By: Sean Dean on February 13, 2020
In May of 1977 we were introduced to the Star Wars universe and its ragtag group of nobodies whose combined talents (and a bit of luck) would save their universe from the ravages of the Galactic Empire. Within this group was the hero Luke Skywalker, who within the scope of the original three films, would…
By: Karen Rouggly on February 13, 2020
I’ve always loved the creation story. Most cultures of the world begin with a creation story.[1] Any good biblical exegesis should first ask the question as to why an origin story is needed. What do people need to know about how the world came into existence, and what did the author(s) of Genesis really intend…
By: Andrea Lathrop on February 13, 2020
I was excited to read another book by Jordan Peterson. Maps of Meaning was much more challenging than his 12 Rules for Life and certainly shows he has an academic and popular style in his writing repertoire. Peterson is a former Harvard professor and clinical psychologist, among other things. His own relating of his nightmares of…
By: Harry Edwards on February 13, 2020
Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist and former professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, is an enigma to most Christians. Peterson, author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief rose to stardom after some of his interviews on YouTube went viral.1 The seemingly simple things he suggests for people to adopt to…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on February 12, 2020
The introduction to this week’s text is laugh out loud funny. YouTube star and author Jordan Peterson describes his early political experience in the liberal socialist party of Canada. Disillusioned with his homelife, and, in particular, his lack of solid answers from the church, Peterson joined the left and socialist leaning political machine looking for…
By: Jer Swigart on February 11, 2020
Before the technologically sophisticated classrooms of today were those of my childhood, the walls of which were adorned with rolled-up maps. Many of these enlarged atlases featured transparent overlays that charted topics such as the history of global discovery, the migration journeys of ancient populations, and the shifting borders of North America. The meticulous mapping…
By: Darcy Hansen on February 11, 2020
It was a warm August morning at the retreat center. I was one of thirty women gathered for a weekend of leadership training and fellowship. We spent hours laughing, learning, and growing in our love for one another and Christ. On Sunday morning, I woke early and went for a two hour walk beside the…
By: Greg Reich on February 11, 2020
As the husband grabs his bible and a cup of coffee he yells out to his wife. “Hurry up honey, we’re going to be late for church!” “Coming!” she responds with her Bible under her arm as she grabs her cup of coffee. “I am looking forward to finishing up this sermon series on the…
By: Shawn Cramer on February 11, 2020
The imagination is a powerful spiritual faculty. It allows humans to evaluate what is and envision what could be. Alternate future realities (what could be) exist only in and because of our prophetic imaginations. Furthermore, imaginations provide individual identity and construct social connection, communities, and orient our spiritual formation. For CS Lewis, the imagination is…
By: Joe Castillo on February 10, 2020
The In Torture and Eucharist, William Cavanaugh examines the torture that took place under General Pinochet in Chile caught my attention because is a very controversial observation of the Eucharist. General Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who took power after overthrowing President-elect Salvador Allende and who ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990, harshly repressing the…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on February 10, 2020
Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks (born August 19, 1960) is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, Illinois. Hicks is the author of four books and a documentary. His Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault argues that postmodernism is best understood as a rhetorical strategy of intellectuals and academics on the far-left of the political…
By: Dylan Branson on February 10, 2020
At the beginning of his dissertation, Evangelicalism and Capitalism, Dr. Jason Clark asks this question: “Has my church, and my Evangelical kin, become captive to a mode of ‘dispensing religious goods and services’ to consuming participants?”[1] Recently I have had several conversations with my housemates about what we have been studying in regards to capitalism…
By: Steve Wingate on February 10, 2020
Dr. Clark’s project provides a critical thesis that “deployed its own ‘map-making method as a kind of heuristic concept map to trace correspondence between church acts and beliefs. This ‘map-making’ ensures that the thesis provides evaluation and resourcing for deployment to current and related Evangelical contexts. Second, the thesis proposes that, contrary to methodological worries…
By: John Muhanji on February 10, 2020
Human life is about history, and every generation has a point of reference from where they have come from and where they are going. It has said several times that if we do not know our history, then we cannot connect from where we are coming from hence the difficulty to focus on where we…
By: Mary Mims on February 9, 2020
Much of my memory of college is a blur. I remember the campus at Michigan State University and how cold it was during the winter. One of the things I remember is walking across a section of campus nicknamed the Frozen Tundra to get to humanities class on the south campus. I do not remember…
By: Chris Pollock on February 9, 2020
“Is it possible to overcome Western, white cultural captivity and pursue a biblical model of economic justice?” Soong-Chan Rah, [1]. $20. This is the amount gas that I put in my gas tank every time I stop at the station, whatever amount buys $20 worth. I do this for two reasons. The first is that…
By: Wallace Kamau on February 9, 2020
This quote has been attributed to bill Gates, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they cannot loose”. Humility is a great virtue that enables leaders to learn from failures and make corrective measures but pride is a great source of failure in leadership. Our egoistic pursuit of success can easily…
By: Digby Wilkinson on February 9, 2020
In the early 2000’s I had a lengthy conversation with a returned missionary who was ‘reconfiguring’ her faith. At the root of that reconfiguration was her study on Heideggerian Hermeneutics. The mere title was enough to get me very excited; I mean who doesn’t go all gooey at the thought of Martin Heidegger. I was…
By: Jenn Burnett on February 8, 2020
Up front let me acknowledge that I am a middle-aged, caucasian, female, Christian from Canada. This is inescapably the subjective space from which I encounter the world. I recognize that I have inherited privilege and power because of these identities. These details don’t solely define me and there are many more that would offer more…
By: Karen Rouggly on February 7, 2020
This week’s reading, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault has been a struggle. While I understand how this book can be helpful and useful in certain contexts, I struggled to relate to this book on a personal, academic, or professional level. From reading reviews, it seems as though I am not the…
