"'God’s Image cut, or carved in Ebony,' was a phrase first used, we believe by the English Church Historian, Fuller …and assuredly this phrase is among the most striking of the graphic sentences which he stamped so deeply on the republic of letters. There it stands, this beautiful and appropriate piece of imagery, and there…

What new insights might skimming 20+ online posts uncover about Jesus as a teacher? If you are like me, there can feel like a gap in knowing how Jesus taught compared to how you and I teach in the classroom setting today. It was surprising for me to find there’s very little specified content around…

I have just finished my thirty-fifth year as an English professor at Houston Christian University (HCU), and I couldn’t be more excited and hopeful. As an increasing number of colleges and universities downplay (and downsize) their traditional liberal arts core requirements, HCU has chosen to double down on the centrality and indispensability of the core.…

The animated comments came quickly to a simple email survey. The survey was sent last fall to a handful of seasoned student development leaders of Council of Christian Colleges and Universities institutions. Their answers illuminate the realities of managing student conduct, and maybe more importantly for all of us, it provides insight into current students’…

In light of Princeton University’s recent reinstatement of proctors during final exam week due to widespread cheating involving artificial intelligence on students’ cellphones,1 I wasn’t surprised to receive the following email from one of my chemistry students: Dear Professor Rummo, I’m using a random email because I don’t want this to reflect badly on me.…

Half a million students attend institutions associated with either the Council for Christian Colleges (CCCU) or the International Association of Christian Education (IACE). Twenty percent of those half a million students are enrolled in Liberty University (LU). In addition, there are over 220 thousand students enrolled in other Protestant universities that are not associated with…

As an art historian, I often begin my courses with a discussion of metanarratives: big picture, “mythic” structures that shape values and give meaning. There are metanarratives of “progress” (like American “Manifest Destiny”) and metanarratives of cyclical return (like the medieval “four ages of man:” birth, maturity, decline, death). And for some of us, especially…

For decades, social psychologists have acknowledged that prejudice starts as early as children start perceiving the world,1 with some literature citing that children start showing a preference for their own race as early as three months old.2 More recent literature suggests that own-group preference may not be equivalent to prejudice against out-groups, as evidenced by…

Editor's Note: The following is a book excerpt from the new edited volume: From the Outrageous to the Scandalous: Re-imagining Christian Thinking and Scholarship in an Age of Tribalism and Ideological Resentment, eds. Robert H. Woods Jr. and Mark Allan Steiner. The assignment that I’ve been given is to attempt an assessment, now more than a…

In watching two recent movies—Project Hail Mary and Remarkably Bright Creatures—I’ve noticed something that might help us understand the much-talked-about “vibe shift” that’s happening in America. If you’re unfamiliar with this trend, it refers to an emerging sense that our long cultural season of irony, nihilism, and performative cynicism may be giving way to something…