By: Jenn Burnett on March 20, 2020
This morning my husband and I looked again at the numbers: the COVID-19 count around the world. It is part of our new morning routine. We look for how our own nation is faring compared to other countries. This morning he had a hint of hope in his voice as he noted the increase wasn’t…
By: Harry Edwards on March 19, 2020
We are living in unprecedented times. There seems to be a general world wide malaise affecting everyone concerned about the coronavirus. It’s all what people talk about. In a week’s time we went from smiling at silly memes like “Throwback Thursdays” to pandemonium as if the world was coming to an end. Wherever one may…
By: Sean Dean on March 19, 2020
In his book Identity Francis Fukuyama argues that much of the recent shift in politics in the world is a result of people feeling that they are not getting a proper amount of respect or that they feel invisible or humiliated by the world as they understand it. These two motivations have led to the…
By: Andrea Lathrop on March 19, 2020
Francis Fukuyama’s Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment was a challenging assignment, given the situation the world is facing. I believe his premise has merit and is worth our attention but attention has been a scarce commodity. What a couple of weeks it has been. My fifteen year-old daughter realized and…
By: Mario Hood on March 19, 2020
Who am I? This question has always been and will always be the million-dollar question. Issues with identity are not anything new, but as Fukuyama points out, we might be in a new era of what is genuinely shaping people’s identity. In his book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, he…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on March 18, 2020
Continuing our semester study of the intersection between cultural movements and personal identity, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Stanford Professor Francis Fukuyama is a tour de force of the history and current reality of identity politics. The universal desire for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that…
By: John Muhanji on March 16, 2020
Growing up in a family that was the first generation of Christian converts after the missionaries arrived in the Eastern part of Africa. We grew up with the do and don’ts principle of Christianity. We had good and bad morals. Bad morals were punishable by God, and that was a sin. We have grown up…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on March 16, 2020
Sorry so late this week. It’s been a week of reflection and trepidation for me, so I am on tenuous ground. It’s a topsy-turvy world out there and trying to navigate these waters is both confusing and disheartening. I have additional fears with regards to this coronavirus situation, because all my kids are in the…
By: Shermika Harvey on March 16, 2020
Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and connection to something larger. That something larger might take various forms, but a sense of connection to God is it’s most visceral incarnation. And that kind of connectivity is hard to replicate. [1] Times are changing. People are no…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 15, 2020
It was challenging to find a non-Christian review of McLaughlin’s Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. While I did not do an exhaustive search, I landed upon Mark Ward’s review. Ward initially approached McLaughlin’s work, thinking it was written from a non-Christian perspective. He quickly became impressed with her grounded (an…
By: Digby Wilkinson on March 15, 2020
An important opening question. Did you know that Corona Beer sales have dropped by 55% in the United States? In New Zealand, sales are up for the same brew because some of us see it as a temporary vaccine to the virus of the same name. It’s a great theory and we are sticking to…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on March 14, 2020
(*Disclaimer: COVID-19 consumed my week with work causing this post to be late and not as well developed as I would like.) Observing white Evangelicalism in America for several decades I’m curious as to what causes many in this group to become fierce activists on two main topics while seemingly turning their heads away from…
By: Wallace Kamau on March 14, 2020
When the deal seems “too good to be true, be cautious” is a common warning used which is meant to help you be more vigilant and diligent before committing yourself. In formal management, it has been christened ‘Due Diligence’ which is a diligent, thorough and a deeper scrutiny of things or a matter, to be…
By: Rhonda Davis on March 14, 2020
I began reading Confronting Christianity at the start of a Spring Break trip with my family this week. I was excited for this hopeful, accessible book after several weeks of heavy, difficult reading. However, little did I know, I would be spending a large share of this week in hours of video chats, conference calls,…
By: Sean Dean on March 13, 2020
I am going to admit right up front that I did not read this week’s book. My life has been consumed by the virus. Thankfully no one in my family has contracted it yet, but pretty much every other part of our lives have been disrupted by it. If you are not aware, western Washington…
By: Karen Rouggly on March 12, 2020
“Perhaps the key to facing suffering is not detachment and removal, but meaning and love. Nonattachment may shield us from suffering. To love is to be vulnerable. To desire and strive is to risk disappointment. But has Haidt notes, non-attachment also deprives us of our greatest joys. Striving, desire, and deep attachment can lead us…
By: Jenn Burnett on March 12, 2020
Identity is both a now and a not yet. It is an unfolding narrative rather than a fixed entity. “[A] coherent, well-integrated sense of identity provides a frame of reference for dealing with questions about the meaning, purpose, and direction of one’s life.”[1] But the question of how that identity is determined and in particular…
By: Harry Edwards on March 12, 2020
Rebecca McLaughlin’s book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion is a breath of fresh air in the world of Christian Apologetics. It is refreshing in many ways but particularly for two reasons: (1) it is a written by a female; (2) with close ties to the UK Evangelical context. These reasons…
By: Mario Hood on March 12, 2020
In Confronting Christianity, author and Christian apologists Rebecca McLaughlin answers twelve hard-hitting questions that confront the Christian faith. The twelve questions are broken up into twelve chapters that form the book. McLaughlin, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill seminary in London, writes with clarity and conviction without…
By: Andrea Lathrop on March 12, 2020
Rebecca McLaughlin’s Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion poses difficult enquiries for the Christian faith and offers thoughtful responses. Her hope is that skeptics would read it and be disarmed by the honest look at Christianity’s greatest criticisms. She is unafraid of their closer consideration and wholeheartedly believes Christianity remains the…
