Integrite Fall 2024 by Missouri Baptist University

Saint Louis, Missouri 63141-8698

mobap.edu/about-mbu/publications/integrite/

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

E ditor

John J. Han, Missouri Baptist University

Editorial Review Board

Matthew Bardowell , Missouri Baptist University

Todd C. Ream, Taylor 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 Webmasters

Dylan Chastain Jenna Gulick Lauryn Pyatt

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal (ISSN 1547 - 0474 and 1547 - 0873) is published in spring and fall by the Faith & Learning Committee and the Humanities Division of Missouri Baptist Un iversity. 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 an d 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/Fax: (314) 434 - 7596. Subscription rates: Individuals $10 per year; institutions $20 per year.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

40 Book Review:

Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts. Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert the Vices of our Distracted, Hostile, and Consum eristic Age (Baker Academic, 2024)

C. Clark Triplett

45 The Irresistible Appeal of the Church for Creative Expression: A Photo Essay

John Zheng

55 From Many Gods to One God: A Photo Essay on Christian Sites in Greece

John J. Han

Matthew Brennan 3

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 2024): 3-37

Poetry

Two Poems

Matthew Brennan

Memento Mori in the Museums of Florence

The afternoon I filed into the Uffizi I was jet-lagged and foot -sore but on fire. But throngs of tourists thrashed through galleries Like soccer fans storming out of a stadium, The Botticellis and Titians blocked by bodies And garrulous guides blaring babble.

And then a Salome burst before me, The Baptist's head on a copper platter And the guilty girl holding it slanted, Just with fingers, bending her palm So it would not touch the jutting jaw And mouth that seemed about to speak.

That night, above the Arno, hung A bloody moon I saw when wakened By cries I heard beneath my window. I thought of Salome's copper salver, Was thinking of it at the Duomo, Where I strolled next morning in quiet rooms

Until in a chapel I chanced on a relic, The real jawbone of John the Baptist Making ready the way before us.

4 Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal

Madonna and Child

The Hermitage in Pienza, Tuscany

From the terrace wall that girds the town

Topping a flat plateau, a panorama

Opens to olive groves, green fields, and hills

Grazing the clouds aglow with morning sun. Below, our guide points out a Norman church, Its old stones sparkling in the light, and notes His people worshipped there and worked the land Around it, sharecroppers for centuries. Today the family owns it all as far As eyes can see. And what is hidden too.

He leads us through a fence and down a slope, Then edges us along a rocky path. Behind some shrubs, an entrance to a cave. Here, Etruscans slept on shelves they cut Into the cavern’s walls, and later, hermits

Transformed the cave into an enclave where They kept slow time fasted and said their prayers Before a low relief that someone carved In the great Donatello’s Quatrocento:

Madonna and her babe, a virgin clutching

A bunch of ripened grapes against her breast And touching them to the hungry toddler's lips. Her other hand tucked under the Christ child’ s Little leg is depicted with six fingers, A blunder, or divine fertility?

“The History of Bread” and Other Poems

Philip C. Kolin

The History of Bread

It is an everlasting gift. “I am the bread of life,” declared Christ. The Panis Angelorum, born in Bethlehem, The house of bread, feeding the depths of the spirit.

But bread is the bulwark of the body everyone needs earthly bread. Arepa, gordito, boulis, brood, pao, pan, bochnik, brot, kruh. Bread is the poor man’s hope. Its etymology is compassion.

Would that loaves could multiply like manna in the wilderness. Have bakeries open up in the Sudan, Fiji, Niger, Congo, Haiti, Afghanistan. Bake messages of freedom inside each loaf, the assurances of bread to sustain the journey from earthly fields to heaven’s gates.

Archangel Purple Angelonia

That burst of spikes spring shafts of purple

homing place for hummingbirds and butterflies. A lover's bouquet calling the spouse in sonnets of fragrance just before purple blends into silky night.

But also the color of sorrow martyrs’ flesh gnashed into purple and red glowers.

A transition to the sacred growing in a garden:

Christ's journey to Golgotha comes into mind. The purple robe he was forced to wear.

The spikes the mockery of the royal staff he was beaten by.

But over all, this annual plant offers a celebration of Calvary’s precious victory.

A Lament for Ukraine

The world is being Ukrained by drones Flying by night turning hospitals Into hovels, children trapped In Cyrillic written rubble; but faces On the other side offer comfort. The children need the refuge of blankets With shrapnel-free beds and air. And a night light to chase away ghosts.

But Ukraine is losing the light; Its power plants blown apart; Its heat drained away By an enemy who has turned off Every switch and torn every tower down.

Doctors operate with lights from cell phones; Patients on respirators must take shorter breaths To conserve what little energy greasy, old Generators can give. Ukraine has become A country of curfews; no one dares goes Out after dark; land mines wait like sharks To rip them apart. Ukraine is the new Cimmeria. The only safe place is Underground.

The Black Sea looks red so much blood from Exploding, armor-piercing battleships has seeped Into it; the clouds have been fired out of Ukraine’s skies Blackened by bursting shells that wipe out Any white or blue. Corpses outnumber Residents in some border towns; All flowers must be grown inside. Yellow is on the list of endangered colors.

Church bells and prayers keep survivors alive.

The World Needs Comfort

More ships with red crosses to salute. More light in dark places. More songs and more prayers. More voices unsilenced to protest the othering of souls wounded by corrosive names and laws.

More calm blue, comfort’s color, flown across every nation’s sky. And more greenery in cement heart places, especially grass, which Walt Whitman called God’s handkerchief, in bullet -ruptured neighborhoods where hope is boarded up. More trees and shrubs, too, models of righteousness tending green shade.

Bring back foamy, laughing waves caressing healthy blue oceans that now swim only in old sailors’ memory. Rid the rivers, lakes, and waterways of trash dumped in them by miscreant barges and companies. Prevent birds from being an anachronism in the acid rain air that turns canaries ashen.

Lord, restore what has been lost and with it the promise of eternal comfort.

The Poor You Will Always Have with You

Deut. 15:11; Matthew 26:11

Our family had mixed views about begging. Some like my mother and aunt believed that God wanted us to give them a hand.

They served on the charity committee at church; And often spearheaded drives to help The homeless with their impoverished cries.

They never passed a beggar on the streets empty handed, either. “Here, hope this helps,” my aunt would say.

My uncle and cousin had a different take. Giving a handout to beggars, they insisted, would be used only for drugs or liquor.

My aunt rebutted such responses with “I was called to give, not to judge.”

My skeptical uncle just laughed.

Yesterday I saw an old woman, tattered all over, newspapers stuffed inside her frayed coat, and fingers sticking out

of her holey gloves, sitting on the curb in front of Sack and Save holding a sign “Will pray for food.” I stopped my car

rolled down the window and saw her face cratered with wrinkles. She could barely speak “God bless you” when I gave her

a twenty-dollar bill, and said I would pray for her . As I drove off and looked in my rearview mirror, she was standing up with a wingspan of over 20 cubits.

