It's impossible to see Wheaton College's abrupt suspension of Prof. Hawkins as anything other than an obsequious, groveling attempt to appease Rich White Donors. And as a not-so-subtle threat to the rest of the faculty, staff and students to get in line and settle down. Or else. This is a sin. And a total dick move. Read more
"ISIS is winning the propaganda war," Sen Tex Cruz said at the Republican debate last night in Las Vegas. And if that wasn't true before the debate, it's probably true now, after what seems to have been a prime time special urging Americans to cower in fear from the terror of the mighty ISIS. The pattern holds: These candidates want us to fear the people they hate and to hate the people they fear. Beyond that, they haven't much to offer. Read more
I think it's not so much the question of "what is this place for?" as the question of "who is this place for?" We don't see any people in all those gorgeous photographs of this dazzling place. And it's hard to imagine populating those photos with anyone other than the populace of "the so-called Gold Coast of Fairfield County, which ... ranks sixth in the US in per-capita income." Read more
Why use a "Why ..." headline for an article that doesn't say why? Plus: Biblical archaeology on the big screen; bomb control; a hijab in Wheaton; and schoolchildren fighting for their right to learn. Read more
Everybody is familiar with the story of Noah in the Bible, but many people don't seem to realize that the Bible actually gives us two Noahs -- two different stories about two very different people named Noah. That's odd, in part, because the story of the other Noah appears three times. And because it's a way better story. Read more
Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times? ... Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you in this way?" Read more
If you've ever taught a class with this kind of reading/discussion set up, you'll likely recognize this maneuver. Or maybe you were a student in such a class and you were eager to get into something intriguing in chapter 6 and wound up frustrated that the whole session was spent parsing a few paragraphs in the first pages of chapter 1. Or maybe you were That Student -- persistently dragging out the discussion of that first chapter and trying to run out the clock before anyone moves on to the other stuff you didn't read and exposes you as unprepared. Read more
Copy editors help keep readers safe from garbled, meaningless, passive-voice abominations like this form of cop-speak. Such language isn't written clearly and thus cannot be read clearly. Read too much of it and you'll cease to be able to think clearly. It's a way of writing, speaking, and thinking that separates nouns from verbs, and therefore separates causes from effects, and therefore separates power from responsibility. Read more
It seems the spirit of Jonathan Blanchard hasn't been entirely quenched at Wheaton College. Wheaton students' response to Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Donald Trump/Yosemite Sam imitation gives me a bit of hope for the future of this bastion of white evangelicalism. Read more
A brief refresher on the biblical story that explains why I refer to Billy Graham's rotten son as "Franklin Hophni Phineas Graham." (Along with a short visit to the eerie local ghost town that takes its name from the same biblical story and that I'm hoping will be featured in "Mallrats 2.") Read more
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