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JACKSON, Tenn. — Dec. 20, 2012 — The second issue of 51����’s “Renewing Minds: A Journal of Christian Thought” explores the future in 12 articles.

The fall 2012 issue, “The Future Of...,” is the latest edition of the print journal designed to share scholarship related to current topics in society.

“Writing about the future presents an opportunity for real speculation and anticipation,” said Hunter Baker, dean of instruction at Union and one of the journal’s senior editors. “By thinking about how things might go decades from now, we have the opportunity to modify our behavior and thinking right now, so as to meet the challenge.”

The articles cover free enterprise, higher education, theological education, primary-secondary education, food, sex, race, Islam, reading, the internet, pharmaceuticals and the future itself.

“With such a broad palette of colors, we could involve a number of different and interesting people in the creation of our second effort,” Baker said.

Baker and other Union faculty and staff wrote seven of the issue’s 12 articles, and leaders in other fields of study also contributed articles.

Peter Riddell, a British journalist and author, wrote about the future of Islam. Jordan J. Ballor, research fellow at the Acton Institute and executive editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality, discussed the future of free enterprise in a web-exclusive article.

Union has hosted two of the contributing authors. Norman Wirzba, research professor of theology, ecology and rural life at Duke Divinity School, wrote about food in the journal issue. Wirzba visited Union in spring 2012 as the university’s Scholar in Residence.

Peter Leithart, senior theology scholar at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, also lectured at Union in spring 2012. Leithart ended the journal’s future-focused articles with one related to predicting the future.

Each issue of the “Renewing Minds” journal features the reprinting of an old article. The second issue features Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, first presented on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Aug. 28, 1963.

The journal also includes several short reviews of recently published books that relate to aspects of Christian life and the church.

“Renewing Mind” articles are written by academics, but are designed to be read by anyone who is “intellectually alive,” Baker said.

“Do you like to think about ideas?” Baker asked. “Are you a reader? Do you like to think about how different subject areas relate to each other? Do you enjoy learning?”

People who answer “yes” to those questions are the journal’s target audience, Baker said.

Those who would like to subscribe to the journal can do so at , where some of the articles are also available for reading.