The Sam B. Hall Jr. Lectureship has been a feature on the ETBU campus since 1993 when it and the professorship were started. This year we will have a banquet and guest lecturer from The University of Mary Hardin Baylor, Dr. J. David Holcomb. His talk on the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions for religious liberties will capture some attention and provoke discussion. The event is on February 22 at 7:00 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Jarrett Library. Call 903.923.2083 for ticket information.
Klassen and Zimmermann have given me much to think about in their book The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education. One chapter subheading alone rings the bell of reflection during my day: “Thinking is not optional: It is part of your Christian identity.” It is not just that our university is starting a Quality Enhancement project related to our accreditation, and that project focuses on identity as a key component of Christian servant-leadership development. It has everything to do with the deeper purposes of my teaching, so it is indeed a passionate proposition. I hope my students come to share in it.
Comments on the China Trip are on the Doc Summers on Tiger Mountain link on this page (may have to click on the Home tab to the left to show links).
Tiger Mountain – maybe it’s just a hill – actually the Martians have called it Van Zandt Hill since the 1840s. Sometime around 1795 the Spanish ambassador charted it in the line of hills dividing the king’s lands from Mexico. Soon Napoleon had the king’s lands, and not long after that, President Jefferson cut a sharp deal and informed Congress by announcing the unexpected debt. Stunned at first, they came around to his position once they checked the map, though its deficiencies and their thirst for facts about the Louisiana Territory prompted Jefferson to commission the Lewis and Clark expedition of discovery. Already the old Spanish boundary had shifted eastward, and the Texans later agreed on a new boundary line with the United States. That’s long past now and infrequently remembered on Tiger Mountain. The Tigers concern themselves more with student life – the full range of it – and though captivated by what is for them now they are drawn by things to come. The past can wait – there’s too much of “A World of Opportunity in a Community of Faith,” and all it promises, to think of much else, whether they actually pause to think about it or not. www.etbu.edu