society is so invested in these topics because it believes they are worthy concerns. Christians couldn’t agree more. The sexed body is so important and so are its possibilities and limits. Therefore, we must all be full participants in contending for it means to be male and female in relation to one another.

I mention above that surgical “gender-reassignment” is an example of how technique biases the debate over Gender Dysphoria/transgenderism in a particular direction. Yet another obstacle is the long-standing, public/private dichotomy that underwrites life and politics in liberal societies. This bypasses questions of sexual order, relegating it to the realm of “private actors” doing with their bodies what they desire. (Think of the sentiment “My body, my choice” applied to everything, and not merely abortion.)

However, relegating sexuality to the realm of the private, or minimizing it more generally is both out of step with Scripture and even the least ambitious natural law proposals. R.J. Snell writes:

Quite a bit is at stake with respect to sexual morality; with each and every action, of any sort, the character and flourishing of the agent is at stake a person is at stake, and persons are intrinsically valuable. From this perspective, sexual matters are neither less nor more important than any other, for every voluntary act constitutes (in part) the character of the agent. That sex is immediately tied to the body, instinct, emotions, desires, and passions does not elevate or diminish its relevance to our well-being. We are composite beings ensouled bodies not dualistic things, and what we do with our bodies we do, the person does, the entirety of the person does, since there is no self distinct from our body and no body divorced or separated from our self. Virtue is always, in every context, dealing with our body; for virtue is about us, ourselves, and we are a body, and virtue is always and in every instance related to our instincts, emotions, desires, and passions. Virtue orders humans as we are, in our totality.49

49 R.J.ֹSnell,ֹ“WhyֹSexֹMatters.”ֹ https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/08/95687/?utm_source=rss&utm_medi um=rss&utm_campaign=why-sex-matters. Accessed 26 August 2024.

Sexuality entails everything from physical acts to personal character to bodily well-being to the generation of new life. Even if one accepts some form of “sexual minimalism” when it comes to which aspects of the topic are subject to public debate and policy, we will never escape the debate. Sexuality implicates bodies, and people have bodies. All of them. Moreover, in a social and cultural context where personal identity is paramount, we will not escape substantive debates over all bodily life (whether male or female).50

Conclusion

Because all human life is lived in the body, the implications of how we shape our tools and how our tools shape us are far reaching. They are daunting, but Michael Sacasas offers a hopeful word:

New technologies challenge us. If we are up to the challenge, they give us the opportunity to reconsider things we have taken for granted. They invite us to rethink and recalibrate our assumptions about what it means to be human, perhaps even to reclaim some goods we had lost sight of along the way.51

Those goods, I contend, include understanding oneself as a Divine imagebearer whose image-bearing activities occur not in an immaterial mental or spiritual world. Rather, they occur in the context of embodied life in a world that nourishes us even as we steward it. We are limited and will always be limited. We are dependent and will always be dependent. While our finitude and dependence must be understood in the light of the curse of sin and the ongoing temptations of technological life, we must first ground our understanding by respecting and believing that we are creatures who were made very good.

50 AnnֹSnyderֹpoignantlyֹsummarizes:ֹ“To be human is to be called by name, not a number. It is to be attached to another, usually multiple others, and to negotiate the evolving shape of these attachments over a lifetime. It is to be perceived as legitimate, as a full participant in a family, a community, a workplace, a country. It is to have freedom to choose between good and evil, and to be capable of hurting or healing another. It is to be fragile, embodied, limited, mortal. It is to seek and make meaning, to feel pain, to desire, to honour, to worship. It is to hope that we are each particular and unrepeatable, even as we are desperate to know thatֹweֹareֹneverֹactuallyֹalone.”ֹ“WhoֹDoֹYouֹSayֹThatֹIֹAm?”ֹComment 40:4 (Fall 2022), 4-6.

51 L.M.ֹSacasas,ֹ“Re-sourcingֹtheֹMind.”ֹֹ https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/re-sourcing-the-mind. Accessed 26 August 2024.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 64-69

“Dear Little Brownie”: Horses as Symbols of Christian Stewardship in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction

John J. Han

Introduction

In the early twentieth century, Harold Bell Wright (1872-1944) emerged as one of the most widely read American novelists, shaping popular perceptions of rural life through his fiction set in the Ozarks.1 His novels present the region not merely as a physical setting but as a moral landscape in which character is tested, refined, and revealed. While Wright’s work has often been discussed in terms of didacticism, religious commitments, and pastoral vision, relatively little attention has been paid to the symbolic function of animals within his fiction.

This essay argues that horses in Wright’s Ozarks novels are more than utilitarian elements of rural life; they serve as indicators of moral character and vehicles for articulating a distinctly Christian ethic of stewardship. Through his treatment of horses, Wright constructs a moral framework in which compassion toward animals reflects spiritual integrity, while neglect indicates ethical failure. His fiction advances a vision of moral ecology in which human responsibility extends to all of creation. This essay focuses on the representation of horses in two of Wright’s Ozarks novels The Shepherd of the Hills (1907) and The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909) while situating these depictions within the cultural and material realities of early twentieth-century Ozarks life.

Horses and the Material Realities of Ozarks Life

At the turn of the twentieth century, horses were essential to daily life in rural Ozarks communities. Where mechanized transportation was largely absent, horses enabled mobility, facilitated trade, and supported agricultural labor. They were deeply embedded in the economic and social fabric of the region, serving as vital instruments of both survival and status.

In his book Pioneers of the Ozarks, Lennis Leonard Broadfoot (1891–1984) combines brief biographies of Ozarks residents with handdrawn illustrations.2 In the preface, Broadfoot emphasizes the authenticity of his portrayals: “They are the true types, and people that I know intimately. Every picture is a careful life study. I have treated them

seriously, honestly, literally, and without injecting a vestige of satire” (7). Several pages depict figures with horses, including a fox hunter on horseback (21) and a man using a horse for “cheap transportation” in the hills (43).

This centrality also helps explain the cultural weight of horse stealing. While not necessarily more frequent than other rural crimes, it carried severe economic consequences and strong moral stigma. An 1878 incident in Carroll County, Arkansas in which two accused horse thieves from Missouri were hanged by a local posse underscores the seriousness of such offenses. In Harold Bell Wright’s That Printer of Udell’s, for example, the prevalence of horse theft is hinted at in a striking moment of dialogue: when the protagonist seeks employment at a print shop, the owner remarks, “I don’t care if you’re wanted for horse stealing. Can you go to work now?” (40).

Wright’s depictions of horses are thus grounded in the material conditions of mountain life, where travel across rugged terrain required endurance and reliability.3 His attention to detail reinforces this realism: the word horse appears 39 times in That Printer of Udell’s, 100 times in The Shepherd of the Hills, and 27 times in The Calling of Dan Matthews. More importantly, his characters depend on their animals not only for their livelihoods but also for maintaining connections to the broader community. The ethical implications of human-animal relationships are embedded in everyday practice, reinforcing the idea that moral character is revealed through ordinary acts of care and responsibility.

Horses and Moral Character in The Shepherd of the Hills

In The Shepherd of the Hills, horses move from the background into a more dynamic and symbolic role, closely tied to identity, action, and moral formation. Within the rugged Ozarks landscape, horsemanship becomes a defining trait of characters, especially young men such as Young Matt, whose skill, courage, and restraint in riding reflect their inner development. Horses also drive the novel’s dramatic energy, enabling pursuit, escape, and encounter across difficult terrain.

Horses serve as cultural markers, distinguishing those who belong to the life of the hills from those who do not. In this context, the horse symbolizes not only physical capability but also the disciplined ordering of the self, aligning with Wright’s broader Christian vision of strength governed by moral restraint. Wright develops a more explicit and relational vision of Christian stewardship toward animals than in his earlier work, presenting them not merely as instruments of labor but as participants in a moral order grounded in care and responsibility.

In Chapter 2, the care of horses quietly reflects a deeper moral character that aligns with Christian virtue. When Young Matt immediately goes to meet Sammy Lane’s pony, tends to it, and later ensures it is properly fed, his actions demonstrate responsibility, attentiveness, and

humility. He does not treat the animal as a mere tool but as a living creature deserving care, suggesting a stewardship ethic that echoes the Christian idea of caring faithfully for what one has been entrusted with.

In Chapter 7, Sammy’s interaction with her horse suggests a quiet moral awareness that aligns with Christian virtue. Her gentleness with Brownie allowing the pony to rest, graze, and move at an unhurried pace reflects patience, humility, and care for creation. Rather than exerting dominance, she shows stewardship, treating the animal as a companion rather than a mere tool. This interaction affectionately expressed in her address to “dear little Brownie” (Wright, Shepherd 147) serves as a particularly illuminating example of everyday stewardship, where small acts of care reflect broader spiritual integrity.

In Chapter 33, Sammy’s desperate nighttime ride further deepens this connection. As danger presses in, she depends entirely on Brownie, yet her urgency never turns into selfish disregard. Even in fear, she remains mindful of the pony’s well-being adjusting her riding, encouraging him with gentle words, and trying to “make it as easy as possible” for him (Wright, Shepherd 147). Her whispered prayers for the horse’s safety further reveal a heart oriented toward God.

At the same time, Brownie’s response running with “eager, outstretched head” (Wright, Shepherd 147) symbolizes the harmony that arises from such care. The trust between rider and horse becomes more than practical; it reflects a moral relationship built on kindness and responsibility. Sammy’s treatment of Brownie shows that true virtue is not abandoned in crisis but revealed more clearly under pressure.

In this novel, stewardship is not framed as domination but as a practice of care that acknowledges the dignity of the animal while affirming human responsibility. Animals become quiet indicators of moral integrity, reinforcing the novel’s broader themes of redemption, humility, and ethical living.

Horses and Ethical Formation in The Calling of Dan Matthews

In The Calling of Dan Matthews, horses and other working animals appear as necessary companions in sustaining livelihood, reinforcing the dignity of labor and the interdependence between humans and the natural world. Their treatment is never careless or exploitative, suggesting that ethical living includes attentiveness and respect toward all aspects of creation.

At a deeper level, Wright uses these quiet depictions to reinforce the novel’s central concern with spiritual vocation and moral awakening. Dan Matthews’s journey toward understanding his calling is shaped by encounters emphasizing humility, service, and integrity values that extend beyond human relationships to include one’s interaction with the natural world. The horse functions as a subtle indicator of ethical consistency, linking faith with daily practice.

In Chapter 1, the old physician’s care for animals quietly reveals the depth of his kindness, even though his outward manner is rough and gruff. We are told that he knows not only every person in Corinth, but also “every “dog and cat, and horse and cow” (Wright, Calling 204), along with their habits and quirks. This attention shows more than professional familiarity it reflects a genuine concern for living creatures. He notices the small details of their lives, from a cow’s behavior to a dog’s mischief, suggesting patience, attentiveness, and a willingness to care even for those who cannot speak for themselves. Such awareness points to a compassionate spirit that extends beyond human patients to the whole community of life around him.

His willingness to serve anyone in need further reinforces this kindness. The Doctor will travel long distances and work just as hard for a poor backwoods farmer as for a wealthy banker, and this same spirit likely shapes how he treats animals, including horses that are essential to rural life. Horses would have been critical companions in his medical practice, carrying him across miles to reach the sick. His familiarity with them implies respect and dependence rather than neglect or indifference. Even though he appears harsh, his actions reveal otherwise: he consistently gives his time, energy, and care to both people and animals. In this way, his treatment of animals reflects a deeper moral character one marked by quiet compassion, humility, and a kind of everyday goodness that defines him as a truly kind man.

