When I was a teenager, I purchased an early personal computer called a Timex Sinclair ZX-81 with money I earned from my paper route. I was amazed at how computer programs enabled me to build “castles in the air . . . creating by exertion of the imagination.”Frederick P. Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on…

We are in the middle of a run in the publication of “new histories.” In the five months after The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was published, eight other books with “New History” in the subtitle were published in my library’s database, on topics from the evolution of mammals to Watergate. Hundreds…

It is a healthy thing for Christian scholars to have some favorite heretics. I have a small group of them that I confer with occasionally. Most of them are long gone, so I have to communicate with them by going back to their writings. Some folks may think that the very idea of having favorite…

Ever since Arthur Holmes published The Idea of a Christian College, scholars with a stake in Christian higher education have reflected on the relationship between faith and learning. With entire works devoted to scholarship, teaching, and student affairs at Christian colleges and universities, it is perplexing that the athletics department at these institutions has not…

You ever leave a conversation and then wanted to kick yourself because you did not say something you wanted to say? I think we all have done that. Well, I can do one better than that. I have written a book titled Beyond Racial Division. The book is published, and yet the other day, while riding…

In the previous post, I compared the arguments of overwhelmed NYU students to those of their organic chemistry professor. NYU professor Stephanie Lee’s tweet sums it up: “I could write compelling defenses for each party - students, Prof. Jones, my department, NYU admin - bc everyone is operating under different pressures.”Stephanie Lee, Twitter post, October…

You might have heard that organic chemistry professor Maitland Jones Jr. is no longer teaching at NYU. The news went global when Jones had his one-year contract taken away, not because of a crime or scandal, but because of a student petition against the way he taught his course. This news surprised me. I had…

Beloved, let us be loving one another. Because the love is from God! And everyone loving has been born from God, and knows God. 1 John 4:7 DLNT After writing a post for my blog on the importance of savoring the season of Christmas for worshipping our Savior, I realized the need to do the…

The North American church is losing younger members. College is a critical time for forming or rejecting faith, but religious disenchantment grows already during middle and high school. As college educators, we inherit the results. Some of our students are reluctant to discuss faith-related topics. Others quietly protest to themselves about Christian education. I have…

The utility of providing mentors to early career professionals is widely recognized. Many businesses encourage them with established formal mentoring programs. Many universities do the same, assigning incoming faculty and staff to more experienced counterparts to assist in their onboarding. The exact relationship between the “mentor” and “mentee,” however, comes in a wide variety of…