I have a deep ambivalence about Thanksgiving as a holiday. For example, it’s not properly part of the (transnational) church’s liturgical year, and it tends to be easily conflated with American civil religion–while also tending to paper over the history of colonialism. But while the “official” holiday is at least questionable, certainly gratitude and thanksgiving…
Over at the Immanent Frame today, Jonathon Kahn offers some reflections that grow out of the Teagle-funded initiative, “Secularity and the Liberal Arts.” Kahn’s post, “Reconceiving the secular and the practice of the liberal arts,” is essential reading for anyone involved in higher education–whether at public universities or Christian colleges. The very fact that such…
Today I deactivated my Facebook account and submitted the request for its deletion (to stave off any temptation from second thoughts later on). After being a Facebook user for about 3 months, I have decided to leave the FB world. I’ll be sad to be “disconnected” from some of my “friends,” but I’m feeling very…
There are strains of the Reformed tradition which like to emphasize that they are “always reforming,” invoking the Latin semper reformanda as a motto. But if one analyzes when and how this is invoked, one will notice something very slippery: that under the banner of “reforming” what we get is really just an agenda for…
The Barna Group’s report, “Is there a ‘Reformed’ Movement in American Churches?” seems to be getting a lot more discussion than it deserves (see, for instance, Scot McKnight’s post at Jesus Creed). I’m leery about contributing to that attention, but also feel compelled to point out the weaknesses and shoddy social science behind this “report.”…
While it is the very height of bourgeois whining, one doesn’t have to spend too much time around professors before you begin to hear complaints about grading. Used to our tenured autonomy, and generally enjoying discussion of ideas and texts in class, “grading” is the one drudgery that we have to do. It also comes…