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Echoes of the Genuinely Human

During my “tween” years, I devoured novels about Christian boys of my age. For example, I read most, if not all, of the Moody Press thirty-six-volume series about the Sugar Creek Gang, a group of boys who encouraged each other in maintaining their shared Christian identity. Even though I am grateful for the “wholesome” image…
July 27, 2026
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Christian Higher Education at a Crossroads

Ron Highfield's The Christian University and the Academic Establishment arrives at a particularly fraught moment in the history of American higher education. Confidence in the university as an institution has eroded dramatically. Political polarization has drawn colleges and universities into broader cultural conflicts. Debates over academic freedom, diversity initiatives, institutional mission, free speech, and ideological…
July 23, 2026
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Mount Rushmore of Civil Communication (Part 2)

When asked to do a second edition of our book, Authentic Communication: Christian Speech Engaging Culture (IVP Academic), my co-author, Todd Lewis, and I thought of the people who have most influenced our thinking about Christian engagement in an oft-hostile world. Influenced by Michael Michalko’s book, Thinker Toys, we created our Mt. Rushmore of individuals…
July 22, 2026
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Mount Rushmore of Civil Communication (Part 1)

“Who’s on your Mt. Rushmore?” This is one of my favorite questions to ask my students. When it comes to fashion, politics, theology, or potentially volatile social issues, who most informs your thinking?  Specifically, give me four names of people who have your ear.  The Mt. Rushmore idea is based on Michael Michalko’s idea of…
July 21, 2026

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The Dismal State of Mainline Protestant Higher Education

A 2018 volume on Mainline Protestantism opened by asking the question, “Is American mainline Protestantism a relic of a bygone era, the religious equivalent of Howard Johnsons’ Restaurants or Sears, a former giant now fighting for cultural relevance?” On one hand, one could argue that things are not quite that bad at the moment in…
January 17, 2025
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How To Do Faith And Fitness With Proper Form

Editor’s Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom who publishes the Faith and Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are thinking about the subject for the popular fitness audience. Yesterday and today's posts are reproduced…
January 15, 2025
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Moving Beyond Faith-Based Fitness

Editor's Note: After reading a couple of our posts about the stewardship of the body problem in Christian higher education (see here and here), Brad Bloom, who publishes the Faith & Fitness Magazine, thought our audience might be interested in reading about how they are encouraging the popular fitness audience to think Christianly about the subject.…
January 14, 2025
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This January: Fifty Percent Off at the Christmas Shop

I have a complicated relationship with seasonal Christmas shops. I’ll bet a lot of us do. It began in the 1990s. Like most adolescents, I developed a contrarian streak when it came to the elders’ sacred cows. December rituals around Christmas Tree Shops (or their copycats) were no exception. I had a lot of reasons…
January 13, 2025
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Faith Separated from Reason: The Catholic Two-Spheres Problem in Gen Ed

While doing some interviews among leaders and faculty at a Catholic institution this past year, I heard the phrase, “Charity is clarity” used among administrators. I loved the phrase since I think it accurately captures how ambiguity in Christian teaching, scholarship, and administration is often a failure to love. I think the phrase can also…
January 9, 2025
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Classical and Christian Education: Helping Students Understand the Differences and Similarities Between Them

One of the oddest and most interesting educational developments during the past few decades is Protestants’ embrace of classical education at both the K-12 and higher education levels. What makes it odd is that certain Protestant Reformers thought key elements of classical education were suspect. After all, they attributed the too-friendly embrace of some of…
January 8, 2025
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Reflections on How to Begin a Semester

I ended last year with some reflections on how to end a semester. Here I offer some reflections on how to begin one. They were provoked by a chance encounter with an introductory Spanish grammar text. It begins with these two sentences:“Grammar is one of the most difficult (read: boring!) parts of learning a language.…
January 7, 2025
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Grounded: God in the Dirt

Starting around the year 1400, a new kind of Nativity Scene began to grace European art – and Italian Renaissance art, particularly. Before, Nativity scenes often featured Mary holding a swaddled baby Jesus and surrounded by animals and worshippers in a stable. The new formula, however, showed the baby Jesus lying naked on the ground,…
December 17, 2024
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REINDEER GAMES

Imagine a single snowflake—albeit a giant one that encompasses 196,880+ dimensions. That’s the word-picture used by Mark Ronan to describe “the monster,” an extraordinarily large, complex numerical entity discovered by mathematicians in their hunt for mathematical symmetries, and one that may shed light on the deep structure of the cosmos itself.Mark Ronan, Symmetry and the…
December 16, 2024