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An Appeal to Embrace Purposeful Mentorship

Writing in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Hans Sanders tells the story of Cris Hassold of New College Florida.Hank Sanders, “A Professor’s Final Gift to Her Students: Her Life Savings,” New York Times, May 11, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/us/cris-hassold-professor-new-college-will.html. A story that in so many ways captures the best of what the university can provide…
July 25, 2025
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That sense of nagging fear

That sense of nagging fear  There is a nagging fear I experience sometimes. I’m tempted to attribute it to something earthly and circumstantial - some specific, mundane event or condition that, once solved, will make the fear go away. But I know better now. This fear is repetitive and familiar. Finally, I begin to recognize…
July 21, 2025
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Review of Sarah Irving-­Stonebraker, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age

In Priests of History, Sarah Irving-­Stonebraker diagnoses a partial cause of the identity crisis currently plaguing Western culture, generally, and the Western Church, particularly. We do not know ourselves because we have neglected the past. We are “ahistorical,” a term used by Irving-­Stonebraker to describe the loss of “meaningful engagement with, and connection to, history”…
July 17, 2025
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Review of Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

Biblical Critical Theory is sparklingly clear and engagingly written. Part of the reason it is so engaging is that Christopher Watkin’s personal story is woven into the story without ever being intrusive or grating. As Christian academic writers, we can learn from the way he as a human being seeking truth and wholeness addresses us…
July 10, 2025

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Connecting Bytes and Christian Beliefs

Technology has been a common theme in my life. The passion began early with building crystal radios and other electronic projects, then moving on to experimenting with ham radio and delighting in the world of early personal computers. My interest in technology drew me to study engineering at a large, respected, engineering school. After graduating…
October 7, 2020
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Teaching During Pandemic: Help!

I’ve been teaching for a hundred years, and this one is the most difficult. Every day I receive marketing emails from textbook and educational service companies; one offered free resources to "help deliver content during this difficult time." Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not a delivery person (nor a service provider, nor a learning manager).…
October 5, 2020
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The Liturgy of Lament for Second-Act Leaders

As an Industrial / Organizational Psychologist, I have spent almost 30 years studying leaders. Not so much leadership theories but leaders themselves. How do they think about being a leader? What motivates them? How do they make sense about being in this role, and how much of their identity is wrapped up in being a…
October 2, 2020
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The Market Made Me Do It: Revising the Scandal

This essay appeared first at Mere Orthodoxy:  https://mereorthodoxy.com/market-made-scandal-evangelical-college/ Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind turned twenty-five last year. If we know a classic by its ability to speak across eras, one single event from this past summer is enough to assure everyone of the continuing tragic relevance of Noll’s book. In late July,…
September 30, 2020
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A Little Narcissism Inside

In her summer release, President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, describes her uncle as a “narcissist” with a complex and pathological relationship with his deceased father. Her diagnostic sequitur, though hardly original, carries the sting of coming from a family connection. In another story closer to home, a longtime Taylor University philosophy…
September 28, 2020
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Celebrating Christian Creators

I recently reviewed John Bernbaum’s fantastic new book, Opening the Red Door The Inside Story of Russia's First Christian Liberal Arts University for The Review of Faith and International Affairs. After reading the book, I came to the conclusion that John Bernbaum should be celebrated as one of the great Christian creators. The book documents two decades of John’s work…
September 25, 2020
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Crisis, Community, and Lament: Living During Chaotic Times

The day I am writing this post is September 11. In 2001, I was still a rookie administrator living with 200 freshmen on a Christian college campus in Southern California. The horror of that morning rippled into shock, confusion, and perplexity as the day continued. The community gathered together with care, empathy, and resolve. As stories permeated through…
September 23, 2020
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What A Tale of Two Cities Can Tell Us About Injustice in America Today

“Those who cannot remember the past,’ the philosopher George Santayana, famously said, ”are condemned to repeat it.” Literature is one way of “remembering” the past in a way that exceeds the limits of our own memory and experience. If there were one work of literature that might help us today to avoid repeating a violent and painful past…
September 21, 2020
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Language Learning as Spiritual Medicine for a Culture of Narcissism

Today’s post is an excerpt of a longer talk given by David Lyle Jeffrey in May 2019 at a conference sponsored by the Christian Association for World Languages (CAWL). We are thankful for the opportunity to share Dr. Jeffrey’s wisdom for the benefit of Christian scholars of all disciplines. His commitment to the importance and power…
September 18, 2020
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The Poetry and Music of Science

In this blog, I write about the story of a new book, The Poetry and Music of Science. This account of the role of creativity and imagination in science, very under-emphasised in education and public discussion of science today, was motivated by my earlier search for a ‘theology of science’ articulated in the earlier (2014) book Faith and…
September 16, 2020