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Doctors Crossing Borders, and Other Perils of Professional Training

This fall I am teaching an Honors Seminar designed for students in my home university’s College of Health Sciences. The students are all eager to pursue their professional careers as medical doctors, nurses, and physical therapists. Sadly, only 10% of them have expressed any interest in practicing in those parts of the world where they…
November 19, 2024
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When Judgment Hurts

Last month, I attended a conference at Calvin University focused on how to counter reductionism in teaching and education. Certainly, our culture has been in thrall to reductionist tendencies for some time, as the angry, dismissive tone of internet culture and political discourse shows us. Sadly, this tone often makes its way into the classroom,…
November 18, 2024
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“Is it Wrong to Mourn What You Do Not Know?” On Satisfaction and the End of Learning

Many faculty professional development days, hallway dialogues between colleagues, and programs for the integration of faith and learning exist because of the common question: how can we motivate our students to desire learning? Although scaffolded course objectives and early alert systems for struggling students are designed with the ostensible end of effective teaching in mind,…
November 15, 2024
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An Extended Review of The Artistic Sphere: The Arts in Neo-­Calvinist Perspective (Part 2)

The words of Calvinists like Kuyper on the one hand, and secular “formalists” like Greenberg on the other, can sometimes seem interchangeable. However, Kuyper and Greenberg would certainly have disagreed concerning the “area of competence” contained in the “Artistic Sphere.” For Kuyper (and for Rookmaaker, who worked out Kuyper’s ideas through art criticism) the artist…
November 14, 2024

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An Evangelical Philosopher and an Exvangelical Walk into a Coffee Shop

“Exvangelicalism” is a relatively new term for a much older phenomenon: those who’ve been raised as evangelicals coming to realize that they no longer identify as such, and intentionally reckoning with the continuing impact of that tradition in their lives. Philosophers have not had much to say about this phenomenon – until now.  These four…
July 22, 2022
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Moving Beyond Racial Division

Book Review: George Yancey, Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism. IVP, 2022. Does George Yancey have any friends? His new book Beyond Racial Division rejects dominant models for racial engagement, an unpopular approach that clears space for a third way. In challenging colorblindness, the perspective probably held among most evangelicals, he…
July 21, 2022
BlogBook Review

Book Review – The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir

I first encountered Sherry Turkle years ago when a colleague in philosophy mentioned her to me as someone to keep an eye on. Later, I received from him a copy of one of her early books, The Second Self. Turkle’s more recent books, Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation, contain remarkable insights into how technology shapes…
July 19, 2022
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Book Review – Science and the Doctrine of Creation: The Approaches of Ten Modern Theologians

Evangelicals do not have a reputation for wise and irenic engagement with modern science. Scholars at The Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School have been trying to change this characterization of hostile defensiveness, especially through their “Creation Project” that has brought evangelical scholarly focus to the doctrine of creation over recent years, of which…
July 12, 2022
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Superstitions in Sport: A Brief Theological and Sporting Perspective

{The following excerpt comes from Matt Hoven, J.J. Carney, and Max Engel, On the Eighth Day: A Catholic Theology of Sport (Cascade/Wipf & Stock: Eugene, OR, 2022), 115-7. Used with permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers. Available for purchase at wipfandstock.com, Amazon.com, and elsewhere}. The vast majority of elite athletes practice superstitions—despite the fact that…
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Seeing Relationships through the Kelp Forest

Giant kelp. It’s a species of algae that can grow over 50 meters tall, making it the largest marine algae.  It’s also one of the fastest growing living things on our planet.“Giant Kelp.” SIMoN. Accessed June 13, 2022. https://sanctuarysimon.org/dbtools/species-database/id/40/macrocystis/pyrifera/giant-kelp. On its own, giant kelp is an impressive part of God’s creation. However, I’d argue that…
July 7, 2022
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Performative Prayer at Athletic Events: An Important Free Exercise Freedom with Limited Christian Importance

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”                         Matthew 6:1 I rarely see so many public intellectuals misunderstand the implications of a Supreme Court case as the recent Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision…
July 6, 2022
BlogBook Review

Book Review – Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation

“Owning a piano does not make the pianist.” This wisdom from folklore also pertains to the fine art of parenting. Having children does not guarantee successful outcomes.Jerry Bigner and Clara Gerhardt, Parent-Child Relations: An Introduction to Parenting, 10th ed. (Pearson Publishing, 2018), 6. Hence, emotionally vested parents and coparents will go out of their way…
July 5, 2022