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Awe’s Power to Diminish Us (and That’s a Good Thing)

While Colorado is known for having 50 mountains that exceed 14,000 feet, my home state of Washington boasts its own mountainous claims, with nearly 100 reaching mile-high peaks. Yet one among them stands out. At 14,409 feet and 60 miles southeast of Seattle, Mt. Rainier is simply known as “the mountain.” In a city that…
February 12, 2025
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An Excellent Conversation

Some months ago, I rode to the airport with Uber, as I have done many times before and since. I noticed before the car arrived that the driver had high ratings for “excellent conversation.” Sure enough, it was not long before he started raising topics for discussion. He was driving for Uber on his day…
February 11, 2025
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Ordering Our Loves and Understanding Our Limits

Our two boys were three and six years old when my wife contracted Guillain Barré. Fortunately, the doctors were able to stop its deadly progression caused by her immune system going crazy and demyelinating her nerves before it reached her vital organs. She spent the next year in bed on a roller coaster of "recovery"…
February 7, 2025
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Do as I Say…and as I Do

“…you are shockingly fit.” These are the words from a young man who happened to be in the weight room at the same time I was in the fall semester of 2021. Of course, this was a semester in which COVID containment measures were plentiful. Student times were separated from faculty and staff times in…
February 6, 2025

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Fully Seen, Fully Known

Recently I walked with students among the self-portrait collection at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Most of these portraits were glamorous and proud, but a few were melancholy, desperate, even brutal. Some were fanciful, others despairing. Almost all faced outward as if to catch the eyes of passers-by and elicit recognition, acknowledgment, and sympathy.…
July 15, 2024
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Review of Teaching for Spiritual Formation: A Patristic Approach to Christian Education in a Convulsed Age

Many valuable resources exist for Christian professors eager to integrate faith and learning in the classroom; however, I have found some of the best theological insight and practical guidance in a recent book directed toward classical Christian high school teachers. The book bears the intriguing title Teaching for Spiritual Formation: A Patristic Approach to Christian…
July 12, 2024
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The University and Community Engagement: Recent Approaches

If we’re going to do this,” DeAmon Harges told me, “we’re going to have to become friends.” The condition set me back on my heels. Of course, I wasn’t opposed to getting to know this Indianapolis-based nonprofit leader, rapidly becoming a national figure in community development conversations. But though I was far from reluctant to…
July 11, 2024
BlogBook Review

All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism

Kevin Vallier has written a valuable exposition and critique of what he describes as radical religious alternatives to liberalism. Vallier is an Eastern Orthodox political philosopher at Bowling Green State University and a strong defender of the liberal tradition in politics. Liberalism in this sense refers broadly to such things as constitutional government, respect for…
July 10, 2024
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The Rush to Judgement about Canada’s Indigenous Schools’ “Grave Sites”:  What Christians Can Learn from Destructive Partiality – Part 2

I remember seeing the headlines and reading the stories while visiting relatives in Canada. In June of 2021, Sarah Beaulieu, an anthropologist who teaches at the University of the Fraser Valley, claimed to have found the graves of 215 Indigenous children at the site of a former Indigenous school in Kamloops British Columbia (later revised…
July 9, 2024
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Faith & Business: Beyond Add-On Models

With the ability to captivate our hearts, awaken imaginations and paint pictures of what it means to be a good person, stories help form (and malform) character and influence behavior.For a recent and thoughtful account of how character is formed consciously and unconsciously, see James KA Smith’s Cultural Liturgies books series: Imaging the Kingdom, Desiring…
July 3, 2024
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What Does Christianity Have to Do with Economics? Three Approaches

Since most faculty are trained in thoroughly secular universities and disciplines, it can take some work to figure out what difference Christian faith can have in the practice of your discipline. I have noticed that there is a particular difficulty of this kind for economists. In this blog post, I describe the background for that…
Steven McMullen Headshot
July 2, 2024