"The Lord is my shepherd" is a familiar phrase to millions. Most of us hear it at funerals, intoned to provide individual comfort in the face of death. But can it be more? Can these five words and the Psalm that follow offer guidance in everyday life and economic crisis? Tim Neufeld, biblical and religious studies professor at Fresno Pacific University, thinks so, and outlines his ideas in this Scholars Speak.

As always, some are happy with the outcome of this presidential election, some are not and many are standing pat. Any way you look at it, however, 2009 was one for the history books. Candidates avoided the race card during the campaign, but the question remains: Where do we go from here regarding relations between whites and black--and the rest of the racial rainbow--with the election of a black president? Are we there yet? Quentin Kinnison has some thoughts on the opportunities and challenges we Americans face at this moment, and he outlines them this week in Scholars Speak.

Abraham Lincoln is generally considered our greatest President. He is also a favorite of our newest President. What has Honest Abe to say to us on the eve of his 200th birthday? Quite a lot, Fresno Pacific University faculty member Allen Carden writes in this week's Scholars Speak.

Conspiracy--a scary word, conjuring images from alien abductions to presidential assassinations to terrorist plots. But what does it take to actually be part of a conspiracy, legally speaking? Not much, Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, attorney and professor at Fresno Pacific University, notes in this week's Scholars Speak. So little, in fact, that ordinary citizens should be aware just how easily they can become conspirators.

There's nothing like the voice of experience to remind us when we watch or read about famine, war and cruelty that we're talking about people, not percentage points. In this week's Scholars Speak Doug Kulungu, a student majoring in business at Fresno Pacific University, lays out what is happening in his homeland of Congo. Despite the pain, he does this in a spirit of hope that, as bad as life there is and has been, that awareness, work and faith can make it better.

Ken Martens Friesen, history and political science professor at Fresno Pacific University, is very brave or a little crazy (maybe both?): he wants to increase taxes on gasoline. In this week's Scholars Speak he lays out exactly why the U.S. should do this during an economic recession whose only good news so far has been falling gas prices.

Big public high schools bad. Small private high schools good. Right? Surely small schools, with their focus on individual attention and lack of big school problems--drugs, gangs, kids trying to learn the English language--will produce better students through the prism of the moment: higher test scores. Not necessarily, according to Fran Martens Friesen, English faculty at Fresno Pacific University. In this week's Scholars Speak she gives big public schools the credit she says is overdue.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Some advocates for a cause, a discipline or a viewpoint are so zealous they do more harm, twisting their stated viewpoint into absurdity. The more powerful the ideas they deal with, the more damage they do their own cause. Science is such a powerful endeavor and Ron Pratt, mathematics professor at Fresno Pacific University, looks at some of its offensive defenders this week in Scholars Speak.

Kids--what's the matter with these kids today? Yesterday they were children, always ready to be played with, read to and tucked in. Then they were preteens, and happy to have us at their concerts, little league games and science fairs. Now they're teenagers and seem to have moved to another world: Planet No Adults Welcome. Wha' Hoppen? David M. Weber, faculty in the Fresno Pacific University School of Education, has the answer, as well as a plan for keeping or getting back good communication between you and the child in your life. Give it a look this week in Scholars Speak.

Love and power--can these two major human drives go together, in this political season, or at any other time? Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, Fresno Pacific University business faculty and member of the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, says yes and explains how in this week's Scholars Speak.