Until he died last night, I had no idea that horror film director Wes Craven had graduated from Wheaton College. (He discussed his fundamentalist Baptist upbringing and his decision to flee from it in a 2011 interview with the New York Times Magazine.) Of course, this got me wondering: who else would I be surprised to learn … More Who Are the Most Surprising Christian College Alumni?
I couldn’t quite maintain the standards of academic decorum when I saw that the newest issue of Books & Culture included my first piece for the best Christian cultural review around. The sports expression “Act like you’ve been there before” comes to mind… But hey, it’s the 20th anniversary issue! And my name is even on the cover! And they … More Look Who’s in Books and Culture!
I’ve been reading Andy Crouch’s Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power for about four months now and I’m barely a third of the way through it. Not because it’s bad! Quite the contrary: it’s one of those books that I have to set down every page or two because I need to think about the point being … More What We Mean When We Say We Want Christian Unity
Yesterday Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, presented a position paper to his faculty and staff, elaborating on why he feels justified in threatening to pull OKWU out of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities if the CCCU does not expel Goshen and Eastern Mennonite by August 31st. Why would he not want that consortium even to … More What We Mean When We Say We’re Holding to Our Convictions
The current issue of Christianity Today features an interesting interview with Christopher Wright, international ministries director for Langham Partnership International and author of the newest entry in IVP Academic’s “The Bible Speaks Today” series: The Message of Lamentations: Honest to God. Twice in the magazine’s introduction Lamentations is described as one of the Bible’s “most neglected” books, a theme that … More What Are the Most Neglected Books in the Bible?
As a member of the Evangelical Covenant Church, I was thrilled to see our denomination’s university, North Park, hire sociologist Michael Emerson as its new provost. Most recently on faculty at Rice University, he taught at Bethel in the mid-to-late Nineties. Probably best known for writing Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America with … More Michael Emerson on the Role of the Christian University
Even before we started in on this run of posts about controversies in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), I had been thinking about why it is that I have come to identify so closely with that model of higher education. I didn’t attend a Christian college — or even apply to them. … More What Do You Love about Christian Colleges?
So there’s a quotation I’ve been thinking about all summer: At the end of his life, Jesus declared his disciples his friends, meaning they shared with him a common passion for his mission in the world (John 15:13-15). Covenanters, as Mission Friends, have broadly understood mission to be the befriending of others, and all that God has … More Mission as Friendship: A Call to Deeper Unity for Christian Colleges
I’ve got a busy morning, but before it gets started let me share a brief story about my son and what he’s taught me about fear. Isaiah is the happiest child I know… except during the last 15 minutes of any movie. He’s a pretty imaginative and empathetic kid. For the most part, that’s wonderful, but it … More “Do Not Be Afraid”
As one Baptist member abruptly withdraws from Christian higher ed’s leading organization and a Wesleyan school threatens to do so if Goshen and Eastern Mennonite are not expelled from the CCCU by August 31st, I hope many in the Christian college world will join Spring Arbor professor John Hawthorne in supporting the people of those two Anabaptist institutions: I don’t think … More Why I Hope Goshen and Eastern Mennonite Stay in the CCCU
The Pietist Schoolman 