“Sky

-Dancing” and “Healing”

Jane Beal

Sky-Dancing

I walk along the L.A. Waterfront from the Maritime Museum parking lot to the Cirque du Soleil blue-and-yellow, Big-Top Tent to see “Amaluna.” As I walk along the water, through a line of trees on either side of my path, the barn swallows begin swooping all around me. Like angels, tiny and dazzling, they make me forget my sorrow and laugh with delight! I love their deep blue and bright orange colors.

Once under the Big Top, I watch the acrobatic actors tell their story on stage. I realize that “Amaluna” re-envisions Shakespeare’s Tempest. The aerial acrobatics are new developments in the Renaissance plot and as for the acrobats themselves, how like birds they are! They are flying before my eyes.

Later, after the show, I walk back alongside the water. Birds surround me again, sky-dancing! This time, my angels are a dozen northern roughwinged swallows. Glad-hearted, they swoop together, then apart, in elongated oval and figure-eight dances in mid-air at top speed! Watching them, my heart is thrilled by wild joy.

Miranda sees a brave new world the magician breaks his staff

Healing

moon above the maple tree

my daughter, sleeping

red leaves by the concrete curb my sister, weeping

peach trees in the backyard my mother, reaping

white egret by shining water my heart, dreaming

bright fruit in dark leaves strawberry tree, healing

“After Church” and Other Poems

John Zheng

After Church

after William Ferris’s Clover Valley M.B. Church

Sunlight is slanting through the windows of this small wooden church to add a bluish shade to the brown and gray backs of old pews. On one end of a pew lies a white paddle fan, like a kitten curling up to reclaim the good of silence which sprawls like kudzu in the presence of Holiness.

waking dream the in and out of a butterfly

A View from Fisher Ferry Road

after William Ferris’s Rose Hill Church Pasture

Three pine trees stand like ballerinas on tiptoes, ready to pirouette for a stage show. The shades of blue spread the sky, a perfect backdrop to silhouette the slender figures of these nature spirits. Mist drifts across the pasture. In the chirping crickets everywhere, your hearing eye sees serenity, which is so close, so dreamy, so timeless with the land and the wooden church on the hill.

John Zheng 13

Endurance

after Dorothea Lange’s A Sign of the Times: Mended Stockings, San Francisco, 1934

The neat stitching on the stockings is a sign of frugality in the Great Depression: the thin lines amaze our eyes with the presence of a historical pain in visual grace, and they also show a strong mind of holding life against the tides of hard times.

gravel road a hard way that leads to life

The River of God

I walk to the bridge to take pictures of the riverside trees crowned with the golden shine of the sunset, but the reflection of the sky wavering into bluish ripples catches my eye. I move from one end of the bridge to the other to shoot the ripples from different angles while the trees lose their splendid moment. They stand in line like silent disciples. So do I, stunned by the river flowing like the Holy Ghost’s procession into the bloody twilight.

going home a sign blinks by a streetlight: In God We Trust

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 14

Preaching

after William Ferris’s Sanctified Church of God in Christ, Clarksdale, Mississippi

The holy time to stimulate exhilaration one after another from the congregation whose claps and ring shouts shake loose themselves and incite the wooden church to join the shake.

John Zheng 15

Fledgling after Eudora Welty’s Baby Bluebird, Bird Pageant

Dressed as a baby bluebird with a feathered crown, a little girl posing before the church door moves her wings and dips her knees as if to lift into the air. In the low sky a bluebird flaps, glides and calls, giving a flying lesson. The girl stares, her eyes innocently bright.

Intégrité:

Churchyard

after Eudora Welty’s Country Church / near Old Wahington

Leaning in the wheezing wind, headstones covered with lichen & moss

look as calm as time gone like a shooting star or coming like a nova, representing the creative flow from this life to the next life the presence of emptiness visual in a stoic look.

John Zheng 17

Sunday

after Eudora Welty’s Speaking in the Unknown Tongue, Holiness Church, Jackson

The worn floorboards of this holy place shake and quake when churchgoers stomp their feet, swing their raised arms and shout hallelujah, a forceful response to the preacher’s eloquent tongue. Even the sun hurries in, amazed at the unknown words.

“Walking

the Beat” and Other Poems

Todd Sukany

Walking the Beat

You probably never lived in the days of church visitation. Pastor would knock on the doors of members and their lostsheep neighbors. Afterward, the saints would reconvene for reports and communion. All over bowls of banana pudding. He was more present and more real then, I suspect.

Of One

“For

they are not all Israel …. ” Rom. 9:6

Stooping on a knee, The Lord of Hosts cupped dust, pressed it to the other hand, time after time again until satisfied. Thinking it good, He arranged them in companies and legions, but they were all one color. Knowing this was no mistake, He looked this way then the next and chose tints: dusk, and mid-day, and setting, and rising (four would be enough). He watched what they would do next.

Approaching Eclipse

No one believes he lives in the city of Babylon, the City of Doom. No one believes she supported and installed the antichrist.

No one believes he welcomes a mark to the hand or forehead. No one believes she gives gifts to honor two prophets’ deaths.

No one believes that No one believes

Father of All

“They, and every beast after his kind…. ” Gen 7:14

As in the days of Noah, no YMCAs were open. No one thought swim lessons important. Mocking those who obeyed silent voices

was vogue, if one were close enough. Seven days the stench of animal -living rose. One day, two, then three. Seven days

but the smiles disappeared, drown in drops. Drown in earthly breakups. All descendants after their own kind.

“to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. ” Gen. 6:19

Darkness, my friend and confidant, floats silently beside me. Beneath me. Withholding support. I sense above the gurgling, knocking, pushing of other swimmers–male, female, and those confused–a call into greater depth. Once again, my head dips below the whitecaps, the swirling riptides, the coolness, and I open my eyes. I hear and suffocate in the foolishness of the words of the preacher.

After Reading “Dew on the Young Garlic Leaves” – tr. K. Rexroth

I hold the hose and direct its flow toward the stem. Minutes will pass but more like days, growing into three decades. The trellis looks more like a cross that veiled promise waiting to be revealed. Perhaps the gift will bloom by Sunday.

Professing Themselves

“You are the salt of the earth…. ” Matt. 5:13

Since my habanero plants droop with fruit, I move in for a swift harvest. Bowls and bowls of orange wrinklies poured into the blender.

Pulse. Pulse. Pulse then mash Puree. Soon, this will become piping-hot soup.

I will send you a jar, and you can add yourself, a sensational, green bell pepper, to a searing cup.

Like in Eternity

A single tree. A dot in the open field. No cattle. No deer. No pigs. A single tree stretches to gather sunfall before the winter breeze strips it bare.

Pre-Flight

On the morning before I leave, the path I run is lined with flowers –yellow pedals with rich brown centers.

Surrounding punctuation . . . brilliant white. Their red inners universal. I feel peace but know, beneath the colorful surface, were one to dig, poison ivy and dirt.

