Skip to main content
Blog

Bottleneck Institutions

It’s not surprising that a world of sound and fury would produce a widespread sense that none of it signifies. Nor is it surprising that in such a world, devoted to spectacle and stripped of purpose, every institution has a “mission statement.” On paper, the idea of a mission statement makes sense, in the sense…
July 2, 2025
Blog

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
Blog

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
Blog

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
Blog

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

Subscribe

for new content notifications, access to video and audio conversations with our writers, and invitations to our events.

Blog

Ordering Our Evils: The Chinese Genocide of the Uyghurs

Editor’s Note; In this series on academics and the Fall, I have focused on the consequences of the Fall for Christian scholars in general, Christian scholars’ view of time and liberal arts education, but in this final post, I want to talk about the consequences of the Fall for our academic agendas regarding evil.  Christian…
April 28, 2021
Blog

There Is No Wisdom in Looking It Up

We have all heard this from our students: “Why do I have to know when I can just look it up?” Today’s undergraduate students have come of age seeing their phones as an extension of themselves; their sense of self too often shaped in part by their browsing history and the responses to their own…
April 27, 2021
Blog

Why Anti-Racism is so Popular

Imagine that you are the CEO of a large business or president of a university. We are at a time where racial animosity and division has moved to the forefront of our nation. As the leader of your organization you may be concerned with dealing with the effects of our country’s atrocious legacy of racism.…
April 26, 2021
Blog

What AIDS Theatre Can Teach Us in Critiquing Others

Race. Gender. Sexuality. Politics. Theology. Parenting. Vaccines. Mask wearing.All potential conversational landmines. What happens when you not only disagree with a person, but feel at odds with their deepest values?  In today’s combative communication climate, is it possible to critique that which is sacred to another person with gentleness and humility? The sacred, notes sociologist…
April 22, 2021
Blog

Liberal Arts Hesitation: Being Honest about a Weakness with Liberal Arts Education

Editor’s Note: In this column and the two following I’m going to discuss how Christian scholar’s should have a different view of time and decision-making regarding current events. Unfortunately, scholars often confuse what events need an immediate decision or pronouncement and what needs patience and additional knowledge gathering before a decision.  As a Christian higher…
April 20, 2021
Blog

A Chemist’s Spring Break, Part 2: It is Solved by Walking

In the first part of this post, I discussed the pressures academics face with a very literal metaphor: the pressure of the atmosphere all around us, intensified in the spring break (or “spring broken”) times of scarce resources. I also proposed that, in some elusive way, the universe is open to God’s power, perfected in…
April 16, 2021
Blog

A Chemist’s Spring Break, Part 1: Systems Under Pressure

“Spring break” is a misnomer for faculty and staff at colleges on the quarter system like mine. One of my colleagues calls it “spring broken.” Most quarter systems require you to fit the latter two-thirds of your academic year into the first half of the calendar year. This compresses the time between Winter and Spring…
April 15, 2021