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Conceiving the Christian College

In Conceiving the Christian College, Wheaton College president Duane Litfin offers a readable and substantive apologia pro collegio suo, while helpfully illuminating broader issues facing religiously-affiliated institutions of higher education. Litfin begins by distinguishing between two models for religiously-affiliated colleges. Those that operate according to an "umbrella" model accept a diversity of religious commitments under a "Christian canopy"; they attempt to maintain a "critical mass" of faculty and administrators who identify with the Christian tradition; and they put particular emphasis…
David Timmer
November 16, 2006
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Slopping the Hogs in a Technological Society

My maternal grandparents homesteaded in northern Minnesota, just north of Crosby, in the early 20th centur y. Grandpa's land patent has President Taft's signature scrawled on it. They scratched out a living for three children from the tall pine forest and poor soil with a few cows, horses, chickens, and hogs. Grandma always kept her slop bucket next to the woodbox in the kitchen. All vegetable scraps and food waste went into it. Whenever we were all together, my cousins…
Kenneth Hermann
October 16, 2006
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Algebra

If there is one thing that most people agree on, it is that the loss of life is tragic. Matters get complicated when it comes to questions of capital punishment for perpetrators of heinous crimes or situations where people bent on violence suffer what some might deem to be their "just deserts" (as when the terrorist Zarquawi was killed last spring). In general, though, can't we assume that there is a broad consensus that the loss of "innocent life" is…
October 16, 2006
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Was Rosa Parks Proud?

IntroductionRosa Parks, the African-American woman who refused to give up her seat so a white man could sit, sparking the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, has been highly honored. The bus stop at which she boarded is now the site of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum. Former President Clinton signed a bill bestowing on her Congress' highest recognition: the Congressional Gold Medal. After her death on October 24, 2005, she was eulogized as the "mother of the civil rights movement"…
Christiana de Groot
October 16, 2006
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Invoking in Public

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."--Flannery O'Connor The call came from our County Supervisor's office inquiring if I would be willing to "do the invocation" for an upcoming Los Angeles County Board meeting in mid-April. A quick glance at my appointment book confirmed that the date was the Tuesday after Easter, when I would still be in recovery mode from Holy Week. But since yet again my congregation had failed to book me on…
John Rollefson
October 16, 2006
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Money, Health, and Immortality

In the course of his many travels, Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels visited a country in which he heard about certain people called the struldbrugs who never died. Gulliver's first reaction upon hearing about these immortal people was to rhapsodize about how wonderful such an unending life would be. But when he actually met them, he found them to be pitiful, shrunken old skeletons who had lost their teeth, hair, and taste as well as their memory, reason, and ability to…
Daniel Boerman
October 16, 2006
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Solace: Bittersweet

The time of death could not be set precisely for that night. No unseen angel stopped the clock or rang a bell, nor did he prop a sentinel beside the door to free the passing of the soul. Grace ceased to breathe alone, in silence, blest relief she'd hoped for now obtained. When I was called, I groped for words and choked back tears in disbelief. They say we're never ready for the death of one beloved by us, no…
Kris DeWild
October 16, 2006