On That Day

“This is how love is made complete among us …. ” I John 4:17

My hand rests on a cardboard box of stupid trophies plopped down before the Great God of the universe. My eye catches the glimmer of the participation award from third grade summer soccer (although I seem to remember scoring once). I search for that one . . . the one-armed bowling statue . . . the same one brother Billy broke (said he needed another “marble” for Spanky and the gang). The red, white, and blue one stands taller than the box itself. Recognition for that ol’ college essay about “boys being different than girls.”

My shoulders slump lower and lower until I hear myself blubber, “Lord, Lord. I tried to stay in the lines.”

“Learning How to Talk Again” and Other Poems

Julie Hinton

Learning How to Talk Again

“…out of your mouths, only what is helpful for building others up…. ” Eph. 4:29

It started with hoarseness that would not go away, All the cough syrup from the store, the antibiotics, nothing would stop it.

The doctor said I had a virus, an HPV virus

Usually the body fights it and flushes it out,

But in mine, it did not a tumor in the back of my throat. the surgeon cut out two parts of my tongue.

He sent me to rehab to learn how to talk again. I started with the “Our Father” and the 23rd Psalm.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal 24

Make ’em Laugh Away the Blues in the Chemo Room

The collection of women sharing a cocktail of drugs Including the red devil for breast cancer,

Three months ago, I found a lump in my left breast while dressing,

Now, each weekday sitting with my chorus Of ladies singing a new song

As if we were at a spa or even a church.

A grandson texted the purple-haired lady From college that he missed her, Another with glittering shoes Is overjoyed about renewing

A relationship with a college boyfriend; She showed off her shiny ring, “He’s 91 and I’m 88,” she said.

A bearded man in overalls, “Now, hear my 4-year-old grandson Tell me I’m not smart.” The room roared With hoots and howls. One lady grabbed her stomach, “Bring me my walker,” I’ll ask God to bring me a man like that.

Back Porch Preaching, Southern Kitchen Freedom

On our back porch and in the kitchen, family and friends visited and learned the inspiration life and cooking.

Co’s job was to tread lightly in the land of milk and honey and be thankful that she was free in a sense, to walk the land without getting kicked or worse.

Life in this southern kitchen was hard, but was it free, if you worked hard, you might gain some opportunity,

maybe even have a family, open a shop or business of some kind. It was a clackety -clank life in the small town. The bric-a-brac wisdom smoldering with no flame.

A Junk of Joy

“…my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

John 15:11

Co was there each morning

As we awoke to the reflection Of sundrops on the curling Corn leaves stretching Across the patchwork quilt,

I wandered into her bedroom

To say good morning, I would be twelve in a month a woman in one sense, learning the all-girl things out of the sight

Of others, drawing pictures

In the cumulous, blue sky, Books in my room, fishing

All day long, helping Co clean the hundred-year-old kitchen in our shot gun shack, collecting glass bottles by the pine knotted shed, and marbles in the clay dirt,

loved summer ripe fig jelly in the tiny, rectangle shaped Pyrex dish, my peach pits littering the wooden kitchen floor as frying steak sizzled

on Sabbaths after church, dousing the lights in the evening before and lit with a new match the next morning,

Then, Co spreading the breakfast table

With a tablecloth, plates, cups, Bacon, fried eggs, biscuits, Flapjacks,

Leaning into my room finding it full Of my junkyard of joy And brushing her rough and worn Hand against my creamy cheek.

Toy cars and trucks, headless barbies, Old books, rocks, arrowheads And rope-swinging yo -yo’s.

The Big Bang

“The Big Bang” and Other Poems

Mark Tappmeyer

“ …the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost.” Oswald Chambers

The wick, lit by an invisible flame, throws sparks along the line toward the waiting charge.

Blessed are the pure in heart detonates and jolts us into concussions.

Blessed are the poor in spirit knocks us off our equilibrium.

We can’t stand. Everything aches.

Smoke, a blast of dust, surges into every crevice.

Certain

“[A] certain priest was going down on that road…. ” Luke 10:31, The Good Samaritan

He was sure of himself, cocksure, like an alpha rooster, strutting, pecking, displaying his plumage.

He never found himself caught off guard. Knew Genesis to Malachi, chapter and verse.

Never fought doubts about himself or equivocated, saying, Well, perhaps or I’ll give you that.

So that now, here on the wild road to Jericho where robbers lurked, he knew he should hug the right,

a path’s width from the one bleeding and unconscious, who was left.

Glade

“Create in me clean heart, O God…. ” Psalms 51:10

He noticed in himself an unpleasantness that over time had grown ugly, like staleness in a house shut up too long.

His mother had used freshener to get a cat out of the recliner, dog out of the carpet. She had left Island Flowers and Sweet Vanilla and Jasmine Petals hanging in the air.

So he tried a squirt under his arms. A blast into his sneakers. He sent a cloud into the air and stood in the mist. And for a time relished in Creamy Sandalwood and Cinnamon Spice. In twenty minutes though the disagreeable was back, the stink in him too deep.

Soul Storm

“ …O Mary, who have been taught from heaven… will be touched within by some doubt!”

St. Basil of Caesarea

The wind caught her and whipped hair into her eyes. The ground, stone on stone, shivered. She grabbed the arm next to her as day impaled on the darkest of clouds.

All was chaos, incomprehensible and blunt, that swirled before her and in her, her deepest her, everything in twists, so unlike the calm of Gabriel’s visit long ago. He had said Fear not, and she had felt her pulse slow, her certainties grip like tap roots. Hosannas had filled the blue sky.

Now, though, the world churned. Her face and arms lay bare to the violence brutal and crude on the hill before her. Her soul, unsheltered in the torrent of thoughts, whipped back and forth.

Eyes on You

“ …and I know He watches me.”

Civilla D. Martin, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”

Even when you can’t stare back to meet His gaze your eyes too heavy, the sermon too long, the tale twice-toldor when you’ve rubbed an itch till your eyes gloss over with red or you’ve grown beady-eye blind with malice or greed or wantonness, He stares through each of your pupils to know you, and peers through the cataracts clouding your vision and the blind spot always hovering in your optics.

Swarm

“[D]arkness fell upon all the land…. ” Matthew 27:45

They said the sun hid like an abused child. Daylight ran away. One eyewitness claimed otherwise.

The darkness was an invasive species The Invasive Species choking the air black like locust from all points nibbling the world to its core, the clatter deafening to the one attuned to hear it.

On cue, the swarm compressed and, like poured tar, covered a cross timber, layering on the shoulders, the stretched limbs, of a figure affixed there, encasing Him.

It crawled into His nostrils, scratched its way inward into His enlarged heart, the folds of His brain, and then relentlessly found and assaulted the deepest of Him, His soul, where darkness had never reached, ever.

Against

“There is also mushrooming opposition.” 1 Cor. 16:9

Out the kitchen window, I gaze at a landscape of toadstools. Like parasols hoisted in Regent’s Park.

