As I was driving to Bakersfield last week, it occurred to me that it was thirty years ago this year that I began my academic career as a teacher. In 1993 I was serving as the pastor of what was then Walnut . . . Continue reading →
Maggie DeJong, in her third year of a master’s program for art therapy counseling at Southern Illinois University (SIU), was shocked recently to receive official emails from the school’s administration ordering her to have “no contact” with three other graduate students in . . . Continue reading →
Each week, I seek out the office hours of a philosophy department professor willing to discuss with me complex ethical questions raised by her course on gender and sexuality. We keep our voices low, as if someone might overhear us. Hushed voices . . . Continue reading →
Dysphoria is another word for “restlessness.” It doesn’t mean being fidgety or ill at ease; it means being depressed, disquieted, overcome by Angst. Much like the term euphoria at the other end of the emotional spectrum, dysphoria connotes being under the influence. My Concordia university is experiencing dysphoria because it is coming under the influence of Woke-ism (that is, a potent cocktail of Progressivism, Neo-Pragmatism, and Marxism). Continue reading →
Petrus van Mastricht (1630–1706) was among the more important Reformed theologians of the later 17th century. According to Richard Muller, in van Mastricht we see Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism coming to its high point technically. So students of the history of Reformed . . . Continue reading →
The more I spoke out about these issues, the more retaliation I faced. Continue reading →
In 1973, in “Report 42,” a committee of the Christian Reformed Church wrote: “An important distinction that must be made is the difference between homosexuality as a condition of personal identity and homosexualism as explicit homosexual behavior.” On the basis of this . . . Continue reading →
Language regarding accreditation of religious insti- tutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act could be interpreted to require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or that do not meet science based curricula standards. Continue reading →
Political correctness (PC) is a movement whose roots are in Marxist-Leninism and the Communist Revolution in Russia of 1917. According to this dogma, speech is said to be “politically correct” when it conforms to the dictates of the party. In its original . . . Continue reading →
… In the wake of the protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, some faculty published an open letter of demands to overcome “anti-Blackness racism” at Princeton. Like many such letters, it included good and bad proposals. Most distinctive and . . . Continue reading →
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Steven Pinker is correct. It is Orwellian to demand jot and tittle conformity (in civil life—we live in a twofold kingdom).
It is also Orwellian to deny that “cancel culture” exists. Certainly it exists. It is gaslighting to contribute to it by denying that it exists. The evidence for its existence is right before us. About 15 signatories to the recent public letter defending free speech remained anonymous for fear of the consequences of being found to be politically incorrect.
Example: I am thinking of a simple declarative sentence that is undeniably true and reasonable but to say it risks the irrational wrath of the mob. I will not say it now because the potential cost outweighs the benefit.
That is cancel culture.
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Academics who take advantage of their temporary ideological superiority in the university to suppress the freedom of expression of their ideological opponents are like those who, after setting loose a wild tiger, are surprised when it finally turns on them.
One of the unexpected outcomes of the Covid-19 shutdown/quarantine has been the widespread turn to homeschooling. Parents are being asked en masse to become intimately involved (again) with the education their children. For some parents, it means making sure that their children . . . Continue reading →
I am over fifty. I no longer care what anyone except my wife thinks about me. That particularly applies to anyone under the age of thirty-five. You should therefore feel free to disagree with me on anything I say because it is . . . Continue reading →
The crest of Duke University, one of the more prestigious universities in the United States, says, “eruditio et religio” (learning and piety). The crest signifies the school’s roots in the early and mid-19th century first as a joint Quaker/Methodist project and later . . . Continue reading →
when a mob at Vermont’s Middlebury College shut down a speech by social scientist Charles Murray a few weeks ago, most of us saw it as a another instance of campus illiberalism. Jonathan Haidt saw something more – a ritual carried out . . . Continue reading →
“Intersectionality” is the latest academic craze sweeping the American academy. On the surface, it’s a recent neo-Marxist theory that argues that social oppression does not simply apply to single categories of identity — such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. — . . . Continue reading →
A university has sold its birthright for a mess of pottage when it surrenders its role as a facilitator of reasoned discourse to gain acceptance from an angry mob who happen to be expressing the campus culture’s currently popular “cause du jour.” . . . Continue reading →
…learning about Western culture isn’t simply about undertaking a cohesive study of the history, philosophy, literature, and arts that have enormously influenced the world in which we all live. It is also about learning how to express ideas effectively, how to separate . . . Continue reading →