New Addition!

Please welcome the newest member of the Monk family!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus at Harvard, Mormons at Waco?

In reading Marcus Borg's  Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time , I can't help recalling the last occasion when I met Jesus for the first time--the last time I saw Jesus of Nazareth with new eyes, as a foreigner, someone I didn't already recognize. Six months ago I finished reading  When Jesus Came to Harvard , in which Harvey Cox characterizes the Christ as a political operative. When Jesus teaches his Sermon on the Mount, Cox argues, it is with one eye on heaven and the other eye on Rome. "Blessed are the peacemakers," Jesus teaches, "for they shall be called the kingdom of God" (Matthew 5:9). These words, Cox argues, "were a direct challenge to the ruling Roman ideology. . . . The empire's main claim to fame and legitimacy was that Rome and Rome alone was the peacemaker. It sustained the  pax Romana  under the magnanimous auspices of Caesar Augustus, a divine ruler. One of the imperial titles of the divine Augustus was that of 'peace-b...
Read more

On Priesthood Blessings

Image
Priesthood blessings have been on my mind recently, for a number of reasons. My mother-in-law is feeling poorly and has been for at least a week. On Monday night, she requested that I give her a blessing. Since neither Alana nor I had firm plans for our Family Home Evening lesson that night, we decided to teach my two-year-old son Gabriel about priesthood blessings. He folded his arms reverently three times: once when I consecrated oil for the healing of the sick, once when Donald Gilreath (my mother-in-law's home teacher) anointed her with the oil, and once while I gave her a blessing. He listened patiently while Alana and I explained how priesthood blessings can make us feel better and help us learn what Heavenly Father wants us to do. Then, he ran to me and said very seriously, "I want a blessing, Daddy." I, of course, was glad to oblige and touched that he wanted a blessing. This is the blessing he received: " Gabriel Ogarek Hutchins, by the power of t...
Read more

Barack Obama and William Perry: Two Theories of Education

Before I get to my thoughts on Barack Obama's speech to school children (which you asked for ), let me briefly note that as of today I am the creator and subject of a new website designed to aid me in my quest for full time employment as a college professor. Your feedback is welcome (particularly if you are a departmental administrator looking for an early Americanist). Now--as to President Obama's speech. I think there are two important points that should be made up front: 1. This was not a new idea. The first President Bush and President Reagan both delivered addresses to school children. 2. This was not a politicized speech. There were no partisan statements in there; in fact, the most political sentence was his suggestion that "maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team." Hardly a call to elect activist judges and socially liberal government officials. Obama...
Read more