In Chapter 2 of The Calling of Dan Matthews, horses particularly Dan’s pony, Tramp serve as a subtle but meaningful window into Dan’s character. The pony responds to the boy’s whistle with trust and eagerness, showing a bond built on care rather than fear. Dan treats Tramp with gentle affection, speaks to him as a companion, and prepares him efficiently for their ride, revealing his natural kindness, competence, and respect for living beings. This interaction illustrates that Dan’s moral character is instinctively right, reflecting a harmony with nature that is unspoiled by the cynicism or hardness often seen in adults like the Doctor. For the Doctor, observing Dan with his horse reinforces his sense that the boy is extraordinary. While the Doctor is analytical and shaped by years of professional experience, Dan’s ease, consideration, and innate goodness are instinctive and unstudied. The horse becomes a symbol of the boy’s balance, self-control, and integrity, highlighting his natural, uncorrupted strength of character. Through Tramp, the narrative shows that true moral and emotional strength is expressed in gentleness and care, and that Dan’s harmony with animals mirrors his broader harmony with life, making him, in the Doctor’s eyes, a living revelation of the best qualities of humanity.

Through these portrayals, Wright suggests that true spiritual calling is expressed through faithful conduct in all areas of life, including oftenoverlooked human-animal relationships. The steady movement of the horse mirrors inner rhythms of reflection and moral discernment,

reinforcing the Christian ethic of stewardship as an integrated part of everyday living.

Conclusion

In The Shepherd of the Hills and The Calling of Dan Matthews, horses emerge as quiet yet persistent witnesses to Wright’s moral vision. The horse functions as a measure of stewardship, revealing the inner life of characters through outward care. To tend an animal with patience and responsibility is to enact a form of lived ethics.

Wright’s use of horses also points to a broader theology of embodiment and vocation. Faith is not confined to doctrine but is worked out through daily practices traveling difficult roads, performing labor, and exercising compassion in ordinary interactions.

Through these depictions, Wright demonstrates that ethical truths are embedded in ordinary experience. Horses, both practical companions and moral indicators, reveal character and reinforce ethical consistency. In Wright’s Ozarks fiction, the treatment of animals is inseparable from the cultivation of virtue, emphasizing that care, respect, and attentiveness toward all creation are central to moral and spiritual development.

Notes

1 Three days after presenting this paper, I delivered a paper on Ozarks thriller novelist Laura McHugh at the annual Ozarks Studies Association conference in Springfield, Missouri. Professor Joseph Farmer, an Ozarks literary scholar from Northeastern State University (Tahlequah, Oklahoma), and I were in the same session. After his presentation on Donald Harington and other Arkansas authors, I asked him who he thought had the highest national stature among Ozarks novelists. He listed two: Donald Harington and Daniel Woodrell. When asked what he thought about Harold Bell Wright, he answered that he was “the grandfather of Ozarks novelists.” I agreed with him. Although Wright was immensely popular and his stories are uplifting, they are often marred by sentimentalism and predictability.

2 The first edition of Broadfoot’s Pioneers of the Ozarks was published in 1944 by the Caxton Printers in Caldwell, Idaho. Owing to its popularity, additional printings and editions followed soon thereafter. The edition cited in this essay was published by the Harlin Museum of West Plains, Missouri, in 2008. The author’s dedication reads:

In memory of my pleasant contacts with these people, and for their kind and courteous co-operation with me in procuring this valued collection of art, I am hereby expressing my appreciation and good

will by dedicating this book to the “pioneer fathers and mothers” of the Missouri hills. (6)

3 Horses also figure prominently in the cultural geography of the Ozarks, even in place-name associations and regional identity. While not all such connections are etymologically direct, towns such as Cabool and surrounding communities participate in broader narratives of frontier mobility, rural transport, and equestrian heritage.

Works Cited

Broadfoot, Lennis Leonard. “Preface.” Pioneers of the Ozarks. 1944. Harlin Museum, 2008, p. 7.

Miller, C. J. “Carroll County.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas, revised by David Sesser, 2022, 5 Aug. 2025.

Wright, Harold Bell. The Calling of Dan Matthews. 1909. 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 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. 193-401.

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

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 70-77

Biotechnology: Loving Neighbors and the Environment

David A. Lee

Biotechnology: Loving Neighbors and the Environment

Stewardship + Creation: How Ought We Treat our Fellow Creatures? Here, I will make the case Christian environmental stewardship is fundamentally different from secular environmentalism. While we may be allies with unbelievers in many ways, Christians must not simply adopt a non-Christian environmental ethic, even when it is presented with a veneer of spirituality. If we jump in the backseat after slapping some Bible verses on the bumper, we cannot be surprised when the secular environmentalist movement it arrives at an unbiblical destination.

Instead, the church must be in the driver’s seat, demonstrating to the world why and how we should care for the planet. One way this can be shown is through the application of biotechnology, which can allow us to fulfill the biblical mandates that we love our neighbors and steward Creation.

Why Should We Care for Creation?

But first, why should Christians care for the environment? The biblical doctrine of Creation tells us that the world is valuable to us because God has given it value (Genesis 1:31). It matters to Him, so it should matter to us.

On the other hand, secular environmentalism typically relies on pantheistic or naturalistic worldviews, both of which claim mankind is simply part of nature rather than having authority over it. Ironically, this undermines their claims that human environmental harm is a moral failure. While this is true, it’s worth pointing out that such moral judgment is not applied to invasive species like the feral hog or the zebra mussel when they damage ecosystems. Claims of moral failure rely on moral absolutes only supplied by the Judeo-Christian worldview and an understanding that mankind is responsible for creation. You cannot have moral failure without moral standards.

It is true that we are part of creation, we are also given authority over it. In Genesis 1, God gave mankind the Dominion Mandate after creating them in His image, serving as His ambassadors. In discussing this dichotomy Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Man is separated, as personal, from nature because he is made in the image of God. That is, he has personality, and as such he is unique in the creation; but he is united to all other creatures as being created.” (Schaeffer, 1970, p. 40). Like the zebra mussel, we are created beings, but like the Creator, we have authority over them. You cannot have responsibility without authority. But we must remember that we are not owners of Creation. King David put it well when he sang that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Psalm 24:1 ESV). He is the owner of Creation and has appointed us to be the stewards over it. In exercising dominion, we act as leaders, not supreme rulers. Like the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia, we are “lowercase” kings and queens under the “capital” High King. We are rulers over His Creation vice-regents under the King of Kings. When scientists use technology to modify creation, particularly the genetic code, they are often accused of “playing God.” Such warnings can be helpful in cautioning against abuse and overreach, but the phrase itself may be imprecise. A more helpful framework is to consider our role as stewards serving as the Lord’s ambassadors and acting on His behalf as caretakers of creation. In that sense, human beings are always exercising a delegated authority over the created order. When such stewardship is guided by the principles laid out in Scripture, it need not be seen as overstepping but rather as a faithful expression of that responsibility.

How Should We Care for Creation?

The goal of biblical stewardship is dominion without destruction. To accomplish this goal, a Christian environmental ethic must be constructive, restrained, restorative, and balanced.

Constructive

Stewardship is not simply preservation; it is wise investment. In Matthew 25:14-30, Christ tells a parable of 3 servants who were entrusted with talents from their master. Two were lauded for wisely investing the funds, doubling their talents. The third was condemned for burying his talent in the ground. Wise stewards are productive, tending the Garden we were entrusted with so we can provide for ourselves and those under our care.

Restrained

We rely on the created world for food, clothing, shelter, energy, security, and countless other resources and services. And we have great capacity to use such resources and alter the world around us, especially through modern technology. But we must exercise restraint. If we take as much as possible, or engineer as much as possible, we damage Creation and harm future generations. Francis Shaeffer put it this way, “[…] we should not do all that with our technology we can do” (Schaeffer 1970, p.67, emphasis mine). Or, as Ian Malcolm put it in Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should” (Spielberg, 1993). We should cautiously utilize resources and modify the natural world, but in a sustainable way meeting present needs without compromising future needs. Wise stewards are protective.

Restorative

The Christian recognizes that Creation is fallen (Genesis 3:17-19), eagerly awaiting Christ’s redemption (Romans 8:18-25). As image-bearers, we have a role to play in this restoration through our care for the planet. Secular environmental ethics are often preservationist, seeking to minimize human impact out of a misguided notion that we are simply part of the problem. Instead, biblical ethics indicate that proper dominion is restorative and that abdicating that responsibility results in environmental harm. Wise stewards are redemptive.

Balanced

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded that we are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Loving our neighbor means we should care for the oppressed (Luke 10:25-37), treat others as we would want to be treated (Matthew 7:712), and not neglect the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46; James 4:17). These responsibilities should not be compromised in the process of caring for Creation. A biblical ethic must not devalue human life from the womb to the tomb as so much of the secular worldview does. Wise stewards balance care for creation with their love for their neighbor.

“Playing God” with Biotechnology

Biotechnology involves the manipulation of genetic material and processes to produce novel products or functions. Innovations in biotechnology have improved the quality of life for millions of people. Others have succeeded in limiting environmental damage or restoring ecosystems. Here we will

consider seven applications of biotechnology and how they can enable us to love our neighbors and steward Creation.

Creating Medications

Approximately 2 million Americans suffer from Type 1 Diabetes, a condition in which their pancreas fails to produce the insulin needed to regulate blood sugar (Baumblatt et al., 2024). Treating this condition usually requires the injection of insulin which, for the first 60 years, was harvested from the pancreases of slaughtered pigs. Then, beginning in 1982, researchers successfully produced human insulin in bacteria using recombinant DNA technology. The human insulin gene is inserted into the chromosome of Escherichia coli, which replicates and produces insulin, which is then purified and injected into patients. This is how virtually all the world’s insulin is produced today (Miller, 2025), and is a great example of constructive stewardship.

Treating Malnutrition

Millions of people in the developing world suffer from malnutrition. Vitamin A deficiency, more common in southern and southeast Asia, causes approximately 1 million deaths and 500,000 of blindness per year largely in young children. A key innovation to treat this condition is Golden Rice, which has been modified using genes from daffodils to produce beta carotene (the precursor of vitamin A) giving it a distinctive golden color. Eating one bowl of this rice provides the daily dose of vitamin A, and it can be easily re-seeded and grown in the countries that need it most. It was developed over 25 years ago and has repeatedly shown no risk to human health or the environment (Regis, 2019). Golden Rice was approved for use in the Philippines in 2021 but was banned 3 years later due to intense lobbying from western environmental activists. Now, the fate of this lifesaving technology is uncertain (Normille, 2024). However, technology like this shows how stewardship can and should be constructive.

Curing Genetic Disorders

Approximately 100,000 people in the U.S. suffer from sickle cell disease, a lifelong genetic disorder that produces misshapen red blood cells, causing severe chronic pain, anemia, jaundice, and fatigue. This disorder is caused by a single mutation, a copying error in a single protein. Thanks to the recent developments of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, this mutation can be repaired in living bone marrow cells. Gene therapy can then be used to introduce these cells to the bone marrow, which replicate and produce healthy blood cells. This is not hypothetical or science fiction, it is now history. Victoria Gray was the first patient to be treated using this

procedure and after 5 years, her blood cells are still healthy (Coddington, 2024). This is a wonderful example of restorative stewardship!

