The Life of Pi is a parable for the church today as it offers an apocalyptic vision–a tale of both destruction and revelation. … More End of the Frontier: Church, Apocalypse, and _The Life of Pi_
This is the story of one student in the M.A. (Biblical Studies) program we sponsor with scholarships at The University of The Gambia. We are helping teach students to be Christian teachers in their country. … More Student Profile: Sang Gomez, The Gambia, Bible Teacher in Training
Notes from my visit to Sierra Leone, West Africa. I give specific details from the first meeting of Christian scholars interested in working together across the country in league with the international Society of Christian Scholars, with which Global Scholars is a partner. … More The Christian Scholar’s Role in an International Academic Movement: Sierra Leone’s Scholars Unite!
Here I give my first impressions of life in Banjul, The Gambia. The Muslim context is readily apparent, and I reflect on what Christian education can mean in a place like this. … More Notes from Gambia: The Islamic Context of Christian Education
Many Christians live with a distorted understanding of death and heaven, and it is mostly because we get our cues from near-death experiences and other Platonic stories of the after-life. Here I explore some Reformed, Biblical teaching on “the new heaven and the new earth.” … More Eschatology 101: The Problem with Saying “We Go to Heaven When We Die”
The novel Catcher in the Rye was written by American author J. D. Salinger in 1951 and has been standard high school fare since, with a million books still sold each year and a place on the top 100 books of the century. But it has been one of the most censored books in America and I think it is time to put it on the shelf. … More Holden Caufield vs Holling Hoodhood: Teens as Alienated or Mentored into Adulthood?
A few notes from our vacation in Hilton Head, South Carolina and our education in the history of racism. The kids were out of school, but learning in a different way about their world and our calling as Christians. … More A Holiday of Racism: Education Beyond the Classroom
This Reformation Day, I’m thinking about reformation as a form of deconstruction. “Always reforming” can too easily feel like it’s about re-shaping something, renovating it, giving it a make-over. It sounds too clean, maybe even bureaucratic — like a policy change. But if reformation is like deconstruction, it can be messy. … More Reformation Day Math: Dividing, Subtracting, and Adding as God’s Messy Arithmetic
Why do we sing so many songs produced by Hillsong in our churches? I did some investigating, asking lay people and experts on the value of these songs, and put it all in the context of recent scandals in this church. Is there nothing else we can sing? … More Discordant Notes on a Scandalized Hillsong Music Industry: When Praise Becomes Performance
I teach World Religions at Redeemer University and require my students to visit a non-Christian house of prayer: a temple, mosque, gurdwara, or synagogue. Many of them are conservative Christian students, and many have never been to such a place, and some are worried and anxious about the assignment. Here I delve into the reasons why this is such an important experience for a Christian. … More Why Enter A Temple of Another Religion? Crossing the Threshold into Your Neighbour’s House of Prayer
Sensus Divinitatis 