Photo Gallery Updated

Pho­tos from the crab boil are now in the pho­to gallery.

We’ve got some pret­ty good shots this time, if I do say so myself.

By the way, you can call Nathaniel “Fred­dy” from now on.

Happy New Year

Paula and I got back from our hol­i­day trav­els yes­ter­day. We’ve been busy lit­tle bees.

We vis­it­ed San Diego with Bri­an and Cecilee Orme (they lead Chi Alpha in Salt Lake City) and had a blast! We were actu­al­ly work­ing (inspect­ing poten­tial con­fer­ence sites), but it was a lot of fun.

Then we got home, fin­ished our Christ­mas shop­ping, and hopped on a plane to New Orleans Christ­mas Eve. We had a great time with our fam­i­lies (and they had a good time exam­in­ing Paula’s preg­nant bel­ly), and then turned around and came home.

If you’ve emailed me in the last two weeks, rest assured that I’ll get back to you. I have a few hun­dred mes­sages to plow through, so it may take a lit­tle while.

Hap­py New Year!

Artificial Cowardice

Tolkien fans might be inter­est­ed in this news sto­ry about the com­plex sim­u­la­tion pro­gram that cre­at­ed the cli­mac­tic bat­tle scene in the Return of the King.

“For the first two years, the biggest prob­lem we had was sol­diers flee­ing the field of bat­tle,” Tay­lor said.

“We could not make their com­put­ers stu­pid enough to not run away.”

Now that’s arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence!

Christian Professors Help Out In Afghanistan

Rebuild­ing Afghanistan U is a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of how well-edu­cat­ed Chris­tians can make a dif­fer­ence.

It talks about how the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Chris­t­ian Stud­ies sent pro­fes­sors to Afghanistan after the war against the Tal­iban to rebuild their high­er-edu­ca­tion infra­struc­ture.

The group is very picky about its can­di­dates’ cre­den­tials (a grad­u­ate degree is a must), expe­ri­ence, and Chris­t­ian wit­ness. Only one of 10 appli­cants gets accept­ed. When Com­mu­nist coun­tries ask CEO Daryl McCarthy for teach­ers, he says some­thing like this:

“You want expe­ri­enced, hard-work­ing, eth­i­cal pro­fes­sion­als? We’ll get them for you. In fact, IICS is so par­tic­u­lar that we make sure that every one of them is a Chris­t­ian.” Says McCarthy: “It’s fun to hear the for­eign offi­cials say, ‘Ah, yes, very good. That’s what we need.’ ”

The arti­cle is fas­ci­nat­ing and well worth a read.

Spiritual Help When Studying Abroad

Going to study abroad? God Abroad is a great resource–it will help you find a Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty over­seas!
Con­tin­ue read­ing “Spir­i­tu­al Help When Study­ing Abroad”

Dick Staub Interviews Mary Poplin

I just ran across a tran­script of an inter­view with Mary Poplin.

Dr. Poplin is the Dean of the School of Edu­ca­tion­al Stud­ies at Clare­mont Grad­u­ate Uni­ver­si­ty and she’s cur­rent­ly writ­ing a book (title unknown) about inte­grat­ing faith and acad­e­mia. (see her fac­ul­ty bio page)

You should real­ly read the inter­view on Dick Staub’s web­site, but I’ve excerpt­ed the most fas­ci­nat­ing bits…
Con­tin­ue read­ing “Dick Staub Inter­views Mary Poplin”

More Photos Added To Gallery

There are some new pho­tos in the Chi Alpha pho­to gallery.

Also, the soft­ware has been recent­ly updat­ed so there are a few new fea­tures in the gallery.

Feel free to play around!

The Importance of College Students

I just ran across an inter­est­ing arti­cle in the LA Times that I deemed wor­thy of com­ment: The nation’s lead­ing lawyer [Jay Seku­low] for evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tians was born and raised a Jew in Brook­lyn, but decid­ed in col­lege that Christ was the Mes­si­ah. (read the whole arti­cle: Evan­gel­i­cals’ Cham­pi­on to Argue Case at High Court)

Seku­low has argued 11 cas­es before the Supreme Court and is the chief coun­sel for the Amer­i­can Cen­ter for Law and Jus­tice.

Jay Seku­low is an excel­lent exam­ple of what I keep telling people–college stu­dents are the lead­ers of tomor­row and they are unique­ly open to rethink­ing their belief sys­tems. Reach­ing stu­dents today changes the world of tomor­row.

Chi Alpha in Boston

The Boston Globe has a neat arti­cle that ref­er­ences the Boston area Chi Alphas:

“When I came to MIT, I was expect­ing it to be full of nerds — peo­ple who don’t real­ly put togeth­er sci­ence and reli­gion,” says Ben­jamin Brooks, a senior from Pater­son, New Jer­sey, who belongs to the MIT chap­ter of the evan­gel­i­cal group Chi Alpha. “I was real­ly sur­prised — and still am — by the vol­ume of Chris­t­ian fel­low­ship here.”

and lat­er The Boston Uni­ver­si­ty chap­ter of Chi Alpha holds reg­u­lar “The Gospel Accord­ing to The Simp­sons” gath­er­ings.

The arti­cle is called God on the Quad and talks about the evan­gel­i­cal pres­ence on the Boston cam­pus­es.