Limiting Animal Exploitation

With five times the tensile strength of steel, spider silk is the strongest natural fiber on earth. As such, there are countless applications for its use, such as surgical sutures, artificial tendons and ligaments, biodegradable plastics, and even bullet-proof clothing. However, it is difficult to mass-produce because spiders are territorial and cannibalistic (Spider Silk, n.d.). So, researchers have used biotechnology to produce spider silk using unlikely partners goats. So called “spider goats” have been genetically altered to produce proteins in their milk, which are then spun into high strength fibers (“Strong Silk Fibers Produced from Spiders and Goat’s Milk,” 2003).

Other applications can help protected or vulnerable species, such as horseshoe crabs. These marine arthropods have bright blue blood with a special clotting chemical called Factor C. This chemical is uniquely able to test for toxins in medical applications, including vaccines, cell and gene therapies, and dialysis products. But this chemical which is critical for limiting human suffering is harvested by collecting and bleeding out these horseshoe crabs. However, researchers have used recombinant DNA technology to clone the horseshoe crab genes, producing Factor C without threatening this endangered species (Tsang, 2025). Both of these examples allow a more constructive and restrained use of these valuable resources.

Reducing Crop Damage

A leading cause of crop damage is pests such as the European corn borer and cotton bollworm. These larvae destroy entire fields of crops, limiting available food and threatening farmers’ livelihoods. The most effective treatment uses Bt protein, which is naturally produced by certain soil bacteria and is toxic to these pests. Using systems that occur in nature, the Bt gene has been incorporated into the genome of “Bt corn” and “Bt cotton.” The plants then produce their own defense, which is harmless to humans and most other animals. Over 40 years of study has shown Bt corn to be safe and effective at reducing pests, crop loss, insecticide use, and fungal toxins (Dively et al., 2018). This shows how stewardship can and should be constructive and balanced with love for our neighbors.

Restoring Endangered Species

Stewardship must also be restorative. In the 19th century, the American Chestnut made up 25% of the trees in the woods of the East Coast. They were ecologically significant and economically valuable for lumber, animal feed and chemicals. But over 40 years, most of these trees were killed due to an invasive fungal infection, disrupting ecosystems and

causing the extinction of several animals that depended on them. But researchers have used genetic engineering to grow trees that are resistant to the fungus, which will allow them to gradually repopulate forests. The trees are engineered to detoxify the fungal acids, allowing them to coexist with the fungus which prevents the fungi from becoming resistant to the trees (Faubel, 2018). This is the first use of genetic engineering for specifically environmental purposes and has received a rare endorsement from the Sierra Club, an environmentalist organization that usually opposes such technology (Morgan, 2021).

Other species have been brought back from extinction using genetic technology. The black footed ferret was once prevalent in the Great Plains but was threatened when populations of prairie dogs their preferred prey were destroyed. As more colonies disappeared, many thought the species was extinct. But frozen tissue samples were used to create clones, bolstering the species’ numbers and bringing them back from the brink of extinction (Fritts, 2022). While full de-extinction raises ethical concerns, approaches like this show how stewardship can be restorative.

Eradicating Diseases

What do you think is the deadliest animal known to man? The surprising answer is the mosquito. Mosquitoes carry several deadly diseases including malaria, which killed 610,000 people in 2024, roughly ¾ of whom were children under 5 years old (Fact Sheet about Malaria, 2025). To address this issue, some have proposed eradicating the female mosquitoes using a genetic technique called gene drives. This technology uses CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to alter a gene, then includes the code for guiding the Cas9 protein which acts like genetic scissors that cut the DNA – to alter the other copy of the gene in the offspring. This “drives” the gene through a population in just a few generations, much faster than standard inheritance (Naidoo & Oliver, 2025).

However, this approach raises an important question – if we can eliminate a species to protect our own, should we? Only a handful of the hundreds of mosquito species carry the disease, so this effect would be minimal. Another concern is the effect of this extinction on ecosystems. While this is proposed to be minimal, ecosystems are complex and there may be unforeseen effects.

So, this presents a dilemma: on one hand, the use of this technology could eliminate a species and threaten an ecosystem. On the other hand, it could save hundreds of thousands of human lives. Another biblical principle is worth mentioning here, which is that neglecting to act is not an amoral act. Doing nothing is not a risk-neutral choice (Matthew 25:31-46).

Other, more restorative approaches have also been offered, such as the use of gene drives to prevent transmission without eliminating the mosquito species, effectively immunizing them against the parasites they carry (Naidoo & Oliver, 2025). But more extreme applications have also

been proposed, such as eradicating any species we wanted to – such as invasive species. While such potential is troubling, it turns out gene drives have not been as effective as once thought. This could be seen as divine grace, limiting our capacity to unwittingly damage Creation. In any case, this example illustrates the importance of a restrained and balanced approach to stewardship. We must not do to Creation everything that we can do. But our efforts to care for creation should be balanced with our love for our neighbors.

Conclusion

Biotechnology has great potential to restore or damage the environment. As stewards, it is our responsibility to use it wisely in a constructive, restrained, restorative, and balanced way.

References

Baumblatt, J., Fryar, C., Gu, Q., & Ashman, J. (2024). Prevalence of Total, Diagnosed, and Undiagnosed Diabetes in Adults: United States, August 2021–August 2023. National Center for Health Statistics (U.S.). https://doi.org/10.15620/cdc/165794

Coddington, M. (2024, August 6). Breaking the Chains: How CRISPR Gene Therapy Gave Victoria Gray a New Life. Biopharma from Technology Networks. http://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/articles/breaking -the-chains-how-crispr-gene-therapy-gave-victoria-gray-a-new-life389465

Dively, G. P., Venugopal, P. D., Bean, D., Whalen, J., Holmstrom, K., Kuhar, T. P., Doughty, H. B., Patton, T., Cissel, W., & Hutchison, W. D. (2018). Regional pest suppression associated with widespread Bt maize adoption benefits vegetable growers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(13), 3320–3325. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720692115

Fact sheet about malaria. (2025, Winter). World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria Faubel, K. (2018). SUNY ESF researchers growing 10,000 blightresistant American chestnut trees. Syracuse.Com. https://www.syracuse.com/news/2018/04/american_chestnut_tre e_project.html

Fritts, R. (2022). In a conservation first, a cloned ferret could help save her species. Science.Org. https://www.science.org/content/article/conservation-first-clonedferret-could-help-save-her-species

Miller, H. (2025). Happy 43rd birthday, GMO insulin. FDA approval in 1982 took 5 months. How many years would it take now? Genetic

Literacy Project.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2025/10/31/happy-41stbirthday-genetically-engineered-insulin-your-approval-by-the-fdain-1982-took-5-months-how-many-years-would-it-take-now/ Morgan, K. (2021). The Demise and Potential Revival of the American Chestnut | Sierra Club. Sierraclub.Org. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-2-marchapril/feature/demise-and-potential-revival-american-chestnut

Naidoo, K., & Oliver, S. V. (2025). Gene drives: An alternative approach to malaria control? Gene Therapy, 32(1), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41434-024-00468-8

National Diabetes Statistics Report United States Diabetes Surveillance System. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2026, from https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/diabetes/diabetesatlas-statsreport.html

Normille, D. (2024, Autumn). What a Philippine court ruling means for transgenic Golden Rice, once hailed as a dietary breakthrough. Www.Science.Org. https://www.science.org/content/article/whatphilippine-court-ruling-means-transgenic-golden-rice-once-haileddietary

Regis, E. (2019). The True Story of the Genetically Modified Superfood That Almost Saved Millions. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/17/golden-rice-geneticallymodified-superfood-almost-saved-millions/ Schaeffer, F. (1970). Pollution and the Death of man. Crossway. (Original work published L’Abri Fellowship)

Spider Silk. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2026, from https://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/spider/page4.htm Spielberg, S. (Director). (1993). Jurassic Park [Video recording]. Universal Pictures.

Strong silk fibers produced from spiders and goat’s milk. (2003). Advanced Materials & Processes, 161(9), 26–28. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=08827958&v= 2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA109220565&sid=googleScholar&linkacces s=abs

Tsang, J. (2025). Horseshoe Crabs Break Free from Biomedical Testing. The Scientist. https://www.the-scientist.com/horseshoe-crabsbreak-free-from-biomedical-testing-73214

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 78-80

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

Jesus Christ as the Model Trauma-Informed Social Worker: A Framework for Christian Stewardship and Human Flourishing

Kristen Nugent

Jesus Christ as the Model Trauma-Informed Social Worker

Introduction

Contemporary discourse on stewardship frequently centers on environmental responsibility while neglecting the condition of the human person. At the same time, the prevalence of trauma, anxiety, and relational disconnection continues to rise across clinical and community settings. These realities invite a reconsideration of stewardship through a theological and relational lens.

Within a Christian framework, stewardship begins with recognizing the inherent dignity of individuals created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, New International Version). Yet many individuals experience profound disconnection from God, from others, and from their own embodied selves. This disconnection often manifests in patterns of control, avoidance, and dysregulation that affect not only personal well-being but also relational and societal functioning.

This paper argues that Jesus Christ provides the clearest model of trauma-informed care and, in doing so, offers a framework for understanding Christian stewardship as fundamentally relational. By examining the ministry of Christ alongside contemporary traumainformed principles and clinical practice, this paper integrates faith and social work in a way that is both theologically grounded and professionally relevant.

Theological Framework: Imago Dei and Restoration

The concept of stewardship is rooted in the belief that human beings are created in the image of God and entrusted with care over creation. However, this stewardship is not limited to the external

environment; it includes the care of one another as bearers of divine image.

In Luke 4:18 (New International Version), Christ articulates His mission: to bring good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, and healing to the brokenhearted. This mission reflects a deep attunement to human suffering and a commitment to restoration. Similarly, in Matthew 9:36 (New International Version), Jesus responds to the crowds with compassion, recognizing their distress and vulnerability.

These passages reveal a consistent pattern: Christ moves toward suffering with presence, compassion, and intentional care. His interactions restore dignity, agency, and connection key elements that align with trauma-informed care.

Romans 8 gives an example of this restoration within the broader redemption of creation, suggesting that personal healing is integrally connected to the renewal of the world.

Jesus as a Trauma-Informed Practitioner

Trauma-informed care emphasizes principles such as safety, trustworthiness, empowerment, and relational connection. While these concepts are articulated in modern clinical language, they are reflected in the relational ministry of Christ.

In John 4 (New International Version), Jesus engages the Samaritan woman with attunement and respect, acknowledging her story without condemnation. In Mark 5:25-34 (New International Version), He responds to the hemorrhaging woman with sensitivity and affirmation, restoring both her health and social identity. In multiple instances, Jesus asks individuals what they desire, honoring their agency and participation in the healing process.

These interactions demonstrate a model of care that prioritizes presence, emotional safety, and relational connection. Christ does not impose healing; He invites it.

Clinical Integration: Trauma-Informed Social Work Practice

In my work as a trauma-informed therapist and in the development of a “Christian” Master of Social Work program at Missouri Baptist University, I have observed the profound impact of relational presence on healing. In particular, when designing the second-year clinical courses, I intentionally structured the curriculum to reflect trauma-informed principles. These courses ensure that students learn to recognize and respond to the signs of trauma while modeling relational attunement, safety, and empowerment. Students engage with Scripture, clinical theory, and reflective practice to embody Christ-centered care in real-world clinical settings.

