By: Glyn Barrett on April 8, 2025
I wish I had read this book before lunch with Dr Peterson last year. I was just as surprised as anyone else when I was invited to meet him in Sweden. The contact came through a friend. With 48 hours’ notice, I changed my plans and flew to Sweden to have lunch with Dr Peterson,…
By: Jeff Styer on April 7, 2025
Last spring we read The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In this book, Campbell presents the idea of the monomyth, when examined the myths of different cultures are all essentially the same including the multi-stage journey that every hero takes.[1] Another book read was Matthew Petrusek’s Evangelization and Ideology. Petrusek discusses the…
By: Chad Warren on April 3, 2025
In the film Inception, Dom Cobb warns, “What is the most resilient parasite?… An idea. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.” The film explores how hidden thoughts shape reality, often without people realizing it. This premise mirrors a real-world truth: Much of our thinking is shaped by…
By: Diane Tuttle on April 3, 2025
Sway, Unravelling unconscious bias, by behavioral scientist, Dr. Pragya Agarwal, brings awareness to biases that exist and the discriminatory behavior that results from them. Specifically, she wanted to know why unconscious biases occur and how they are manifested within individuals[1]. Many implicit biases are based on who is part of the in-group and out-group. Using…
By: Daren Jaime on April 3, 2025
It was early on a Sunday morning. I was arriving at church, and upon entering, I greeted several of our leaders in the sanctuary who were preparing for worship. I was approached by a couple who had recently joined our congregation. They were prominent members in our community. The husband a public figure whose status…
By: Debbie Owen on April 3, 2025
I’ve been trying to understand it all. How can people who profess to follow Jesus have such completely different perspectives on the answers to the questions, “Who is my neighbor?” and “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And if those of us who follow Jesus say we want to become more like Him in all our…
By: Julie O'Hara on April 3, 2025
I am putting all my cards up front. Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias by Pragya Agarwal was a depressing read for me. Dr. Agarwal is a behavioral and data scientist who writes and speaks about the impacts of unconscious bias in numerous arenas and specializes in gender. Although the book covered other topics, I chose to…
By: Christy on April 3, 2025
“We need one person in your table group to facilitate the conversation and one person to take notes,” instructed the leader of a working group. I sat at a table of a dozen men as the only female, and several eyes came towards me. Finally, one of them said, “Christy, do you mind taking notes…
By: Kari on April 3, 2025
“The woman at the bank would not let us make the transaction because she was Arab. The lady who usually works at the bank is black and always permits me to complete this transaction.” Sadly, in my host country, there is often open discord and discrimination between light-skinned Arabs and dark-skinned African ethnicities. In an…
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…
