Call & Character, December 15, 2020 The British poet Edward Thomas once wrote an exquisite little poem in which he described a simple, towering plume of smoke rising from a train as “so fair it touched the roar with silence.” In my own encounters with the art of Makoto Fujimura, our guest today, I’ve been […]
The Liberating Arts Winter Roundtable
On the challenges facing the liberal arts tradition, with Jessica Hooten Wilson, Jeff Bilbro, and Noly Toly (TLA, December 14, 2020).
Between Pandemic and Protest: The future of the liberal arts in higher education
COVID-19 has been apocalyptic for higher education, presenting a cliff made still taller by a powerful protest movement. Both events have intensified pressures long squeezing the survival of the liberal arts as a viable educational model, highlighting both the urgency and the elusiveness of moral formation in a twenty-first century education. How might those invested in preserving […]
Monuments Can Be Destroyed, but Not Forgotten
Christianity Today Online, September 2020 In the Hebrew Scriptures, stone monuments are earthen witnesses to a sacred covenant. When Jacob contractually maneuvered himself out from under his father-in-law Laban, he set up a pillar in the highlands of Gilead. It was supposed to be a reminder of a legal separation, but the fragility of the […]
Sermon: Little Girl, Arise
Morning Prayer at the Chapel of the Resurrection, Valparaiso University
Sermon: A Friend Regained
Candlelight Evening Prayer, Valparaiso University, February 9, 2020 John 21:1-19 Good evening. Thank you for having me here at this beautiful Candlelight service. I wasn’t given a specific lectionary text to preach on, but was asked to find a passage that would help us reflect meaningfully on the future. So, against the grain, I chose […]