Date: October 18, 2022
Distrust Binary Thinking
One of Phillips’ alums who follows my work posted a response to one of my musings, to the effect: “Be careful about creating an either-or, two-option scenario when there are […]
Category: Blog Posts
Date: October 4, 2022
Old Santa-god Shows Up Again
One of my seminary pastoral care professors was Dr. Tibor Chikes. He was a Hungarian refugee who, along with his wife, survived the siege of Budapest in 1945, during which […]
Date: September 27, 2022
They’ll Know We are Christian by the Size of our Cross?
Last week my family took a two-night camping trip with one night in central Missouri and the second on the Arkansas/Missouri border. On the drive, we passed two different churches […]
Date: September 20, 2022
When Disruption is Gospel
It feels odd to work for an organization considered by some of the Powers and Principalities to be an enemy of sound education and good order. For the next few […]
Date: September 12, 2022
Books and Holy Discomfort
Banned Books Week, celebrating the freedom to read, is next week. In Oklahoma and many other states, pulling “offensive” books or books that discomfort students regarding race, religion, ethnicity, gender, […]
Date: September 6, 2022
On Using God to Divide
The national motto, “In God We Trust,” has been divisive from the day of its minting. According to historian Harry Stout in his brilliant book, Upon the Altar of the […]
Date: August 30, 2022
Using Public Schools as Battlegrounds is Immoral
If state legislators were in the legal position of employers, teachers in many states could sue for creating a hostile work environment. And students could sue for legislators doing nothing […]
Date: August 23, 2022
Destined to Be, and Still Is, an Experiment
Scholars who study religion as a form of human expression talk about exemplars: individuals who are not the founders of a religion but whose lives are icons of that religion, […]
Date: August 16, 2022
The (S)melting Pot
If you have never read the play, The Melting Pot, and you care about what kind of nation, what kind of moral community, the United States should be, I encourage […]
Date: August 9, 2022
Mortared with Lies
In a PhD seminar, Dr. Brian Gerrish led the class through understanding where various Reformation leaders stood on the meaning and consequences of sin. John Calvin, he said, believed human […]