What’s So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?: Integrated Approaches to Christian Formation

By Pickwick Publications

FRAMEWORKS is a series dedicated to interdisciplinary studies on the integration of faith and learning. Given Jesus' command to "love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength," the time is ripe for confessional scholarship and education across the disciplines. We implore God's Spirit to change us through the great works of history and literature alongside developments in science, psychology, and economics--and all of this--through intense engagement with the Scriptures. We want to celebrate God's work across the disciplines. We seek the likes of psychologists in conversation with philosophers, ethicists with historians, biblical scholars with rhetoricians, scientists with economists, environmentalists with neurologists. As these conversations continue across the disciplines, the "framework" from which to draw our individual and collective testimonies will only enlarge. We invite you to think, behave, preach, sing, pray, research and indeed to live this multi-faceted journey with us. If indeed our stories are never complete, we invite future contributors and readers to join us in pursuit of deeper personal and collective transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498231459

Book preview

Table of Contents

Series Preface

Acknowledgments

Why Frameworks? My Storied Explanation

Introduction: What’s So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?

Chapter 1: Watchers: James and Twila Edwards as Models of Integrated Faith and Learning

Part I: Historical Developments

Chapter 2: Shaping Minds, Shaping Culture: The Story of Liberal Arts Education in the Middle Ages

Chapter 3: Global Pentecostal Renaissance? Reflections on Pentecostalism, Culture, and Higher Education

Chapter 4: Liberal Arts and the Assemblies of God: A History and Analysis of a Strained Alliance

Part II: The Liberal Arts as Interdisciplinary Experience

Chapter 5: How Primitive! The Modern Pentecostal Movement as a Reflection of Cultural Primitivism

Chapter 6: Teach me to curse mine enemies: Unexplored Female Power in Shakespeare’s Richard III

Chapter 7: Pioneering Missionary Women in Asia and the Pacific Rim256

Chapter 8: Herbert’s Ratios of Psalmic Intertextuality in The Temple: A Prospectus for Further Study

Chapter 9: Eat, Drink, and Include:A Theology of Hospitality in Luke-Acts & Beyond345

Chapter 10: The Truest, Least Selfish Heart: God’s Childlikeness in George MacDonald’s Fairy Tales

Chapter 11: Tolkien as Ethnographer: The Role of Culture in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Part III: the liberal arts in practice

Chapter 12: Study Abroad: A Transformative and Integrative Journey

Chapter 13: Meeting at the Table: The Divine Intersection Between Writing Centers and the Discipline of Hospitality

Chapter 14: Complexities of Learning: From Jerusalem to Shantistan532

Index of Authors Cited

9781498231442.kindle.jpg

Frameworks

Interdisciplinary Studies for Faith and Learning

What’s So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?

Integrated Approaches to Christian Formation

edited by

Paul W. Lewis and Martin William Mittelstadt

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WHAT’S SO LIBERAL ABOUT THE LIBERAL ARTS?

Integrated Approaches to Christian Formation

Frameworks: Interdisciplinary Studies for Faith and Learning

1

Copyright ©

2016

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paperback isbn 13:

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hardcover isbn 13:

978-1-4982-3146-6

ebook isbn 13:

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Cataloging-in-Publication data:

What’s so liberal about the liberal arts? : integrated approaches to Christian formation / edited by Paul W. Lewis and Martin William Mittelstadt.

xvi + 252 p. ; 23 cm. —Includes bibliographical references and index(es).

Frameworks: Interdisciplinary Studies for Faith and Learning

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These essays are in honor of James and Twila Edwards, exemplars of an integrative, multidisciplinary approach to liberal arts education

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Series Preface

Frameworks: Interdisciplinary Studies for Faith and Learning

We affirm the value of a Christian liberal arts education. We believe that lifelong development of a Christian worldview makes us more fully human. We attest that engagement in the liberal arts contributes to the process of integrating Christian spirituality with a broad range of disciplinary studies. This integrative process requires that we explore and reflect upon biblical and theological studies while learning effective communication, pursuing healthy relationships, and engaging our diverse global community. We believe that the convergence of academic disciplines opens the door to the good life with enlarged promise for worship of the living God, development of deeper communities, and preparation for service and witness.

