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Gather Up the Leftovers. Let Nothing Go to Waste.

Americans waste food on a grand scale. Though figures are appalling–30-40% of our food supply gets wasted, by USDA estimates, about 60 million tons a year, worth over $200 billion – big numbers fail to change behavior. First-year students in a seminar I teach on the history of American diet trends are reliably conscientious about…
June 30, 2025
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The Creed and a Christian Worldview

Anniversaries matter. If you’re a cancer survivor, each year of remission offers a fresh lease on life. If you’re married, every annual commemoration of your wedding is an opportunity to recommit to your vows. Your work anniversary may include a bonus or raise. The anniversary of a loved one’s death summons both grief and remembrance.…
June 27, 2025
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How Coaching Youth Sports Helped My Thinking about Christian Character

The most important activity that helped refine my view of character education was not taking classes on epistemology and ethics from Dallas Willard. Nor was it taking all my other Ph.D. classes that addressed virtue or moral development. It was coaching youth league sports. Granted, readings in philosophy, ethics, and theology led me to recognize…
June 25, 2025
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AI and the Grammar of Descent

Recently, there’s been even more press than usual about AI proliferation and its associated risks. The hype has been driven, in part, by the now infamous Ross Douthat interview with Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the A.I. Futures Project, in which Kokotajlo suggests that AI could take over civilization—and “then kill all the humans”—by 2027.…
June 24, 2025

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Guest Post: Lived Religion and Sports

Lived religion Today’s elite athletes have much at stake in sports.  Climbing up the rankings within youth, collegiate and professional sports is no doubt daunting, where the victor has the best chance of advancing and everybody will seemingly do whatever it takes to win.  Competition can produce uncertainty and anxiety in the lives of athletes,…
June 21, 2021
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A National Experiment in Ignoring Fathers

Betrayed. That’s how Olga, an education official responsible for moral upbringing in the Soviet Ministry of Education, felt after the downfall of communism. In an interview five years later, she shared with me her devastation: For many years, I had been sure that I was doing exactly what is needed. I was horrified when I…
June 18, 2021
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If a Tree Falls on a Campus, Does It Make Any Sense?

In the space of about a year, three big trees fell in middle of the Seattle Pacific University campus. All of these were close to the Tiffany Loop, where we hold an “Ivy Cutting” graduation ceremony under the canopy of branches every June (when weather and pandemics permit). Each time a tree fell, I’d remember…
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Guest Post: On Wolterstorff on Kant, Part I: On Fallibility

I recently had occasion to read one of the more obscure publications by one of the more famous Christian philosophers of our time, Nicholas Wolterstorff. An article he first presented as a conference paper at Calvin College (now University) in 2000 is currently available in the handsomely produced two-volume series of Wolterstorff works edited by…
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Student Characteristics: Chasing the 99

As a journal editor, I intermittently see articles submitted that choose as their rhetorical opening some generalization, often alarmist, about “today’s students” and their supposed challenges or deficiencies. As someone who is regularly involved in providing professional development on the topic of teaching and learning, I also sometimes get asked to provide input on the…
June 11, 2021
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The Fortress of Christian Higher Education

Decades ago, when I informed an acquaintance that I had accepted a tenure-track position at a Christian college, he shifted his eyes awkwardly before smiling out, “Sounds like a nice place to send my daughters.” I repeat the appalling comment—appalling on many different levels—in order to contrast it with a different kind of parental approach…
June 10, 2021