In Western culture, and especially in America, patience is rarely considered a virtue. Increasingly, we celebrate impetuosity. The punchline of a recent New Balance commercial, for example, is “impatience is a virtue.” This tactic is ostensibly deployed for marketing purposes—mere hyperbole meant to highlight that company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives (i.e., when it comes to…

In his essential study on the role of prophetic religion in the death of Jim Crow, David L. Chappell writes, “White supremacists in the South failed to get their churches to give their cause active support.”David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North…

Take up the cause of the fatherless.Isaiah 1:17 America currently has the largest percentage of children raised without two parents in the world (23% compared to 7% for the rest of the world). We also have the highest-ever number of children living without fathers in America (same web source). Our children and society will experience the…

I earned my master’s degree as a single mother while working full time. It was as intense as it sounds. Once or twice a week for about two years, I’d leave work and immediately drive an hour east to my night classes at the closest state university. Afterward, I’d get home around 10:00, stay up…

The middle of a pandemic is usually not a good time to publish a book, especially when social and travel restrictions interfere with the traditional methods of publicizing and marketing a new book. However, the claims of conscience by Christians in this pandemic make the publication of Christianity and the Laws of Conscience: An Introduction…

Currently, there is some discussion at Baylor University about considering “empathy” as an ideal character strength for undergraduate students. That discussion made me wonder why we talk about empathy as a virtue in Christian circles. After all, it is not a biblical word (of course, that does not mean it is not a Christian virtue).…

While there are many books written about the use of technology from a faith perspective, very few are written for those who are actually designing and creating technology – the engineers and designers. Several years ago I got together with two other veteran engineers and Christian college professors to set about writing a book that…

In the past few years, the symphony of women’s voices and the stories emanating from their own, often tragic, experiences in both the sacred and secular world have only grown louder, demanding that the church and society pay attention to women’s grievances and to their cries for equality and justice. By noting both the contributions…

Sometimes it is interesting to take stock of the field of Christian higher education.  A research team I lead recently put together a spreadsheet of all the Protestant institutions in America that require students to take at least one course that addresses the Christian tradition (and not simply religion generally). There are 249 such Protestant…

Be  shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. – 1 Peter 5:2-3 (NIV) We often think…