Pope Benedict XVI, Islam, and Interreligious Dialogue
Current Students
A Memorable Field Trip
As I sit in my laboratory, the radio plays "Green Grow the Rushes Oh" and I am swept back in an instant to the summer of 1957 when 10 of us wended our way down to the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona, where we spent eight weeks at the Southwest Research Station as part of our short-lived C-60 biology course. I can see and hear the 10 of us wheeling down the road from a late field trip, headed to the laboratory, and barreling out that song in a high-spirited, if off-key, harmony.
Pathology
In mid-September of the ill-fated "Bartman" play-off year, 2003, I wrote the following:
The East Street Shuffle
On Sept. 20, 1975, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played to a packed house at Grinnell's Darby Gym, virtually rockin' the place down. A month later, Springsteen simultaneously appeared on the covers of Time andNewsweek, hailed as the future of rock and roll.
Posse Helps Students Make it at Grinnell
When Ramiro Carillo '07 first arrived at Grinnell College from the tough streets of Los Angeles, being smart wasn't the problem. His problem was being too smart for his own good.
The Strange Arithmetic of Jesus
September 2, 1990
It is quite appropriate this first Sunday of a new school year to include the word "strange" in my sermon title, especially for new students. You have come here to a strange country or a strange state, a strange college, dorm, fellow students, classes, subjects, all somewhat strange in the dictionary sense of "not before known or heard or seen."
Walking on Water...and Other Risks
January 29,1989 In my 30 years of preaching, I have never done a sermon on the passage just read, Jesus walking on water. (Mark 6:45-52) Why? One commentator says, "It's a story difficult for modern readers." How's that for understatement! The miracle story of Jesus walking on water is outrageous, certainly not for reasonable people like us who want a perfectly reasonable Christianity. Sure, I can understand walking on water during a typical Iowa winter when, of course, the water is frozen. But to do that in Galilee any time of the year, that's miraculous!
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Today is the second Sunday of Advent, the second of four Sundays when Christians are called to prepare for the advent, the coming of God, in Christ in the babe of Bethlehem. This preparatory Advent season ends on December 25, the beginning of the 12 days of Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus.
The Conversion of Edward A. Steiner
The Perils of Pacifism During World War I
It is not difficult to trace the roots of Edward A. Steiner's pacifism. Born into a Jewish family in the Slovakia area of Austria, Edward "grew up in a staunchly anti-militaristic family and lost both his father and an older brother in wars of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." After receiving his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg where he nurtured convictions against both nationalism and war and now fearful that he might be conscripted into the Austrian imperial army, the twenty-year old Steiner immigrated to America in 1886.
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