I used to teach a college course called “Epistemology” but the name scared off too many potential students, so we changed it to “Theories of Knowledge.”Read more…
Where Are You Planted? (Masterclass in Writing, Part 6)
The goal of writing is to communicate your message with authority to your intended audience in the form they expect and the limited time they have. This post addresses the first of these A’s: audience awareness.Read more…
Science Corner: Arithmophobia & Other Language Barriers
It’s like reading a foreign language without ever acquiring a significant vocabulary; you never stop needing to look up terms in the dictionary.Read more…
Responding to Overnaming in Academia
Matthew Boedy reflects on how we might respond to overnaming in academic life. Read more…
A Response to Overnaming
After the fall, how then do we live? How then do we name?Read more…
Overnaming as The Fall
In this post I want to dive deeper into the original ‘scene of the crime’ for clues toward the character of the relationship between language and naming.Read more…
An Introduction to Naming
David [Dark] exposes that we assume names or labels can ‘take care’ of others. Names or labels can ‘solve’ mysteries, neutralize critics, and of course get us somewhere we want to go faster, hence the shortcut.Read more…
Book Review: Abusing Scripture
In “Abusing Scripture,” the author explores the different ways we misread the Bible and consequently interpret and apply it in ways that abuse both the intent of the text, and sadly, in some cases the people with whom we apply these texts.Read more…
Communication for Communion, Part 4 (Scholar’s Call)
Some aspects of verbal communication don’t have any particular conceptual content to them – rather they are there to form or to maintain a connection between persons. For instance, “How are you?” is not primarily a request for information but a means of forging contact with another human being, as is asking about the weather, at least in Britain.Read more…
Communication for Communion, Part 3: Babel and Pentecost (Scholar’s Call)
But was there ever a language in which the totality of a thing in its essence was communicated fully in words?Read more…
Science Corner: A Bridge Too Far
Analogies are like bridges; they help people get from wherever they are to somewhere new, often spanning a conceptual gap that might otherwise be much harder to cross. But what happens when the analogy morphs into fact?Read more…
Communication for Communion, Part 2: The Quest for the Adamic Language (Scholar’s Call)
So what language did Adam and Eve speak in the Garden of Eden? This was a question of significant interest in the early modern period (around the 16th and 17th centuries).Read more…
Communication for Communion: Language Human and Divine, Part 1 (Scholar’s Call)
Excerpt: Language is one of the things that make humans human. Whilst there are other instances of communication in the animal kingdom, some employing relatively complex sets of signals by which animals express engagement with one another and with their physical environment, we have no evidence that non-human creatures can express abstract mental concepts such as those we are discussing today.Read more…
Engaging Social Media
A taste of the resources I’ve been engaging for the upcoming “Social Media Workshop: Communications and Community” (Post Graduate & Faculty Ministries Staff Team Mtgs, 3/27/2015). Pray for workshop preparations. And please do not hesitate to share your top articles/insights 🙂Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Sharing the Wonder
Psalm 111 has been called the ‘research scientist’s Psalm’ for reasons that are hopefully obvious. Scientists have the privilege of being paid to ponder God’s creative works every day. In fact, their pondering can become so intense that their field of study might focus in on a single detail.Read more…
Engaging the whole university for Christ
Are we going to treat the campus as a whole as our mission field? What if Christ really, truly engaged the whole university? This is a great, bold and magnificent vision. May we be worthy of it. — Terence C.Read more…
Engaging the University
Ready to get serious about Engaging the University? Then let’s return to Vinoth Ramachandra, who serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement. Engaging the University: Vinoth Ramachandra from IFES World. What does EngagingRead more…
Book Review: Changing Signs of Truth
Life on the edge of the coin. That is Crystal L. Downing‘s image for the communicative task properly understood in Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to the Semiotics of Communication (InterVarsity Press, 2012). We live in the tension (orRead more…
A Dialogical Campus Ministry
“I’m still waiting to read a scientific paper that gives a biological explanation of the emergence of biological science among us human beings, also a naturalist account of what motivates people to become evolutionary psychologists and why others are impressedRead more…
A Mission to the University: Part 2 of Engaging the University
Part 2 of Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (21:22) is packed. After exploring the broad topics of funding’s push toward instrumentalism, the fragmentation of campus academic life by global communication, and the lack of “any coherent master narrative for a central point of reference .Read more…
When Systems Collide
I have had the privilege to Skype with Benjamin and personally hear his rich passion for the Gospel in daily life and the performance/study of music. Below is a submission he shared with me on “Calvinism versus Arminianism,” what he considers “a veryRead more…
Week in Review: How Well Do We Communicate?
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for theRead more…
Week in Review: Connections Edition
Here’s the top five articles, books, websites, etc., that we’ve been reading or thinking about the past week. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the topRead more…