By: Cathy Glei on March 22, 2024
When I think about following Jesus, the word that encompasses my pursuit of Him as an apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is a method of training and on-the-job experience, developing a new generation of practitioners, often accompanied by some study and/or shared learning. Much of the training is done while working alongside an employer or instructor, who helps…
By: Todd E Henley on March 21, 2024
“Critical thinkers have an abiding interest in the problematic aspects of their own thinking, and they seek out these problem areas, target them, and change something about their thinking in order to reason more rationally, logically, and justifiably.”1 Thanks to this program and blogging every week, I am slowly, painfully, and finally learning how to…
By: Adam Harris on March 21, 2024
“In Judaism, we take a strong view on this, and we have now for 2,000 years and we say reading the Bible literally is heresy”.[i] This surprising statement was made by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, an orthodox chief Rabbi from the United Kingdom, in a lively debate with one of the most famous atheist and Evolutionary…
By: Jenny Dooley on March 21, 2024
I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Philippians 3:10 NIV I approached Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan B. Peterson with anticipation and a weary brain. The academic writing style was dense and certain…
By: Mathieu Yuill on March 21, 2024
Navigating through Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief feels akin to embarking on a dense archaeological dig, where instead of unearthing fossils you’re discovering facets of human belief, through the unveiling of mythology, religion, and psychology. Peterson’s This book isn’t merely academic; it’s a deep dive into the collective human psyche, exploring…
By: John Fehlen on March 19, 2024
“Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand.” Jordan Peterson in Maps of Meaning When I read the opening sentence of Map of Meaning I instantly knew we were in for a doozy of a book. I’m somewhat familiar with Peterson’s more current writings, social media posts, podcasts, blogs, and YouTube…
By: Cathy Glei on March 15, 2024
In the last three years, our district has done a deep dive into helping staff across the district unravel implicit and explicit biases as author Pragya Agarwal, of the book Sway: Unraveling unconscious bias, proposes. Our district has strongly encouraged staff to become a part of the Justice Leaders Collaborative, a platform for social justice…
By: Dinka Utomo on March 14, 2024
I am very grateful to be able to be in this lecture program which brings me together with brilliant minds who build awareness to think critically about thoughts and attitudes of racism, inequality, exclusion, denigration, and the like. This program guides and shapes students to think and behave as leaders on a global scale. Namely,…
By: Adam Harris on March 14, 2024
A few months ago while I was reading through Luke’s Gospel I noticed how Jesus wrapped up a statement that caused me to think, “Huh, I never noticed that.” To give some context, in this section of Luke 5:37-39, Jesus is cautioning his listeners about putting new wine in old wineskins, and at the end…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on March 14, 2024
“During Hurricane Katrina in the US, two photographs in particular made news amid the wide-spread havoc and destruction. In one photo, a dark-skinned young man is shown in New Orleans flood-waters, a 12-pack of Pepsi under his right arm, holding a garbage bag with his left hand. A caption read: ‘A young man walks…
By: Mathieu Yuill on March 14, 2024
In August 1999 I was living at my parents house but our relationship was bad. Towards the end of the month they told me I had to leave and I had three days to move out. Heading into my second year of college and without much in the way of reserve funds I took to…
By: Todd E Henley on March 13, 2024
Two months ago, we sold our washer and dryer online and I watched as the customer backed into our driveway. When he stopped, I walked outside to greet him. I waved hello and the first words out of his mouth were, “Do you live here?” Honestly, I thought that was a foolish question. After a…
By: Jenny Dooley on March 13, 2024
Reading Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias by Dr. Pragya Agarwal, is a reflective process. It’s uncomfortable discussing bias due to my intersecting identities as a Caucasian American woman. I’m feeling awkward acknowledging the unconscious bias I experience as a female and as a former expatriate, while simultaneously feeling regretful of my unintentional biases. I’m painfully aware…
By: Kim Sanford on March 11, 2024
Three days ago, I picked up Sway by Pragya Agarwal.[1] I began reading, and by page 35 I knew what I wanted to write my blog post about. Because I want to keep you in suspense, I’ll come to that in a minute. After the first chapter, I intended to continue with an inspectional read,…
By: John Fehlen on March 11, 2024
I came into this blog post knowing that I wanted to title it: “Red and Yellow, Black and White.” If you grew up in the church, or for that matter, didn’t have your head buried in the sand for the entirety of your human existence, you would have [most likely] heard, or at least heard…
By: Mathieu Yuill on March 10, 2024
The concepts outlined in Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault[1], are new to me. In my formal studies and independent reading I hadn’t explored ideas our postmodernism, modernism, the enlightenment era and the like. In fact, the closest I had ever gotten to it was through playing the…
By: Dinka Utomo on March 8, 2024
“Where the human knowledge ends, God’s wisdom and power begins to manifest in abundance.” –Gift Gugu Mona- Humans generally like certain things. That’s why most people always try to find certainty in their lives because certainty will bring peace to their hearts. A phrase in Latin reads, “certum est quod certum reddi potest,” which…
By: Todd E Henley on March 7, 2024
This week as I read, Explaining Postmodernism, by Stephen Hicks, I kept thinking about the brain and our emotions. Please bare with me as I discuss how our brain, emotions, and immune system are connected by God and how this goes entirely against most of what postmodernism postulates. Anterior Midcingulate Cortex (aMCC) There’s a brain…
By: Adam Harris on March 7, 2024
I have a bittersweet relationship with philosophy. I think it is incredibly useful to not only examine knowledge, but it exposes the invisible assumptions we have when making claims about truth and points out the tinted glasses sitting on our noses when interpreting data and our experiences. Nancey Murphy, a philosopher from Fuller Theological Seminary…
By: Cathy Glei on March 7, 2024
“To the extent that reason is the standard, faith loses, To the extent that reason develops, science develops, To the extent that science develops, supernaturalistic religious answers to be accepted on faith will be replaced with naturalistic scientific explanations that are rationally compelling.” [1] Supernaturalistic religious responses in faith are the buzz. In conversations with church…