Our contributors are dedicated to the integration of faith, life, and learning. We celebrate exposure to God’s truth at work in the world not only through preachers, missionaries, and theologians, but also through the likes of poets, artists, musicians, lawyers, physicians, and scientists. We seek to explore issues of faith, increase self-awareness, foster diversity, cultivate societal engagement, explore the natural world, and encourage holistic service and witness. We offer these studies not only as our personal act of worship, but as liturgies to prepare readers for worship and as an opportunity to wrestle with faith and practice through the arts and sciences.

In this series, we proclaim our commitment to interdisciplinary studies. Interdisciplinary studies involves the methodological combination of two or more academic disciplines into one research project. Within a Christian worldview, we address complex questions of faith and life, promote cooperative learning, provide fresh opportunities to ask meaningful questions and address human needs. Given our broad approach to interdisciplinary studies, we seek contributors from diverse Christian traditions and disciplines. Possibilities for publication include but are not limited to the following examples: 1) We seek single or multiple author contributions that address Christian faith and life via convergence of two or more academic disciplines; 2) We seek edited volumes that stretch across interdisciplinary lines. Such volumes may be directed specifically at the convergence of two or more disciplines and address a specific topic or serve as a wide-ranging collection of essays across multiple disciplines unified by a single theme; 3) We seek contributors across all Christian traditions and encourage conversations among scholars regarding questions within a specific tradition or across multiple traditions. In so doing we welcome both theoretical and applied perspectives.

The vision for this project emerged among professors at Evangel University (Springfield, MO). Evangel University, owned and operated by the General Council of the Assemblies of God (AG), is the fellowship’s national university of arts, sciences, and professions: the first college in the Pentecostal tradition founded as a liberal arts college (1955). Evangel University is a member institution of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). Consistent with the values and mission of the AG and CCCU, Evangel University exists to educate and equip Christians from any tradition for life and service with particular attention to Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions. Evangel University employs a general education curriculum that includes required interdisciplinary courses for all students. The Evangel University representatives for this series continue to participate in the articulation and development of the Evangel University ethos and seek contributors that demonstrate and model confessional integration not only for the Evangel University community and Pentecostals, but all Christians committed to the integration of faith, learning, and life. We offer this series not only as a gift from the Evangel University community to other Christian communities interested in the intersection of intellectual integration and spiritual and societal transformation, but also as an invitation to walk with us on this journey. Finally, in order to ensure a broad conversation, our editorial committee includes a diverse collection of scholars not only from Evangel University but also from other traditions, disciplines, and academic institutions who share our vision.

Series Editors

• Paul W. Lewis (Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Intercultural Studies at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary)

• Martin William Mittelstadt (Professor of Biblical Studies at Evangel University)

Editorial Board

• Diane Awbrey (Professor of Humanities at Evangel University)

• Jeremy Begbie (Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School)

• Robert Berg (Professor of Theology at Evangel University)

• Jonathan Kvanvig (Professor of Philosophy at Washington University-St. Louis)

• Joy Qualls (Chair & Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Biola University)

• Brandon Schmidly (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Evangel University)

• Geoffrey W. Sutton (Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Evangel University)

• Grant Wacker (Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Christian History at Duke Divinity School)

• Michael Wilkinson (Professor of Sociology at Trinity Western University)

• Everett Worthington (Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University)

Contributors

Diane Awbrey (PhD, University of Missouri-Columbia) is Professor of Humanities at Evangel University

Robert Berg (PhD, Drew University) is Professor of Theology at Evangel University

Ruth Vassar Burgess (PhD, University of Missouri—Columbia) is Professor Emeritus of Reading and Special Education at Missouri State University

Barry H. Corey (PhD, Boston College) is President at Biola University

Jennifer Fenton (MA, University of Missouri—Kansas City) is the Writing Studio specialist at Metropolitan Community College—Longview in Lee’s Summit, MO

LaDonna Friesen (MA, Missouri State University) is Associate Professor of Humanities at Evangel University

Jeff Hittenberger (PhD, University of Southern California) is the Chief Academic Officer at Orange County (CA) Department of Education.

Paul W. Lewis (PhD, Baylor University) is Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Intercultural Studies and Admissions and Program Coordinator of Intercultural Doctoral Studies at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary

Gary Liddle (MA, Bethel Seminary) is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Evangel University.