Topped in white and the tones of earth, a few in orange, with curves like cups of Victorian China, they entice like ripe peaches and pears.

I open The Handbook of Toxicity though and read that they should not be dallied with.

They’re killers, sprouting from the rotted barkfall of trees and evolving poison on poison,

bearing names like Death Cap, Funeral Bell and Destroying Angel, bursting with enmity, casualty, and toll.

“Late Sunday, Lake Ridge Baptist” and Other Poems

Anthony Priest

Late Sunday, Lake Ridge Baptist

Genesis 1:2

Darkness covered the face of the deep. Headlights swept the wall, pulpit, the seat back’s tattered hymnal. I dreamt of fish drifting through the stars, a silent swish of tails, until I heard an Amen and found myself in the pew again.

The earth was without form and was void. A world without earth, sky, sea? I toyed with the thought of everything run back. No church, no ridge, only the blue-black gulf of night. No lake, no bridge, only diminished streams and quiet, lonely passages yet to be discovered as the Spirit of God hovered above the surface of the water.

Stroke

We had good times? We used to fish here?

He tugs at questions the same way you pull a slack line back when no fish are biting. I pack up our gear as Dad

casts a glance across the lake, long past sunset and silence, this place where the broken lines of loss and love lie still between us, but we won’t cross that bridge.

Tonight, he’ll lie awake in bed still untangling the knotted line; the furthest shores of his mind are just past reach of what it takes to be a dad, but I need him to, like when you are little and someone baits the hook for you.

We had good times. We used to fish here.

Pastime

There is joy in the way old-timers arrange their tackle boxes. They tend toward order, a kind of reprieve from the entanglements acquired on other shores Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, the Thanh Hóa Bridge but all is at peace here in tiny trays. Yellow striders, flashing strikers, an entire tin of glitter jigs warmed by sun. Still, deep in the bottom lie broken pliers and cracked bobbers useless as split shot cut loose from a tangled line; each disregarded for something finer, they’re quiet reminders of what men catch, what they keep, and what they release.

Two Sonnets

Joshua Wilson

The thoughts of sin return to me in pain. I wonder how I failed to count the cost. My sad endeavor proved to be in vain As memories still echo moments lost. My sad contemplation leaves me reeling. If only I had carefully said “No!” Without a means to break this guilt feeling My soul is pained to bear my sin and woe. But now, in faith, the light has made me see, I cannot give an answer as to why, By grace my Lord has heard and set me free As His good Word destroys my selfish pride. Most holy truths to wash me in pure streams And tune my heart to bright, eternal themes.

My love for God is far from good and pure Much more resembling a dark crimson stain. Though He my broken love will long endure, My heart I cannot trust myself to train. Unhappy, these dark blots are clearly seen And my weak love for Him is far from fair. This fickle mind I cannot ever clean. If left to me this fellowship would tear. I all too often do His image mar And His right precepts often I fail too. If in my hands, my path would wander far. These evil inclinations still push through. But He has been my Keeper by His grace And drawn me closer to behold His face.

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 2024):40-44

Book Review

Griffis, Rachel B., Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts. Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert the Vices of our Distracted, Hostile, and Consumeristic Age. Baker Academic, 2024. 240 pages, $24.99.

Reviewed by C. Clark Triplett

This book advocates for specific reading practices that foster moral formation and spiritual flourishing within reading communities. It also addresses practices that counter contemporary cultural vices such as distraction, hostility, and consumerism vices that hinder a wise, in -depth interpretation of texts and diverse cultural discourse, both past and present. Deep reading goes beyond mere literary criticism; it involves practices that lead to the reader’ s moral formation and personal transformation. A key characteristic of deep readers is their openness and receptivity to all types of reading material, even those that may challenge traditional Christian views. Instead of silencing or dismissing unfamiliar perspectives, deep readers are charitable and hospitable to the discourse of others.

This approach aligns with Emilio Betti’s concepts of “openmindedness” (Aufgeschlossenheit) and “receptiveness” (Empfanglichkeit).

Betti describes this process as one that is “always open to correction and improvement and depends on this openness to continuous discovery” (Thistleton 252). Such openness is not merely the result of individual introspection but is cultivated through interactions within a community (intersubjectivity). It is a fundamental discipline requiring patience and tolerance. Whether interpreting a historical text or engaging in conversation, we must look beyond the words themselves to understand what prompted them, why they are being said, and the underlying train of thought that shapes them (Ibid.). For Betti, this form of selfunderstanding comes from the effort to step into the shoes of the other.

In addition to exploring reading practices, Deep Reading serves as a moral guidebook that encourages readers “to love virtue and desire good character” (4). A significant source for this work is James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation , which examines how cultural structures shape our thoughts and affections. Smith argues for redirecting personal desires toward God, emphasizing

that this redirection results from the formation of spiritual habits that become ingrained in our thoughts and behaviors through continuous practice.

The primary audience for this book appears to be evangelical Christians, though it is not limited to them. The authors critique the worldview approaches to formation prevalent in text -based courses at many evangelical institutions. They argue that these approaches often embody a “hostile skepticism toward new ideas,” especially in reading classrooms (16). This critical framework is intended to help Christian readers navigate ideas that conflict with Christian views. However, such methods often stifle dialogue and foster an “us -versus-them” mentality, which defensively rejects potentially valuable new ideas for moral development. While the authors criticize these worldview approaches, their critique comes from a position of internal understanding, as all the writers are experienced faculty members within evangelical institutions. Clearly, this book is concerned about attitudes toward new ideas. Traditional approaches to reading often short -circuit the voices of others which may ultimately lead to targeting vulnerable and disenfranchised cultures. Instead, this book opts for a more hospitable and charitable approach to diverse ideas that allows more room for all people. They argue that a truly Christian approach to reading is more than just the acquisition of acceptable information but includes a willingness to hear other voices. Processing alternative views leads to habits and practices that inculcate moral imagination, love for neighbor, and justice -oriented attitudes in the broader world. Deep reading should shape readers in a way that demonstrates that readers are less distracted, hostile, and consumeristic (16).

A notable aspect of this work is its focus on inclusive practices. In Reading in Communion, Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones explore Christian attitudes toward outsiders. They argue that to truly understand others, Christians must extend interpretive charity to them. It is crucial to recognize that others are not merely reflections of ourselves; they have their own coherence and integrity and may be as committed to their belief systems as we are to ours. Engaging with others does not necessitate abandoning our own convictions, but it does imply that we do not possess all knowledge. We should approach the thoughts and ideas of others with trust and openness. As Fowl and Jones state, “In the fractured world in which we live, the presence of outsiders who are willing to talk is a rare gift” (125).

