By: Michael Simmons on October 5, 2022
Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest thinkers in modern history, will always be remembered simply for this statement: “God is dead.” The current geopolitical nationalistic fundamentalism, or “New Faith” could be seen as a response to the statement. In the United States far-right politicians are Christianizing their platforms and deifying their agenda. Regardless of motive,…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on October 5, 2022
Ray Land, Jan H. F. Meyer, and Michael T. Flanagan (Eds.) have done a great job introducing the threshold Concepts. It comes with five parts that include Theoretical Directions, Negotiating Liminality, Threshold Concepts and Interdisciplinarity, The Doctoral Journey, and Threshold Concepts in Professional Practice. “It seeks authors who can demonstrate their understanding of discourses of…
By: Andy Hale on October 5, 2022
Is it possible to be an unbiased news source in our era of relative truth? N.S. Lyons’ The Upheaval seeks to rise above the noise of political and social ideologies to examine what is happening in our times and how it is changing our world. In his post, “Introducing the Revolutions Upending Our World,” Lyons examines the…
By: Eric Basye on October 5, 2022
Reading Lyons article, “The Upheaval,” and Solzhenitsyn’s “Men Have Forgotten God” speech, I am challenged to consider, what value does a geopolitical framework provide Christians in engaging the world? Lyons argues that we are living in a time of “epochal change” in which at least three revolutions have impacted the world. One is a geopolitical…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on October 4, 2022
In reading Lyons and Solzhenitsyn this week, my mind took me in several directions, most of which ended up at a place of feeling ‘I can’t help but think that we’ve been here before.’ Perhaps it was in the Garden of Eden when we chose to listen to a voice other than the Creator. Or…
By: Greg McMullen on October 4, 2022
Through out my life, I have had pinnacle moments in my life where I have had to change. Sometimes I have even fought wanting to change, sometimes even dragging my feet when its God pulling me into a new direction. I have found that I can become very comfortable and complacent in systems, routines, ministry,…
By: David Beavis on October 4, 2022
Seven years. From the sixth grade to graduating high school, seven years total, I took Spanish. This subject was taken seriously. I wanted to learn! Picturing myself speaking was enticing. However, nearly a year after graduating from high school, I was in Nicaragua for Spring Break. To my dismay, I had forgotten everything. All of…
By: Becca Hald on October 3, 2022
Nelson Mandela has a gift of story telling. For the most part, I have enjoyed listening to his autobiography on Audible. Until I got to the part where he described prison life on Robben Island. I was tired, still recovering from my vaccines in preparation for Cape Town, and my emotional resilience was low. I…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 1, 2022
Walking the same streets as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu was an experience I will never forget. Before reading their auto-biographies, I did not know a great deal of knowledge about either man, but I now view them as primary examples of differentiated leaders as we are studying this semester. Edwin Friedman describes the following…
By: Chad McSwain on September 29, 2022
Horns of a dilemma. That is the term in philosophy to describe the logical fallacy of only being offered two positions, with both being the worst possible outcome. That is what I think of when reflecting on the position of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission is caught between ignoring the damage of…
By: Mary Kamau on September 19, 2022
“Unless you know the road you’ve come from, you cannot know where you’re going,” an African proverbial saying that underscores the default recourse to history to predict the future or to find an explanation for current phenomena, came to mind as I read the book, Global Leadership Perspectives. by Simon Western and Eric – Jean…
By: Shonell Dillon on September 19, 2022
Have you ever been in a place that felt like home, a place you never thought you would ever leave? Have you had to leave unwillingly? I will raise my own hands to these questions. Unfortunately, this was not my home that I had to leave. I had to leave a church. A holy place,…
By: Audrey Robinson on September 16, 2022
Trevor Noah, the host of the Trevor Noah Comedy Show, wrote in his memoir about his birth in South Africa during Apartheid. His father was a white Swiss German, and his mother was a black South African woman from Soweto. Trevor was born in 1984 and stated he was born a crime because he was…
By: Chad McSwain on September 16, 2022
“I would like feedback more often. In fact, I like it, at the end of staff meeting, when you go around to each person and ask us the most important thing we have to do this week.” That was feedback I recently received while going an evaluation for a new employee. I was more clued…
By: Kristy Newport on September 15, 2022
It is rare for a leader of magnanimous character to emerge on the world’s stage but when one does, their example does not fade from sight quickly. After reading Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, I was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who may be heralded as a leader equal in character. Nelson Mandela…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on September 15, 2022
I am finding it difficult to write and reflect upon the works of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, as these two individuals seem superhuman to me. Rather than offering my thoughts on their ideas and experiences, my preference would be to absorb their words, listen to their hearts as reflected in their stories, and…
By: Jonathan Lee on September 15, 2022
Global Leadership Perspectives was written by Simon Western and Eric-Jean Garcia. The book is split into two parts: Part 1 – presentation of various leadership from 20 countries all over the globe and Part 2 – Critical analysis of leadership and conclusion. This book offers great insights into the history and cultural context of understanding…
By: Denise Johnson on September 15, 2022
This week’s post is coming to you from the perspective of cross-cultural sojourner, whose identity is in flux due to all the adaptations. There is a special tension that exists between the person you are that has God given purpose and the servant that humbly steps into another’s country (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). The questions rise,…
By: Nicole Richardson on September 15, 2022
This week we found ourselves in the waters of Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr as a response to an open letter by 8 white Christian Pastors, A Call to Unity , that was published in the Birmingham News. A Call to Unity was an attempt to reign in the…
By: David Beavis on September 15, 2022
When we think of people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, we admire who they are and their contribution to the world. Therefore, we are not surprised at the magnanimity by which people hold them. How did they become so admired by the world? What did they do to capture the world’s respect? In…
