Knowledge needs Jesus

Last updated on: May 16, 2014 at 5:15 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

“Wisdom comes from God, knowledge from school. Seek wisdom and knowledge.” That is a jolly Christian bromide, but also cheerfully wrong. A twitter-able bromide is still toxic, even when decoupaged to a Christian plaque upon reading. Evil cannot be buried under any amount of glue. What happens with such errors? First, we feel good and then we pay. Errors either manifest deeper errors or become deep mistakes. In this case, the slogan usually points to a view of learning antithetical to... Read more

Aspirations and the Problem of Purity

Last updated on: May 20, 2014 at 2:36 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Aspiring to excellence, or at least goal setting, is a good thing but like every good can be distorted to cause harm. My present job is with the most aspirational group of people I have ever known: we want HBU to give our students the best education possible. We think about it every day and no system is safe from being challenged. If I am not careful, this great good will end up discouraging the people who work with me. I... Read more

Five Things I Should Just Stop Doing

Last updated on: May 8, 2014 at 11:31 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

If there is no fool like an old fool, then as an older American I have a duty to avoid folly. Tolerable errors in the twenties are insufferable stupidities in the fifties. Everybody tries to avoid foolishness, but the older’s foolishness stings, because by now I should be grownup. Growing old is easy, nobody avoids it, growing up is hard, and it is long past time for me to accomplish it. I can stop wondering what I will be when... Read more

Good-bye “Psych,” Good Luck Castle

Last updated on: May 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Family favorite Psych has no new episodes having lasted about two years past its expiration date. The show starred a psychic detective who was a detective, but not a psychic and his partner Gus, a rare character who spoke Evangelical dialectic. The show gained tension from the romance between Jules and Sean (the not psychic) and humor from the boy-man antics of Sean and Gus. As the characters aged, the antics looked less funny and more sad and any reasonable woman would... Read more

Handicapping 2016

Last updated on: May 6, 2014 at 8:19 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

My track record at picking Presidential winners is mixed: Obama 2008 was correct, Romney 2012 was not right. I do better at GOP party nominees. After two Democratic terms, 2016 is a mildly Republican year (as I thought 2012 was), but as 2012 proves candidates and strategy matter. Romney proved for my lifetime that the GOP must nominate a candidate who relates to working class people to win. Democratic Nomination: The Democrats are in disarray, led by a mildly unpopular... Read more

Do you love me?

Last updated on: May 1, 2014 at 12:27 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Only once, at summer camp, did I pluck a flower saying: “She loves me, she loves me not.” I do not remember what the daisy oracle said, but she did not love me. Perhaps my heart knew the truth and so I asked the flower instead of her. In Plato’s Symposium, love is described as a poverty, a need, and human love often fits this description. Love lacks and searches for what it lacks in the beloved. This missing element may... Read more

Men in the Arena

Last updated on: April 30, 2014 at 11:18 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Friday reminds me why HBU is a higher education: the school is doing things and not merely thinking about doing something, someday, somehow, if we just do another study. HBU is a place where leaders are encouraged to research, think, consider, but then act. Acting, drawing a line, doing something is impossibly hard for too many. Schools “rinse and repeat,” natter and mutter, and repeat old slogans, rehash old debates because it is safe. Few may be inspired by putting old slogans in... Read more

The Worst Evangelical Blog Post Ever? A Raw, Authentic, Vulnerable Attempt to Write It.

Last updated on: April 29, 2014 at 8:02 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Authenticity* is hard, requiring vulnerability, openness, and an acceptance of the fact that we are all on a journey made up of unfulfilled dreams, dreams often inauthentic to who we would be if we could each just be the me God made me to be. To be authentic is to rip away the Band-Aids of “orthodoxy” or Church-ianity and be real with ourselves and each other. Society calls us “lepers,” the way ancient cultures called lepers “lepers,” but we are... Read more

Where is God when it is fine?

Last updated on: April 22, 2014 at 5:48 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Israel’s sacred history struck me as odd when I was a young man: the better Israel did, the less she loved God. No longer young, I live the problem and so understand. In my case at least, what is true of a community is true of me. When God is good to me, He can feel further away. Over time enough people have shared the same experience, that I have decided my failing is not at all unique. The “problem... Read more

The Easter Bunny and the Blood Moon: Two Worries

Last updated on: April 21, 2014 at 12:36 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

We live in perilous times: Putin moves on Ukraine and Iran is getting the bomb, but if you follow the signs of the times, then you already know that this is true. What signs are these? Easter season is not just one day, but a period of time, and we are now in that time. As some theologically insightful people have already noted the start of Easter came close to American tax day and that day was marked by a... Read more