Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Christian statistics
Not statistics that act in a Christian way, but rather trying to use statistics to understand the state of Christianity. Is it growing? Shrinking? Healthy? Dying? Turns out that describing statistics collected and making inferences is tricky, and the link describes some nice examples of where things can go wrong. Thanks to Brad for the link.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Something a bit different
Most of the posts here are about what I do in the classroom, mostly geek stuff. But I am also a Christian who believes God plays an active role in my life. I have experienced too much to doubt this.
But it is also true that as a professor, there is a dynamic that I have to be careful about with students. Since I have the rights to assign grades, I try to be careful not to make students feel that their beliefs might impact their grades. I work with students from too many different backgrounds and I never want them to worry that their faith will be an issue with me.
On the other hand, I also try not to hide my Christian beliefs, and the way that affects how I live my life and treat others.
The dust-up over Brit Hume's comments about Tiger Woods at first seemed to be the kind of thing I sometimes worry about: how can a Christian tell a Buddhist what to do?
This article from Michael Gerson in the Washington Post is a great way of thinking about this (I think). In the absence of coercive power, why wouldn't someone offer a life preserver that worked for them to another person in pain?
UPDATE: Brit's comments.
But it is also true that as a professor, there is a dynamic that I have to be careful about with students. Since I have the rights to assign grades, I try to be careful not to make students feel that their beliefs might impact their grades. I work with students from too many different backgrounds and I never want them to worry that their faith will be an issue with me.
On the other hand, I also try not to hide my Christian beliefs, and the way that affects how I live my life and treat others.
The dust-up over Brit Hume's comments about Tiger Woods at first seemed to be the kind of thing I sometimes worry about: how can a Christian tell a Buddhist what to do?
This article from Michael Gerson in the Washington Post is a great way of thinking about this (I think). In the absence of coercive power, why wouldn't someone offer a life preserver that worked for them to another person in pain?
UPDATE: Brit's comments.
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