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Andrew Sveda | Monday, May 3, 2021
Does God exist? “Why should we bother?” you might be wondering. “It’s all so complicated, so abstract. I’ve got bigger problems to think about. And some smart people disagree!” Hopefully the reader can see that this is no real argument at all but a hollow list of assumptions and assertions. Undoubtedly, you do have pressing
Andrew Sveda | Monday, April 19, 2021
Have you ever watched a movie that was pretty bad but for some reason is stuck in your memory? One of those movies for me is “The Net,” starring Sandra Bullock. The plot is all over the place and the acting is nothing to call home about, but there is one aspect of the movie
Andrew Sveda | Monday, March 22, 2021
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that in a time of such unprecedented access to information, there is so little wisdom? Despite our resistance to this idea, we all know it to be true. There’s so much noise, so much talk for the sake of talk. We often find ourselves evoking mantras and slogans without really thinking
Andrew Sveda | Monday, March 8, 2021
In my previous column, I asked, “What is the main thing, the purpose of college that takes precedence over all other factors and shapes what a meaningful college experience looks like?” I examined three common answers — credential earning, job training and “learning things” — and discovered that each college model suffered from some serious
Andrew Sveda | Monday, February 22, 2021
Should college tuition be free? For the past five years or so, Senator Bernie Sanders has been particularly vocal on this subject, going as far as to call free college a “human right.” But with the inauguration of Joe Biden, who supported a very generous free college program during his presidential campaign, what was once
Andrew Sveda | Monday, February 8, 2021
When it comes to breaks, and especially long breaks like the one we just had, there’s always a strange progression in my attitude toward them. And I suspect I’m not the only one. The whole cycle has about four phases. The first phase starts about a month into school, when the monotony of homework and
Andrew Sveda | Monday, November 2, 2020
If you talk with Christians about their faith, no doubt many will tell you about a deep crisis in their life — a death of a loved one or a terrible illness — during which they were brought to faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes people are moved by these stories, but I think most of
Andrew Sveda | Tuesday, October 20, 2020
The Sermon on the Mount is undoubtedly one of the most famous speeches of all time. Many of Jesus’ most popular teachings, like “[l]ove your enemies” and “turn the other cheek,” find their origins here. But the very first sentence of this great address is uniquely striking to me. “Blessed are the ____, for theirs
Andrew Sveda | Tuesday, October 6, 2020
If you had 60 seconds to deliver a message to the entire world, what would you say? This was the premise of an international competition last May. I thought about entering it, but I just couldn’t find the words. I thought of all the one-liners and words of encouragement I’ve heard since March, and then
Andrew Sveda | Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Does God exist? Thinking about this can feel so abstract and pointless when we’re doing our best just to fight off sleep in class or cram for tomorrow’s exam, but no question could possibly be more important. Indeed, it is the most fundamental and inescapable question. Once genuinely asked, it cannot simply be put off.