Clients presenting with anxiety, attachment disruptions, and complex trauma often struggle with issues of safety, trust, and self-

regulation. A consistent theme in clinical practice is the importance of being seen and known without judgment. Trauma disrupts an individual’s capacity for connection and regulation, often resulting in patterns of hypervigilance or emotional withdrawal (van der Kolk, 2014).

In practice, fostering environments of safety, supporting emotional awareness, and modeling consistent, attuned presence are essential. These approaches mirror the relational patterns demonstrated by Christ and are intentionally modeled for students in the second-year clinical courses. By experiencing this integration firsthand, students are better prepared to provide trauma-informed, Christ-centered care to the individuals and communities they serve.

Reframing Stewardship as Relational

When stewardship is understood solely in environmental or economic terms, it overlooks the foundational role of human relationships. A trauma-informed Christian perspective suggests that stewardship begins with the care of individuals created in God’s image.

As individuals experience healing, they become more capable of engaging in healthy relationships and contributing meaningfully to their communities. This relational restoration extends outward, influencing how individuals engage with broader systems, including care for creation. Thus, stewardship is not separate from healing; it is an extension of it.

Conclusion

The ministry of Jesus Christ offers a model of care that is deeply relational, restorative, and consistent with trauma-informed principles. By integrating this model into social work practice and education, Christian professionals are uniquely positioned to contribute to both individual healing and broader societal well-being.

Stewardship, in this sense, is not merely the management of resources, but the faithful care of people. It begins with seeing others with compassion and dignity and extends into all areas of life. By integrating trauma-informed principles in social work education, particularly through second-year clinical courses, students are equipped to carry Christ’s model of care into their professional lives, creating ripple effects of healing and restoration.

References

Holy Bible, New International Version. (2011). Zondervan. van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

Aaron S. Halstead 81

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2025): 81-102

BOOK REVIEWS

Mesa, Ivan, and Elliot Clark, editors, Faithful Exiles: Finding Hope in a Hostile World. The Gospel Coalition, 2023. ISBN 978-1956593099. 208 pages. $14.99.

Reviewed by Aaron S. Halstead

Faithful Exiles is a popular-level collection of essays by pastors, ministry leaders, and missionaries, with each chapter serving as a distinct essay. The central theme of the edited volume stems from how the Apostle Peter characterized believers as “elect exiles” (1 Pet 1:1). The editors Mesa and Clark understand this biblical metaphor as fitting for a contemporary audience, which can provide a helpful paradigm for Christian living in the present time (3). The stated purpose of the book is “to give Christians hope in a hostile world” (4, emphasis in original) by using the exile motif in 1 Peter and elsewhere in Scripture “as a model for how to live as those patiently striving for holiness while waiting for home” (5).

As a multi-author essay collection, Faithful Exiles inevitably faces the challenges of other works of this nature. Specifically, the strengths and weaknesses of the work cannot be assessed as a whole. Rather, each chapter-essay should be considered on its own merits. With that in mind, the credentials of each author to speak to the subject of his or her essay vary from contributor to contributor. Such an undertaking presses against the constraints of space. However, Mesa and Clark set out to include a diversity of voices to contribute to the collection, voices they characterize as “brothers and sisters around the globe alongside those within the postChristian West” (4). For this, they should be commended. Additionally, Faithful Exiles, as stated previously, is a popular-level book, meaning academic credentialing for each contributor is not necessarily warranted. For these reasons, this review will assess Faithful Exiles from the standpoint of an academically trained pastor assessing a possible resource for congregants. Such a perspective is admittedly limited. However, this reviewer hopes that such an approach will remain a fruitful and beneficial endeavor. The general approach of the collection will be critiqued, followed by a more particularized interaction with specific chapters with more relevant subject matters.

First, Faithful Exiles reframes Christian identity to one of exile. As a popular-level work, “Christian Living” would best describe the genre. A complete numbering of Christian Living books that use “exile” as a major motif of Christian identity is beyond the scope of any book review. However, anecdotal evidence will have to suffice that such a reconceptualization of Christian identity is scant in works in the Christian Living genre. In a genre that is marked by an unwarranted triumphalism, the influence of prosperity theologies of both the personal and national types, and the blurring of the already-but-not-yet theology of Christ’s kingdom, Faithful Exiles is a much-needed reprieve. This characterization of the Christian Living genre may not be a fair criticism as it relates to Crossway, the publisher of Faithful Exiles. That said, if a pastor wishes to provide a resource for his congregation on how to walk circumspectly as a disciple of Christ in the present world, then Faithful Exiles can provide introductory material on how to do exactly that. The exile motif is an exceedingly relevant metaphor for how believers should understand themselves in contemporary America. As such, Faithful Exiles acts as a needed encouragement for believing exiles and a charitable correction to more triumphalist understandings.

The first essay, “Exile Begins” by Jairo Nammún, constitutes a biblical theology of exile and sojourning. As such, it orients the reader to the overall exile motif that characterizes the whole collection and provides needed biblical material on what it means to be an exile. The second essay, “Contending as Exiles” by Glen Scrivener, acts as a follow-up to the biblical theology provided by Nammún. Scrivener’s chapter studies the character demonstrated by Abraham in Genesis 14 as a model of faithfulness, the “Abraham Option,” as it were (25). According to Scrivener, Abraham can provide guidance on how modern-day exiles are to both resist the

temptations of their surrounding culture while simultaneously striving for the progress of the gospel. Again, the subject matter is introductory, but Nammún’s chapter further explores the themes first offered by Scrivener.

Each of the remaining chapters in Faithful Exiles presents a topic for the reader’s consideration hope, holiness, worship, politics, missions, prayer, preaching, apologetics, vocation, church, suffering, and eschatology but approaches that topic from the standpoint of exile. Most of these chapter-essays are devotional in tone and do not particularly advance the exile motif in a significant way. However, two subsequent chapters stand out from the rest as especially valuable: “Apologetics as Exiles” by Claude Atcho and “Vocation as Exiles” by Jay Y. Kim.

Although the stated topic is apologetics, Atcho’s chapter provides the reader with an encouraging framework for evangelism in a postmodern age. Believers in the contemporary setting may not be emboldened to share their faith. Still, Atcho reminds readers that a personal encounter with Jesus that leads to a sense of “awe” at who he is is not easily confounded (120). Such personal encounters also appeal to the postmodern craving for “authenticity,” as well as the premium postmoderns place on “personal experience” (123–24). Such an approach in evangelism does not have the ring of a sales pitch to it, but is, rather, an “invitation to consider” how the power of Christ might affect one’s own life (127–28). Disciples fearful of proclaiming the gospel in today’s world may find such an approach to evangelism easier to adopt.

Kim’s chapter on vocation encourages readers to consider their workplaces as avenues through which they can “speak to” and help shape culture (129–30). Viewing one’s vocation as a place to contribute to the order and beauty of creation (131–32), a way to contribute to the welfare of others (132–33), and a “ministry” of a type that should respect longevity and place (133–34), all cut against an individualist and self-centered priority on “making a living” and living the American dream. A robust evangelical theology of vocation needs to be recovered in America, and although Kim’s chapter falls short of that lofty goal, it introduces this subject and gently nudges readers to consider their vocations theologically rather than merely practically.

In summary, Faithful Exiles will not stand as a definitive classic on an exilic understanding of the Christian life. However, pastors and ministry leaders may find it to be an adequate resource to introduce their congregants to a new way to reframe their engagement with culture. That pastor or ministry leader will definitely need to suggest further resources and be prepared to expand on the themes of the book, but Faithful Exiles will serve greatly as a conversation starter on how the motif should shape American believers’ self-understanding.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 84

McKinley, Mike. Friendship with God: A Path to Deeper Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit. Crossway, 2023. ISBN 978-1433584152. 184 pages, $15.99.

Reviewed by Aaron S. Halstead

Mike McKinley currently serves as the Senior Pastor of Sterling Park Baptist Church in Sterling, Virginia, having previously served on staff at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. He has earned an MDiv from Westminster Theological Seminary and has a professional history in church planting and church revitalization. He is also the author or coauthor of six other books. Three books are part of the 9Marks series: Church Planting Is for Wimps, in its second edition (Crossway, 2016); Church in Hard Places, coauthored with Mez McConnell (Crossway, 2016); and Am I Really a Christian? (Crossway, 2011). His three other books are The Resurrection in Your Life (The Good Book Company, 2015), Passion: How Christ’s Final Day Changes Your Every Day (The Good Book Company, 2013), and Did the Devil Make Me Do It?, part of the Questions Christians Ask series (The Good Book Company, 2013). Friendship with God comprises a “translation” of John Owen’s Communion with God into contemporary vernacular. McKinley acknowledges that, outside of Scripture, Communion with God is the most

helpful work he has read, but that the “outdated language,” the span of history between Owen and the present day, and the “writing style” make Communion largely irrelevant to a contemporary audience. McKinley’s stated goal is “to mine some of the most precious diamonds of Owen’s spiritual insights and make them available and applicable” (4). As we assess Friendship from that perspective, McKinley succeeds in his goal. His book is easily accessible and follows the same order as the main divisions in Owen’s original work. That said, the reason for Friendship’s publication is questionable. McKinley acknowledges his indebtedness to an edition of Owen’s work, edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor and published by the same publisher as Friendship (see p. 5, fn 1). All of the citations in Friendship, except one, are of this other volume, and the remaining citation refers to the work of another Owen scholar. Though one does not need to have earned a doctorate to interpret Scripture or John Owen, for that matter, it remains unclear why a popular-level distillation of Communion was necessary when two scholars have contributed, for the same publisher, an edited edition of the same work. The original Communion was derived from Owen’s “sermons preached to teenagers at Oxford University in the early 1650s” (3). If Friendship’s target audience is teenagers in the present day, then the stated critique can be ignored. Setting that issue aside, framing a believer’s relationship with the Triune God as a “friendship” as opposed to “communion” undoubtedly communicates the same idea in a more colloquial and easily understood manner, which fits nicely with McKinley’s objective.

In the first two chapters, McKinley briefly introduces the reader to the doctrine of communion with God and argues persuasively for how it should be understood in a contemporary idiom as “friendship” with God. These two chapters compose the first part of Friendship, “Communion with the Triune God.” The rest of the book unfolds in three parts, each detailing what communion looks like between the believer and each member of the Trinity: Part 2 discusses communion with the Father, Part 3 the Son, and Part 4 the Holy Spirit. In an age when apprehension of Trinitarian theology is waning in evangelical circles, framing the Christian life as one in which the believer not only has communion with God but that he or she has communion with each respective member of the Trinity is a healthy corrective. Admittedly, the strength of this understanding is a fruit of John Owen’s theological work and his approach in Communion with God. That said, McKinley should be commended for reintroducing this concept to a contemporary audience. Following Owen, McKinley underscores that the believer is able to relate to the Father, Son, and Spirit, respectively, through a “medium,” or “the thing through which a relationship is carried out” (23). For the Father, the relational medium medium is love (24), for the Son, grace (44), and for the Holy Spirit, comfort (108-09). Again, it must be admitted that McKinley, as he admits, is recommunicating the work of Owen, and so, the following strength of Friendship lies with Owen. However, once more, the contemporary day is one in which knowledge of the Trinity, let alone communion with each

respective member, is lacking. Readers who find the doctrine of the Trinity intimidating, let alone conducting a friendship with each member, should find the media offered by Owen and reworked by McKinley to be an encouraging starting point in cultivating each of those friendships.

