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Culture
Mark Eckel

Fahrenheit 451, Libraries & Free Speech

This speech was delivered during the 2025 Research Week Awards Ceremony (30 April 2025). Many thanks for the kind invitation from Jeremy McGinness, Associate Dean, Research, Instruction, and Collections. Further thanks is owed to Dr. John Eller whose three-volume biography of Ray Bradbury I mined for background information. In addition, I thank The Ray Bradbury

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Education
Mark Eckel

I am a Stone in the Shoe

What’s my job as a professor? Give me a minute to explain. My job, as a professor, is to hold a mirror up to myself and my students, asking each one of us to be honest about our beliefs. We may not agree with each other. But to appreciate others’ points of view, without necessarily

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Ideas
Mark Eckel

Who Owns You?

Are you a YouTube commercial, advertising your beliefs? Give me a minute to explain. Sports teams and race car drivers wear the names of advertisers on their uniforms. And I wonder what kind of advertisements are seen on us? How have we been influenced by groups, organizations, institutions, or communities? How do our views of

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Education
Mark Eckel

Prayer Before Study

Before I open a book, this is what I do. Give me a minute to explain. Thomas Aquinas wrote “A Prayer Before Study” where he prayed, “Grant to me keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret, and eloquence in speech. May you guide the beginning of my work, direct its

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Theology
Mark Eckel

Biblical Grace: The Change We Don’t Want

Weather is constantly changing. But we don’t like change. Give Me a Minute to explain why. In her letters Flannery O’Connor stated, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and change is painful” O’Connor’s ideas track with biblical truth. Grace is an undeserved, God-given gift, rescuing us from sin; but we like

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Ideas
Mark Eckel

A Story of Commitment

What would you do? How far would you go? Give me a minute to explain. The word “commitment” reminds me of a scene in Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars: “To protect her Jewish friend, a Christian girl tears from her neck a gold chain bearing a Star of David and clenches it in her fist

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