Deep Reading argues that reading the texts of others with charity “subverts our tendencies toward hostility by helping us grow in practical wisdom, or what is called prudence in the Christian virtue tradition” (115). This practice fosters the development of habits that enhance our understanding of our relationship with God and His gracious gifts. It is important to “seek out and wrestle with nuanced voices,” as this cultivates attitudes of “listening, humility, hospitality, and community” (82 -83). Such a disposition of giving reflects the Christian way of life. Miroslav Volf,

in Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace , notes, “(W)hen God gives, God seeks the good of another… . That’s partly what it means to be God… . So should we. Indeed, to give for others’ benefit is what it means to give” (68). In essence, God’s gift of grace inspires a respectful and considerate attitude towards others, including one's enemies, as exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount.

This spirit of generosity is emphasized throughout the book, especially in sections on justice-oriented conversation practices, friendship, hospitality in reading spaces, and multivocal discussions. The conversational models described involve reading communities that are “deliberate about shaping conversations that resist racism and oppressive hierarchies a task that may particularly fall to leaders and teachers, though all community members participate ” (154). This generosity in reading texts and engaging in cultural conversations requires an awareness of how positions of power and influence in society can distort a reader’s ability to truly hear the voices of others. It places a special responsibility on Christians to create spaces for conversations that foster an understanding of differences. The authors emphasize the need to cultivate “docility” or “teachableness,” which involves responding to others with both realism and reflection. As they explain, “The teachable spirit of docility is not blind acceptance of every new thing. When we are docile, we carefully weigh new information against reality and practice ” (157). This represents a form of critical thinking grounded in humility and selfawareness.

A generosity of spirit also extends to the way the reading community considers texts and cultures from the past. Recognizing that the past and present exist within different interpretive horizons, it is crucial to critique historical texts by listening with open minds and acknowledging the humanity and context of their time. As the authors suggest, “We can develop productive, justice-oriented critiques of texts without sliding into chronological snobbery” (101). To strike a balance between punitive approaches and uncritical valorization, they recommend allowing the past to critique itself by examining other texts from the same period. Indeed, there were individuals in the past who were concerned with social justice. For instance, Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish priest and contemporary of Christopher Columbus, is often mentioned. The popular narrative of Columbus’ discovery of America frequently privileges the European “objective” reading of history, which can silence the voices of the natives who were forced to accept Christianity under the Spanish Requerimiento or face dire consequences. As ethicist Stanley Hauerwas notes, “Yet those very ‘discoveries’ can mask a history of violence and terror that never ceases to be present in the ongoing descriptions descriptions we need for our present understanding and action” (219).

Tzvetan Todorov, a former Director of Research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, was among the first to highlight the work of Las Casas in his book The Conquest of America. Todorov explains, “Las Casas’ work is a polemic against the conquistadors

who claim to justify their wars of conquest by the goal pursued, which is evangelization. Las Casas rejects such violence; at the same time, for him, there is only one true religion: his own” (168). This demonstrates that while Las Casas was a defender of the Indigenous peoples, he was also a Christian, and these two aspects of his identity were intricately linked, creating a nuanced and complex situation. Deep readers of the past must be willing to engage with these complexities, allowing their viewpoints to be broadened and even challenged.

Perhaps the most important lesson of deep reading is the transformative power that wise and serious engagement can have on those willing to adopt the attentive, contemplative, tranquil, and leisurely mindset necessary for such practices. These habits stand in contrast to the marketable, superficial skills prevalent in the digital age skills often driven by competition and the pursuit of power and influence. Instead, deep reading slows down the process, allowing one to explore texts deeply, broadly, and charitably. This practice nurtures sustained attention, fosters personal and spiritual growth, and promotes a deeper understanding of others’ perspectives and emotions.

This approach parallels what Eugene H. Peterson describes as “spiritual reading” in Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Peterson likens the process to a dog gnawing on a bone returning to it repeatedly for nourishment. He also compares deep reading to lectio divina, a contemplative reading practice of our ancestors. He writes that such reading “enters our souls as food enters the stomach, spreads through our blood, and becomes holiness and love and wisdom” (4).

More than a mere intellectual exercise, deep reading inhabits and forms the reader’s moral identity. James K. A. Smith makes a distinction between “thin” practices, like brushing one’s teeth, which have little impact on identity, and “thick” or meaningful practices. Deep reading falls into the latter category. These habits shape our personal and moral identities, guiding us in spiritual growth. As Smith explains, “Engaging in these habit-forming practices not only says something about us, but also keeps shaping us into that kind of person” (83). As the blurb on the back cover of Deep Reading suggests, this is “a book for all readers who desire to read deeply and live deeply.”

This review has highlighted some of the broad concepts and key areas of focus in this book. However, those interested in reading will find it rich with detailed examples of deep reading practices and nuanced moral arguments that consider the core values essential for living the Christian life. Deep Reading explores the transformative processes of reading with an open mind and a charitable attitude toward diverse texts and cultural expressions. The book emphasizes personal and moral growth through habit-forming practices such as attentiveness, prudence, humility, charity, openness to learning, generosity, leisure, and joy.

Every Christian especially teachers and students should consider reading this book, perhaps even more than once. However, it may present

a real challenge for those Christians who are inclined to avoid or dismiss new or different ideas that don't align with traditional Christian views. Yet, for those willing to engage with this somewhat dense text, there are many treasures to be found. Along the way, readers may discover a new perspective on the world. Those who take the risk of reading with an open mind and receptive heart will learn to appreciate what it means to be a good neighbor and grow as a disciple of Christ. The authors extend a warm invitation in the book's conclusion: “We invite you to join us on this journey of forming and re-forming ourselves and our communities through deep reading of a varied and thoughtful selection of texts, through reflective writing and generous conversation about what we read, and through attentive, charitable, and leisurely rereading ” (207).

Works Cited

Fowl, Stephen E., and L. Gregory Jones. Reading in Communion. Wipf and Stock, 1998.

Hauerwas, Stanley. “On Witnessing Our Story.” Schooling Christians: “Holy Experiments” in American Education, edited by Stanley Hauerwas and John H. Westerhoff, William B. Eerdmans, 1992.

Peterson, Eugene H. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. William B. Eerdmans, 2006.

Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Baker Books, 2009.

Thistleton, Anthony. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading. Zondervan, 1992.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. U of Oklahoma P, 1999.

Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Zondervan, 2005.

John Zheng 45

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 2024): 45-54

Photo Essay

The Irresistible Appeal of the Church for Creative Expression

John Zheng

As a symbol of belief, the church has also appealed to creative writing, a process to purify the mind for aesthetic and spiritual appreciation. Having lived in the Mississippi Delta for three decades, I often drive around to take pictures of rural churches. Their modest style has a uniqueness belonging to history and places. Many churches are dilapidated or are disused with peeling paint, spreading mold, climbing vines, damaged shingles, or sagging roofs. However, they maintain a ghost look of holiness and make you wonder how long they have been standing persistently there.

Figure 1. Tabernacle Faith Center Holiness Church, Robinson, MS. 2019.

