By: Henry Gwani on November 3, 2022
Christianity and Christian values are under attack. Seeking to address this disturbing development, Carl Trueman begins his landmark book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by asking how has the current highly individualistic, iconoclastic, sexually obsessed, and materialistic mindset come to triumph in the West? Or, to put the question in a more…
By: Andy Hale on November 2, 2022
“What I offer here is essentially a prolegomenon to many discussions that Christians and others need to have about the most pressing issues of our day, particularly as they manifest themselves in the variety of ways in which the sexual revolution affects us,” argues Carl R. Trueman. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern…
By: Eric Basye on November 1, 2022
“Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Author Rod Dreher introduces The Rise of Triumph of the Modern Self by connecting to the famous words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He then says, Ordinary Christians need – desperately need – a more profound and holistic grasp of the modern and postmodern condition… The Rise…
By: David Beavis on November 1, 2022
“Why is he seen as a leader?” This was on my mind often when this ministry leader at the megachurch I worked at came to mind. The staff culture possessed a great emphasis on “leadership.” A “strong” leader was taken seriously and had a future within the organization. This particular ministry leader, we’ll call him…
By: Michael Simmons on November 1, 2022
“Indeed, if we strive to be too good we only engender the opposite reaction in the unconscious. If we try to live too much in the light, a corresponding amount of darkness accumulates within.”[1] – John A. Sanford Shadow work is the process of integrating the individual or collective parts that have been largely hidden,…
By: Kristy Newport on November 1, 2022
How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? Simon Walker, in his book Leading out of Who You Are, brilliantly “steals like an artist” [1] and adopts Erving Goffman’s theory on human behavior with “the metaphor of a theatre.” [2] He describes people having a front stage where they can present…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on October 31, 2022
As a researcher of risk and risk taking capacity. I am always intrigued by studies on why as humans we make the choices we make, what leads us to those choices, and are we willing to take a risk in our choice making. Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow dedicates an entire…
By: Daron George on October 29, 2022
Author Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, covers a lot of material within its five hundred and thirty-three pages. He deals with two different ways of thinking, which he calls system one and system two. System one is our automatic or fast side of thinking, while system two is our more deliberate…
By: Denise Johnson on October 29, 2022
In my reading of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder,[1]by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I found myself reflecting of Christ’s call to individuals to follow him. Those invitations were huge steps into the unknown. Steps out of stability and comfort into a lifestyle of risk, and process of transformative, or refined resilience. I cannot help but wonder…
By: Caleb Lu on October 28, 2022
In Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, he speaks to the two systems by which our thinking operates. System 1 (thinking fast), “operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control”[1](20). System 2 (thinking slow), “allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.”[2](21) Even further,…
By: Elmarie Parker on October 28, 2022
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in “Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder,” offers the reader a literary and philosophical discourse arguing for how best to utilize uncertainty and even chaos to move beyond resilience or robustness to becoming antifragile.[1] In this way, Taleb, who is American-Lebanese, takes the leader-reader beyond Todd Bolsinger’s forge metaphor of developing tempered…
By: Chad McSwain on October 28, 2022
“All you have to be is likable.” This was the advice I received from my senior pastor. He had served at his church for thirty years, and is generally regarded as a legend after decades of successful leadership, and wanted to pass along a tip on how to be successful myself. Yet, I found his…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 28, 2022
As a professional communicator and doctoral student in leadership, understanding how the human brain works is critical to success. After reading Thinking, Fast & Slow by Nobel Prize recipient, Daniel Kahneman, I have an entirely new appreciation for both the complexity of the human brain and the rather shocking (and often-biased) way that people make…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on October 28, 2022
Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman is an exciting book that will help readers understand how the human mind works, analyzing the surroundings and making decisions. This exploration that earned Daniel Kahneman a Nobel peace prize is close to 500 pages and shares excellent details of our thinking process. Two Systems: Kahneman explains there…
By: Jonathan Lee on October 28, 2022
Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He also authored a NY Times best-selling book called The Black Swan in 2007. The Black Swan discusses the reality of our incomprehensible world impacted by the Black Swans – “large-scale unpredictable and irregular events of massive consequences.”[1] The Black Swan highlights the…
By: Nicole Richardson on October 27, 2022
Dr. Hassim Taleb, a Lebanese-American, brings his unique and vastly varied background, education and experience to manifest in his writings. Taleb reveals he is a master map layerer utilizing math, statistics, science, philosophy, and epistemology to invite the reader into fresh spaces to consider the nature of systems, institutions and humans in his book Antifragile:…
By: Henry Gwani on October 27, 2022
Moving beyond fragility and resilience, Nassim Nicholas Taleb draws our attention to a new word to the English language: antifragility. He defines this as the ability to benefit, thrive or grow when exposed to “shocks … volatility, randomness, disorder, … stressors … risk, and uncertainty[1].” Unimaginable as this may seem, the author notes that antifragility…
By: Becca Hald on October 27, 2022
I am struggling this week with what to write about Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. As I have delved into this book, I feel like I understand the concepts well enough, but the writing feels illusive. My thoughts have ranged from a popular meme which says, “That moment you turn down the radio so…
By: Roy Gruber on October 27, 2022
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb proved to be a challenging read for me. Subtitled “things that gain from disorder,” this philosophy book dealing with information theory caused me to stop reading and start watching some explanatory videos about the book. One video, in particular, influenced my post, and I need to acknowledge the source that…
By: Troy Rappold on October 27, 2022
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s 2012 book, “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” Asks how do we deal with the dangers posed by increasing uncertainty and volatility in a world that has grown ever more interdependent and complex. How can we not just withstand it, but profit from it? He goes to great length to define his…
