By challenging the hearer as to whether they will “hear” and follow the teacher, the Parable of the Sower and the Soils (Matthew 13:1-9) offers a larger framework for considering parables as part of the Master Teacher’s toolkit.Read more…
People of Color, Outward Appearances, and Academia: Lessons from 80s Pop Culture
In the late 1980s, there was a popular television show called 21 Jump Street. Johnny Depp and friends portrayed cops in their twenties. Because they were too young looking to be taken seriously, they went undercover in high schools to take down drug dealers, gangs, etc.Read more…
Encountering God in the Liminality of Graduate School, Part 2
It was 1991, during the summer between my first and second years of medical school. I was in the basement of a Christian clinic in Times Square. The clinic provided free medical care for homeless people in New York City. I was filling up a tub with warm soapy water so one of our homeless clients could soak his feet.Read more…
Teaching Tips: Listening
Really listening to my students also challenges me to see course material with new eyes—their eyes. It forces me to approach the familiar grounds of knowledge using unfamiliar pathways. At its best moments, listening to my students equalizes us as we become collaborators in the project of learning.Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Stories for Life
Earlier today, I wrote a letter to my major professor from my Ph.D. program thanking him for all the time and work he put into training me. I told him that any accomplishment that I or my students might achieve could be accredited to him because of his dedication to excellence. Knowing him, this statement might mean as much to him as his winning of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007.Read more…
Loving Your Spouse, Kids (And Anyone, Really) While You’re Still In School—Part 4
Last week, I offered the first part of a list of hands on ways to love your family and friends in grad school. Here’s the rest of the list.Read more…
Journalism Notes: When Words are Unwise
What happens when we say something without thinking it through and it hurts someone deeply?Read more…
How can Privileged Christians Work Strategically for Equality?
What privileges do we have as Christians? Whatever our situation, we have more privilege than we think we do. What makes us believe in the phenomenon that we believe that we are marginalized when we really are very privileged? How can we model after Jesus and use this privilege to advocate for, minister to, and serve the disenfranchised?Read more…
Listen: Suffering, Part 5
Practice the 55-5 rule. Francis Schaeffer, famed 20th century apologist-theologian, used to say that if you spend one hour in conversation, 55 minutes should be listening and asking questions. We should only hear ourselves talking for 5 minutes.Read more…
Listening to our colleagues: Muslim, secular, Christian. Interview with David Vishanoff
Too often we are so immersed in the tacit standards of our own discipline that we don’t stand back and try to reimagine them in radically Christian ways. Not jettison them and start over, but just notice how our standards and expectations embody and reinforce our sinful nature, and imagine how those particular sinful patterns and blind spots might be redeemed, right here in the specific department or conference or library where we find ourselves. It’s exhilarating, really, if we let our imaginations run wild a bit.Read more…
Sacrificial Listening (Scholar’s Compass)
David Vishanoff’s paper is a fascinating challenge to both Christian and secular academics to rethink the attitudes we have towards studying other cultures and worldviews. His model of ‘sacrificial listening’ has arisen from his study of Islam – as well as other world religions – and essentially consists in pursuing relationship rather than objectivity as an epistemological value.Read more…
Christian Devotional Classics: The Rule of St. Benedict
If time permits, I offer to you The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict for your consideration on this day of rest and through the coming week. Note: As the Christian Devotional Classics series builds chronologically, be sure you have atRead more…
A Jigsaw Guide to Making Sense of the World II
“The challenge [to seeing the big picture and living in light of the truth] is that every religion claims to grant such heavenly insight, and many peer groups will pull together to defend what is common sense at least toRead more…
On Transitions (Part II)
In the previous post, I shared some thoughts with you about why we should engage during times of transition. Throughout this post, I’ll share about how we can weather these times of transition well, even coming out smiling and thankfulRead more…
Headed to Graduate School: Witness in the Academy
Thus far in two prior posts I’ve suggested that the end-point of a graduate education is to “become a person” in the Biblical sense – that is, to grow into the image of God. This holistic vision will encompass withinRead more…
The Art of Learning Wisdom from Mentors
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. — Proverbs 20:5, KJV Even if you have good mentors, learning wisdom from them is a skill. It’s an art that takesRead more…