Featured Essay / Blog
A concerned student recently asked me to use my authority over a friend of theirs (also a student and mentee of mine) to help get them on the right track, for this friend was involved in quite destructive behavior. As we were talking, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, but when…
Essay / Education
Over at the blog of the American Society of Church History, Torrey’s Dr. Greg Peters reflects on some lesser-known writings of John Henry Newman. Newman’s most famous book about learning was his Idea of a University, but he also explored the ideals of Benedictine monasticism
Essay / Education
In the Torrey Honors Institute we read Western classics; then we sit in a circle and talk about them. This peculiar form of education (and the list of classic books) can be traced back to the General Honors course offered at Colombia University beginning in
Essay / Education
I teach classes at the best Bible Institute in Los Angeles. I also work at Biola University, but that’s different. Biola was founded as a Bible Institute, way back in 1908. The founders of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles knew all about colleges (Lyman
Essay / Culture
Here’s a diagram (click through it to view a larger version) that the founders of Biola kept close at hand when they needed to explain the variety of activities the early Bible Institute was engaged in. It’s a scratchy copy, and the graphic design isn’t
Essay / Education
I don’t have an image of it, but here is the nifty text from an ad in Biola’s King’s Business magazine from August 1941, p. 307. The ad invites prospective students to come to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, which had not yet started
Essay / Education
Every July, a group of students from Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute goes to Cambridge, England, for an intensive three-week class. If you know the Torrey program, you can imagine what it would be like to experience it in an environment as rich and stimulating as
Essay / Education
Wheatstone’s summer conference just ended. We had a week of great seminars, workshops, cultural events, and (maybe most importantly) small group discussions. It’s incredible to walk around a conference campus and see clusters of students or educators discussing hard ideas with a Wheatstone mentor. Intent
Essay / Education
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 1 Peter 4:19 No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but
Essay / Education
I can still recall the day, seventeen years ago. We were introduced one Sunday by a mutual mentor of ours, the late, much lamented Fr. Michael E. Trigg. After the morning liturgy, we three talked for quite an extended time in the parish hall during
Essay / Education
Today Biola held a special farewell reception for John Mark Reynolds, who is becoming provost of Houston Baptist University after 18 years as director of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola. The Dean of Humanities emceed the university-wide event, at which the president gave Reynolds
Essay / Education
Most people, if they think about it, probably live their life around some kind of rhythm. As a kid I remember my dad working seven days a week at the paper mill with a week off in the spring to do some home maintenance and
Essay / Culture
Here’s a 656-page grand tour of some of the greatest moments in Western civilization: The Great Books Reader, edited by John Mark Reynolds. I highly recommend it. Then again, since I contributed to it, work with or for many of the contributors, and already like