By: Audrey Robinson on January 26, 2023
While preparing to write the third Syntopical Essay last semester, I was reviewing notes collected from Friedman’s book Failure of Nerve. Chapter Seven, titled Emotional Triangles, caught my attention, and aroused my curiosity. However, due to time constraints, I had to ‘file that one away,’ as my husband would say, so I could return later.…
By: Adam Harris on January 26, 2023
After reading this week’s material and watching Robert Coven’s TED talk on threshold concepts, I can’t help but share my personal journey of struggling through certain thresholds regarding my faith, and in particular Scripture in higher education. I have a deep love and respect for the Bible. I couldn’t always say this, but I appreciate…
By: Troy Rappold on January 26, 2023
Dr. Abigail Favale is an outstanding writer and she focuses her sparkling prose intensely on the issues of feminism and the gender paradigm. Dr. Favale is also a fellow Bruin: she earned her B.A. in Philosophy from Geoge Fox University only to return many years later to teach in the Humanities Department. A conversion from…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on January 26, 2023
In A Failure of Nerve Edwin Friedman writes about leadership and the various aspects of being a self differentiated leader. A leader who can avoid the traps of being consumed in the crisis or fears of the people or organization that they lead. As a leader I have seen these traps repeatedly entangle good leaders,…
By: Roy Gruber on January 26, 2023
Abigail Favale’s book, The Genesis of Gender, is personal, philosophical, historical, and theological. Positioned as a book on theology and sociology, Favale begins by recounting her journey from a traditional childhood, to different forms of feminism, to her current position, not easily categorized into the extreme ends of the gender debate spectrum. Even the subtitle,…
By: Henry Gwani on January 26, 2023
Based on a Catholic perspective to scripture including the theology of Aquinas, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory highlights the extreme views of secular feminism on gender and, on the other end of the continuum, sadly, evangelicalism. It then proposes what may be considered a balanced, Biblical perspective on the subject. Written by Catholic…
By: Michael Simmons on January 25, 2023
Abigail Favale’s book, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, is somewhat appropriately named. On one had the subtitle indicate that this book explores the origins of gender from a uniquely Christian perspective. On the other hand, it is clear that this book was written for an evangelical, rightwing, conservative etc. audience. Favale sets the…
By: Todd E Henley on January 25, 2023
One week ago I started my inspectional reading of Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge by Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land. After 46 pages I was negatively asking, “What in the world is this book about?” In discouragement I placed the book down and was not looking forward to this post. I even thought,…
By: Caleb Lu on January 25, 2023
Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve continues to pique my interest in how it presents good leadership as a journey of discovering one’s own identity as an exercise of self-differentiation. As I examined the book for a second time, the chapter on “the fallacies of self”[1] helped to clarify the balance that must be struck…
By: Denise Johnson on January 25, 2023
One of the apparently pressing issues within the privilege of Western culture today is that of gender identity. I have now been living in the US for more than a year and this topic and all the focus on it leaves me in unfamiliar territory grappling for handholds within an emotional hotbed of discussions. My…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on January 25, 2023
The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Dr. Abigail Favale dives into the topics of gender theory including feminism and gender dysphoria, offering a perspective on a biblical framework that has developed out of her personal experiences. She writes of her conversion to Catholicism and how profound an impact it had on her worldview…
By: Pam Lau on January 25, 2023
The key to learning new concepts in any discipline is the realization that communication consists of confident competency. It is the orientation of all effort of what we give our lives to that builds not only our knowledge, but our competency. As I listened to the TED Talk by Robert Devon as he asked the…
By: David Beavis on January 25, 2023
On the morning of December 5th, 2022, I received a text from a friend of mine introducing me to ChatGPT. His wife was preparing a sermon that week. She asked for my help in collecting research material for her message. She promised me a $5 Starbucks gift card. I would have done it for free.…
By: Eric Basye on January 25, 2023
Dr. Abigail Favale’s spiritual journey has undoubtedly been intriguing. Raised in an evangelical home and having attended George Fox University to study Philosophy, Favale began to question Scripture and the role of women. In time, she was lured away from the faith entirely by feminism, to which she would testify that she lost herself for…
By: Jenny Dooley on January 25, 2023
I’m not a trekkie! I’ve never been a Star Trek fan. I don’t particularly like science fiction. Back to the Future is as far as I go. To the trekkies out there, please don’t take offense. My family is full of Star Trek lovers. Believe me, I have viewed all iterations of Star Trek dating…
By: Cathy Glei on January 25, 2023
When I think about threshold concepts and the idea of moving through a threshold like a portal, I imagine teleportation, you know like in Doctor Who, Back to the Future . . . not sure why. When I think about portals, I think about a tardis maybe? When my three daughters were teenagers, they loved…
By: Greg McMullen on January 24, 2023
As we go through the doctoral program, we learn and apply from each book we read, blog, and discuss. I have personally found that I am learning a great deal through my colleagues. In Monday’s zoom class, I again realized what a gift it is to be in this program. How do I slow down…
By: Andy Hale on January 24, 2023
Where do we get our concept of most things within society? What determines whether or not something becomes a societal norm? What about all of these matters from a theological perspective? What about when you raise these questions for the subject of gender? Modern gender theory is complex as more platforms have been created…
By: Tim Clark on January 23, 2023
Recently I watched the 2016 film “The Arrival” in which 12 extraterrestrial spacecraft visit Earth. Mild spoiler alert: It turns out that how people engage with the aliens leads to a major threshold moment for humanity and alters the course of history. Last week I read the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob sent everything…
By: John Fehlen on January 23, 2023
I considered titling this blog post “Threshold Concepts for Dummies” because after reading these two extensive and comprehensive books I felt like, well…a dummy. I’m not being self-deprecating; I honestly felt dumb. I’ve been reading, thinking, studying, and pontificating large biblical/theological concepts for many, many years, and yet I have not been exposed to this…