Martin William Mittelstadt (PhD, Marquette University) is Professor of Biblical Studies at Evangel University

Nathan H. Nelson (PhD, University of Minnesota) is the Chair of Humanities and Professor of English at Evangel University

Michael Palmer (PhD, Marquette University) is Professor of Philosophy at Regent University Divinity School

Barbara Cavaness Parks (PhD, Fuller Seminary) is Missionary Educator with Assemblies of God World Missions (USA)

Robert Turnbull (PhD, New York University) is Professor Emeritus of French at Evangel University

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank of all of the contributors to this volume. They have waited patiently for publication of their work.

We appreciate the publishers for recognizing the merit of the Frameworks series and providing editorial guidance to us throughout the process.

We are grateful to our Frameworks editorial team. The idea for this series was the culmination of a long and delicate process. Over the years the original team members of this series, all of them from Evangel University, talked, dreamed, and charted (an ongoing) vision for interdisciplinary studies. When Chris Spinks at Pickwick Publications enthusiastically approved our vision for the series and called for a larger editorial team, our Evangel University colleagues answered the call and helped us bring together an outstanding group of scholars.

We are indebted to Evangel University students Ally Walsh and Anna Mitchell for their work in editing, checking, and double-checking various components of the project.

Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to our wives, Eveline Lewis and Evelyn Mittelstadt, for their kindness in affording us the time away from other tasks as we continually live out our academic dreams and meet deadlines!

—Paul and Marty

Why Frameworks? My Storied Explanation

Martin William Mittelstadt

As this is the inaugural volume of Frameworks, it seems fitting to elaborate briefly on the motivation and purpose behind this series. Given the dedication of the editorial team to the liberal arts, and specifically, to the integration of faith and learning, I propose not a thesis, but a story. Stories provide the foundation for the liberal arts. Our beliefs, values, rituals, and communities are based upon shared and evaluated stories. I cut my teeth on a Pentecostal pew and came to understand the importance of story early in my life.¹ In his Thinking in Tongues, James K. Smith recounts the days of his youth when his church would engage in a spontaneous ritual they called God sightings; congregants would respond to the question, where did you see God this week?² Whether at church or at home, work or the classroom, or the hockey rink, people would recount how God had enlivened daily activities. Such testimonies continue to function as an expected element of Pentecostal liturgy, typically unscripted (yet rather formulaic) narratives of conversion, sanctification, Spirit baptism, healing and deliverance, financial relief, and restoration of marred relationships. As I grew up in this tradition, I not only learned the rhetoric, but quickly came to value the desired outcomes of this practice. I gave praise to God, benefited from the shared experiences of my fellow believers, and eventually began to declare my own testimonies that had been modeled for our community. Though I continue to cherish this practice, my understanding of the value of storied testimony grew immensely during my educational journey.

Upon graduation from high school I began theological studies at a small Canadian Pentecostal college. As a young theologian in training, I began to discover technical language for my beliefs and practices. It came as no surprise to me that Pentecostals read the stories of the Bible not only as history, but as our stories. When we debated the historicity of people, places, and events in Kings and Chronicles or the Gospels and Acts (and we always landed emphatically on the side of historical reliability), we concluded that these stories were not merely to help us better read the propositional language of the Old Testament prophets or sayings of Jesus. I discovered that the biblical narratives served as a template for our contemporary testimonies.³ Though Evangelical hermeneutics remained steeped in pursuit of historical critical questions, Pentecostals were surprisingly ahead of the curve. In the larger academic arena, biblical scholars of the late 1980s and beyond would produce the first generation of students and ensuing scholars to employ new methods such as literary criticism, narrative criticism, reader response theories, and emerging interdisciplinary approaches. As a Pentecostal, however, I came to realize that we were already reading the Bible like narrative critics and literary artists ahead of many other traditions and the academy. But herein is the irony; we were quasi-formalists and didn’t know it. Our clergy typically entered church-related ministry with only a bachelor’s degree (sometimes only a three year diploma in theology) from Pentecostal Bible colleges with a majority of their program focused upon theological studies. They typically received minimal engagement with other disciplines such as the humanities, behavioral sciences, social sciences, or hard sciences. Amazingly, while they knew little of the jargon, they played the game rather well. Though comfortable with the propositions of the OT prophets and NT letter writers, they often mined the epic stories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah and Elisha, Daniel, Jesus, Paul, and the early church. Through these stories we discovered models to follow God’s lead, to resist temptation and overcome adversity, to take down Goliaths, to experience a personal Damascus Road conversion, to trust God, to preach under duress, and to reproduce miracles, healings, and deliverance like those in the days of old.⁴ We were in the game, but needed to learn a new set of rules.

