If your Christian university does not require a substantive class on nourishing an excellent Christian marriage, it is not engaged in a key factor behind upward economic mobility. Why do I say that? The social science evidence. As Melisa Kearney, a University of Maryland economist, and author of Two-Parent Privilege, shared on a recent podcast,…

One of the possible functions of Christian beliefs and practices in teaching and learning contexts is to act as framing devices. When concern for student wellbeing is named as pastoral care, when environmental responsibility is connected to stewardship or creation care, or when language learning is understood as a way of welcoming strangers, theological and…

Can I make human heart proteins in a mouse? Or, restated: Can I make a mouse that produces a human heart protein? The first question is clearly a technical question that focuses on our ability to express human genes in a new context. The second gives clarity to what it is that I am actually…

In this cultural moment in higher education, when everything appears to be up for grabs, perhaps it’s time to think more deeply about how grades might hamper holistic student development. Although education scholars have been sounding concerns about the value of grades for almost 100 years, I personally never gave the need for them much…

“We Can’t Go On Together with Suspicious Minds”                         --Elvis Ever since the Fall, we have experienced gender division and alienation. Whether throughout human history we have improved or are going backward in this area, depends upon what one views as the end or…

I nearly plowed down a first-year college student as I raced to a much-needed bathroom. The large cup of hotel coffee combined with a 4-hour bus ride meant that my usual concern with professionalism around students had been replaced by a nearly frantic need to reach the travel stop’s restroom. This episode during a short-term…

“Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), 82 (italics in original). The present essay will not attempt to describe the circuitous path that led Haidt to this somewhat disturbing conclusion, except to say that his experiments are varied…

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against…

Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art provides a valuable Christian framework to traditional art critical practice. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt combines an established framework, repeated themes, and a wide range of examples, resulting in content that is accessible to all readers, including novice art viewers. In her introduction, she proposes…

As the subtitle suggests, Shirley Mullen’s new book, Claiming the Courageous Middle, invites believers to dare “to live and work together for a more hopeful future.” This applies to all areas of life, from family to church membership, and to jobs as well, even that of professor. I don’t refer to professors as daring; I’d…