The Little Friar

David Dockery has edited a volume, most of the contributors of which come from Union University faculty, that illustrates one of the best attempts to articulate the distinctive Christian voice at the very heart of Christian higher education:   Faith and Learning:  A Handbook of Christian Higher Education (B&H Academic, 2012). Ours is a secular age that finds Christian colleges and universities struggling against what one scholar called "the dying of the light".  Dockery and the many other contributors -- some seasoned faculty, others newcomers -- know the best of the Christian academic tradition.  I was thoroughly impressed by the grand vision Faith and Learning  sets out.   In these pages, every discipline from the modern halls of higher education is represented.  Each of those disciplines also has a unique perspective for "the hope that lies in us", to quote 1 Peter.  In Faith and Learning , Christians exercise their vocation.  Teachers...

Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence  is a first-rate expose of the overwhelming contemporary scientific evidence about the destructive effects of media violence on our children.  We may want to deny it, but Grossman and DeGaetano bear witness.  But they also provide us with tools -- real life and workable tools! -- to change all the violent media diets that have been changing our kids for the past two generations.  And no one is more qualified than Grossman to lay out those effects.  His On Killing  and On Combat  are meticulously researched classics.  So when I ordered this book I was expecting much of the same.  But I was blown away!   Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill  provides  indisputable, scientifically demonstrable facts that media violence is psychologically, emotionally and even  physiologically  doing damage to our children.  Every parent must read ...

A friend asked if I'd suggest the best bits of Barth's Church Dogmatics .  I still think there's nothing better than diving into the whole (the traditional T&T Clark set is pictured above), but all the volumes can be overwhelming, unless you have about 3 years to finish. So, that said ... Here are five sections, that, for me, are the great peaks of the Church Dogmatics , the sections where you meet Barth at his very best.  And these are the bits that I tend to revisit most often myself: from II/2:  §33 (on election) from III/2:  §47 (on time) from III/3:  §50 (on the nothingness) from IV/1:  §59.1 (on the Son in a far country) the IV/4 fragment (on baptism) So, what have I forgotten? Any other sections that stand out for you? Anything else that can be mentioned in the same breath as these great meditations?

I went to Duke Divinity School.  So I always have to remind myself that not everyone, as a result of their seminary training, was introduced to Karl Barth the way I was.  So it's important I think, considering the size of his magnum opus -- Church Dogmatics  -- to find ways working pastors might become familiar with Barth, even if just for learning his biblical and theological accuracy. So, where to begin? If you're a preacher and would like easier access to Barth's theology, here are my recommendations.  1.  My first semester at Duke, back in the day, we were required an introductory seminar in "The Church's Ministry".  Part of our reading for that semester was Karl Barth's  Evangelical Theology , a compilation of lectures delivered in 1962. Barth, of course, was Swiss.  So he spoke German.  But his English was meticulous.  Thus, this is an exciting and exquisite introduction to Barth's mature thinking.  Above all, it highlights th...

"As a way to challenge such a [liberal] view of freedom, I start my classes by telling my students that I do not teach in a manner that is meant to help them make up their own minds.   Instead, I tell them that I do not believe they have minds worth making up until they have been trained by me .  I realize such a statement is deeply offensive to students since it exhibits a complete lack of pedagogic sensitivities.  Yet I cannot imagine any teacher who is serious who would allow students to make up their own minds." -- Stanley Hauerwas, "Christian Schooling  or  Making  Students Dysfunctional", in  Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified   ( Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), p. 220, emphasis added. 

Someone asked this morning:  How do the best teachers get to be good?   If you reject outright the platitude that good teachers are just born good (as I do), then you have a good stake in how you answer this question.  So, let me lay out a response. Inspirational teacher training is a long-term route to making schools and universities more inspiring places.  On the Renaissance philosopher Plutarch's view , after all, the mind's education isn't a vessel that needs filling, but it's a wood that needs igniting.  Fire spreads, so to speak.  So how to set teachers' minds on fire? The answer to this question all depends on who you're asking.  Oftentimes, teachers-in-training will respond with very specific and technical issues:  Teachers need (1) a clear sense of purpose with (2) engaging processes in their chosen curriculum.  What's more, teachers need (3) influence over the politics that make those curricula.  Along with (4) the abili...

Ever since Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics became affordable (about 2004), more folks have asked whether they should try to tackle it. Why? Well, for starters, it's Barth.  He's been called the 20th century's equivalent of a "church father".  So when you have the chance to read Barth, there's always a previous question:  " Should I read Barth?" It is, after all, just over 10,000 pages of small print.  The answer of course is, "Yes".  I think everyone should read some Barth.  (As influential as Barth was on the culture -- he was featured in Time magazine in 1962, after all -- the kind editors at Encyclopedia Brittannica agree with me, and included his The Word of God and the Word of Man in their "Great Books of the Western World", second series, in Volume 55 .) So, I'm often asked how best to read Barth.  This is my advice. 1.  Get the overview. Because the Church Dogmatics   is such a massive work, it hel...

Edwin Mellen Press has sued a librarian for a bad review. That's right.   Let that sink in for a moment.  The facts of that history being uncontested, let me lay out a few of my responses off the top of my head. (1) It does not speak well for the professionalism of Edwin Mellen Press that it responds this way to a single bad review. (2) What does the Press think it's doing?  Academic librarians are the lifeblood of the academic publishing industry.  The whole industry is structured precisely in order to market and sell to college libraries, its primary customers.  How can they possibly think that suing dissatisfied librarians will improve their position with their primary market? Academics -- and this includes academic librarians -- judge presses not only on the quality of their catalog but also on their treatment of academics -- and, again, this includes academic librarians.  They tolerate a lot because there is a never-ending need, but t...

A few unorganized comments on Gregory's Unintended Reformation . In Europe and America, universities were originally Christian institutions intended to expand knowledge within the framework of a Christian worldview. I n the twenty-first century they're secular institutions from which a Christian worldview has virtually been expelled.  For years the pressure has been on Theology departments because they remain within the model of "faith seeking understanding" and no longer fit the ethos of the secular university.  Many universities would prefer Religious Studies (the supposedly neutral, scientific study of religions). In the medieval period, Theology was the "Queen of the Sciences", the subject that served to integrate all the other disciplines.  Now the knowledge generated within Theology departments is not even considered to be knowledge by the university.  Theology is no longer Queen; she is a beggar that at best gets pitying glances from passers by. ...