Every class is different. You only realize this from experience. Every classroom has its own dynamic, energy and ethos. It really is quite remarkable. This year’s courses have started brilliantly. I don’t know why. It’s not me. But it has made me think more deeply about teaching than I have in the past. And whatever you put time into tends to be where your creative energy is. So, early in this year my energy is in the classroom and I... Read more

To my liberal friends, and I’m not even sure I’m a liberal or a progressive. You (we) are known for our soft hearts and soft heads, well, on this one we need to get hard. Our Republican friends have counted on us to be compromising, nice, forgiving, but no more, not on this one. Jesus was not nice, he was hard and tough and he demanded  love and justice from his followers. He said, “If you don’t serve the poor... Read more

Recently, a student, who has taken multiple courses from me, told me that when evangelical students take my courses they assume I’m an atheist. In fact, in my graduate student orientation this week, a student said the same thing to me, “You sound like an atheist.” Now it’s true I teach comparative religion at a “secular” university. Our university was sued when the college first tried to bring religious studies into the curriculum. So, in part, to appease these concerns,... Read more

The other night the President argued: “America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight... Read more

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Studies and graduate of West Point, whose son died serving the country in Iraq, has written and spoken extensively on U.S. foreign policy, religion, and most recently on the Syrian situation. His important book, The Limits of American Power The End of American Exceptionalism, is the most important book that I know of for Americans to read. He is not a dove, nor a soft minded liberal, he is, as he says, “a conservative Catholic.” But... Read more

In a question about whether there was any situation in which a bombing campaign would be effective on the Syrian regime, Juan Cole, Professor of Middle East History, didn’t hesitate, “No.” Cole, an informed and levelheaded critic of Middle East policy, describes in bleak terms the complexity of the situation in Syria. Look at the map below, and the story about it, and one can easily see the complex and multifaceted nature of the country. It is an utterly manufactured... Read more

  Religion in practice is always more beautiful than religion in words. In fact, from my study of Rob Bell, it has become clear to me that religion only becomes true in action. And there is no more beautiful example of this than what Antoinette Tuff did for Michael Hill. She loved him into lying down on the ground and giving himself up. Antoinette saved her “800 babies” by making Michael another one of her “babies.” The story of Michael Hill’s... Read more

As some of you know I play Peter Pan part time, serving our church youth group, and frankly I have a ball doing it. We take a mission trip each summer and it’s often the highlight of my year. We go to different parts of the country, often to Indian Country, but this year to West Virginia. I wanted to have our group (eight adults and 28 youth), experience Coal Country and introduce them to the Scotch Irish and Presbyterian... Read more

I received a lot of interest in my last post on “How Hedonism Harms Us.” The point was that a happy, selfish life actually does us harm, physically. Contrariwise, a meaningful life of self-giving brings us health, though it doesn’t always make us happy, at least in the short term. So it made me think: What is a meaningful life? Mistakes matter. I’m nowhere near a perfect person and I’ve never claimed to be. In fact, I rather like my... Read more

Before the last presidential election a group of liberal clergy came to me and asked me to help them in getting together a panel on social justice directed particularly toward the college age community surrounding my university. And I thought about it for a moment and responded by saying, “You know the real problem is one of moral values and hedonism. The behavior that I hear about and actually witness has much more to do with hedonism than with injustice.... Read more