Occasionally I come across websites that are worth passing along, not because they are thoughtful or helpful or truthful but because they are, well, just so bizarre.

The first website….

As most of the readers of this blog know, this past week brought the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, along with the continual reminder of the evil tragedy of almost 50 million human deaths. As I spoke in our chapel service this past Friday, I urged our campus community never to lose the crucial importance of the sanctity of human life as foundational for all other truly moral causes. I quoted from an article by Joel Belz, which I also quoted in an earlier blog:

It’s hard to see how anyone can claim to be a protector of the environment and not put high priority on the preservation of human babies. To defend a focus on the future of polar bears and whales, while asking evangelicals to get less noisy about infant humans, is an embarrassing contradiction.

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In his essay “On Stupidity,” Thomas Benton, the pen name for William Pannapacker, associate professor of English at Hope College (MI), identifies two cultural trends which have served to undermine the intellectual seriousness of today’s college students, and of American society in general. One is the proliferation of technology and wired connection, and the effects include diminished verbal skills, perpetual distraction, skimming in place of deep reflection, short attention span, and self-absorption. I’ve written in previous blog postings about this trend, and educators, as well as church leaders, do well to recognize and address the shallow virtual reality in which so many of the rising generation live so much of their lives.

The other trend which Benton notes is the rise of anti-intellectualism in American public and political life. Click to continue »