“It is not the whip that makes men, but the lure of things worthy to be loved.” Woodrow Wilson made such a remark in instituting precepts at Princeton. These small discussion groups were intended to do two things: foster intimacy between pupil and teacher and inspire students to grapple with their coursework, to encourage “their right of private judgment.” Precepts today might differ from what president Wilson envisioned, but the hopes remain the same: for students to engage actively in their learning process.

When I was in fifth grade, one of my friends suddenly announced to our class that her mother was making her move across the country unless she got enough signatures from us asking her to stay. Our pre-​​adolescent minds obviously did not evaluate the implausibility of such a situation, and we spent half a day vigorously writing out petitions until our teacher caught wind of the whole affair. Under questioning, the girl confessed that she made the whole thing up. Shocked, hurt, and a little angry, our class asked her why she had lied to us. Did she just want attention, some sort of affirmation from her classmates? “It’s because you all say I’m so nice!” she told us, almost in tears. “I’m not nice! I’m not a good person!”

My family used to joke that when Martin Luther hammered in his 95 Theses our ancestor held the nail. All our family had been Lutheran and Protestant for centuries until 2007. That was when the Reformation ended for my dad, and he became Catholic. It wasn’t easy to end the Reformation. He had been raised in a devout Lutheran home and had been a member of that denomination for five decades. My mother is still Protestant, and he raised my sisters and me as Lutherans. But his reason and then his conscience bid him to communion with Rome. Since he’s a philosophy professor, he thought he should give a reason for his impending conversion, so he wrote “A Lutheran’s Case for Roman Catholicism”. I’ve mentioned my dad’s conversion to give you some context. Tonight the Reformation ends for me too and I become Catholic.

Do you tithe? As Christians, we hear pretty often that we should tithe a tenth of our earnings, our income, etc. Of course, the ten percent has a Biblical basis, but a friend of mine recently blogged about the flaw in the ten percent concept: tithing isn’t about giving a dollar for every ten dollars

PRINCETON, NJ – Shocking reports have recently popped up across Central Jersey of inanimate objects protesting against their usage. Officials initially ignored stories of household items having a voice, but the rising recurrence of similar stories has become impossible to ignore. The first account came several weeks ago, when a domino suddenly spoke to 24-​​​​year-​​​​old toy