“Would I be doing this if I was not an assistant professor trying to get tenure?” I remember asking myself this question when trying on a Puritan costume. That week I was speaking about the Puritans and education, so I decided to rent a costume to spice up the co-taught class of over 100 students.…

This past year I enjoyed two extended visits with an old high school friend who had a profound spiritual influence on my life. This friend taught me tremendous lessons about intimacy, asking deep questions, listening, being aware of others’ needs, and forgiveness. She’s also female, and we dated at one point in high school. During…

I once had a young, female assistant professor come to me with a question. One of her young, male graduate students had asked an undergraduate female student in his class some questions about her dating life. The questions made the female student uncomfortable, so she talked to my colleague about it. My colleague then asked…

Not far from our home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is one of southern Ontario's premier universities, McMaster, known internationally as a centre for advanced scientific and medical research. What few remember is that the university once had a connection with the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Québec, the only remnant of which is the presence…

Strangers and Scapegoats is the culmination of some 20 years of my learning to think sociologically while teaching undergraduate students to cultivate their own sociological imaginations. The concept of imagination—of perceiving old things in new ways—plays a central role in the book, and is, for me, key to addressing the perennial problem of the stranger.…

For months now, the governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida have been bussing immigrants east and north, depositing them at Union Station in Washington, D.C. and also in New York City and Chicago. These actions raise questions about scapegoating, heaping political acrimony on the backs of migrants and the methods of transporting them out of…

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2 (ESV)  In Europe, at the turn of the twentieth century, great advances were being made in atomic theory. In 1904, the British physicist and Nobel laureate Sir Joseph John Thomson, who had discovered the…

In the Oscar award-winning film, Chariots of Fire (1981),Chariots of Fire, directed by Hugh Hudson (20th Century Fox, 1981). the father of the famous Scottish athlete, rugby player and missionary, Eric Liddle, exhorts his son to follow his love of sport and seek excellence and success, in stating that “… you can praise the Lord…

“Suffering doesn’t automatically or naturally lead to growth or good outcomes. It must be handled properly.” - Tim KellerTim Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering, (Dutton, NY: Riverhead Books,  2015). “Our fruitfulness comes out of our vulnerability and not just out of our power. It comes out of our powerlessness.” - Henri NouwenHenri…

My institution “has a proud tradition of faculty governance,” as a colleague once euphemistically summarized the heavy committee load professors carry here. Both descriptions are true. It is a proud tradition and a heavy load. Most full-time faculty here serve on at least two campus-wide committees. Then in addition to these are departmental committees, search…