Co-hosts Candace Smith and Jon Stovell speak with Catherine Meeks about her research and writing, including her new book, A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper's Daughter (Eerdmans, 2024).

Catherine Meeks recently retired as executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. She is also the retired Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Wesleyan College. A sought-after teacher and workshop leader, Dr. Meeks works with people who have been marginalized because of economic status, race, gender, or physical ability as they pursue liberation, justice, and a more abundant life.

Co-hosts Beth and Jon Stovell speak with Jennifer Powell McNutt and David W. McNutt about their research and writing, including their new book, Know the Theologians (Zondervan, 2024).

Jennifer Powell McNutt (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies and Associate Professor of Theology and History of Christianity at Wheaton College, Fellow in the Royal Historical Society, award-winning author and professor, and Reformation scholar. David W. McNutt (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Senior Acquisitions Editor of Theology for Zondervan Academic with HarperCollins, Lecturer in Core Studies at Wheaton College, and Theology and the Arts scholar. Both are ordained ministers in the Presbyterian Church and co-founders of McNuttshell Ministries, which seeks to bridge the church and the academy with faith in a nutshell.

Co-hosts Jon Stovell and Candace Smith speak with Rick Ostrander about his research and writing, including his new book, Academically Speaking: Lessons from a Life in Christian Higher Education (Eerdmans, 2024).

Dr. Rick Ostrander is Executive Director of the Michigan Christian Study Center. He holds a doctorate in American History from the University of Notre Dame. He also holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Notre Dame, a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in theology from Moody Bible Institute.

As a scholar of American religion and an academic administrator, Dr. Ostrander maintains an active interest in Christian higher education. His publications include The Life of Prayer in a World of Science (Oxford, 2001), Head, Heart, Hand: John Brown University and Evangelical Higher Education (University of Arkansas, 2003), and “Spirituality and the Discipline of History,” in Searching for Spirituality in Higher Education (Peter Lang, 2007). A Fulbright Scholar to Germany in 2004, Dr. Ostrander complements his interest in American higher education with an active interest in global affairs and international education.

Dr. Ostrander’s book, Why College Matters to God: Academic Faithfulness and Christian Higher Education, was published in 2009 by Abilene Christian University Press and revised in 2012. It is one of the leading texts used by Christian college and universities for first-year seminars and new faculty orientations.

Rick and his wife Lonnie have four children. He is an avid cyclist who logs thousands of miles a year on his road bike.