Many times, driving to a place away from a community to photograph an abandoned church is like visiting a ghost place. Once on my way back to Greenwood from Grenada, I turned off Highway 7 onto Whaley Road, a gravel road leading to Money, Mississippi where the Emmitt Till incident took place. Earlier research reminded me of a church off the road. After crossing the Yalobusha River and crawling for a minute with gravel knocking or popping under tires, I pulled off by the road. Half -hidden behind trees was Second Holly Grove Church, a small wooden church that looked abandoned. I drove slowly and cautiously around it and found by a window a painted sign showing its history starting in 189 4.

To me, church photos are sources for imagination, especially those taken years ago by well-known photographers with a sense of place. Eudora Welty and William Ferris, two great photographers from Mississippi, have fascinated me for years for creative thinking. Their photos challenge me to write after. Some photos in Ferris’s The South in Color are like a photographic journal of a black community united in its religious life. When I saw for the first time his photo, “ Rural church, Highway 27, west of Vicksburg, Mississippi,” which shows two church windows (https://www.lelandlittle.com/items/448907/william -ferris-nc-i-ruralchurch-highway-27-west-of-vicksburg-mississippi-march-1972-i/), I urged myself to find an angle for poetry writing, as shown in the following:

Figure 2. Second Holly Grove Church, Mississippi. 2021

PERCEPTION

Stained church windows usually show a sainted life. Is this why those windows are called stained? Yet, the two windows of this rural church I stop by to snap a picture show a different look.

The simplicity of the stained windows shows staining isn’t always something spiritual but vernacular and practical, something barely noticeable in the Mississippi Delta life sainted can be stained.

William Dunlap, a noted Mississippi painter, has painted churches. One of his eye-striking church paintings is “Church and Shadows” (http://www.williamdunlap.com/landscapes.html ). The light and shadow crisscrossing the church walls catch the eye and present a mystic and kinetic look of a holy place. Here’s my poem written after Dunlap’s painting:

KINETIC VISION

The autumn wind gives a playful tug on the twigs of a bare tree that’s basking like a skinny dog in warm sunlight, and makes it shake into a sudden jerk to crisscross its shadows on the white walls of a wooden church as if it’s a moment of inspiration to throw up the arms and sway the bodies in a shout of hallelujah.

My journey to photograph churches resumed on September 28, 2024, on my way to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana to celebrate the 85 th birthday of Leo Touchet, an admirable photographer whose black -and-white photographs of dunes reveal the mystic, feminine beauty of nature. On my route southward, I stopped now and then to take pictures of churches inviting to the eye. The first church I photographed was a small wooden one by Mississippi Highway 3 close to Redwood, Mississippi. I drove past it, but I immediately made a U-turn to snap pictures because light and shade as well as white and green create a tranquil atmosphere that expands in the morning sun.

When I drove into Port Gibson, the small town “too beautiful to burn,” proclaimed by General Grant in the Civil War, what caught my eye first was the iconic golden hand atop the steeple of First Presbyterian Church. Its index finger points to heaven, suggesting our life is about God. Also, the golden hand situated on top of the steeple best illustrates the function of a steeple. Though I shot the picture of it several times in past years, I drove around the church this time to take a picture of the golden hand from different angles.

Figure 3. Church by Hwy 3, northeast of Redwood, Mississippi. 2024

Port Gibson is a small historic town. Old churches with different architectural styles stand on both sides of Highway 61 that goes through town. One church interesting to learn about is St. James Episcopal Church established in 1826. Its historic sign says that the structure in the Victorian Gothic style “reflects contemporary architectural developments in Massachusetts rather than Mississippi.”

Figure 4. The Golden Hand, First Presbyterian Church, Port Gibson, Mississippi. 2024

A few miles south of Port Gibson is a small roadside church called Watson Chapel. Again, I passed it. Again, I had to make a U -turn to take a picture because its windows reminded me of “Perception,” a poem (see above) I wrote after seeing Ferris’s church window photo. The Watson Chapel sign caught my attention too, as it cleverly turned the letter “t” in Watson into a cross, symbolizing faith.

Figure 5. St. James Episcopal Church, Port Gibson, Mississippi. 2024

About an hour later, I approached Crosby, a small Mississippi village with a population of over 200. Highway 33 goes through it. Shining by the road is Crosby Baptist Church. Standing in front of it are two flagpoles. The national flag and the Christian flag flap gladly in the wind. The colors of

Figure 6. Watson Chapel, Port Gibson, Mississippi. 2024

Figure 7. Sign of Watson Chapel, Port Gibson, Mississippi. 2024

the Christian flag mean that white symbolizes purity, blue life of Christ and Baptism, and red the blood of Christ.

Some yards down the road is Crosby’s public library. It’s closed on Sunday, but its well-maintained look tells that this rural library, though small, must provide much-needed services and information resources to the residents. Its existence recognizes the importance of knowledge in human life.

Figure 8. Crosby Baptist Church, Crosby, Mississippi. 2024

My drive kept going and crossed the state line. After I entered Norwood, Louisiana, a church on the right side of the road winked at me. It’s Norwood Presbyterian Church, established in 1901. Its white paint reflects religious purity.

Figure 9. Crosby Public Library, Crosby, Mississippi. 2024

Figure 10. Norwood Presbyterian Church, Norwood, Louisiana. 2024

The last church I was lucky to photograph was Second Baptist Church in Wilson, Louisiana. A rural church with the biophilic pattern of its façade must distinguish it from many other rural churches. Established in 1916, this church should have reflected the segregation faced by African American congregations, as explained in the following passage cited from the webpage of Christian Pure:

The influence of segregation and demographics has had a significant impact on the racial diversity of First and Second Baptist churches. While First Baptist churches tended to be predominantly white, Second Baptist churches were formed by and catered to black congregants, reflecting the racial demographics and segregation of the communities in which they were established. (https://christianpure.com/learn/first -vs-second-baptistchurch/#first-vs-second-baptist-division-linked-to-slavery-andrace)

Driving down the south to celebrate Leo’s birthday turned into double happiness personal and spiritual. It was a drive to find sources for writing Christian poetry.

journey’s end sunset a broad smile I follow

Figure 11. Second Baptist Church, Wilson, Louisiana. 2024

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 2024): 55-86

Photo Essay

From Many Gods to One God: Christian Sites in Greece

John J. Han

On May 6-17, 2024, I visited some well-known biblical sites in Greece and Turkey. The 12-day group tour was organized by Presbyterian Theological Seminary in America, a Korean American institution in Santa Fe Springs, California. There were 38 people in our group, most of whom were seminarians, pastors, or retired pastors. Staying in Greece for five days and in Turkey for seven days, we visited sites connected to the Apostle Paul and other figures in the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. Visiting the places we had read or heard about for years was truly memorable.

During the trip, we learned about biblical locations and the circumstances early Christian missionaries likely encountered. For instance, while driving through the rugged Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, we realized how hazardous it must have been for the Apostle Paul and his companions to travel on foot. It was also challenging to travel from Kusadasi, Turkey, to the island of Patmos, Greece, where the Apostle John penned the Book of Revelation. A concern was unpredictable local weather , which often result ed in voyage cancellations. We were fortunate to leave the port as scheduled, but the sea was rough for nearly three hours. It was easy to understand the difficulties with which the Apostle John traveled to a remote island two millennia ago.