I eventually entered Winnipeg Theological Seminary (now Providence Seminary), affectionately described as a non-denominational seminary in the Mennonite tradition. I felt very much at home as I soon discovered that my Anabaptist friends also employed story to stimulate meaning, rehearse and reenact their identity, and thereby encourage faithfulness to Jesus and their tradition. I remember well the first time I read Thielem J. von Bracht’s Martyrs’ Mirror, a seventeenth-century hagiographical collection of martyrological accounts from early Christianity to the emergence of Anabaptists.⁵ Jan Luyken produced a subsequent edition with some one-hundred pictorial illustrations of which thirty survive. The account and illustration of Dirk Willems left an indelible mark on my life. Lukyen sketches Willems’ dramatic prison escape from his religious opponents. As Willems runs to safety across a frozen river, his pursuer falls through the ice. Willems must make a split-second decision to continue his flight or save a life. In dramatic fashion, Luyken portrays Willems rescuing his pursuer. Willems is subsequently returned to town and burned at the stake. Like a Pentecostal testimony, Willems’s story provides Anabaptists (and all Christians) a concrete story of Jesus’ call to love your enemies [and] do good to those who hate you (Matt 6:27), Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matt 5:10) and those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it (Mark 8:34). As I observed my Mennonite friends engage in deliberate reflection upon centuries-old narratives, I began to crave integration of my tradition not only with the larger Christian story, but with the human story.

I eventually made my way to MU and took another giant leap, this time into the rich tradition of Catholicism. Once again, I found my faith re-contextualized. As I read (and re-read) the Christian story, I found myself reading afresh the biblical stories and history of the church alongside people of faith with perspectives, experiences, interests, and methodologies different from my Pentecostal worldview. I came to MU in the early 1990s as a new wave of biblical studies began to reach its crest. Though not the end of the historical critical era, journals and monographs on biblical studies became flooded with the new formalism—hijacked from the hallways of humanities’ departments. As a Lukan scholar in training, I began to encounter Luke-Acts not only as historiography, but fiction, novel, epic, biography, and a host of other genres. As I wrestled with scholars of competing genres, I found myself revisiting not only the writings and methodologies of ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman history, but the nature of story-telling (both oral and written) by way of contemporary approaches to literature, narrative, drama, and film. Furthermore, a second methodological shift of tsunamic import would converge literary and narratival waves with the likes of socio-political, economic, post-colonial, feminist, and Global South readings built upon the contexts of emerging scholars and their specific stories and concerns.

I am in my sixteenth year as Professor of New Testament at Evangel University, the national university of the liberal arts for the Assemblies of God. Barry Corey’s essay in this volume tells of the tumultuous journey of the governing administrators of the Assemblies of God to bring Evangel University to fruition (founded as Evangel College in 1955).⁶ The Assemblies of God (and the larger Pentecostal movement) is now into its second century of existence and only beginning to come of age. Though people of story, we are now only just beginning to explore God sightings in new venues. We have survived and thrived through our employment of biblical stories and pragmatic use of culture for the furtherance of missions, but the opening of Evangel College begged the question, how would a college of arts and sciences benefit the larger Pentecostal tradition. While early (and contemporary) Pentecostals often testified to minds delivered from a host of evils caused by addictions or dysfunctions by way of divine intervention, how might the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and psychology contribute to long term individual and societal transformation? While Pentecostals employed a legion of church growth models, how might the church better understand and assimilate business and education models to disciple and shape the people of God toward holistic health, growth and societal reparation? While early Pentecostals such as Aimee Semple McPherson would take worldly stories and films such as Gone with the Wind and turn them into an illustrated sermon, is it possible to experience God through Shakespeare’s plays, Herbert’s poetry, or Spielberg’s films?

