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End of the quarter grading used to make me sick to my stomach.  By the second afternoon of my three-day grading marathon, I would be so hepped up on caffeine and sugared carbohydrates that I would begin to feel disoriented as if I had been flying for 24 hours with only fitful minutes of sleep…

There are several different terms that use the concept of humility that are somewhat popular in many circles: intellectual humility and cultural humility, just to name a couple. The fact that these two ideas have some applications outside of religious contexts suggests many people see humility as an important component of numerous facets of life.…

"The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.” – Proverbs 14:15 ESV"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” – Proverbs 31:8-9 ESV In one of the laboratory classes I teach, students…

Perhaps the most famous saying of God from outside the Bible is an exhortation to read: “tolle lege” —meaning, “pick up and read.” These words, repeated as a chant in what sounded like a child’s voice, once exhorted Augustine to read and, in that act of reading, find salvation. Reflecting on this exhortation to read—salvific…

The primary goal of a liberal arts education is to aid students in developing practical wisdom. By introducing students to foundational knowledge from a wide array of academic fields and exposing them to multiple ways of interpreting that knowledge, a liberal arts education guides students toward becoming critical and nuanced thinkers who can gather, reflect…

Perhaps nowhere is the variety of American evangelicalism more apparent than among the 150 or so faith-based institutions that belong to the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU).  While these institutions have learned to cooperate in areas such as faculty research, campus technology, and library services, in their core function—teaching and learning—Christian colleges and…

According to Friedrich Schiller, beauty is our “second creator” and a necessary component for both societal progress and our education as individuals. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man and Letters to Prince Frederick Christian von Augustenberg, trans. Keith Tribe (UK: Penguin, 2016), 78. In On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller even asserted…

Some years ago, I read back-to-back autobiographies of two retired tennis players who had achieved excellence during their lives: Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. There is little doubt that both underwent exacting forms of practice with coaches that built incredible physical and mental habits. Yet, as Andre Agassi said in his autobiography, “We could not…

In working with graduate school students who are earning school administration certification, I have found a theme that creates common ground for the diversity of candidates in my classes. Servant leadership is a steady driver that never sells the course short—regardless of the overarching topic. Since discovering in my doctoral work the rich literature in…

Last semester I had the privilege to teach a detective fiction course for the first time. Spending sixteen weeks immersed in these delightfully creative stories alongside insightful, enthusiastic students was surely one of the highlights of my year. It’s hard to beat a syllabus that includes the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Dorothy Sayers, Raymond…

“No one knows how hard I worked.” That seems to be the repeating chorus from faculty, professional staff, and everyone else in the great resignation. The public health crisis we have survived somehow wrote daily to do lists for us filled with things that we would have considered impossible in the before times. Can my…

'My teacher, what are these cries I hear?Who are all these people conquered by their pain?'And he to me: 'This state of miseryIs clutched by those sad souls whose works in lifeMerited neither praise nor infamy.' Dante Alighieri, Inferno. Trans. Anthony Esolen. (New York: Random House, 2002), Canto III, 32-36. The Divine Comedy is among the…

But then, how can a man be virtuous without God?  That’s the snag and I always come back to it.Mitya in Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brother’s KaramazovFyodor Dostoevsky, Brother’s Karamazov, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew (New York: Bantam Books, 1970). Can you imagine a culture that does not teach the virtue of forgiveness?  Actually, I found one conducting my doctoral…

The 2016 election of Donald Trump with 80% of the white evangelical vote has generated intense consternation about the identity of “evangelicalism”: the character of its constituents, its fragmentation according to political leanings, whether the term remains usable as a theological descriptor, given its partisan connotations. A related discussion has arisen concerning the history of…

In early February 2022, American Reformer published a provocative article by Caleb Morell titled “Stop Finding Your Identity in Christ.” Morell first notes the prevalence of this “identity in Christ” phrase in Christian literature, explaining that this language “exploded in the 1980s, particularly as Christians began borrowing this emerging term from secular psychology.” In the…

Everything is compromised. Nothing is worthy. Strip it down, strip it down. Take off the sugar-coating, the veneer, the gilding, the velour, and what is left? Nothing. Emptiness. Posing, pretending, preening, delusion.  Those of us who love – truly love – sometimes feel like the prey of shadowy hunters. We are huddled together for safety…

This morning a little space opened up in my schedule, and I have been re-reading a long-familiar book. The physical volume is old and worn. In fact, it was re-issued with a fresh title almost three decades ago, and I am holding the original edition, though I bought it used. As my eye has traveled…

The greatest commandment God has given us is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. And the second is like it, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Christian education, therefore, should help students and teachers alike become people who love God and love their neighbors more through the…

Throughout this series, I have explored the logic of a Christian university offering a graduate program to prepare librarians for service in a Christian college or university setting. I began by arguing that librarianship is value-laden and thus subject to examination from a Christian perspective. In my second post, I reviewed programs in library and…

In the first post in this series, I stated my intent to explore the logic of a Christian university offering a graduate program that equips library professionals to serve in Christian academic institutions. In my second post, I offered assessments of library science programs offered by six Christian institutions. In the process of making those…