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An Appeal to Embrace Purposeful Mentorship

Writing in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Hans Sanders tells the story of Cris Hassold of New College Florida.Hank Sanders, “A Professor’s Final Gift to Her Students: Her Life Savings,” New York Times, May 11, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/us/cris-hassold-professor-new-college-will.html. A story that in so many ways captures the best of what the university can provide…
July 25, 2025
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That sense of nagging fear

That sense of nagging fear  There is a nagging fear I experience sometimes. I’m tempted to attribute it to something earthly and circumstantial - some specific, mundane event or condition that, once solved, will make the fear go away. But I know better now. This fear is repetitive and familiar. Finally, I begin to recognize…
July 21, 2025
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Review of Sarah Irving-­Stonebraker, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age

In Priests of History, Sarah Irving-­Stonebraker diagnoses a partial cause of the identity crisis currently plaguing Western culture, generally, and the Western Church, particularly. We do not know ourselves because we have neglected the past. We are “ahistorical,” a term used by Irving-­Stonebraker to describe the loss of “meaningful engagement with, and connection to, history”…
July 17, 2025
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Review of Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

Biblical Critical Theory is sparklingly clear and engagingly written. Part of the reason it is so engaging is that Christopher Watkin’s personal story is woven into the story without ever being intrusive or grating. As Christian academic writers, we can learn from the way he as a human being seeking truth and wholeness addresses us…
July 10, 2025

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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
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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
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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
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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
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Students and Vocation in the Present Tense: Part 3

This is the third in a series of reflections on student vocation. I began in February by dipping into Protestant theologies of vocation and noting that the Christian’s basic calling to love God and neighbor in Christ is to be worked out in whatever provisional, specific calling they find themselves in. I pointed out that…
April 14, 2021
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Professional Scoffers: The Vice of Academics

Happy are those Who do not follow the advice of the wicked, Or take the path that sinners tread, Or sit in the seat of scoffers; Ps. 1:1 (NRSV) Editor’s note: the theme of my earlier blogs have related to creation and our creation-based identities as individuals (e.g., imago dei) and professionals (our need for…
April 13, 2021
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The Betrayal of Certitude

A Christian liberal arts education should undermine certitude: something I learned from Dorothy L. Sayers, whose twelve radio plays about Jesus were so cherished by C. S. Lewis that he read them every year until he died. In my new book, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers (Broadleaf 2020), I recount how…
April 12, 2021