This week is my scheduled spring break, so I was expecting to be home, catching up on grading and writing a chapter in my Lindbergh book. But I didn’t expect that this break would last two weeks, nor that when classes resume on March 30th, they would be taught online through our Easter break. Such is life … More How Christian Colleges Are Responding to COVID-19
This week I mourned a friend who died too young, wrote about the 100th birthday of “Western civ,” preached and taught for Reformation Sunday, and interviewed a college football coach who sees his work as a ministry. Elsewhere: • I’ll post the full text of my sermon (on Psalm 46) at The Anxious Bench this Tuesday, but … More That Was The Week That Was
I considered a Twitter controversy about plants, the notion of “comfort colleges,” and the impact of the First World War on Native American identity. Elsewhere: • “America is at an awkward age,” began Elizabeth Stice’s thoughtful essay on history and heritage. “We are old enough to be embarrassed by our parents, but not mature enough … More That Was The Week That Was
Before he became Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), he was Pres. Ben Sasse — head of a historically Lutheran college that turned around its enrollment crisis under his watch. So I can see why The Atlantic would publish Sasse’s 17 questions that any college searching for a president should ask its finalists. They’re definitely worth asking. For example: … More 7 Questions Every Christian College Should Be Asking Its Next President
Apart from sharing a couple of podcasts recorded “live” in London and Paris, I didn’t do much here at Pietist Schoolman during our three-week travel course on World War I. Over at The Anxious Bench I did find time to write about the history of time travel and to collaborate with Beth Barr and Kristin DuMez on a list … More That Was The Month That Was
I was busy last week writing a sermon and Pietist Option talk (more on those tomorrow) and so didn’t have a chance to blog about the latest fracas involving Liberty University and its controversial president, Jerry Falwell, Jr. A quick recap: • On Friday Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reported that Liberty officials were eliminating its common … More What Counts as a Christian College or University?
If you want to feel sick to your stomach about this country’s largest Christian university, make time to read Alec MacGillis’ article on Liberty University for ProPublica. It’s not just that you’ll be reminded of Liberty president Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s alliance with Donald Trump and the damage it has done to the word “evangelical.” It’s the … More Falwell: “The big victory was finding a way to tame the faculty”
“There is a free speech crisis on campus,” wrote Sarah Jones yesterday for The New Republic, “but it’s not at Yale or Middlebury. It’s at Liberty University and schools like it.” In other words, the true threat to free speech in higher education does not come from leftist students and professors trying to stifle conservative voices, but … More Is There a Free Speech Crisis at Christian Colleges?
On Tuesday Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of Liberty University, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he’s been asked by the Trump administration to head up a task force recommending higher ed policy changes for the Department of Education. (In late November Falwell had told the Associated Press that he turned down the Secretary of Education position … More The Face of Christian Higher Education Is Not Jerry Falwell, Jr.
