Lipscomb Faculty Reading Room

Lipscomb University faculty were busy putting pen to paper leading up to the 2022-23 school year, exploring topics such as the faith of historic leaders, biblical theology, practical tips for parents of teens, the philosophy of morality and best practices for teaching gifted students.

David Lloyd George: The Politics of Religious Conviction

The late Dr. Jerry Gaw (Lipscomb Retired Professor of History) University of Tennessee Press, 2023

David Lloyd George is perhaps best known for his service as prime minister of the United Kingdom during the second half of World War I. While many biographies have chronicled his life and political endeavors, few, if any, have explored how his devotion to democratic doctrines in the Church of Christ shaped his political perspectives and choices both before and during the First World War. In David Lloyd George: The Politics of Religious Conviction, Gaw bridges this gap in scholarship, showcasing George’s religious roots and their impact on his politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With a comprehensive narrative that spans more than a century, Gaw’s book ranges beyond typical biography and examines how the work and theology of Alexander Campbell, a founder of the StoneCampbell Movement in America, influenced a prominent world leader.

George’s 12 diaries and the more than 3,000 letters he wrote to his brother between 1886 and 1943 provide the foundation for Gaw’s thorough analysis of George’s beliefs and politics. Taken together, these texts illuminate his lifelong adherence to the Church of Christ in Britain and how his faith, in turn, contributed to his proclivity for championing humanitarian, egalitarian and popular political policies beginning with the first of his 55 years in the British Parliament.

Other available books by Gaw include A Time to Heal: The Diffusion of Listerism in Victorian Britain (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society).

God and Morality in Christian Traditions: New Essays on Christian Moral Philosophy

Dr. J. Caleb Clanton (Distinguished University Chair in Philosophy and Humanities) and Dr. Kraig Martin, co-editors

Abilene Christian University Press, 2022

Christianity presumes morality is connected in important ways to God. God and Morality in Christian Traditions explores a wide range of philosophical issues related to that connection, including the metaphysical foundations of morality, the Fall and its implications, and how faith can affect one’s ability to discern obligations.

Also included is a robust treatment of how vice and virtue shape one’s ethical life, as well as a timely discussion of how people— both Christians and non-Christians—can address deep moral disagreement in a pluralistic society.

Drawing on Catholic, Protestant and free church traditions, this volume highlights perspectives drawn from the natural law tradition, divine command theory and virtue ethics, among other theoretical frameworks. Along the way, the authors provide salient insights on metaethics, moral epistemology, character development and applied ethics.

Scholars and students in Christian ethics, philosophy and theology will benefit from this carefully edited and rigorously argued collection of essays.

Clanton is one of Lipscomb’s most prolific writers, having authored or edited several books, including: Restoration and Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion in the Classical American Tradition; The Philosophy of Religion of Alexander Campbell.

Practical Wisdom for Youth Group Parents

Dr. Walter Surdacki (Lipscomb Professor of Bible) and Dr. David Fraze Leafwood Publishers, 2022

A youth group is not only about your teenager. Youth ministry, done well, includes and impacts the entire family. Practical Wisdom for Parents is not a book about how to make your teens sit down and have a family devotional. Instead, this book will help you and your teen thrive and flourish during these important years.

The authors give numerous practical suggestions on how you can work alongside and support those leading your youth ministry, including a variety of ways you can support and be involved in your teen’s youth ministry experience. Many of their ideas are “behind the scenes” that don’t require you to teach a class or lead a devotional. However, your partnership role with your youth ministry leadership will be clearly articulated throughout.

Surdacki teaches various youth ministry and practical ministry courses at Lipscomb. He has served in full-time ministry for more than 16 years.

Flesh Made Word: The Protestant Interpretation Problem and an Embodied Hermeneutic

Dr. Lauren Smelser White (Lipscomb Assistant Professor of Theology)

Fortress Academic, 2022

This book delineates the individualist “interpretation problem” that has long beset Protestant biblical interpretation and engages theological resources that could serve to move beyond it.

White argues that readers of Scripture— specifically those who long to submit their lives to God’s transforming Word, which they believe the Bible discloses—ought to reckon with the participatory role that human bodies (corporeal and corporate) play in producing revelation’s norms. Such a reckoning need not entail giving up on Scripture delivering the life-changing address of a divine Other.

In support of that claim, White distills a picture of revelation as a divine-human discursive encounter: a process wherein our hermeneutic constructions are incorporated into the Word’s self-disclosure, and whereby interpreters who embrace this venture in vulnerability may experience graced transformation.

She concludes by proposing that this “Christomorphic” interpretation process is analogous to a mother’s embodied responsiveness in caring for her child. Such a hermeneutic paradigm suggests distinctive commitments from communities who desire to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in interpretive acts.

Coaching in Gifted Education: Tools for Building Capacity and Catalyzing Change

Dr. Emily Mofield (Lipscomb Assistant Professor of Education) and Dr. Vicki Phelps Routledge, 2023

Gifted students spend most of their time in the regular classroom, yet few general education teachers have the specialized training to address their unique needs. This book provides the structures, processes and resources needed to facilitate GT (Gifted/Talented) coaching as a means of building capacity among classroom teachers to identify, serve and teach gifted and high-potential learners.

Guided by best practices and research in professional learning, this resource provides the steps, strategies and tools needed to create and sustain effective coaching practices. Bolstered by downloadable resources, chapters address how to support, stretch and sustain teachers’ instructional practices through a sequence of co-thinking, co-planning and reflection.

Outlining a step-by-step guide for the coaching process, this valuable resource equips gifted and talented coaches with tools to support teachers to meet the needs and reveal talent among gifted and high-potential students.

Mofield’s 12 other books include Collaboration, Coteaching, and Coaching in Gifted Education: Sharing Strategies to Support Gifted Learners, a 2021 NAGC Book of the Year award winner.