Category: Education

“Public” Education: Time to Take Off the Blinders

  

It’s not that Americans don’t have faith; they just trust in the wrong things. While we, as a nation, drift away from our Biblical roots, we provide substitute gods that we hope will save our society. I spend a lot of time and space commenting on our misplaced confidence in the government to give meaning to life and to ensure we are all taken care of. A corollary to our supposed omnipotent government is our vaunted education system. Despite all… Read more »

Christian Education: Transformed Minds

  

Classes begin today. This will be the start of my 25th year of teaching at the college level and my 8th at SEU. My two courses today are the American history surveys—one from the colonial era through the Civil War, the other post-Civil War. Yet I give both sections the same introduction because there are some basics the students need to be reminded of. First, I offer a brief testimony of what the Lord has done in my life and… Read more »

Snyderian Truism #3

  

Some of my “truisms” come from personal experience in the classroom. As I embark upon my twenty-fifth year of teaching at the college level, I can attest to the accuracy of Snyderian Truism #3, which states, Ignorance can be corrected, but apathy makes learning impossible. The word “ignorance” sometimes gets an undeserved image. To be ignorant is not to be immoral or foolish or stupid or anything necessarily negative with respect to character. It simply means to be uninformed. I… Read more »

Christian Higher Education at a Crossroads

  

The last couple days I’ve extolled Christian higher education. I believe in it with a whole heart. Yet that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. In fact, a battle royal is currently waging for the soul of the Christian college and university. Let me comment on that today. Where does one receive a doctoral degree? Overwhelmingly, if you attain a doctorate, you’ve gotten it from a non-Christian university. Relatively few doctoral programs exist within evangelical Christian universities. I, for instance, have… Read more »

Education vs. Thought Control

  

Universities hold to the fiction that they are temples of reason where honest debate takes place and students hear all sides of an issue. In reality, they are bastions of liberal/progressive thought with little tolerance for Biblical perspectives or political conservatism. Surveys consistently reveal, particularly in the liberal arts, psychology, and sociology programs, that something like 90% of the professors self-identify as either moderate or liberal. Of course, their definition of “moderate” has to be taken into consideration—a moderate in… Read more »

A Teaching Ministry: Worth the Effort

  

As August draws near, my thoughts are beginning to turn once again to the new academic year. All my courses are ready and syllabi complete. I have to admit I always look forward to the fall semester. Fresh new faces showing up in the classroom, very welcome “old” faces, and the opportunity to share God’s truths make it all worthwhile. I am privileged to be at a university like Southeastern where I have liberty to teach without censorship or threat… Read more »

Snyderian Truism #2

  

Last week I introduced “Snyderian Truisms.” These are comments I’ve been making in class for quite some time, so I decided to turn them into official truths that I believe are undeniable. The first one was “Since God gave you a brain, He undoubtedly expects you to use it.” I give that one to my students in my American history survey courses on the very first day of class. Hopefully, it gets their attention and lets them know my expectations… Read more »