By: Dylan Branson on March 15, 2021
In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, he writes a striking phrase: “God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious.”[1] I remember the first time I read this sentence was in the middle of my “church crisis” where I was questioning what the function of the church was and what, to me, I felt…
By: Jer Swigart on March 15, 2021
This past week, I had the opportunity to introduce one of my mentors to a cohort of North American faith leaders. This particular group is an ecumenical, multi-ethnic collective from the United States and Canada who are seeking to grow in their capacity for peacemaking and reconciliation. They are women and men who have been…
By: Darcy Hansen on March 15, 2021
We like to gloss over the hard parts of life, move quickly through them, or avoid them at all cost. We focus on the successes, forgetting failures, disappointments, and deaths mold and shape us just as much as the successes. This reality is evident when high school students apply for college, as applicants are encouraged…
By: Shawn Cramer on March 15, 2021
I’ve been spending a lot of time meditating and studying one of Cru’s seminal texts, Ephesians 5:18, as I review Simon Walker’s thoughts on leadership and power in Leading with Nothing to Lose. I humbly offer encouragement to how I see it shaping the Innovation department within my organization. I have been guilty of previously…
By: Chris Pollock on March 13, 2021
The genuine article is a kind of person who exhibits a nature that does not need to be defended. Henri Nouwen, mystic and servant of the disabled-forgotten, writes of the surrendered life, of those who’ve been set free from shame to love, in his book ‘With Open Hands’. He encourages the prayerful life as one…
By: John McLarty on March 10, 2021
Over the course of this semester, I have looked at four US presidents through the lenses of leadership style and emotional intelligence. As I return to Simon Walker’s “The Undefended Leader” trilogy, I decided to continue with the thread of his different leadership strategies by looking at a former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill…
By: Greg Reich on March 10, 2021
The book The Undefended Leader was written by Simon P. Walker as a product of a course he developed and taught at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford University. He is an ordained Anglican Vicar, professor and an executive coach. His book is made up of three smaller books, Leading out of Who You Are, Leading with…
By: Darcy Hansen on March 9, 2021
I’ve been working toward advanced educational degrees for seven years. Life has changed in many ways. My daughter was 14 and my son was 10 when I began my seminary journey. With a large measure of God’s grace, my daughter is now 21 and in her last year of college; my son is 17 and…
By: Jer Swigart on March 9, 2021
There is a cave on a farm in the hills just outside of Bethlehem that is among the most transformational locations for me in the world. It’s a cave that has been hand dug by a family of Palestinian Christians because they were denied permission and permits by the Israeli government to build structures on…
By: Dylan Branson on March 8, 2021
There’s an old saying that goes, “Don’t ever meet your heroes.” The theory goes that the moment you actually meet the people you admire most, you’ll come to find they aren’t what you always thought they would be. This is a common trope that has made it into various forms of media – that moment…
By: Shawn Cramer on March 8, 2021
My attention has been captured by the research around social capital. As Robert Putnam painstakingly and thoroughly popularizes the use of the term in Bowling Alone, leadership scholars like Simon Walker also find it helpful as they address a way forward in the future. I’ll briefly address Walker’s use of the term and investigate social…
By: Chris Pollock on March 5, 2021
It is difficult to listen to someone who is pushing an opinion that does not fit with one’s own worldview or, be it, one’s own preferred way-of-seeing. Michael Shellenberger, acclaimed environmental activist, a recovered vegetarian and proponent of nuclear energy, is the author of the book ‘Apocalypse Never’. The book, though chalk-full of reference notes…
By: John McLarty on March 4, 2021
In the introduction to his book, “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All,” Michael Shellenberger says that he wrote the book “because the conversation about climate change and the environment has, in the last few years, spiraled out of control.”[1] His general thesis is that extremist activists, organizations, and efforts can actually do more…
By: Darcy Hansen on March 2, 2021
When we die, we want to believe our time here on this earth was worth something, that we had a purpose and made a difference. In Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger notes, “…secular people are attracted to apocalyptic environmentalism because it meets the same psychological and spiritual needs as Judeo-Christianity and other religions. Apocalyptic environmentalism gives…
By: Chris Pollock on March 1, 2021
Dorothy Day, in her earlier years an anarchist, in her memoir ‘A Long Loneliness’, often references the thought and political ideologies of 18th Century socialist revolutionary, Karl Marx. She reflects with a surprising tenderness on ‘the Marxist slogan, “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.’1 She felt connected to…
By: Dylan Branson on March 1, 2021
When you think of alarms, what do you think of? At first glance, perhaps it’s that dreaded morning “wake up alarm” when your phone sounds off like death siren screaming at the top of its lungs at you. Maybe you think of an alarm as a warning of something bad is about to happen. We…
By: Jer Swigart on March 1, 2021
In blending together research data, policy analysis, and learnings from a rich history of environmental justice movements, Michael Shellenberger makes a compelling and surprising argument for why the environmentalists are hurting more than helping.[1] Put simply, he argues in Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All that the important work of environmentalism is being…
By: Greg Reich on March 1, 2021
In the book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, the author Michael Shellenberger, a self-proclaimed environmental activist, tries to bring a voice of reason to an emotional explosive topic. His desire is to not only protect the environment but obtain what he states as “universal prosperity for all people.” He believes all scientists…
By: Shawn Cramer on March 1, 2021
Discovering and uncovering the driving questions of leaders and thinkers fascinate me. Behind most divisive topics usually lies a driving question best attributed to the fields of philosophy, ethics, and religion. Here I will make a brief argument broadly for the arena of underlying questions, then specifically through the issue of environmentalism with the artifact…
By: John McLarty on February 25, 2021
Doris Kearns Goodwin closes her book, “Leadership in Turbulent Times,” with a chapter called, “Of Death and Remembrance.” She spends a few pages on each of the presidents featured in her book writing about the circumstances of their leaving the presidency and the impact their term had on the nation. Two of the presidents profiled…
