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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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Introducing the Christian Scholar’s Review Winter Issue

Sometime in the next few weeks, it will be the third anniversary of the moment when each of us realized that the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 would not remain isolated to Asia and a couple of cruise ships but was bearing down across the globe. On March 10th, 2020, I shrugged off The Atlantic article titled…
February 15, 2023
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Kiss of Death

John Everett Millais, A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1852 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Huguenot,_on_St._Bartholomew%27s_Day In 1852, the pious British artist John Everett Millais (who has been featured elsewhere in this blog), painted a heart-rending image called A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew’s Day. Here, beside an ivied wall, two young lovers furtively embrace. The air is thick and the…
February 14, 2023
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Here’s Your Assignment

During focus group research for the book Digital Life Together, two secondary school students offered the following reflections about what happens when their teachers assign reading tasks: we'll ask , "can we skim it and just look for the answers?" And they're, like, "No, I actually want you to read it".  … One of my…
February 13, 2023
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Sacramental Vision as Faith Integration*

“It is a triumph of science to have, in some degree, described the electron, and preposterous to suggest is has been explained.” —Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things Faith integration is a task integral to the vocation of Christian education. It’s become a buzzword and identity marker: good Christian education means robust faith integration. Faith…
February 10, 2023
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A Catholic among Protestants

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, I belong to a Roman Catholic family that went to Mass every Sunday, prayed the rosary every day during the month of October to honor Mary, the mother of Jesus, and went to pre-dawn Mass during the Advent season before Christmas. My brothers were altar servers and my parents…
February 8, 2023
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The Pedagogy of Improv

For Christmas 2021, my wife got me the gift of improv comedy classes. We happen to have an improv comedy theater right here in our little Chicago suburb, and she signed me up for a Level 1 class. She says I brought up the idea at some point—I certainly don’t remember doing that—but I was…
February 6, 2023
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ChatGPT and the Turing Test: Biblical Studies Version

My inventive colleague, Dr. Isaac Soon, recently offered a constructive counterpart to all the handwringing in academia about ChatGPT. Instead of bemoaning ChatGPT’s potential to mimic student papers for fear of widespread cheating, why not use ChatGPT as a teaching and research tool? Isaac put up on his weblog a process he could supervise, as…
February 3, 2023