There are, however, two immediate weaknesses in Friendship with God. The first is that the section on how to relate to the Holy Spirit is lacking. This weakness is not due to McKinley, but rather to the lack of material in John Owen’s work, which McKinley acknowledges (105). Since McKinley’s work is a present-day explication of Communion with God, an expansion on this section would fall outside his intention. However, readers should be aware that this gap exists in Friendship, as it did in Communion. Pastors, ministry leaders, or other disciple-makers would do well to mark this if they intend to use Friendship as a resource to disciple others.

The second weakness of the book is that, in framing the Christian walk as friendship with God and relying on Owen’s theology as the interpretive medium for friendship with God, the reader will walk away with an overly intellectual approach to communion. Friendship, and presumably Communion, is strong on understanding one’s relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but Frienship will not provide material on what the disciple is to do in light of this information. This weakness is glaring. Surely friends not only know they are friends but act out that friendship with one another in some way. One thinks of Jesus’ words in John 15:14-15. A disciple should undoubtedly understand that he or she is a friend of Jesus (and as McKinley and Owen argue, with the Father and Spirit as well), as Jesus himself taught in v. 15. However, Jesus equally taught in v. 14 that his friends follow him in obedience. Those who wish to use Friendship as a tool to disciple others will need to use additional tools to supplement this lack and provide those they are discpling with more actionable and concrete ways to apply Owen and McKinley’s framework.

Morales, L. Michael. Numbers (Apollos Old Testament Commentary 4a-4b). 2 vols., IVP Academic, 2024.

ISBNs: 978-1789744712; 978-1789745559. 1,216 pages.

Reviewed by Joshua Wilson

The biblical Book of Numbers is the well-known account of the wilderness wanderings of the nascent nation of Israel. It covers an era to which the later biblical writers often reference to warn, encourage, and admonish later generations of the people of God in their own spiritual sojourns (e.g., Neh. 9; Psalm 78, 95, 106; Jer. 2; Ezek. 20; Acts 7; 1 Cor. 10; Heb. 3-4). For this reason alone, there is always need for a fresh yet historically and theologically grounded examination of this important book of the Bible, and to this task, Michael Morales has taken on the mantle.

Morales, Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, is a recognized scholar in Old Testament studies, with numerous publications to his credit. His two-volume commentary on Numbers is part of the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series, which uses an intentional layout in each volume. The structure of each commentary is intended to lead the reader from the lecture halls of the academy into the sanctuaries of the church. In other words, it is meant to engage necessarily with the scholarly community, while also engaging with and building up the body of Christ. This dual purpose has been the focus and intent of the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series since its beginning. The editor’s preface, which is found in each volume of the series, states, “What we intend, therefore, is to provide not only tools of excellence for the academy, but also tools of function for the pulpit.”

Morales’s commentary is a welcome and fitting addition to this esteemed series.

After a lengthy introduction to Numbers (1, 1-74), Morales analyzes each section of the biblical book in five major, methodologically ordered steps: (1) translation, (2) notes on the text, (3) form and structure, (4) comment, and (5) explanation. First, the “translation” of each narrative section from the original language is Morales’s own. Second, the “notes on the text” of each section deals mainly with issues of textual criticism and sometimes with issues of the meaning and translation of the Hebrew. Third, the “form and structure” focus of each section examines that passage’s own literary structure and its function in the larger, literary context of Numbers. Fourth, the “comment” on each section is the typical analysis of the passage that a reader would expect from any commentary. Finally, the “explanation” of each section is best described as the theology and application of the passage. In addition to this useful layout, the commentary also contains several helpful excursuses dealing with topics like “The Cloud of Yahweh” (1, 220-240), “Balaam: Devout Prophet or Devious Sorcerer” (2, 101-111), and “Kingship, Land, and Inheritance” (2, 294-306) among others.

Scholars will find that this commentary deals extensively with the academic issues related to Numbers. For instance, in the “notes on the text” focus of each narrative section, Morales presents newer text-critical information that is missing from the critical apparatus of the nearly 50year-old BHS. Since an updated edition of Numbers has not yet been released for the BHQ, this presentation is a helpful resource for the modern academic seeking up-to-date text-critical information on the book. Morales also addresses scholarly controversies, such as in his excursus “The Census Figures” (1, 100-108). In it, he evaluates competing views on the census figures of the first chapter of Numbers and proposes a persuasive solution: the figures number the entire nation, not just the fighting-aged men. Overall, Morales has produced a well-researched commentary that demands future scholarly engagement.

Theologians will also find that this commentary doesn’t miss the proverbial forest for the trees. While there is certainly a very detailed, scholarly focus upon each narrative section of Numbers, Morales also examines the book from a Christological and biblical theological perspective. The biblical theological perspective, for example, is seen in his treatment of the placement of Numbers within the context of the Torah (1, 6-18) and in his excursuses on both “The Outer Camp’s Failure and the Sin of Adam and Woman” (1, 361-364) and “The Inner Camp’s Failure and the Sin of Cain” (1, 432-439). The Christological perspective is seen not only in his analysis of the prophetic Balaam oracles of Numbers 23 and 24 (2, 111209), but also in many other “explanation” portions of each narrative section. Reflecting on Numbers 33-35, Morales writes, “Israel’s dire need of God’s provision of the cities, their accessibility and the manslayer’s peril apart from them underscore the preciousness of salvation found only in the Lord Jesus Christ” (2, 484). Morales’s work is not merely an Old

Testament commentary but a Christian commentary on an Old Testament book.

Pastors will also find that this commentary has great relevance for the church. While there is much to be gained from the high-level academic and theological content of this commentary, there is also a great amount of devotional material in it. In the introduction to his commentary, Morales states that Numbers has a “perennial application” for “every generation” of the people of God as they sojourn together “in the wilderness,” growing in maturity, until they reach their final destination: that place of rest with God “in the new heavens and earth under Messiah’s reign” (1, 3). This stated view of Morales shows how he applies each narrative section of Numbers to the present lives of sojourning Christians. For example, in one section Morales writes:

The rhythm of repeated departure and encampment, the underlying steady obedience under YHWH’s guidance, would eventually overcome the dramatic valleys of rebellion and the intense peaks of divine judgment. The spiritual success of life’s journey is much more dependent on the monotony of persevering commitment, on the slow and steady growth that comes through the ordinary means of grace, than on the manufactured highs of spiritual immaturity. (2, 481)

A phrase like “the ordinary means of grace” should reveal that the devotional material of Morales’s commentary is particularly beneficial for Reformed pastors and their congregations.

Though Morales’ scholarly contribution to the study of Numbers is significant, the greater and lasting strength of his commentary is in its utility for the church. It is important for commentators to be able to interact with current scholarship. However, the issues and foci of the scholarship du jour changes from generation to generation, making myopic commentaries irrelevant within a matter of decades. What makes for a truly lasting commentary is how it equips the shepherds of God’s sheep with the tools necessary to feed His flock for generations to come. Only time will determine if Morales’s work reaches this standard, but for this generation, it stands as a faithful, Christ-centered resource that glorifies God and edifies the church.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

McCruden, Kevin B. A New and Living Way: Christ in the Letter to the Hebrews. Edited by Sheila McGinn, vol. 12, Biblical Studies from the Catholic Biblical Association of America, Paulist Press, 2025. ISBN 97808091-8874-1. 128 pages, $19.95.

Reviewed by Matthew C. Easter

The Biblical Studies series from the Catholic Biblical Association, as the series preface to the book explains, “seeks to bridge the gap between the technical exegetical work of the academic community and the educational and pastoral needs of the ecclesial community” (McCruden, ix). Professor McCruden has undoubtedly succeeded in this task by writing his volume, fitting with the purposes of the series, “in a style that is accessible to an educated, nonspecialized audience without compromising academic integrity” (ix). I would like to express both my thanks and my admiration for the work he produced. First, my admiration. I admit I struggle to preach or teach on Hebrews. The scholarly weeds of Hebrews easily ensnare me, distracting me from presenting Hebrews as God’s word

to God’s people in such a way that doesn’t lose my audience in the process. I suppose this is a struggle for anyone working in their area of specialization. I admire Kevin for deftly navigating this struggle. Sure, he inspects a few trees usually in sections deliberately set apart with a different font but he consistently shows us the forest constituted by these trees. Second, I am thankful to Dr. McCruden for giving us a helpful tool to share with students and parishioners. In what follows, I offer a few reflections on three guiding questions for our review.

To begin, how does McCruden’s reading illuminate Hebrews’ negotiation of continuity and transformation? McCruden does this well in several areas. Here I’ll limit my comments to two threads.

First, on the theme of covenantal continuity, McCruden models a careful negotiation of supersessionist concerns inevitable in any treatment of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews often argues from the lesser to the greater, with Jesus’ ministry being “more excellent,” as “he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on the basis of better promises” (Heb 8:6). 1 Indeed, the author claims, “if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one” (8:7). Does this mean Hebrews is rejecting Judaism as a religion (and Jews as God’s covenant people), to be replaced by a new religion, Christianity? Hebrews has been read this way for most of Christian history. Scholars today, however, debate the extent to which Hebrews presents such a supersessionist theology, even as passages such as these in Hebrews 8 make the question unavoidable. Since the Holocaust, Hebrews scholars have had a particular burden to read this “word of exhortation” ethically, sensitive to our Jewish friends. In my experience, while many in the academy are operating with these concerns in view, this has not reached many pulpits and Sunday school classrooms.

McCruden models how to navigate these treacherous waters carefully yet honestly. For example, in Hebrews 3, the author depicts Jesus as “worthy of more glory than Moses” (3:3). Jesus is faithful over God’s house as a son (3:6), while Moses is faithful in God’s house as a servant (3:5). Does this mean Moses is no longer valuable, having been replaced by Jesus? Quite to the contrary, McCruden helps his readers see how the author, in comparing Jesus favorably to Moses, is not meaning to deemphasize Moses’ importance. Instead, he shows, “When public speakers in antiquity wished to emphasize the excellence of a biographical subject, often they would compare that person to a recognized figure whom all could agree bore a reputation for excellence” (68). This is a subtle, but important, shift in perspective that McCruden models for his readers. He’s modeling a way of reading Moses (and, by extension, the first covenant) not as a weak foil that shows the passing of a worthless previous covenant, but as one of the few figures in history whose importance would show Jesus’ significance in comparison. If Moses were a loser trapped in a dying system about to be replaced, he loses all power as an apt comparison for Jesus. Jesus is undeniably of higher status than Moses in this comparison in Hebrews 3, but the comparison only makes sense if we

continue to treasure Moses. McCruden devotes a helpful section to this issue of “replacement language” in Hebrews, which he concludes with a plea for charity: “Contemporary Jews interpret the scriptural narrative and regard Jewish traditions in ways that are authentic to their own varied experiences and perspectives, and this must always be honored and respected” (73-74).

Second, regarding Jesus’ priestly identity, a major theme throughout the book is how both Jesus’ divinity and humanity are necessary for his priestly mediation. McCruden helps us see how the Christology of Hebrews, which “contains some of the most vividly drawn images of the humanity of Jesus” (8), is a balance of the “exalted and human aspects of Christ” (7). Jesus, who is human like us in every respect, albeit without sin (2:17; 4:15), offers himself to God as a high priest on our behalf. At the same time, he is the Son who “definitively reveals all that God is” (46). As McCruden writes later, “the same qualities of transcendence and eternity that belong properly to God are now seen to apply also to the Son” (53). McCruden shows how an adequate presentation of Hebrews’ Christology must recognize both the human and divine identities of Jesus. In doing so, he invites his readers to explore the depths of this sermon, where, in McCruden’s words, “the Son who brought all things into existence, and who reveals the glory and impression of the divine presence in the fullest possible sense, is the same Son who came into the world to participate fully in the flesh and blood existence that characterizes humanity” (48). He doesn’t get into the weeds of the Chalcedonian definition, but his treatment of the Christology of Hebrews should prompt interested readers to dig deeper into the dogmatic tradition of the Church.

