If you’ve just read this recent article called “Dispatches from Abroad” by Brett McCracken, you might be interested in this article called “Travelers’ Blessings” by Rick Steves. I’ve long been familiar with Rick Steves as one of the best travel guides for Europe, but I had no idea he was a Christian! He has some amazing insights on how travel helps your Christiani...
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Here at the beginning of a new academic semester, all the students and professors are full of big plans. We’re going to cover so much material, learn so many new skills, and develop so many relationships. We’ve got a long semester ahead of us, and since it’s a Spring semester, there’s a big graduation at the end of it that the seniors are racing toward. After that, they...
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Featured Essay
[by Brett McCracken, from Biola magazine, Winter '10, pp. 18-24]
What do we see when we travel? Is it just postcard scenery and famous landmarks? Confusing subway maps and exotic menus? Or can there be more to it than that?
G.K. Chesterton once said that the difference between a traveler and a tourist is that the traveler sees what he sees, while the tourist sees what he ...
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To follow up Fred Sanders' review of my book I have posted a short excerpt from Education for Human Flourishing published by IVP Academic.
The passage below describes the difference between rhetoric and knowledge, and how important it is for us to be able to distinguish between the two.
Rhetoric Versus Knowledge
It is easy to feel defeated and confused given daily cultur...
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Featured Essay
There's no easier job in the world than being a bad teacher. It's a cinch, with short hours and plenty of long vacations. The pay's not always great, but as long as your standards are low, and all you're looking for is an easy job, I recommend being a really rotten teacher. Be really awful. Cobble together some industry-standard lesson plans and re-run them every year; grade su...
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Start with a secular social order, and the university system as it stands today, and then ask yourself, "How much would we have to trim our Christian convictions to fit a Christian university into that system?" Given that we absolutely must obey the liberal, democratic state and culture, how are we to build a Christian university?
That's how Christian universities go about ...
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The triennial Urbana student missions conference (sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) just ended (December 27-31, 2009). It is held only once every three years, it is mainly for college students, and it is the largest Christian conference in America (20,000 people). It always ends at midnight on New Year’s Eve, with all the people worshiping God and taking com...
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In the Torrey Honors Institute, we have a philosophy of learning between teacher and student that is fairly unique. Henri Nouwen has a wonderful take on this relationship, which he calls “hospitality.” I had never thought about it like this before, but I like the way he describes it. This is not exactly analogous to what we experience in Torrey, but there are definite ...
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Yesterday I learned that Torrey alum Justin Key passed away. Since many alum have asked about the situation, here is the information we have at this time from Justin's parent's church:
We just heard news about an hour ago that Brian Key’s son, Justin, passed away today. I just spoke with Brian on the phone and he said that Justin woke up today unable to move and immediatel...
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A few weeks ago I was asked to be the speaker for the chapel of Biola’s Rosemead School of Psychology. Talk about being out of my element! The most I know about this field is my one Pastoral Counseling class I took in seminary. However, if there’s one thing that psychologists understand, and all Christians understand as well, it’s suffering. Suffering is at the heart ...
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Evangelicals are famous, or infamous (depending on who you talk to), for believing in absolute truth. And well we should adhere to absolute truth! I once heard Ravi Zacharias, renowned evangelical apologist, say: “Relativism as a philosophy of life cannot be true. Think of the statement, 'All truth is relative.' Now, if all truth is relative and you stick by that statement,...
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A couple of weeks ago, my pastor asked me to deliver the children’s sermon at my church. After teaching at the university level for over a year, it was a difficult shift in gears to preach to kids! I couldn’t use words like “hamartiology,” “supralapsarianism,” or “hapaxlegomena,” as much as I wanted to. (Then again, I don’t know if I could use them with my col...
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