By: Graham English on April 3, 2025
In my denomination, both egalitarian and complementarian views regarding women in eldership coexist. Each local church is tasked with determining its stance and practice through a structured process. This position has proven to be difficult, as it represents one of the more contentious issues our denomination has faced. The church I pastored had decided many…
By: Joel Zantingh on April 3, 2025
Pragya Agarwal’s book Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias reminded me of the time a few years ago when I took the Implicit Association Test (IAT) from Harvard’s Project Implicit. With my conviction that all people are created in the image of God and are equally worthy of love and life, I thought I would achieve neutrality.…
By: Shela Sullivan on April 2, 2025
Introduction SWAY: Unravelling Unconscious Bias by Pragya Agarwal[1] is a captivating exploration of the hidden biases that shape our perceptions, decisions, and interactions. Drawing from her expertise as a behavioral and data scientist, Agarwal dives into the neuroscience, psychology, and sociology behind unconscious bias, presenting a compelling narrative supported by real-world examples and scientific research.…
By: Adam Cheney on April 2, 2025
Is a bias always wrong? If it is, and if we all have unconscious biases, then we all are constantly in a state of wrongness. Certainly, we might all agree that when a bias leads us to decisions and actions that are discriminatory then it is wrong. However, I would assert that my unconscious…
By: Jennifer Eckert on April 1, 2025
“Say buddy are yew a injun?” “Yeah, man.” “What kind?” “MEXICAN” “O, ah thot yew was a real injun.” As he proceeded to tell me (quite boringly) About his 1/64th blood quantum And his Cherokee PRINCESS grandmother; My prison-like coffee was getting cold, The bus was pulling out… And it was time to go![1] Implicit…
By: Jeff Styer on March 31, 2025
As I read Pragya Agarwal, Sway, Unravelling Unconscious Bias, many of the books we read since starting this program came to mind; this made it hard to decide which direction to go in writing this post.[1] For this post, I am going to define some key terms related to bias, then I am going to…
By: Ryan Thorson on March 31, 2025
“Did you really write this?” During my college humanities class on “Fairy Tales,” the professor posed this question to me. I was taking her class as part of my English Literature degree, but I had to request an extension on a paper due to an upcoming collegiate football game I was traveling for and had…
By: Glyn Barrett on March 31, 2025
“Sway, Unravelling Unconscious Bias”[1] by Dr Praya Agarwal, a British Indian behavioural and data scientist, author, and consultant, offers the expected “research-based” narrative on a contemporary issue of the day. Although much of her research was based prior[2] to the watershed race relations issues, which climaxed in 2020 with the killing of George Floyd, the…
By: Noel Liemam on March 30, 2025
Introduction “Sway: Unraveling Unconscious Bias,” by Dr. Agarwal [1] in which she talked about ‘unconscious biases’ and how it has affected the how we communicate, how decision is made, and even how we think. She talked about how it is instilled, or ‘hardwire’ within each individual, and how it is encouraged by our surroundings, and…
By: Elysse Burns on March 27, 2025
Bias is a deeply human experience. In Sway, Pragya Agarwal explores how bias, when misdirected, can lead to prejudice and discrimination against certain groups or communities.[1] She specifically examines implicit, or unconscious, bias, distinguishing it from explicit bias, while acknowledging that both can manifest in similar ways through discrimination and injustice. Her goal is to…
By: Noel Liemam on March 23, 2025
Introduction. What is postmodernism? Postmodernism covers a broad range of topics from architecture to philosophy. In fact, it is described as, “Postmodernism is the late 20th century movement in Western philosophy marked by skepticism, subjectivism, and relativism. It challenges the idea of objective truth and emphasizes the role of ideology in shaping in shaping political…
By: Debbie Owen on March 22, 2025
We arrived in Old Havana on a Saturday evening, only to find the city gripped by a nationwide power outage that had begun the previous day. The streets—full of rubble and trash, as always—were (we were told) unusually quiet, with none of the regular bustling activity you would expect in a city on a Saturday…
By: Julie O'Hara on March 21, 2025
Nobody knew the speakers at the district leadership retreat in October 2021. The District Superintendent who invited them had since moved on. The assembled group expected equipping for evangelism from a former pro sports athlete, but at the opening session, his wife spoke. Her topic was postmodernism and its impact on the church. Her remarks…
By: Kari on March 21, 2025
“We used their banana trees,” I responded to whether we had found a place to “faire les besoins.”[1] Our medical evangelical team was caravaning back to the city after a week in the interior. A few vehicles were delayed, so we pulled over and took advantage of the jungle around us. We had stopped in…
By: Shela Sullivan on March 20, 2025
Introduction In a world where reason and truth are under constant scrutiny, Postmodernism emerges as both a critic and a challenger to the Enlightenment’s legacy.[1] In Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, Stephen R.C. Hicks debates that Postmodernism developed as a reaction to the failures of earlier ideas like the Enlightenment and…
By: Daren Jaime on March 20, 2025
In college, I remember the anxiety surrounding two semesters of philosophy and how many times I wanted to drop out of the course with the quickness. The problem, what I labored intently to retain, fell to the ground with expediency shortly after grasping the content. Despite my endless excavation into the subject matter and a…
By: Diane Tuttle on March 20, 2025
Before even getting to page one, philosophy professor, Stephen Hicks, Ph.D. let his reader know his thesis: The failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of socialism made postmodernism necessary[1]. Knowing that, I anticipated the reading of this book to be a clear and flowing experience. It was anything but that. Philosophy has…
By: Chad Warren on March 20, 2025
To quote blues musician Elmore James, we are “standing at the crossroads.” On one side, defenders of reason and individual freedom argue that the achievements of the Enlightenment—scientific progress, human rights, and democratic governance—are under threat. Conversely, a growing chorus claims these ideals have undermined community life, fostering alienation, moral relativism, and social decay. Two…
By: Christy on March 20, 2025
Last weekend, I had a friend share their struggle with not understanding God’s sovereignty and what happens to people who have never heard the gospel. While we didn’t get into a deep theological discussion, I did try to encourage them by sharing that I find peace in knowing that some things are just a mystery,…
By: Elysse Burns on March 20, 2025
Recently, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Lamma Mansour speak at the George Fox Woolman Peacemaking Forum on Bearing Witness: A Christian Palestinian Cry for Justice and Peace. One moment stood out during the Q&A when a frustrated man voiced concerns about evangelical responses to the Gaza situation. Dr. Mansour, instead of offering a…