Moving now to the second question: in what ways does this book integrate moral exhortation with Hebrews’ Christology? As someone who preaches regularly, I found McCruden’s work particularly helpful here. Rhetorically, Kevin does a nice job of highlighting the lived experience of the first hearers of Hebrews and showing how the Christological claims of Hebrews speak to their experience. He rightly notes there is no clear evidence that the original hearers were relapsing to Judaism (as Hebrews is often taught). Instead, we see “a gradual falling away from commitment (2:1) or a slackening of endurance (10:36-39)” in the face of persecution (17). McCruden shows how Jesus’ high priesthood speaks directly to the first hearers’ experiences of suffering. Jesus’ sharing in the flesh and blood of his human siblings (2:14), including even the experience of suffering (2:10) and the fear of death (5:7), qualifies him to be a “merciful and faithful high priest” (2:17) for this persecuted community (60-61, 75). Not only this, but Jesus’ high priesthood also brings honor to the community. In both Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts, the priesthood “brought significant prestige and honor” (27). Their identification with Jesus the high priest would have comforted this marginalized community who were daily contending with feelings of shame and disempowerment (30). Jesus’ continued mediation as high priest in the heavenly realms continues to

shape the community. Given that the first hearers of Hebrews likely operated with a Platonic worldview, wherein invisible unchanging heavenly realities are truer than the visible changing world (6-7), it would make sense to them that Jesus’ heavenly intercession “reaches deeply into the inner lives of the faithful.” Indeed, as McCruden says, “What happens in heaven happens within the hearts and minds of believers” (101).

McCruden does not reserve the moral exhortation for the original hearers only. In the closing pages of the book, he explores how Hebrews’ priestly Christology is relevant today. He suggests two important ways that Jesus’ high priesthood applies to the lives of believers, both internally and externally (107-8). Internally, Jesus’ sacrifice consecrates the inner life of the believer, empowering this believer to live faithfully. Externally, Jesus’ solidarity with humanity invites us to radically identify with others. Both of these are helpful applications for those wishing to follow Jesus as presented in Hebrews.

Finally, our third question: how does McCruden’s reading challenge conventional understandings of Hebrews’ temple imagery and priestly mediation? Here I’d like to offer some reflections on a thread in McCruden’s work that may not exactly fit in this question, but is important enough to include here, even if tangentially. Namely, McCruden shows how the faithfulness of Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection coincide with his sacrificial offering. David Moffitt, blurbed on the back of the book, has done much to connect Jesus’ resurrection with his priestly mediation. In my own work, I’ve shown how Jesus’ faithfulness is one of enduring suffering even to death, which concludes in resurrection. This, I’ve argued, is a word of encouragement to the community and an invitation to participate in the faithfulness of the Faithful One as the community members anticipate their own resurrection. I did not, however, connect Jesus’ faithfulness to his sacrificial offering in much detail. McCruden shows how Jesus’ faithfulness is linked to his sacrificial offering as high priest. For McCruden, Jesus’ sacrifice includes more than just his death. It includes “his entire life of faithfulness that culminated in his suffering, death, and exaltation” (40). This connection is perhaps most poignant in Heb 5:7, where “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications.” McCruden cleverly connects this “offering” to Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, given that the Greek verb for “offered” is the same term used to describe the priest’s offering in 5:1 and several places elsewhere (77). In Heb 5:7, the offering is nothing less than Jesus’ very self. Because of his reverent submission, God heard him and saved him out of death. In this way, the sacrifice of Jesus extends beyond the cross to the entire incarnation, death, and resurrection of the faithful high priest.

Alas, time would fail me to cover every way in which Professor McCruden has translated the deep and exciting theology of Hebrews into terms his readers can understand and apply to their personal and ecclesial lives. I fully expect my colleagues to fill these gaps and do even more. I will close with a quick quote from McCruden that summarizes his work well: “While Hebrews does not articulate in any formal sense the mystery of

how Christ can be said to be both fully divine and fully human, it does insist that the human career of Jesus must always be regarded as intrinsically connected to the exalted status of Christ” (105). My hope and expectation is that the clear work McCruden has given us in this little book will be a helpful tool for those looking for a reliable introduction to the Christology of this most intriguing sermon.2

Notes

1 All Scripture quotations are from NRSVUE.

2 This review was originally presented as an invited response for the Catholic Biblical Association meeting on January 14, 2026. The tone of the review matches this context.

Bardowell 95

Kolin, Philip C. Evangeliaries: Poems. Angelico Press, 2024. ISBN 979-8892800617. 112 pages, $14.95.

Reviewed by Matthew Bardowell

Philip C. Kolin’s collection of poems in Evangeliaries is a meditation on the human condition the human lifespan, really. Kolin’s vision of human life and thriving hews closely to the vision of time we, as Christians, receive in the lectionary. Like Augustine’s Confessions, Kolin aligns the human span with the constant and ever-present love of God. Our breath is caught up in the endless rhythm of God’s love and our praise. That life, as presented in Kolin’s poetry is also caught up with the life of Christ. This much is evident from the structure of Kolin’s collection. Poems are grouped under the following headings: Beginnings, Holy Books & Theological Virtues, Metaphors & Keys, Oremus, and, finally, Life’s Last Country.

In this way, Kolin’s book offers a kind of poetic liturgy in which readers can position themselves, and this is a welcome break from the typical rhythms of modern life. It can be so easy to hum along with the beats of the Hallmark calendar, in which we move from one holiday to another New Year’s Day leads to Valentine’s Day, which leads to St. Patrick’s Day, etc. By and large, these dates often lose any connection to the sacred and simply become the rhythms of our materialistic consumption. Kolin’s book, like the lectionary, offers an alternative way to engage with the cyclical flow of daily life.

In Kolin’s first section, “Beginnings,” the poem “Stars” illustrates Kolin’s view on the recursive nature of time. “Stars” explores the rich symbolism behind these celestial bodies and our complex connection with them. They are “bright mysteries [...] reflected in water mirrors […] [that] invite encounters with eternity” (9). But stars are also more than this. They are the generations of Abraham. They are the “golden incense” that lead the Magi (9). They are found in the “Virgin’s twelve-star halo” (9) of Revelation. Kolin’s imagery reveals that the stars are all these things at once. This realization cuts across our ordinary concept of time to unite present, past, and future. Similarly, Kolin’s poem “Water” spans centuries to show us the unifying current of this element in our lives. Water joins us in our flesh, the Nile, that which gushes forth from the rock Moses struck, and that in which Naaman plunges himself to be healed of his leprosy. These images culminate in the final lines:

Our lives are written in water. The womb’s sea brings us into the world and holy water sprinkled over our grave carries us out, out into the deep. (13)

Kolin’s collection opens with stirring reminders of connectedness to these elemental forces and the way God’ grace reaches us in our present moment just as it has reached our ancestors and will reach our descendants. Using imagery from mundane experience as well as Biblical scripture, Kolin’s poems have an almost riddle-like quality. The answers are given in the titles, and yet the reader is still invited to identify the subjects. It is as if the poems say to the reader: I have told you the answer; can you see it? The poem “Parables,” found in Kolin’s second section, “Holy Books & Theological Virtues,” illustrates this riddle-like quality well. Kolin writes:

Lost coin. Lost sheep. A lost son, feeding on pig pods, come home now to his longing father gifting him with a robe, a ring, a fatted calf. Avoid enlarging the sawdust speck in your elder brother’s eye while ignoring the plank in yours. (25)

The reader identifies the subject of these references with the poem’s title, “Parables,” but hidden in these lines are wise urgings. Things explicitly to avoid, yes, but also synesthetic lessons for those who have the “ears to see, eyes to hear” (25). In this brief second section, Kolin offers similar treatments in poems titled “The Psalms,” “The Prophets,” “Grace,” “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Charity.”

The third section, “Mysteries & Keys,” extends this riddle-like treatment of subjects to urge readers to perceive the mysteries of the Christian faith. Kolin’s poems are always showing us the connection

between symbol and sacrament, with a special focus on how the symbols accrue meaning over time. These poems show that meaning is always gained but never replaced. The one and the many are drawn together in unity. Take his poem, “Bread,” as an example. The poem begins:

Down long aisles to the altar with bent heads, we open our mouths to receive mystery (34)

In this poem, worshippers consume mystery which in turn “consumes us” (34). The poem draws together the Incarnation of Christ with the incarnation He enacts during the taking of communion. The poem reads:

In every particle Christ enters, putting on the flesh that covers us as Spirit becomes substance. (34)

These lines encourage the faithful to wonder at the mysteries of Christ’s presence. Each line develops fresh meaning until the reader is overwhelmed by the multiplicity of significance. Kolin’s verses gather meaning like stones of remembrance. In one of my favorite poems from this section, “Stones,” the reader is urged to “Carry stones in your shepherd’s sack / on your pilgrimage” (39). In Kolin’s hands the rocks in David’s shepherd’s pouch undergo several poetic transformations. We are encouraged to listen to the stones, to hear their clacking and scraping as “Hosannas” (39). They morph into “Golgotha’s cruel rock” and finally resolve into the stone that is rolled away to reveal the empty tomb (39).

The poems collected in Kolin’s next section, “Oremus” (in Latin, “let us pray”), reflect the disorienting and re-orienting experience of communing with God through prayer. One striking poem, “Epiphany,” reads like a shape poem composed in three vertical columns, read top to bottom. The columns individually make sense to the reader in a linear sense, but I felt compelled to consider whether adjacent words may also be significant. I confess that I do not know if this was the author’s intention. This was simply my experience upon reading it. I am still not sure if any of the associations I made between ideas across columns were intentional, but the experience felt fresh to me. The form of “Epiphany” is a welcome mystery hidden amid other poems about mysteries. In this way, Kolin’s poems are both deeply tied to tradition and are still innovative.

The preceding sections of Kolin’s book are characterized by mystery and the multiplicity of meaning inherent in all things. The final section, “Life’s Last Country” is different. It is an unflinching look at mortality, as brave and honest as any poetry I have read on the subject. The poems collected here must have demanded courage from their poet, and it is fitting that they should likewise require courage from their reader. I do not know if I was up to the task, but these poems made me wish that I was. “An Old Man Reflects on Job” and “Your Last COVID Words” quite

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 98

simply hurt to read and to feel. And yet, bound up in all this pain is also love, as is always the case, I suppose. Poems like “We Are Awaited” mingle pain and love quite beautifully, and “Monkey Grass, for Margie Parish” is an elegy to rival Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Felix Randal.” Perhaps the most hopeful poem in this section is “Rain on the Pond,” which envisions the rain falling on the water’s surface as tears shed for so much pain in the world. Scars and scandals. Tombs (86)

The poem reflects upon those lost in the forgetfulness of time or the forgeries of despair (86)

Despair as forgery is so apt an observation, so keen and incisive, that the reader begins to feel a sense of healing. These lost ones are abandoned except for our prayer circles our eyes say (86)

Grief as a kind of prayer born from the mingling of loss and love reveals grace.

