By: Denise Johnson on December 8, 2022
The social atmosphere of 2020 created a perfect storm with the colliding of a highly volatile presidential election, a global pandemic, and racial tensions all being viewed and fueled from a distance behind screens within the virtual world. John McWhorter in his book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America,[1] suggests that…
By: Henry Gwani on December 7, 2022
Diversity is beautiful. Yet with diversity comes the potential for bias. Indeed, bias is so widespread today and in history that even philosophers like Aristotle and Philo have been credited with “starting” gender polarization[1]. Thanks to the civil rights, anti-apartheid and other movements, explicit bias or discrimination is generally recognized and condemned. What is not…
By: Michael O'Neill on December 7, 2022
I was excited to read Tempered Resilience by Tod Bolsinger. Kristy Newport recommended this book to me earlier in the semester as a positive resource for my NPO and she was correct. This was the perfect resource for my portfolio project and also the ideal read for my psyche this past week. Life has been…
By: Alana Hayes on December 7, 2022
Tod Bolsinger, a well known author and leader most recently at Fuller Seminary by designing an entire program on leadership for them. His recent book Tempered Resilience explores leadership challenges through adaptive changes within various leadership positions. The author states that “resilience is not simply found within leadership but carefully formed. Leaders are formed by…
By: Roy Gruber on December 7, 2022
John McWhorter’s Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America is a sociological and political polemic with the premise that a new wave of anti-racial justice functions like a religion. The author argues that the results of this approach accomplish the opposite of what it intends. A professor of linguistics at Columbia University…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on December 7, 2022
John McWhorter is a faculty member at Colombia University, contributing writer and editor to well-known publications and podcast host focused on language and author of over twenty books. In his most recent book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, McWhorter delves into how some extremist views on antiracism in America has…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on December 7, 2022
Becoming a leader is a journey it is a process. There have been many who would say “Oh they were born a natural leader.” Some of us may have a tendency towards accessing our human response more readily, but leadership is a process, it is a collection of responses and human reactions. In the book…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on December 7, 2022
Tod Bolsinger’s Tempered Resilience, like other themes we have seen in recent days, reveal that leadership formation is a challenging journey. “Bolsinger suggests four critical characteristics and specific practices to produce grounded resilience necessary for transformational leadership through change.”[1] As seen in other sources, these themes somehow suggest that to attain a worthwhile status of…
By: Eric Basye on December 7, 2022
John McWhorter has a PhD in Linguistics from Stanford and teaches at Columbia University. Interestingly, he has a focus on creole languages and Black English. Black English “is the set of English sociolects spoken by most black people in the United States and many in Canada” and is “a dialect continuum ranging from African-American Vernacular…
By: Andy Hale on December 6, 2022
Since 2016, I have hosted a weekly podcast through our denomination. I sit with authors, theologians, journalists, sociologists, psychologists, or practitioners each week to discuss relevant topics for congregational leaders, clergy, and churches. I also have the privilege of over 20 publishing houses sending me advanced reader copies of hundreds of books throughout the year,…
By: David Beavis on December 6, 2022
“He is the kind of man I want to be like when I am in my senior years.” These words came to mind as we were at the Desmond and Leah Tutu Exhibit. Tutu was a man of remarkable depth, love for people, and a zest for life. How his character formed into such a…
By: Henry Gwani on December 4, 2022
Speaking Truth to Power argues about the importance of upholding the truth in any society. Written by James O’Toole, a professor of business and respected author, the whitepaper calls us to first, like a whistle-blower, lead change by fearlessly speaking up in promotion of the truth. This reminds me of the courageous stand taken by…
By: Mary Kamau on December 4, 2022
In a world where it is more fashionable to fit in than stand out, who will walk the tightrope that is integrity? The Bible says in Proverbs 10:9, “One who walks in integrity walks securely but one who perverts his ways will be found out.” It is the sure way to safety, but few are…
By: Laura Fleetwood on December 4, 2022
Shame is a universal emotion in the human experience. It is not a pleasant emotion, nor is it typically a helpful one. Shame guru, researcher Brene Brown, states that, “shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.” (1) Author Shelby Steele…
By: Daron George on December 4, 2022
*Please forgive me for the long and late post but this one was hard….professors please don’t count these few words toward my word count..haha” Intro In his book “Shame: how America’s past sins have polarized our country.” Steele makes a case that the issue of America’s past (namely racism) has diminished dramatically, if not altogether.…
By: Alana Hayes on December 4, 2022
I’ve sat in silence while writing this blog for over a week. I read the entire book of Steele, and still did not feel like I was authorized or entitled in the slightest to complete the assignment. I then decided that I would listen to it audibly to see if I could hear it another…
By: Michael O'Neill on December 2, 2022
My Personal Take on Racism It is no secret that America has a long and complicated history with race. For centuries, America was home to slavery and racism, two issues that continue to plague the country to this day. This history has created a divide between the races in America, and segregation can be…
By: Chad McSwain on December 2, 2022
Conviction is what I felt as I read Shelby Steele’s Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country. This kind of conviction leads to examination of thoughts, behaviors and even societal tendencies, particularly those that have been participated in, while being unaware. In this book, Steel names the very thing that should convict us…
By: Denise Johnson on December 2, 2022
My honest initial response on the topic of speaking truth to power was avoidance. In my eyes this phrase triggers an image of someone screaming their personal truth at anyone that disagrees with them. James O’Toole’s article “Speaking Truth to Power: A White Paper,” [1] dislodged me from my high horse to my own personal…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on December 1, 2022
Truth be told, I could not figure out how to apply my quick-read formula to Shelby Steele’s Shame, How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country. I read the entire book, carefully, cover to cover. I feel like I need to read it again. Summary of Steele’s Book Steele presents an in-depth, well thought out…
