Occasioned by State of Texas (et. al.) v. United States of America, United States Department of Education (et. al.). — learning is learning in relationships. learning to learn is learning to relate. it’s learning to glow & gush about something (whether it’s about braiding technique or bicycle spoke decor or anglerfish or horses or a raspberry pi or long division) in a way that draws others in. and it’s learning…

Last Thursday I shared a slow Persian dinner with Kim Alexander. I was lucky it was a slow dinner—not just because they’re my favorite sort—but also because it was an hour before my fairy godmother (she flicks a wand at my social-flounder-fest and appears the caring/curious/safe-to-attempt-to-talk-in-ways-people-understand me) showed up. …

Storr’s Dogmatics arguably stands in the Lutheran tradition of the loci. Other dogmatic statements like the catechisms and creeds (sometimes called collectively the symbol), are also part of this tradition. Catechism Concrete examples include Luther’s Small Catechism, a series of questions and answers designed in hopes that parents and children would…

Sola Scriptura and the Hierarchical Web — Luther is famous for pointing to Scripture to defend his positions and attack Rome’s. In one sense, Luther used ‘sola Scriptura’ to show that Rome’s readings were merely human invention— without opening himself up to the same charges. …

Sometimes it’s helpful to do meticulous systematic preparations… and other times best to fail fast & adjust. …

We might think about the form of the US American government as an experiment. Governments that sought stability by way of compulsory conformity to ideas, beliefs, ways of life, it seemed to many in the late 18th-century, were better at creating instability than meeting their aims. Humans, some suggested, by…

last fall i broke my aunt’s tea saucer. i told her and she said, “it’s okay. it was part of my grandmother’s & my husband’s grandmother’s matching tea sets; we’ve got plenty like it.” what she said might mean a lot of different things, depending on which part of her…

You’ve probably noticed that the same words and phrases sometimes mean one thing, sometimes another. “Don’t do that” might mean “stop!” or “keep doing that,” or “I’m annoyed,” or “I don’t want you to do that, but it’s not my call,” or a wide variety of other things. And you’ve…

In the introduction, I wrote this gobbledegook: “Storr’s biggest questions were, like Kant’s, arguably about the possibility of reliably ordering multiple ways of seeing or multiple ways of discerning what is reliable.” In the next few paragraphs, I want to explain what it means. If you’ve ever cringed a little…