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The Nature of Slavery

Editor’s Note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we encourage you to read the following passage from Frederick Douglas’  “The Nature of Slavery” (1855) in which he describes how slavery mars the image of God  in humanity and undermines efforts to educate humans to their full capacity.   The very accompaniments of the slave…
January 20, 2025
Blog

The Dismal State of Mainline Protestant Higher Education

A 2018 volume on Mainline Protestantism opened by asking the question, “Is American mainline Protestantism a relic of a bygone era, the religious equivalent of Howard Johnsons’ Restaurants or Sears, a former giant now fighting for cultural relevance?” On one hand, one could argue that things are not quite that bad at the moment in…
January 17, 2025
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How To Do Faith And Fitness With Proper Form

Editor’s Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom who publishes the Faith and Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are thinking about the subject for the popular fitness audience. Yesterday and today's posts are reproduced…
January 15, 2025
Blog

Moving Beyond Faith-Based Fitness

Editor's Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom, who publishes the Faith & Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are encouraging the popular fitness audience to think Christianly about the subject.…
January 14, 2025
Blog

This January: Fifty Percent Off at the Christmas Shop

I have a complicated relationship with seasonal Christmas shops. I’ll bet a lot of us do. It began in the 1990s. Like most adolescents, I developed a contrarian streak when it came to the elders’ sacred cows. December rituals around Christmas Tree Shops (or their copycats) were no exception. I had a lot of reasons…
January 13, 2025

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Attention to our Limitation

Montana is part of “Big Sky Country.” During a sabbatical last semester (thank you, Calvin University!), my wife and I spent time under the big sky and worked on writing projects. Unobstructed views and dramatic land features yield a sense of perspective that the sky’s not just big, it’s enormous. In parts of Montana, plains…
January 23, 2025
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Robustness and Plasticity in Christian Higher Education

This past summer a terrible forest fire raced through Jasper National Park in Alberta, scorching wide swaths of the park and destroying a third of the town of Jasper; but even before the long winter set in, signs of new life were beginning to sprout. In a generation or two, the forests will have returned…
January 22, 2025
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Christians Are Less Biased?

In this post-election period, there is a desire among many people to come together across political differences to restore civility and cooperation within workplaces, families, or even marriages. One of the major barriers to doing this is the belief that “I am right; they are biased,” which is referred to as the bias blind spot.…
January 21, 2025
Blog

The Nature of Slavery

Editor’s Note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we encourage you to read the following passage from Frederick Douglas’  “The Nature of Slavery” (1855) in which he describes how slavery mars the image of God  in humanity and undermines efforts to educate humans to their full capacity.   The very accompaniments of the slave…
January 20, 2025
Blog

The Dismal State of Mainline Protestant Higher Education

A 2018 volume on Mainline Protestantism opened by asking the question, “Is American mainline Protestantism a relic of a bygone era, the religious equivalent of Howard Johnsons’ Restaurants or Sears, a former giant now fighting for cultural relevance?” On one hand, one could argue that things are not quite that bad at the moment in…
January 17, 2025
Blog

How To Do Faith And Fitness With Proper Form

Editor’s Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom who publishes the Faith and Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are thinking about the subject for the popular fitness audience. Yesterday and today's posts are reproduced…
January 15, 2025
Blog

Moving Beyond Faith-Based Fitness

Editor's Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom, who publishes the Faith & Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are encouraging the popular fitness audience to think Christianly about the subject.…
January 14, 2025
Blog

This January: Fifty Percent Off at the Christmas Shop

I have a complicated relationship with seasonal Christmas shops. I’ll bet a lot of us do. It began in the 1990s. Like most adolescents, I developed a contrarian streak when it came to the elders’ sacred cows. December rituals around Christmas Tree Shops (or their copycats) were no exception. I had a lot of reasons…
January 13, 2025
Blog

Faith Separated from Reason: The Catholic Two-Spheres Problem in Gen Ed

While doing some interviews among leaders and faculty at a Catholic institution this past year, I heard the phrase, “Charity is clarity” used among administrators. I loved the phrase since I think it accurately captures how ambiguity in Christian teaching, scholarship, and administration is often a failure to love. I think the phrase can also…
January 9, 2025