Kolin’s Evangeliaries has these and many other things to say. It will be of interest to those who have the patience for meticulously constructed poetry. And, like the liturgical calendar, this book of verses cannot say all that needs to be said in one moment or even one year. As Kolin gathers meaning together in simple, elemental subjects like stones, bread, and monkey grass, he shows us that significance is made across moments and across lifetimes, all of which culminate in the life and body of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He too has much to say. So much, Saint John tells us, that “if every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

Work

Cited

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Williams, Nadya. Christians Reading Classics: An Introduction to Greco-Roman Classics from Homer to Boethius. Zondervan Academic, 2025. ISBN 9780310171072. 299 pages, $32.99.

Reviewed by Julie Ooms

In chapter sixteen (of twenty) of Christians Reading Classics, Nadya Williams addresses readers who may be put off by the values of the Greco-Roman writers she spends nearly three hundred pages introducing them to. “There is value in trying to understand writers from another time, place, and culture on their own terms even while agreeing that we do not need to replicate them,” she writes. “We never owe them complete or partial agreement. But we do owe them understanding. Indeed, understanding is perhaps all the more crucial in those instances when we don’t agree with our sources” (214). As a Christian and teacher of literature, I strongly agree with Williams here: in the classes I teach and in my own personal reading habits, I strive to meet the authors and characters of texts as neighbors to whom I and my students can extend charity and understanding. Indeed, if this emphasis on the value of understanding writers from vastly different contexts were the driving force behind Williams’s project, I would be writing an unhesitatingly positive review of it. Unfortunately, however, this isn’t Williams’s consistent position. Instead, she urges readers to stand apart from the texts, in

A

constant judgment over them, because these pagan authors were just that pagan. The kind of Christian reading she promotes overall is not a charitable, neighborly one but a condescending and even prideful one that, in my view, does more harm than good to the Christian reading classics.

As an overview of the Greco-Roman classics whose intended audience is primarily made up of Christians who are educated but not academics, Williams’s book does have value. Even though, as Williams notes throughout, much of Greco-Roman literature has been lost to time, there is plenty for her to introduce us to. Williams keeps the sheer amount of ground she’s trying to cover from being overwhelming by organizing her twenty chapters into five thematic categories. Part II, for example, entitled “The Formation of Virtuous Citizens,” explores how the work of playwrights like Aeschylus and Sophocles and philosophers like Plato and Aristotle would have been used for the moral formation of the citizens of ancient Greece, particularly Athens. Part III, “Words of Power and the Power of Words,” introduces readers to the world of ancient Greek rhetoric, including an interesting chapter on ancient handbooks (chapter ten). I am not myself a scholar of Greco-Roman classics, but I have read and taught many of the works Williams mentions throughout her book (the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Oresteia, Plato’s Gorgias, to name a few), and I was happy to find that Williams’s discussion of these texts helped further flesh out my understanding of them and their ancient contexts. Other parts of the book introduced me to texts I had only heard of but never read, or that I hadn’t heard of at all; I think of the aforementioned manuals or Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy. For a reader who has little or no familiarity with the Greco-Roman classics, Williams’s blistering pace through them might be overwhelming. For one who has some familiarity but little in-depth expertise someone who, say, read parts of the Odyssey in high school or college, or someone whose middle schooler won’t stop talking about Percy Jackson Williams’s overview could provide a springboard into unfamiliar works and facilitate a deeper dive into familiar ones. Sometimes the fact that Williams is trying to cover so much ground in so little space works against her; chapters one and three, for example, are about the same length, even though chapter one focuses on the Iliad and chapter three on the odes of Pindar, an allocation of space that seems very odd given the former’s greater length and much greater cultural impact. But if readers use Williams’s book as an introduction to these texts, its breadth makes up for its lack of depth. If Williams had focused on providing just such a broad introduction for Christian readers, and framed that introduction as an invitation to understanding neighbors from the past, then I would unreservedly recommend her book to any Christian reader interested in the GrecoRoman classics. The issue with Williams’s book is not with its overview of these works. The issue is with the posture Williams encourages her readers to take toward those texts. Throughout the book, Williams articulates an impoverished and short-sighted vision of what Christian reading should entail.

Throughout the book, Williams presents the Greco-Roman classics as the work of a pagan culture whose ideas sometimes resemble those of Christianity, but whose values overall are in conflict with it. “While the Greeks were unaware of the Christian values, we will see the longing for eternity present in their imagination, reminding us that this is an in-built human impulse that should point us to God,” she writes in the introduction (xvii). This makes sense; it notes that reading Greco-Roman classics requires one to understand the cultural and religious differences between us and them, but emphasizes the reality of common grace and common humanity. The problem comes when Williams encourages Christian readers to therefore set themselves up as superior to the writers and characters of the Greco-Roman classics. Part of reading the GrecoRoman classics as a Christian seems, to Williams, to involve painstakingly identifying all of the ways in which Greco-Roman culture, being not just pagan but pre-Christian, does not agree with many of the core tenets of the Christian faith.

The book is full of examples of this type of reading indeed, each chapter ends with a section that heavy-handedly addresses all of the ways in which we as Christians would disagree with the ancient Greeks and Romans. For example, in chapter ten, “How to Do Anything in the Ancient World,” Williams concludes her discussion of Greco-Roman manuals and handbooks with a section entitled “God’s Handbook,” in which she brings up the book of Leviticus and compares it to the pagan handbooks she’s just discussed: “Leviticus is another example of that familiar genre of ancient manuals and handbooks,” she writes. But, she continues, “Tradition ascribes Leviticus to Moses, and through him directly to God. This reminds us that some handbooks are more authoritative and powerful than others. Fail to follow the instructions of a recipe, and you’ll ruin dinner. Fail to follow God, and you’ll ruin your life” (140). It is difficult for me to believe that any Christian who decided to take Williams’s advice and start digging into some ancient Greco-Roman handbooks would run the risk of accidentally mixing up the advice they offered with Scripture. Williams’s reminder that, of course, Christians shouldn’t view the GrecoRomans’ manuals as they do Scripture thus come across as extremely patronizing at best and, at worst, keen to define Christian reading as the practice of making sure we are always aware of what we do and don’t agree with about a given text. This posture is far from the “we do owe them understanding” of chapter sixteen.

Another example comes at the end of chapter eleven, which focuses on Roman political writing. “So why read these men’s words now as Christians?” Williams asks. “Because they are powerful and beautiful. Yet the source of the beauty they reflect as well as our ability to appreciate it does not stem from anything the Romans fully understood. The new man that everyone aspired to be in Rome was ultimately power-hungry and self-centered, willing to sacrifice all things (and all people) to achieve his goals. As believers, we know that this is not the way” (153). As with the example above, Williams is stating the obvious as though it were

profound: there is a distinct difference between what the Greco-Romans believed and what Christians do and have believed. This, frankly, should go without saying. What strikes me as less patronizing and more dangerous, however, is the way this example in particular sets up a contrast between Christianity and ancient Roman political writing in such a way that it fails to acknowledge how the ancient Roman fixation on being “power-hungry and self-centered” does not belong only to ancient Rome. It belongs to all times and all places where sinful human beings sought, and seek, power, and that means it belongs to our current era and its leaders leaders born millennia after the birth of Christ and the advent of Christianity as much as it did to the ancient Romans. Earlier in chapter eleven, Williams had noted that “our modern eye, conditioned to abhor violence and genocide by two thousand years of Christianity” might see Caesar’s writings as “jarring” (152). What we should find jarring instead, however, is how much resonance there is between Caesar’s writings and those of Nazi Germany or, indeed, of any American in the past few decades who has perpetrated a mass shooting after publishing a manifesto online. Further, there are a not insignificant number of people in our current era including some who claim the identity “Christian” for whom words that delight in violence are not jarring, whether they belong to Caesar or to Pete Hegseth, for example. The existence of Christianity has not purged Western history of the errors of the Greco-Roman pagans. We cannot, therefore, read the Greco-Roman classics as though we exist in some kinder, better world or as though we are kinder, better people.

In chapter eighteen, Williams introduces us to Perpetua, a noble woman who became a Christian in the early 200s AD and was executed for it. Perpetua, like Achilles in the Iliad, chooses glory over a long life (238). But, Williams notes, “her faith in God’s love and provision for her is clear in a way that the Homeric heroes could never imagine because their gods could never offer it” (240). Herein lies what I think is the ultimate strength and weakness of Williams’s book. She rightly notes that Perpetua and Achilles both evidence real human longings here, the longing for glory even though those longings rested on different ultimate hopes. Instead of emphasizing how wrongly placed Homeric heroes’ hopes were, I wish she had kept the focus on how the fact of those longings in the first place is evidence of our common humanity. Reading this way allows us to, as Williams herself notes in chapter sixteen, seek to genuinely understand the ancient Greco-Romans as neighbors: fellow human beings, both real and fictional, who longed for something meaningful to devote their lives to. Reading this way would also allow us to let the Greco-Roman classics show us the persistence of sin throughout history, even Christian history, even in our own hearts.

Jianqing Zheng 103

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2026): 103-120

CREATIVE WORKS

“Evening

Walk” and Other Poems

Jianqing Zheng

Evening Walk

A pause sun and moon bow to each other and bid fond greetings, stars blink off and on, crickets click in cheers, the world stops spinning under feet. a moment of fullness He is walking beside you

Meaning of Fame

A match struck for a quick flash of flame soon out in the vast silence of Almighty

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Old South

Lined with live oaks festooned with ghosts of Spanish moss, the gravel road creaks beneath a haunting moon emerging bright after rain a bone-white carriage rolling near and dispersing a faint scent of petrichor from the newly plowed fields, where a paint-peeling church shimmers in the silent light as if in a deep meditation upon the presence of the Great Divine.

“I Hear – Resurrection” and Other Poems

Todd Sukany

I Hear – Resurrection

“Sir, where have you carried him?” Mary

With my eyes still swollen from the trauma of the weekend, I kneel before a rock.

Turning from darkness to the east, I squint at the glory of this golden morning. Brilliant orange. Purple reflections. Shimmering blue. The slightest breeze against my cheeks.

A stir outlines a looming figure, a gardener, and I return to the tending at hand I must find him, remember him, see him.

The caretaker mumbles something and my grief answers lost, loss, loss.

I look to his face, an unshadowed nimbus, for a key, an answer. I squint once more at the glory, brighter now. His mumble resurrects into thunderous clarity, My Name.

Day Off – Holy Saturday

“And on the seventh day God ended his work….” Moses

And for those who were directly involved, this sabbath, this Saturn’s Day, was . . . restless.

Joseph and Nicodemus finished wrapping (their gift) with little time to spare. They felt the chill in the tomb. The darkness. Ah, the darkness. Inside and out.

The darkness was great, tangible, sneering from house to house, bed to bed, dashing, slashing, mocking atonement.

Already the cross was the past. Something from a nightmare. Like teeth. Rows of fiery teeth. Circling the head. The entire being.

Pontius and wife continued the argument started days ago. Pontius thought his hands should feel dry by now. Even Annas and Caiaphas wrestled with Torah, hoping for a hip-out-of-socket sabbath not pillows of rock. But Moses. But . . . , but Moses.

Moses speaking in their dreams “ . . . and God rested . . . and God rested.”

But Moses speaking in their dreams “. . . the cross is empty, empty, and God is resting.”

