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Soviet Tanks and the Good News: for Reflection on Mark 16:15

We were aboard the Fyodor Dostoevsky, in port on the Moscow River, just after returning from an early morning visit to Red Square, where we had been puzzled by why it was completely devoid of visitors. Our guide, Natasha, had queried a lone soldier who said it had been cleared for a movie production. As…
March 3, 2022
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Guest Post – Lament as a Christian Pedagogical Tool

Editor’s Note: In light of Ash Wednesday and this time of repentance, confession, and lament before Easter, we will be hosting once a week posts on the theme of lament. Around the time of the Great Recession, wildfires were burning in the county where I lived in Southern California. In the early autumn, the Santa Ana…
March 2, 2022
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Faith in the Invisible and the Nature of Reality

When I was a teenager, I remember hearing the question “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? At the time, I thought, “What a stupid question—of course it makes a sound.” But the longer I teach science, and the more I learn about…
March 1, 2022
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The Christian Scholar’s Review Winter 2022 Issue

With today’s blog, I am pleased to introduce the Winter issue of Christian Scholar’s Review. As I write this, there’s not much winter left in the Pacific Northwest with the crocuses in bloom and hummingbirds fliting across my study’s window. But as has been the case with so much of our cattywampus pandemic lives, the…
February 28, 2022
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Teaching with Fire, Part 2: The Open Inner Core

In Part 1 of this essay, I argued that the structure of a flame is, at certain levels, similar to the structure of life. The flame suggests that human nature, and even divine nature, is self-gift with a purpose. The stress of burnout may be a sign that the gift is misaligned somehow. But once…
February 25, 2022
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Teaching with Fire, Part 1: Why It’s Easy to Burn Out

My friend left academia for industry last month. He posted online: “I spent years hearing how ‘flexible’ academic is but now disagree. How often did I tell my family things would ‘slow down’ after X? Academia was unstructured but not flexible. Structure (sick/vacation days!) with good management = flexibility.”Carpenter, Tom. Twitter post. January 25, 2022,…
February 24, 2022
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Guest Post – Embracing Limitations as Opportunity: A Communal Care Approach to the Adjunct Crisis

Like many others, last fall I read with interest, in Christian Scholar’s Review, scholars’ reflections on George Marsden’s The Soul of the American University Revisited and Marsden’s response. The experience was—in no particular order—encouraging, convicting, and depressing. At different points, I, likely along with others, saw reflections of both the successes and challenges of my…
February 23, 2022
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Keep Finding Your Identity in Christ: Responding to Sloppy Christian Reasoning about Identity

Christians should always reflect critically upon how we use theological language. Yet, we must recognize that sometimes our critical reflection can be corrupted by our cultural location. That is the problem with a recent web article, entitled, “Stop Finding Your Identity in Christ,” by Caleb Morell. The essay contains numerous fallacies and mistakes that provide…
February 22, 2022
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Thinking Beyond the Ivory Tower: An Interview with Melissa Cain Travis

Having worked in academia for the past two decades, I often take for granted the myriad opportunities it provides for substantive discussion and debate, ubiquitous reading suggestions casually tossed out in hallway conversations, and routinely scheduled lectures and workshops. Like most, I went into teaching as much for that milieu as for anything else this…
February 18, 2022
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Guest Lectures – Wernher von Braun at Wheaton College, 1961

A highlight for any college community, especially smaller colleges, includes guest lectures by important people of their times. These can include authors, artists, politicians, journalists, celebrities, and scientists. The best lectures are provocative, inspiring, and certainly memorable. Here is the story of one such event. As the newly-appointed director of the Marshall Space Flight Center…
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Book Review: Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics.

Policymakers (and therefore, citizens) in modern democracies confront a knot of intertwining problems, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to terrorism. Many of the threads have formed a rope called human migration, as drought, political instability or corruption, and neocolonial economic policies by the major powers interlace to drive seventy million (and counting) refugees from…
February 15, 2022
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How do I love thee, students? Let me count the ways.

I’ve been teaching college students for almost 16 years. Make that 20 years, if you count teaching assistantships in graduate school! This vocation has had its ups and downs, along with ever-shifting dynamics. When I began, for example, I was almost the same age as my students. Now, I’m old enough to be their mom.…
February 14, 2022
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When Reductive Political Stories Guide Moral Education

“The larger the number is, to which that private affection extends, the more apt men are, through the narrowness of their sight, to mistake it for true virtue.”Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1960), 88. - Jonathan Edwards “We are looking for moral answers right now because we do…
February 11, 2022
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Guest Post: A Multi-generational Perspective on the Covid-19 Pandemic

The South Florida campus where I teach stretches over many acres. It is a lush, sub-tropical paradise of green spaces, palm trees, and variegated shrubs in an explosion of colors. Our easternmost border, affectionately dubbed the “Lower East Side” by several New York transplants, is located across the street from the Intracoastal Waterway. Surrounded by…
February 10, 2022
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Cancel Culture, Rabid Judgmentalism and the Invitation to Choreograph God’s Work of Judgment

Divisions are fracturing our Christian communities, especially in America. Disagreement over Covid vaccinations and policies, black lives matter, women in leadership, and other issues are being exaggerated within our community depleting social distancing practices. The insistent background noise of political schism whining on social media adds to this fracturing. These tensions are raising concerns: Will…
February 9, 2022
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A Tale of Two Transformations

I was recently provoked to fresh reflection on two very familiar passages as I prepared to share them with education students. One is about schooling; the other is about being born anew. I had admired them both, but now gained a fresh sense of their interconnection. Both are drawn from a vivid allegory that predates…
February 7, 2022