Several of these blog entries are reflections of various aspects of the holocaust-studies tour. These essays are designed to provide the reader with specific information about various memorials and locations as well as a personal reflection of meaning associated with a location or feature of a memorial. Some blog entries will not be animated by the holocaust-studies tour.
Additionally, I recently completed a writing project overhauling a behavior and social sciences statistics textbook. Some selected sidebar essays that may be of interest to a more general audience have been extracted and placed in this section of the website.
An Evening with Dr. James Tour
Recently, several Asbury University Honors Program students were privileged to spend an evening with world-renowned scientist, Dr. James Tour. Dr. Tour, named in “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2019, is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University. Having spoken earlier in the day to the entire campus in chapel, Dr. Tour spent his evening mealtime with a selection of our AUHP students where he reviewed some of his work on the synthesis, unique properties, and unbelievably exciting applications of graphene.
Interview with Dr. Devin Brown
Author of A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis, as well as the official Discussion Guide for The Most Reluctant Convert, the movie about C.S. Lewis currently playing in theaters Recently Dr. Devin Brown, a Professor of English at Asbury University and author of a number of books related to C. S. Lewis, accompanied a group of Asbury University Honors Program students to a showing of The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C S. Lewis, a film about the early life and conversion of one of Christianity’s most famous writers and apologists. Afterwards, Dr. Brown
Interview with Dr. Christopher Bounds
A Few Reflections from Our Speaker After Dr. Bounds presentation to our campus and fireside chat with the Asbury University Honors Program students (see: The Image of God, Incarnation, and Human Dignity), he provided some further thoughts via an interview. Here is the transcript of that exchange. Q: What gives people value? I like the word “give” in the question. The intrinsic value of people has its ultimate source in God. It is God, and God alone, that is the source of human worth and dignity. As such, this value is given to us by God. All other human value
The Imago Dei, Incarnation, and Human Dignity
The Inaugural Human Dignity Lecture, by Dr. Chris Bounds On Thursday evening, October 7th, Dr. Chris Bounds, Professor of Christian Doctrine at Indiana Wesleyan University and Wesley Seminary, delivered the inaugural AUHP “Human Dignity Lecture” on the campus of Asbury University. His talk was entitled, “The Imago Dei, Incarnation, and Human Dignity.” The impassioned sermon-style presentation concerned the inherent dignity of humanity. (Please see the full video of Dr. Bounds talk to the right.) The 40-minute challenge started by recalling David’s cry to God in the 8th chapter of the Psalms: “what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
Human Dignity: Invented or Discovered?
(Presented to students in the Honors Program at Asbury University, August, 2021.) As you know, the honors experience here at Asbury is a themed enrichment program – our enduring theme is “Studies in Virtue and Human Value.” One of our program’s guiding questions is, “What gives humans value and dignity?” We all feel valued or at least we feel like we should be valued, and most people are quick to affirm their belief in the dignity of all people. But just beneath this feeling and belief lies the question of “why.” Why do we have this feeling and belief that
A “Common” Lesson from Sachsenhausen
Typically, on about the third day of a tour, we visit our first concentration camp, Sachsenhausen. It is located in Oranienburg, a medium-sized medieval city that sits on the banks of the Havel River, just a few kilometers north of the capital; easily accessed with only a Berlin City Rail pass. Sachsenhausen, one of the earliest camps built by the National Socialists, was originally designed to house political prisoners. Over the years, the categories of occupants broadened to include prisoners of war as well as perceived racial and social threats to the state. However, the underlying and all-governing purpose for