An important work in the evolutionary ethos of Evangel University faculty has been the monumental volume of Wheaton College philosopher, Arthur Holmes. His The Idea of a Christian College, published in 1975, became the definitive work for a generation of educators that sought to integrate faith, learning, and life in confessional colleges and universities. If, according to Holmes, all truth is God’s truth, there can be no compartmentalization of sacred and secular, spiritual and the natural, or the church and the world. God’s work must not be dichotomized. Though in full agreement with Holmes’ efforts to lay a foundation for an entire generation of confessional scholars and practitioners, the Christian academy must once again adapt to new language and shifting methodologies. It is here that confessional academicians should find the rise of interdisciplinary studies attractive and beneficial. Allen Repko, a pioneer in interdisciplinary studies, describes the opportunity before those in higher education:

For over two decades, major scientific organizations, funding agencies, and prominent educators have advocated for the need for interdisciplinary studies. The current interest in interdisciplinarity is widespread and increasing in intensity, motivated by the belief that it is now basic to education and research. To meet this perceived need, educators have developed a wide range of interdisciplinary courses and studies programs. Interdisciplinarity, it is fair to say, is becoming an integral part of higher education.⁷

Repko builds his case upon numerous factors including: the complexity of nature, society, and ourselves, the growing convolution of the globalized workplace; the need for systems thinking and contextual thinking; the public world and its pressing needs. Such challenges and opportunities call for a new kind of university research and education built upon both disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.⁸ To Repko’s thesis, I must only add how much more among confessional academicians!

Though the faculty at Evangel University has always proclaimed the Christian liberal arts gospel of the integration of faith and learning, I (and other colleagues) often hear students say that this happened only some of the time; some teachers across campus do it well, but others do not. To address this concern, various faculty members (including a number of the Evangel University representatives of this series’ editorial team) began to consider how we might more uniformly engage our students in connecting their faith with other fields of study. We imagined courses that actually brought together theology with literature, and with history, and with art and music, and the hard and behavioral sciences. Thus was born our interdisciplinary Frameworks courses. It is to this most recent wave of education and scholarship that I (and my fellow editorial team) hope the Frameworks series will contribute.

So what is the distinct motivation for this series? Though interdisciplinary studies continue to become increasingly popular and important among academicians, proponents recognize that a prevailing definition remains rather elusive for interdisciplinarity in methodological infancy. Since I certainly do not intend to end the debate by way of a pithy and catchall definition, I simply bring my story full circle. Interdisciplinary studies prove to be fertile ground for even deeper personal and collective transformation. Given Jesus’ command to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, the time is ripe for confessional scholarship and education across the disciplines. We seek to integrate our faith, learning, and research through enlargement of our collective pneumatological imagination.⁹ We implore God’s Spirit to change us through the great works of history and literature alongside developments in science, psychology, and economics—and all of this—through intense engagement with the Scriptures. I and the editors of this series invite you to join with us on a path of discovery. In this series, we seek to extend the role of testimony. We seek to enlarge the realm of God sightings. We seek the likes of psychologists in conversation with philosophers, ethicists with historians, biblical scholars with rhetoricians, scientists with economists, environmentalists with neurologists. As these conversations continue across the disciplines, the framework from which to draw our individual and collective testimonies will only enlarge. We invite you to think, behave, preach, sing, pray, research, and indeed to live this multi-faceted journey with us. If indeed our stories are never complete, we invite future contributors and readers to share their God sightings with us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Goldingay, John Biblical Story and the Way it Shapes Our Story Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association

17

(

1997

)

5

–

15

.

Repko, Allen. Understanding Interdisciplinary Studies. Part

1

. Online: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/

55817

_Chapter_

1

_Repko_Intro_to_Interdisciplinary_Studies.pdf.

Smith, James K. Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2010

.

Von Bracht, Thielem. The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs’ Mirror, of the Defenceless Christians Who Baptized only upon Confession, and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Savior, from the Time of Christ until the Year A. D.

1660

. Translated by Joseph E. Thom. Scottsdale, PA: Herald,

1938

.

Yong, Amos. Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press,

2000

.

Introduction: What’s So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?

Paul W. Lewis

What’s so liberal about the liberal arts? This question highlights the diversity of understanding of the word liberal. In modern usage, the term can have political, theological, social, or other connotations. However, this question cuts to the core of the liberal arts. What are the liberal arts? In this volume the contributors seek to further the discussion—historical studies, multidisciplinary application, and pedagogical employment of a liberating arts education.

