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Truth, Beauty: Why I Teach Beautiful Poetry
When we look at the world through the eyes of measurements and data, we think about how we can use the thing we are measuring. But when we look at the world through eyes that see its beauty, we lay...
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Illuminating Words, Transforming Beauty
Since many of our conversations here involve the role of beauty in teaching, and since Megan discussed the Saint John’s Bible in her excellent post last week (I promise we didn’t coordinate), I’d like...
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Rape and the Christian University (Part 2)
Yesterday, I posted a few thoughts on the nature of rape. Today, I want to turn to the question of what we can do to stop this phenomenon of rape on our campuses. Just like my previous post, these are...
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A “religiously neutral” Liberal Education?
National Humanities Medal recipient, and longtime advocate of the revival of truly liberal education, Eva Brann offers a “Manifesto for Liberal Education” (via one of the many publications influenced...
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Do Androids Worship in Electric Temples? (Part 1)
Science fiction has a deep and abiding interest in religious matters. But why this interest? And what makes science fiction qualified to address it in a way that will profit our students?
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Do Androids Worship in Electric Temples? Part 2
This is the second part of a two-part series on an interdisciplinary course I taught with a colleague this semester: Do Androids Worship in Electric Temples? Science Fiction through the Lens of...
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Emotivism and Teaching Ethics
In a week I will teach a summer course on Christian Ethics. I haven’t yet taught an Ethics class, but my other classes all have an ethical bent to them. Having seen how many of my students set about...
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Illumination
Throughout the coming year, as Spring Arbor University hosts a Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible, I’ll be posting reflections on specific illuminations both here on Christ and University and...
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Education for What?
James K.A. Smith over at Comment, has an interesting—and curmudgeonly—essay praising newspapers and asking what the purpose of education is. Read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt: It’s easy to...
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Is Belief Bad? An Open Letter to First-Year Composition Students
Our culture says that only thing we can know to be absolutely true is factual data. Our culture says that belief and opinion are largely valueless, better kept to ourselves than asserted as truth. Yet...
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Make a Poisonous Serpent
The Lectionary reading for Sunday, September 14, is from John 3, where Jesus uses a variety of striking metaphors to tell Nicodemus how to enter the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus can’t seem to understand...
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The Sower and the Seed
Last week I looked at one of the abstract illuminations in The Saint John’s Bible, and this week I’ll turn to one in the tradition of Eastern iconography. This illumination stands at the beginning of...
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Esther
The Old Testament lectionary reading for Sunday, September 27 comes from Esther. This complex and fascinating person receives a rich portrait in The Saint John’s Bible, one that foregrounds her liminal...
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The Garden of Eden
One of the lectionary readings this past week was from Genesis 2, which relates the second version of the creation story. Whereas in Genesis 1, God creates humans on the last day, as the crown of...
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Genealogy of Jesus
Over the next three weeks, we’ll look at three of the Advent-related images in The Saint John’s Bible. The first one, which forms the frontispiece to the gospel of Matthew, calls us to attend to one of...
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Word Made Flesh
Word Made Flesh, Donald Jackson, Copyright 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For this second week of Advent, we...
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The Birth of Christ
In this final Advent reflection, we turn to the illumination of Christ’s birth at the beginning of Luke. The bright gold of this image announces, like the angels’ hymn, the glory of God that enters the...
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Symposium on Paul Griffith’s “Intellectual Appetite”
What’s the opposite of a “hot-take”? A “slow-take”? Whatever you call it, we here at Christ & University are all about it, and that is why we are holding a symposium on Paul Griffiths’ 2009 book,...
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The Baptism of Jesus
As the spring semester begins, I’m returning to my weekly practice of reflecting on an illumination from The Saint John’s Bible. I’m particularly excited about this spring because in three weeks Spring...
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Wonder among the Poor: Intellectual Appetite on the Streets
A parking lot in January is not, perhaps, the typical context for examining an academic thesis, but that is where I found myself on the day I finished Paul J. Griffith’s Intellectual Appetite. Huddled...
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