According to the U.S. State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, 81 to 90 percent of Greeks identify as Greek Orthodox, 4 to 15 percent as atheist, and 2 percent as Muslim. In contrast, the State Department’s 2021 report cites the Turkish government’s report that 99 percent of the population is Muslim. There are mosques across Turkey, and one can hear calls to prayer five times a day, beginning around 4:55 a.m. and ending around 10:00 p.m. However, the Turkish government seems intentional about preserving the remains of Christian sites within its territory, such as Ephesus, Laodicea, Bergama, and Hierapolis. Their motivations for doing so may or may not be driven by monetary interests.

I returned to the United States with more than 3,000 photos from Greece and Turkey. This essay aims to share a limited number of them so that readers can have a vicarious experience of visiting two countries that serve as partial settings of the New Testament. The current issue of

Intégrité features photos from Greece, and the Spring 2025 issue will showcase those from Turkey. I hope the images are both interesting and instructive.

A map of Greece and western Turkey. Credit: Google Maps.

Until the arrival of the Christian faith in the first century, Greece was a polytheistic country with many gods and goddesses. Today, these ancient deities exist as part of a cultural legacy from a distant past that often appeals to foreign tourists. The photos were taken at Athens International Airport. The city is named after Athena (spelled Athina in Greece), the goddess of wisdom and warfare in classical mythology.

(Top) The Parthenon at the Acropolis (religious center) of Athens was dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the city’s patron deity.

(Bottom) A view of the Parthenon from the Areopagus (or Mars) Hill.

The Areopagus Hill is famous for the Apostle Paul’s Mars Hill sermon:

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship and this is what I am going to proclaim to you […] .” (Acts 17: 22-23 NIV)

Paul’s sermon is inscribed on the plaque at the foot of the hill.

A view of the modern city of Athens from the Areopagus Hill. Athens, called Attica in biblical times, is mentioned in Acts 17:15, Acts 17:22 -31, and 2 Thessalonians 3:18.

The Olympic Stadium in northern Athens. In 1 Corinthians 9:25, the Apostle Paul writes, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (NIV).

Road signs point to four historic sites in Greece. Athina (Athens), the current capital of Greece, stands as the nation’s political, cultural, and historical heart. Patra (or Patras) , Greece’s third-largest city, lies 134 miles west of Athens in the northern Peloponnese. It is home to the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, dedicated to the city’s patron saint. Ancient Korinthos (Ancient Corinth) , famously referenced in the biblical epistles of I and II Corinthians, played a central role in early Christian history. Finally, Argos, one of the oldest cities in Greece, is renowned for its legendary king Diomedes. In Homer’s Iliad, Diomedes is a heroic figure who fought alongside Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax the Great.

The Corinthian Canal, successfully constructed in 1881 after many failed attempts, connects the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf (also called the Gulf of Aegina) . The Canal has made the Peloponnese, to which Corinth belongs, a large island cut off from the mainland of Greece.

Credit: Google Maps.

The Temple of Apollo in ancient Corinth was built around 560 B.C. The Apostle Paul stayed in Corinth for over a year:

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God. (Acts 18:9-11 NIV).

According to Dr. Curtis McClain, Professor of Bible at Missouri Baptist University, “The worst insult in the first century was to call someone a ‘Corinthian’” (Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2024).

Remains of the ancient theatre of Corinth. In classical mythology, Sisyphus is the founder and first king of Corinth (also called Ephyra). In Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, the title character is adopted by King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth.

St. Paul’s Church and a mosaic depicting the life of the Apostle Paul in ancient Corinth.

(Top) The Acrocorinth is a rocky mountain overlooking ancient Corinth.

(Bottom) Present-day Corinth is located 3.1 miles northeast of ancient Corinth.

The Castle of Bourtzi is in the port city of Nafplio, Argolis, Greece (see map below; credit: Google Maps). Throughout its history, Nafplio was controlled by the Franks, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans before Greece regained control in 1821. The Venetians began construct ing the castle in 1471 and completed it in 1473 to protect the city from pirate raids and Ottoman attacks. From 1865 to 1935, the castle served as the residence of the executioner, as city residents did not want to live near someone tasked with carrying out executions.

(Top) While traveling north to Meteora, I spotted a truck named Heracles, the Greek mythological figure known as Hercules in Roman mythology. Famous for his extraordinary strength, he is often compared to Samson from the Old Testament.

(Bottom) Terracotta kantharos (drinking cup) in the form of the heads of Heracles and of a woman, circa 470 B.C. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The Meteora monastery complex in Thessaly, northwestern Greece. Eastern Orthodox monasteries are perched on rocky peaks.

Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in the country, is located on the way from the Meteora to northern Greece. In Greek mythology, the mountain is the abode of twelve deities (Olympians), including Zeus and Athena. Renowned for their erotic and capricious nature, Greek gods and goddesses are often viewed as projections of human desires and emotions.

Apostle Paul Apollonia Step is an hour’s drive from Thessaloniki, Macedonia, northern Greece. According to Acts 17:1, “When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue” (NIV).

The Holy Baptistry of St. Lydia, Philippi, northeastern Greece. Lydia was the first European woman to be baptized by the Apostle Paul. In Acts 16:12b-15, Luke writes,

And we [Luke, Paul, Silas, and other companions] stayed there [in Philippi] [for] several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. (NIV)

(Top) Ruins of the ancient city of Philippi, northeastern Greece. (Bottom) Crosses are engraved on rocks, likely remnants of a building.

The prison of Saint Paul, Philippi, northeastern Greece. According to Acts 16:16-40, Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned in Philippi for preaching the Gospel. Verses 19 -24 read,

When her [a slave girl’s] owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. (NIV)

The island of Patmos, Greece, where the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation. Although the island belongs to Greece, it is much closer to Turkey than mainland Greece. In this photo, the roofs of the houses are painted white, a measure against the intense sunlight. The color also harmonizes with the sea’s hues, thereby representing one of the two colors of the Greek national flag.

The most convenient, seasickness -free way to visit Patmos is by cruise. However, my tour group left Turkey’s port city of Kusadasi by wooden ship. After 2.5 hours of turbulent sailing, we reached the Greek island of Samos, where we underwent immigration checks before taking a ferry. Two and a half hours later, we finally arrived at Patmos. Credit: Google Maps.

(Top) Our team boarded a wooden ship in Kusadasi, Turkey, at 5:00 a.m.

(Bottom) The island of Samos, Greece, where the mathematician Pythagoras was born.

In Samos, Greece, we boarded a larger ship.

Monastery of St. John the Theologian, Patmos, Greece.

A painting within the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, Patmos, Greece. Here, John listens to the voice from heaven before he dictates the revelation to his scribe.

