By: rhbaker275 on May 15, 2015
Our reading for this week, Social Geographies: Space and Society, has provided some provocative insights on concepts of space and place in society. For someone unread on the subject of social geography, the author, Gill Valentine with her first words creates a sense of expectancy: “Social geography is an inherently ambiguous and eclectic field of…
By: John Woodward on May 15, 2015
As I began to read Social Geographies: Space and Society by Gill Valentine, my thoughts drifted toward how space has played an important role in my local church. I remember several long, heated meetings with our church’s founders about whether to remove one front pew to extend the stage in the sanctuary. The issue revolved…
By: Bill Dobrenen on May 15, 2015
One of the things that has always fascinated me is the diversity of vocations people find themselves in. Where a person has been is important information. Where I have lived, people I have met, and places I have experienced all have bearing on who I am and on who others think I am. With the…
By: Julie Dodge on May 14, 2015
Imagine, if you might, the earth with no people. Don’t imagine it as if we have disappeared, but rather that we were never here. There are no houses, no roads, no farms, no institutions, no cities, no nations; just the land and the oceans, the created vegetation, and animals of the water, sea and land.…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on May 14, 2015
In July 2014, I participated in the dedication of the first ever translation of New Testament into the Arsi Oromo dialect. My ministry, in partnership with the Ethiopian Bible Society, did the translation work. Since the Bible is for all people we invited leaders from all churches including the Orthodox and Catholic denominations. We initially…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on May 14, 2015
Space… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.” Queue theme music. As a Trekkie, I could not resist. Valentine is not referring to this kind of…
By: Liz Linssen on May 14, 2015
Last Sunday towards the end of preaching my sermon, one man, Martin, raised his hand and declared that he wanted to give his life to God, right there and then. I hadn’t even reached the end of the message, but so desperate was this young man, that he couldn’t wait. Before the service had begun,…
By: Nick Martineau on May 14, 2015
I just so happen to be writing this from Starbucks. Starbucks claims their goal is to become the Third Place in our daily lives. (i.e. Home, Work and Starbucks) “We want to provide all the comforts of your home and office. You can sit in a nice chair, talk on your phone, look out the…
By: Jon Spellman on May 14, 2015
Otherness Human Geographers are interested in understanding how people occupy space together. How do we get along? Difficulties arise anytime people of different backgrounds (racial, ethnic, religious, financial, etc.) are called upon to share finite space, role definition becomes important pretty quickly! Hierarchies (pecking order), equitable division of resources, friendships, enemies, etc. are all important. …
By: Ashley Goad on May 14, 2015
I was born in South Carolina. Soon after, my parents moved our family back to their home state of North Carolina. Three years later, we moved to Savannah, Georgia. Five years after, we packed up and returned to North Carolina. My parents divorced almost immediately upon arrival, and for the next ten years, I ping-ponged…
By: Deve Persad on May 14, 2015
I grew up watching the sitcom, “Cheers!” – you may remember: the place “where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.” A regular group of people who came in from different work places and went off to different homes, but while they were together they shared the ups, downs and nothingness of…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on May 14, 2015
Gill Valentine, in her book “Social Geographies: Space and Society”, reorients the field of social geography around “space”. With the orientation set on space, a new look at what has traditionally been viewed as physical and fixed characteristics of our society becomes open to more fluid boundaries to the characteristics traditionally viewed as constructing and…
By: Travis Biglow on May 13, 2015
Social Stereotypes in Real Time May 13, 15 This reading was really profound. Gill Valentine is really out there I guess that’s why purchasing the book was so expensive. But in the reading some of the issues I have faced as an African American stood out to me. I liked the reading of Social Geographies:…
By: Mary Pandiani on May 13, 2015
Ten years ago, I reluctantly watched a movie that I loved and hated at the same time. Even now, the reality of Crash (2004) feels too overwhelming: “Los Angeles with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss, and redemption.” (http://www.imdb. com/title/tt0375679/) As characters happen upon each other in work, play and society,…
By: Dave Young on May 12, 2015
As I began to read “Social Geographies” [1] I wondered what would a book on eight different spaces where society intersects life offer my church-centered research? Next came the rather simple question: “Where is the church?” What societal space does it fill? What space should it fill? Also in the back of my mind was…
By: Travis Biglow on May 10, 2015
Thinking the faith in Asian contexts May 10, 15 Many of the concepts that I read in the Grassroots Asian Theology were not too surprising. I have always believed that Asian Christianity was not that different from how we as Westerners perceive it. As the book said, “a genuine development in new contexts must…
By: John Woodward on May 10, 2015
I was delighted that we were assigned a book on Asian theology in light of our up and coming trip to Hong Kong. Upon reading Grassroots Asian Theology, I had two immediate insights: First, I realized that I remembered very little of my “Indian Traditions” class of 40 years ago (though I remembered my professor,…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on May 9, 2015
The main focus of Simon Chan’s book Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith From the Ground Up is how theology ought to be done, within the Asian culture as well as other cultures.[1] As I am reading more and more on the subject of contextualization I am learning that this ought to be the objective…
By: Richard Volzke on May 9, 2015
This week’s reading, Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up, by Simon Chan was packed with a lot of information. The book focuses on the Asian church and how it understands God within the cultural setting. But, what I enjoyed most was the theological insights on Christianity and church history that Chin…
By: rhbaker275 on May 9, 2015
In the preface to Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the faith from the ground up, Simon Chan heightens one’s reading expectations. Although the title implies a study on Asian theology, Chan holds out the spectra of developing an “authentic” and “vibrant” theology “that will yield a better theology for the Asian church and perhaps the global…