A common emphasis in Christian liberal arts universities is the integration of faith and learning. The discussion of this integration has a storied history. Whereas Justin Martyr made full use of contemporary Greek philosophy in his defense of the Christian message in the mid-second century, by the early third century Tertullian proclaimed the oft quoted dictum, What relationship does Jerusalem have with Athens? While Tertullian (like Origen) certainly did not endorse the use of Greek philosophy, he definitely made use of his legal training and like Origen, made use of philosophical, rhetorical and legal traditions. Likewise, Augustine endorses the belief (also employed by Arthur Holmes, John Calvin and many others) all truth is God’s truth. He encouraged all learning to be applied alongside theological studies. Anselm and the Reformers subsequently discussed the nature of Christian life in terms of education in a multiplicity of fields. The importance of the integration of the Christian faith with education (including but not limited to theological education) has been a key concern in Christian schools in the West and for this volume mainly in North America. And though many American colleges and universities were founded on Christian values (e.g., Harvard, Princeton), many of these institutions have lost the traditional Christian components in the general education of the students. On the other hand, many Christian schools still endorse the integration of faith and learning (e.g., Baylor, Notre Dame, Pepperdine), and retain statements of such in their respective documents, and mission/vision statements. The Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) likewise emphasizes the importance of the integration of faith and learning among its member schools.

The integration of faith and learning is an important common theme, but the tendency has been to focus on a certain bilateral integration of faith and learning, for example, the integration of faith and business, or faith and science. Interdisciplinary studies have become more prominent in recent years as the need for such has become increasingly obvious. This is due in part to the growing awareness that we live in a multi-disciplinary world. In a normal week, we must negotiate our way through a complex commercial, legal, musical, theatrical, rhetorical, scientific, and religious world. In the church, the multidisciplinary posture of the congregation is assumed (see Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 12 on being many diverse members in one body). Of course, the worlds of the marketplace and the church must not be dichotomized. We are called to live integrated and multidisciplinary lives at work and in worship.

When it comes to the multidisciplinary integration of faith and learning, there are two main ways to promote it: first, through description and analysis; and second, by application of integrative models and examples. Contributors to this volume recognize, celebrate, and honor the impact of Jim and Twila Edwards on our lives. Jim and Twila modeled multidisciplinary integration of faith and learning through their ongoing efforts to develop the liberal arts model at Evangel University and through their daily employment of integrated faith and learning. We dedicate this volume to them!

The first essay by Gary Liddle showcases the Edwards as concrete examples of the multidisciplinary integration of faith and learning in real life. Liddle narrates the educational development of the couple, and moves into their respective roles as teachers, mentors, and models at their college, at their church, and in the community.

The essays by Michael Palmer, Jeffrey Hittenberger, and Barry Corey explore the historical development of universities with special attention to the liberal arts and multidisciplinarity. Palmer tracks the development of education through the medieval period, namely the impact of the Monastic schools, the Cathedral schools, and the founding of the universities and thereby establishes a basis for ensuing liberal arts education. Hittenberger unpacks the philosophical understanding of education within Pentecostalism. He delineates key values and foci in Pentecostal education within the broader ecclesiastical context (with particular attention to the Moravian, Jan Amos Comenius). Corey charts the development of the first liberal arts school to develop in the Pentecostal tradition, Evangel College (est. 1955; later Evangel University). He tells a riveting story of the tumultuous efforts of the embryonic Assemblies of God (est. 1914) and its leadership in an attempt to enlarge their vision beyond the standard Bible institutions and colleges.

Robert Berg looks at a common thread among three influential figures at the turn of the twentieth century, namely Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, and William Seymour. Berg analyzes Picasso’s, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and Seymour’s leadership at the Azusa Street Mission. He charts their employment of art, music, and revival as a primitivistic response to cultural disillusionment.

Diane Awbrey and Barbara Cavaness Parks examine the value of women through their respective fields. Awbrey focuses on the noted Shakespearean play, Richard III. She contrasts Shakespeare’s original characterization of women with the later revision by Restoration writer Colley Cibber (ca. 1700). Awbrey notes that while the Restoration theatre writers increase the frequency of women in their work, the breadth and depth of the female characters were greatly diminished. The transformation of the portrayal of women in Richard III from Shakespeare to Cibber’s revision demonstrates a reductionistic move. Parks celebrates the important contributions of women to Assemblies of God missionary efforts, particularly, single women in Asia and the Pacific Rim. She traces the entrepreneurial spirit of these women in the early twentieth century. These pioneering women contributed greatly to the early growth of the young movement through church planting,