The Cave of the Apocalypse, Patmos, Greece.

(Top) Inside the Cave of the Apocalypse, Patmos, Greece.

(Bottom) Legend has it that God’s voice was so loud that it cracked the top rock into three parts, representing the Trinity.

As an elderly man, St. John would place his hand in the rock’s carved -out hole while resting or praying.

A view of the countryside in northeastern Greece on the way to Turkey (the Republic of Türkiye), which is home to numerous ancient and medieval Christian sites. They include Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya, originally a Christian cathedral) in Istanbul, the Church of St. Nicholas in Myra (modern-day Demre), Ephesus, Cappadocia, the Monastery of Sumela, Antioch (modern-day Antakya), Laodicea, Colossae, and Chora Church (Kariye Museum) in Istanbul.

Notes on Contributors

Jane Beal <jbeal@laverne.edu> is Professor of English Literature at the University of La Verne in southern California. She received her BA, MA, and PhD in English (University of California, Davis), with specializations in medieval and early modern literature, and an MFA in Creative Writing. She also received a Certificate in Midwifery from Mercy in Action College of Midwifery and a Graduate Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Bay Path University. She has taught at Wheaton College, Colorado Christian University, and the University of La Verne, as well as UC Davis, and served as a midwife in the U.S., Uganda, and the Philippines. 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 life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien. She also regularly publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. 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, the saxophonist and composer Andrew Beal, “The Jazz Bird.” She loves to share her legacy of learning with her students to help them grow as whole persons and fulfill their dreams for their lives.

Matthew Brennan <Matthew.Brennan@indstate.edu> has published seven books of poetry, including The End of the Road (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Snow in New York: New and Selected Poems (Lamar University Literary Press, 2021). His collection The House with the Mansard Roof (Backwaters Press, 2009) was a finalist for the Best Books of Indiana. He is also the author of four works of criticism, most recently The Colosseum Critical Introduction to Dana Gioia (Franciscan University Press, 2020). His poems and articles have appeared in Valley Voices, New York Times Book Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Georgia Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Southern Quarterly , and Commonweal. He has won the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred. He retired from Indiana State University and now lives in Columbus, Ohio.

John J. Han <john.han@mobap.edu> is Professor of English and Creative Writing and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. Han is the author, editor, coeditor, or translator of 35 books, including Wise Blood: A ReConsideration (Rodopi, 2011), The Final Crossing: Death and Dying in Literature (Peter Lang, 2015), Worlds Gone Awry: Essays on Dystopian Fiction (McFarland, 2018), Dawn Returns: The Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2022 (HSA, 2022), and Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on t he Moral Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). He is co -editing, with C. Clark Triplett, a volume

tentatively titled Cached in the Hills: Critical Essays on Ozarks Literature. A native of South Korea, he earned his M.A. from Kansas State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska -Lincoln.

Juliet Hinton <julshinton@gmail.com> is a Cancer Registry Manager in Research and Informatics with over twenty -two years of experience, specializing in oncology data management and strategic planning at Forrest General Hospital. In January 2022, she received a Pushcart Prize nomination for her poem “Calvary Baptist Church,” published in Delta Poetry Review. Her work, known for its metaphoric vision of landscape, feminine voice, and exploration of the miseries and mercies of Perry County, has been featured in Tipton Poetry Journal , Valley Voices Literary Review, Delta Poetry Review, San Pedro Review, and other literary journals. Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, The Mercies of Perry County , in February 2024. She is currently working on more Perry County and landscape poems and a new oncology cancer care project.

Philip C. Kolin <Philip.Kolin@usm.edu>, Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus) and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly, has published more than 40 books, including critical studies and reference works on Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, David Rabe, Edward Albee, and a host of contemporary African American women playwrights, especially Adrienne Kennedy. A prolific poet as well, Kolin has published fifteen collections of his verse, including Reaching Forever: Poems (Poiema Series of Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears (Main Street Rag, 2020), and Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Resource Publications, 2021). Kolin’s most recent book of poems, Evangeliaries, is forthcoming in late fall from Angelico Press. Kolin has also published the 12th edition of his business writing textbook Successful Writing at Work (Cengage). Kolin was the featured poet in a recent issue of Delta Poetry Review.

Anthony Priest <FrankPriest@MissouriState.edu > holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing from Missouri State University in Springfield and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches English and creative writing at Missouri State University in West Plains.

Todd Sukany <tasukany@gmail.com>, a Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. He holds degrees from Southwest Baptist University and Southeast Missouri State University. His work has appeared in Ancient Paths, Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, 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, six grandchildren, caring for two rescued dogs, and four rescued cats.

Mark Tappmeyer <metappmeyer@gmail.com> is a retired English professor from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, where he taught his entire career and served as the department chair for twentyfour years. He observes that while Kansas City Royal George Brett won major league batting titles in three decades, he taught at SBU in five decades, though, it should be noted, without batting titles. While on sabbatical in 2001-2003, he and his English professor wife Linda taught English in Dalian, China. Currently, the Tappmeyers live in the Indianapolis area. He has written Wisecracking, a book of poetry published by SBU Press. His poems have appeared in Disciple Journal , Intégrité, Cantos, Calliope, St. Anthony Messenger, Penwood Review, Publication of the Missouri Philological Association , and Tipton Poetry Journal.

C. Clark Triplett <Clark.Triplett@mobap.edu> is Emeritus Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Psychology at Missouri Baptist University. He served as the co -editor of The Final Crossing: Death and Dying in Literature (Peter Lang, 2015), a co -editor of Worlds Gone Awry: Essays on Dystopian Fiction (McFarland, 2018), and a co -editor of Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). He is co-editing, with John Han, a volume tentatively titled Cached in the Hills: Critical Essays on Ozarks Literature. Triplett’s poems have appeared in Cantos, Fireflies’ Light, and the Asahi Haikuist Network . He earned a B.A. from Southwest Baptist University, an M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary, an M.S.Ed. from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University.

Joshua Wilson is a sophomore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English and Communications at Missouri Baptist Univresity. He enjoys studying Theology and hopes to continue his education at seminary after his MBU graduation in 2027. Joshua is serving as the president of the Spartans for Life club at MBU, and he is grateful for the opportunities this role provides him to raise awareness about protecting the unborn. In his time away from campus, Joshua enjoys spending time in nature, investing in his church’s ministry in the local community, and spending time with his seven siblings. He hopes to magnify Christ in all things and by the grace of God to grow continually in his study of the Word and prayer.

John Zheng <zheng@mvsu.edu> is the author of seven poetry books and chapbooks, including The Dog Years of Reeducation (Madville, 2023). He is also the editor of seven books, such as Conversations with Lenard D. Moore (University Press of Mississippi, 2024), and the co -editor of two

books, including Dana Gioia: Poet & Critic (Mercer UP, 2024). Zheng is a professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University. He has recently received the 2024 Artist Fellowship in Poetry 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 hist orical, 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.