Senior Editors’ Introduction
Since its inception in 2019, the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE) has emphasized the importance of developing faculty who teach for Christ-centered institutions spiritually, academically, and professionally. May 2023 marks the third year in a row that IACE has hosted an annual summer Faculty Development Conference. For the past two years, IACE has also sponsored virtual reading groups for both faculty and academic officers to cultivate a community of like-minded educators across various institutions. This inaugural issue of this new journal marks IACE’s latest faculty development initiative.
We are excited to introduce you to Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning. Integration is an online journal for educators who are committed to thinking Christianly about higher education. Our vision is to promote a robust vision for the integration of faith and learning across the academic disciplines from a perspective that is rooted in a biblical worldview and in conversation with the Christian intellectual tradition. Integration is intended to be both interdisciplinary and semi-scholarly. Our articles will be well-researched, but our primary audience is present and aspiring teaching faculty in Christian institutions, with emphasis on colleges and universities.
Integration is a collaborative effort. Our publisher is David Dockery, the President of IACE. The three of us serve as the journal’s senior editors. Mike Garrett is our managing editor and book review editor. Integration also has an advisory board of seasoned scholars and academic leaders who represent a variety of academic disciplines and institutions. Their names and affiliations are available on the journal’s website.
We anticipate publishing two issues per year, normally in January and August, though this inaugural issue is being released in conjunction with this year’s Faculty Development Conference. Herein you will find major articles from Jennifer Marshall Patterson, Ben Mitchell, Thaddeus Williams, and Tom Nelson. Each of these articles are adapted from plenary addresses delivered at previous IACE Annual Conferences or Faculty Development Conferences. In addition to these articles, you will find critical reviews of recent and classic books that we believe are of interest to Christian educators.
Moving forward, we anticipate publishing a combination of commissioned and submitted articles. To that end, we welcome submissions for consideration. Articles should address the integration of faith and learning or closely related themes. We are especially interested in articles that engage with academic disciplines. In addition to major articles and critical book reviews, we also plan to publish review essays, reprints of historical articles, interviews with scholars and academic leaders, and topical forums. If you would like to submit an essay or request to write a book review, please contact us through the journal’s website. One of our editors will circle back to you with more information.
Our hope is that you find this inaugural issue of Integration to be informative and even edifying to you in your work as a Christian educator. We are also prayerful that this journal will make a significant kingdom impact for many years to come.