As I write this post, our sailboat is tied up in a small public marina in British Columbia, twenty-five nautical miles north of the city of Vancouver, on a sunny weekday morning. However, just outside the harbor, twenty-knot winds with forty-knot gusts are whipping up three-foot whitecaps, and even in the harbor, our boat is…

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…

The title is a good summary of two key objectives of this book. Kennedy is against the idea of a Christian worldview as developed largely by Reformed philosophers and theologians. Here, he joins a growing chorus of writers who have raised concerns about how the worldview approach has come to dominate evangelical Christian education. While…

My friend once said to me: I think living faithfully would be easy if we could only perceive what is faithful. That is, to discern the correct path is a harder task than to walk it. Knowing which way to go and what to do is more challenging than the going and the doing. Jesus…

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…

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”…

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…

I remember serving as an advisor on a fascinating master’s thesis that examined the origins of higher education in Texas. There is one historical bit of information that has stayed with me from that thesis. Before the Civil War, forty faith-informed colleges were started in Texas. Only two survived: Baylor University (1845) and the University…

It’s not surprising that a world of sound and fury would produce a widespread sense that none of it signifies. Nor is it surprising that in such a world, devoted to spectacle and stripped of purpose, every institution has a “mission statement.” On paper, the idea of a mission statement makes sense, in the sense…

Americans waste food on a grand scale. Though figures are appalling–30-40% of our food supply gets wasted, by USDA estimates, about 60 million tons a year, worth over $200 billion – big numbers fail to change behavior. First-year students in a seminar I teach on the history of American diet trends are reliably conscientious about…