Last year, I hosted a chocolate-tasting lab for a large group of honors students. I provided them with several types of chocolate, and together we went through a slow process of reaction, evaluation, and comparison. Their specimens for consideration included: Hershey’s milk chocolate, a very fine 72% dark chocolate, an increasingly bitter 80% dark chocolate,…

Social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, has once again secured a spot on The New York Times Best Seller List with his latest book, The Anxious Generation. In this work, Haidt offers evidence-based insights into the psychological and sociological rationales leading to increased anxiety in Generation Z compared to Millennials.  Specifically, he investigates the cultural, social, and…

In the first part of this essay, I described how the twenty-first-century discovery of the oldest paintings on earth in Indonesia – including the Sulawesi warty pig – illustrates the main points of Darrel R. Falk’s On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species.Darrel R. Falk. On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species. (Wipf and Stock Publishers,…

Cave paintings and rusty ochre brushstrokes appear on the cover of Darrel R. Falk’s recently  published book, On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species.Darrel R. Falk. On the (Divine) Origin of Our Species. (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023). These earliest examples of art call out to us today. Falk describes the European cave paintings in the…

This past year, I have seen headlines flash across the start page of my Microsoft browser’s newsfeed that featured articles about the supposed chemical origin of life. Was it the result of aliens seeding our planet billions of years ago – a theory called Panspermia? Or an asteroid bombardment with trace amino acids and nucleic…

Halfway through the school year, I was asked to step into the elementary school principal role in an acting capacity to cover for a medical leave. I am sure it must have felt like a jarring experience for our teaching team to have their leader abruptly taken from them, or worse-yet, like one of the…

“Our textbooks today are much more focused on practical things.” The student’s comment, offered in a class on world language pedagogy as we discussed historical examples of language textbooks, stood out as requiring more response than I quite knew how to pack into the moment. It was true and it was false, depending on the…

“Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.”  2 Corinthians 12:14 (NIV) Earlier this month, the…

What is now jointly named Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day should serve as a reminder to Christian scholars. Some of our past brethren in the universities and Church used their power and intellectual abilities to justify the enslavement and mistreatment of Native Americans. But this day should also remind us of a noble band of Christian…

Bright Hermon, with the dayspring on thy brow, and silver streamlets leaping round thy feet,— Shout forth thy ceaseless praise!                                                   —Horatius Bonar, 1881, Hymns of Faith and Hope You would hardly think that observing the hippopotamus in Africa near the southern extent of the Great Rift Valley would somehow be connected to Mount…