Mr. Locke’s Classroom

It’s been about a year and one week since I wrote this rather infamous blog post about PhD students at Princeton Theological Seminary.  While part of me would like to bury the episode in a deep hole, another part of me (the blogger, perhaps) realizes that it was a defining experience for me, and as [...]

It occurs to me that a general status update post (or any post for that matter) is long overdue.  When I started writing this one, I actually *was* midway through Hebrew.  Now with only two weeks left in the class, and fall quickly approaching, the title is a bit outdated, but the rest still holds [...]

When I left teaching behind several years ago, I made a commitment to myself not to leave Shakespeare behind as well.  Shortly afterward, I successfully auditioned for and then played the role of Friar Laurence in a Frisco Community Theater production of Romeo and Juliet.  So when I arrived here in Princeton, and was told [...]

Needless to say, last week was an interesting week. Admittedly, calling people assholes is not the best way to start a conversation, but for better or worse, I did have a lot of conversations last week: With PhD students, with fellow MDiv students, with former students, faculty members, staff members, bloggers, anonymous emailers and letter [...]

This has all the makings of one of those posts that I’ll regret later on, but nevertheless… I’ve been an M.Div student at Princeton Seminary for five months now, and while that’s hardly enough time to make a definitive study of the people and culture here, some impressions are certainly forming in my mind.  First [...]

No classes this week — it’s a tradition called “Reading Week” here at Princeton Theological Seminary.  I think at my undergraduate college, we called it “fall break,” but the implication here seems to be, “No break for you! [insert whip crack here] Time to catch up on all the reading!” Hmmm…guess I could also look [...]

I have a paper due in my Education and Formation class this Friday — as described in the syllabus, it’s a five page “reflective essay about key elements, components, people, events that have contributed most to [my] education and formation as a Christian.” This is tricky on a couple of levels.  First, I don’t like [...]