Mark Taylor, president of Tyndale House Publishers Inc. in Carol Stream, Ill., explains why Tyndale has joined the list of Christian organizations who have filed lawsuits against the HHS mandate. Why? As is now widely known, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has ruled that health insurance plans must provide contraceptives free of charge to all plan beneficiaries. As a Protestant, I don’t have a moral objection to contraceptives per se. But HHS defines contraception to include abortifacients such as Plan B (the morning-after pill), Ella (the week-after pill), and intrauterine … [Read more...] about What’s a Christian business owner supposed to do?
Thoughts on Serving and Greatness
I wrote a guest post for Bob Bevington's blog, Red Like Blood (which is also the title of his most recent book). My post is called Back to School: Thoughts on Serving and Greatness. Here's the opening: Jesus washed His disciples’ feet to communicate a principle: Christian leaders are to be servants. They get under others to lift them up, not over others to get ego gratification. (See this sermon.) You call me Teacher and Lord…If I then, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I … [Read more...] about Thoughts on Serving and Greatness
Student Default Rates Rise (Again)
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports: More than one out of eight student-loan borrowers who entered repayment from October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009, defaulted within three years, the U.S. Education Department announced on Friday as part of its first release of official data on cohort default rates for federal student loans measured over three years. The new figure on overall default rates, 13.4 percent, was released as the department switches from measuring the rates over three years instead of two. For-profit institutions had the highest average three-year default rates, at … [Read more...] about Student Default Rates Rise (Again)
The Brain is a Muscle
Doug Wilson: “We tend to think of our students’ minds as finite shoeboxes, and we then think we must take special care not to put anything in there if we do not want it to remain there for life. But the brain is more like a muscle. A student who learns one language, such as Latin, is not stuck with his shoebox three-quarters full, with no room for Spanish. Rather the student has a mind that has been stretched and exercised in such a way that subsequent learning is much easier, not much harder. “Now of course this kind of mental discipline could be acquired by requiring of the students … [Read more...] about The Brain is a Muscle
The (Often Determinative) Importance of Youth
J.C. Ryle: “Youth is the seed time of full-age, the molding season in the little space of human life, the turning-point in the history of man’s mind. By the shoot we judge of the tree, by the blossoms we judge of the fruit, by the spring we judge of the harvest, by the morning we judge of the day, and by the character of the young man, we may generally judge what he will be when he grows up.” From Thoughts for Young Men (Calvary Press) … [Read more...] about The (Often Determinative) Importance of Youth
How Would Mitt Romney Help the Poor?
In the aftermath of Governor Romney's now famous comments about government dependency, many are wondering how the Governor would seek to assist those in need. That's why I found the Governor's twenty minute speech at the Clinton Global Initiative interesting. He outlined some specific kinds of foreign aid policies he would pursue, and also gives a fairly articulate defense of the value of work, liberty, and free enterprise. … [Read more...] about How Would Mitt Romney Help the Poor?