Chosen by Lot – Good Friday

“What I have written I have written.” Pontius Pilate

Make a bullseye. Add rings for competition and piling up points. Good clean fun (throw in a gamble or two). Cloak the crack between two tablets. Shroud warmly with gold like icons of melted earrings.

Bend a line of decoration into a smile before dropping the hammer. Time. Time. Time. And time again. Until deep wounds stop shaking.

Step back and admire the accuracy of your shots.

Note what holds us together is a victor’s crown, a crown of thorns. Good. Good. Good night. Good Friday.

Purple – Ash Wednesday

“Behold the man!” Pontius Pilate

Once the wheels are in motion, stopping seems unnecessary work. A job for others.

Surrounded by the security of the familiar, we stand chin high, shoulders squared, feet spread hip-wide, strength in numbers.

We arrive like a vehicle at a car wash, waiting, waiting for the shine, the wet shimmer to hide the imperfections of errors in judgment,

rocks, door dings. We hose others with purple, the purple reserved for our shame.

Come, Lord, into This Fickle Time

Philip C. Kolin

Come, Lord, into this fickle time and Touch the shadow of eternity here. Let us rejoice in the grace you place In us, safeguarding our souls.

Guide our labors, Lord, tilling your fields Helping others to break their stony Hearts and cast out craven doubts.

Assist us sowing seeds that sprout, leaf, And swell with your bounteous blessings, Draining sins away.

May each soul you touch, Lord, outlive The dust they have endured. May they come To you, rendering their senses nameless.

Instruct us to leave white moons behind And cross that unspanned bridge to you.

Henning, Tennessee: The Childhood Landscape of Alex Haley (A photo essay)

John J. Han

The location of Henning, Tennessee. Composite image based on map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Alex Haley (1921-92), the African-American author of the bestselling novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976; 704 pages), grew up in Henning, a town in west Tennessee about 70 miles north of Memphis. I learned about that several years ago but did not have an opportunity to visit the place until March 2026. Finally, on the way to the annual conference of the Mississippi Philological Association at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, I decided to stay one night at Covington, Tennessee, to visit Haley’s childhood home the following morning. The distance from Covington is only 8.5 miles along Tennessee Route 51, and it was memorable to see the town and the author’s home, which was well maintained.

When Roots was published in October 1976, when I was a college sophomore in Seoul, it became an international sensation. The novel was adapted into a TV drama in January 1977. It was aired on South Korean TV with Korean captions. I still remember watching segments of the film in black and white. The main character’s name, Kunta Kinte (“Toby”), was seared in my memory for decades. Given that more than 15 million copies of Roots were sold, and that the novel earned the author a special Pulitzer Prize in 1977, the visit was worth my time.

Roots chronicles the capture of Kunta Kinte in The Gambia and follows seven generations of his family in the United States. The narrative depicts their endurance through enslavement, family disruption, and

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning

changing historical conditions, focusing on descendants like Kizzy and Chicken George. It ends by linking this lineage to Haley himself. Haley grew up in a Christian home and identified as a Christian throughout his life. Unsurprisingly, Roots stands as more than a historical novel; rather, it is a story of a spiritual journey shaped by heritage, struggle, and belief in God. The novel emphasizes Christian virtues such as purposeful living, family, unity, humility, and perseverance, as exemplified by characters like Kunta Kinte.

Top Left: Alex Haley speaking at Texas Hall, 1980. Courtesy of the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Brightness has been adjusted.

Top Middle: First-edition dust jacket of Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) by Alex Haley. Jacket design by Al Nagy, published by Doubleday. Public domain image (scan via Heritage Auctions; Wikimedia Commons). This image has been slightly cropped for clarity and presentation purposes; no other alterations have been made.

Top Right: The cover of Volume 1 of the Korean translation of Roots (Bburi) by Ahn Jeong-hyo (Seoul: Literature and Thought, 1998).

Top: A Henning, Tennessee, water tank viewed from Tennessee Route 51.

Bottom: A sign in Henning shows directions to the Alex Haley Museum, which stands next to the author’s childhood home.

Despite the directions sign, I had to drive for about five minutes before I found Haley’s childhood home. It is always interesting to drive around a small town like Henning, where the streets are quiet, the houses look modest, and some remain uncared for. My camera captured the sign “Welcome to Henning,” which I did not notice while driving.

Haley’s childhood home stands at the intersection of Haley Avenue and Church Street, Henning, Tennessee.

Haley’s childhood home is a modest 10-room Craftsman bungalow, considered a modern and well-built home for its time (1918-19).

Grave site located in the front yard of Haley’s childhood home, adjacent to the Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center.

An Alex Haley interpretive sign stands near his front yard grave. It states that the author lived in this house from 1921 to 1929 and later spent many summers with his grandparents there. It also notes that he heard many stories from his grandmother and [grand] aunts on the porch, which later found their way into Roots.

Here is the transcription of the plaque:

ROOTS was born on this front porch. Summer after summer, as I grew up, my [g]randmother and my great aunts told our family’s treasured story all the way back to the African who said his name was Kinte.

(in the words of Alex Haley)

The text on this plaque is faint, but the following transcription reflects the visible content as closely as possible:

This was Grandma’s summertime spot for telling stories, giving feed to her chickens, and teaching grandchildren, hearing their lessons, keeping an eye on its busy grounds, and dozens of more weekday activities.

A plaque in the side yard reads, “Here my parents courted (with Grandma watching), and here later their wedding reception was held.” Unlike some African American authors, Alex Haley appears to have had a relatively happy childhood.

A view of the Alex Haley Musem and Interpretive Center, adjascent to the author’s childhood home.

As I often feel when visiting a literary landmark far from home, it is somewhat sad that this trip will likely be my first and last visit to Alex Haley’s home. However, I am grateful that my long-held desire to see his home was finally fulfilled in March 2026.

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 (Bloomsbury Academics, 2024). 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.

Jane Beal (Ph.D., University of California, Davis) is Professor of English Literature at the University of La Verne. She is the author or editor of eight academic books and over forty peer-reviewed articles and chapters, primarily on the Pearl-poet, the Polychronicon, and the mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien. Her poetry collections include Sanctuary, Rising, and Song of the Selkie, eight haiku micro-chaps, and three audio recording projects combining poetry and music, “Songs from the Secret Life,” “Love Song,” and, co-created with her brother Andrew Beal, “The Jazz Bird,” available from Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify. To learn more about her and her work, see https://janebeal.wordpress.com.

Timothy Bitz is a PhD student in Biblical Spirituality (SBTS). His research explores early Christian spirituality, focusing on its historical development and the contemporary need for its retrieval within the church. Serving as a pastor in St. Louis, he emphasizes faithful preaching, discipleship, and missional living. He longs to strengthen the connections between biblical theology, Patristic interpretation, and vibrant Christian praxis. Timothy’s ministry and life are pro ecclesia, making spiritual theology accessible and life-giving for everyday believers. He lives in St. Louis with his wife and three children and enjoys writing, teaching, developing leaders for ministry, and smoked meats.

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.

Aaron S. Halstead is an adjunct professor for the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University, teaching courses on both the Old and New Testaments. He is also the Lead Pastor of Teaching and Worship Ministries at Mid-Cities Church in Maplewood, Missouri. He received a Ph.D. in Preaching, minoring in Systematic Theology, from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writing on the proclamation theology of Heinrich Bullinger and its appropriation into a Baptist theology of preaching. His research interests include homiletics, proclamation and kerygmatic theology, systematic and historical theology, discipleship and spiritual formation, Baptist identity, pastoral ministry, the Protestant Reformation, and Anabaptists. He is married with two children, ages seven and fout.

John J. Han (PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is Professor of English and Creative Writing and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. Dr. 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), To the Hills and Hollows: Haibun and Tanka Prose (Cyberwit, 2024), and Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks: Photos with Notes (Cyberwit, 2023). His forthcoming book, Echoes from the Hills: Critical Essays on Ozarks Literature, co-edited with Dr. C. Clark Triplett, will be published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Philip C. Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published more than 40 books, including 17 collections of poems, the two most recent being White Terror, Black Trauma: Resistance Poems about Black History (Third World Press, 2023) and Evangeliaries (Angelico Press, 2024).

Dr. David A. Lee, an Associate Professor of Biology at Missouri Baptist University, holds degrees in geology, paleontology, biology, and education. His doctoral research focused on perceptions of biotechnology in educational settings. He serves as the director of the new Environmental Science program at MBU and hosts the Popcorn Theology podcast.

Colin Moll, MPH, is a public health professional with a diverse range of academic interests. He earned his master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2020. Prior to this, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Saint Louis University. His academic work includes a co-written publication on rumination, stigma and other determinants of mental health in a competitive gaming community. His interests span Theology, Public Health, and Sociology, focusing on topics like Emotion, Rumination, and Health Technology. He currently works in an administrative role for a large healthcare system, focusing on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Kristen Nugent is a Professor in the Master of Social Work program at Missouri Baptist University and a trauma-informed therapist with extensive experience in clinical practice and online education. She specializes in working with complex trauma, codependency, international adoption, and addiction, integrating evidence-based approaches with a biblical Christian social work practice perspective. Dr. Nugent teaches graduate social work courses, mentors emerging clinicians, and presents on topics including compassion fatigue, resilience, and spiritual integration in practice. She maintains a small private practice and is passionate about equipping students and clients to cultivate emotional health, relational wholeness, and sustainable rhythms of self-care and leadership development.

Julie Ooms is Professor of English at Missouri Baptist University. She received her Ph.D. in English from Baylor University in 2014, focusing on twentieth-century war literature. Her current research focuses on Christian practices for teaching reading and the crossroads of religion and secularism in twentieth-century American fiction. She has published articles on the writing of Tim O’Brien, J.D. Salinger, and Sylvia Plath in Renascence, Journal of the Short Story in English, Christian Scholar’s Review, and Plath Profiles. Her book chapter about female friendship in two novels, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson, was published in Navigating Women’s Friendships in American Literature and Culture from Palgrave in 2022. Her book (co-written with Rachel B. Griffis and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts), On Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert Distraction, Hostility, and Consumerism (Baker Academic, 2024), which Christianity Today selected as a 2025 Book Award Finalist in Culture, Poetry and the Arts.

Evelyn Sevick is student at Missouri Baptist University pursuing a bachelor’s in environmental science with a minor in geoscience. She is a member of the university’s Honors Program as well as the Sigma Zeta National Honor Society. Evelyn has conducted research on the impacts of fast fashion on environmental and human health as well as the influence of greenwashing on the environment. She works as a teaching assistant on campus in chemistry classes, and she hopes to continue her research in environmental science and conservation.

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.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

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.

W. Jackson Watts (PhD, Concordia Seminary) has served as the Senior Pastor of Grace Free Will Baptist in Arnold, Missouri since 2011. He has authored, co-authored, or edited four books, including Biblical Beliefs: Doctrines Believers Should Know (ETA, 2013) and The Promise of Arminian Theology (Randall House Academic, 2016). He serves as an officer on the local, state, and national levels for the National Association of Free Will Baptists. He is also an adjunct instructor for Jefferson College (religion/philosophy), and Randall University (theology and ministry). He is deeply interested in ecclesiology and cultural studies, as well as the relationship between doctrine and practice. He and his wife Mckensie reside in the St. Louis area with their two children. More of his popularlevel writings can be found at www.churchatopia.com.

Joshua 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.

Jianqing Zheng’s recent poetry collections include Dreaminations (Madville, 2026) and Visual Chords (Broken Tribe, 2025). A professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University, he has received three poetry fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission.

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.