Skip to main content
Blog

Are We Educating Intellectual Wrestlers? Not with Chat GPT  

Religious institutions of higher education often distinguish themselves from their secular counterparts in terms of something called “purpose.” Sometimes the idea is that the two kinds have different purposes; sometimes it’s that one is purposeful in a way that the other is not (as in the argument that “secular” means trying to be “neutral” between…
May 5, 2025
Blog

Seeing, and Understanding

“They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and…
April 30, 2025
Blog

Rediscovering Meaning

Outside the friendly confines of the CSR blogosphere, society is fragmenting (or perhaps you could say it is fragmented). Truth itself seems increasingly privatized and tribal, adrift in a sea of relativism, subjective interpretations, and bold-faced lies. Political debates have intensified into existential wars, revealing a culture that feels not merely divided, but antagonistic, hateful,…
April 29, 2025
Blog

Bad Daddy

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière - WGA11837 - Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière - Wikipedia The French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a beautiful embalmer of royalty. His paintings of emperors and aristocrats are as ravishing as they are uncanny, with their rubbery limbs, elongated necks and bovine eyes. His portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere,…
April 28, 2025

Subscribe

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

Blog

Carrying Community as Educators

Two comments about courses of study separated by more than 80 years have me thinking again about the relational fabric of my classes in the time of COVID. One of the comments arose from the learning experiences created by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the seminary he led at Finkenwalde in the late 1930s. Bonhoeffer…
October 21, 2020
Blog

Blessing for Insult in Today’s Argument Culture, Seriously?

At a time when it seems we can’t agree on anything, 98% of Americans state that incivility is a serious problem; while 68% agree it’s reached crisis levels.  From cyberbullying, to hate speech, workplace harassment, demonizing political language, verbal abuse, and intolerance the vast majority of us (87%) no longer feel safe in public places…
October 19, 2020
Blog

Guest Post – Title IX: Why Should Christians Care?

Generally, prior to a decade ago, when people heard “Title IX,” they thought of women’s sports. Now, we’ve equated Title IX with sexual violence. However, the topic of Title IX should not be reduced to either of these aforementioned issues. As the law states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of…
October 16, 2020
Blog

Stewardship as an Environmental and Economic Ethic

One of the most powerful metaphors in Christian social thought is the idea of stewardship. It comes right out of Genesis, with the idea that God gives humans a job to do on earth, and in doing that job, we are serving God. The idea is used widely in writing about the environment, economics, and…
Steven McMullen Headshot
October 14, 2020
Blog

On Museums and Monsters: Defining Art

What is art? I have my students answer this question every autumn, and every autumn I get a host of new answers. That’s because “art” is, and always has been, notoriously hard to define. Sometimes students’ answers revolve around the effects of art: “art is something that moves you in a certain way,” they might…
October 12, 2020
Blog

An Abusive Relationship and Race Relations

In light of recent events, our blog contributor agreed that it would be timely to repost a parable he told in April. Let me tell you a story. There was a man and a woman who were married. They were married for 15 years. But it was a horrible marriage. The husband was very abusive…
October 9, 2020
Blog

Connecting Bytes and Christian Beliefs

Technology has been a common theme in my life. The passion began early with building crystal radios and other electronic projects, then moving on to experimenting with ham radio and delighting in the world of early personal computers. My interest in technology drew me to study engineering at a large, respected, engineering school. After graduating…
October 7, 2020
Blog

Teaching During Pandemic: Help!

I’ve been teaching for a hundred years, and this one is the most difficult. Every day I receive marketing emails from textbook and educational service companies; one offered free resources to "help deliver content during this difficult time." Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not a delivery person (nor a service provider, nor a learning manager).…
October 5, 2020
Blog

The Liturgy of Lament for Second-Act Leaders

As an Industrial / Organizational Psychologist, I have spent almost 30 years studying leaders. Not so much leadership theories but leaders themselves. How do they think about being a leader? What motivates them? How do they make sense about being in this role, and how much of their identity is wrapped up in being a…
October 2, 2020
Blog

The Market Made Me Do It: Revising the Scandal

This essay appeared first at Mere Orthodoxy:  https://mereorthodoxy.com/market-made-scandal-evangelical-college/ Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind turned twenty-five last year. If we know a classic by its ability to speak across eras, one single event from this past summer is enough to assure everyone of the continuing tragic relevance of Noll’s book. In late July,…
September 30, 2020