Tag: critical thinking
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Assumptions, Questioned and Un-
What counts as knowledge – that is, knowledge of reality? This is a question for the philosophers, in the end; but, as Gramsci said, everyone is a philosopher, so it’s a question for all of us. And while Gramsci’s point was that everyone has a philosophy, one they live by, some philosophers are better than […]
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Authority Issues
Most people have “authority issues” of one kind or another. Some people resist any external authority. They fly into “no one tells ME what to do” mode right away. They’ll refuse to do something as soon as someone else says they must, or should, or might just want to, even if they think it’s basically […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 10 1-12
We are studying Ezra 10:1-12 for Sunday, April 11. This is a critical part of the episode of the post-exilic community’s decision to “separate” from “foreign wives and the ones born to them.” Ezra, scribe and priest, along with other community leaders interpreted these intermarriages with “the people of the land” as an enormous problem. […]
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Some Things Still Need Explaining
Thoughts on Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House, 2020). I have thought a lot about this book, and what I think about it, and why, mainly because I felt ambivalent about it, and because friends who also read it described feeling differently. Maybe I have thought about it so much, then, because I felt defensive, […]
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What People Mean By “God”
Professor Stevenson has written a remarkable book: clear enough to understand the first time through; short enough to read through again, just to be sure; engaging enough to want to do that; interesting and important enough to want to hang on to for future reference. Stevenson, Leslie. Eighteen Takes on God: A Short Guide for […]
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High-Stakes Disagreement
Usually, when people disagree with me outside of church, they just tell me I’m stupid or crazy or am making a colossally bad decision, or they call me names. They don’t usually add that my faith in God is insubstantial, or that I must not be able to read the Bible, or that I’m going […]
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Masks and Models and Making Decisions, Oh My!
There are several reasons I don’t say much about “politics” and “current events” here. The main one is that I usually think I’m unqualified: I don’t know enough about whatever it is to have an opinion. I realize that’s a quaintly old-fashioned idea that doesn’t stop lots of other people these days, but I continue […]
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Can I Skip the Wild Heart?
Brown, Brené. Braving the Wilderness: the quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone. Vermilion, 2017. [An installment of the “Read Me” Project.] Our congregation has been studying Braving the Wilderness together for the past several weeks, as a next step in our participation in the Golden Rule 2020 project. [We finished up […]
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Baffled
Does it strike anyone else as wildly ironic that the very people who can’t go 45 seconds without announcing that they “believe in absolute truth” are among the staunchest supporters of a president who lies like he breathes? While the very people whose paradigm incorporates the social and discursive construction of reality are the most […]
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Going Cold Turkey on the Crazy and Stupid Explanations
Everywhere I go these days – church, school, chorus, the family room, the internet (the internet!), my own head – I hear two explanations for why “they” (whoever “they” are) disagree with “us” (whoever “we” are). “Crazy.” “Stupid.” Or both at once: “Crazy and stupid.” On the rare occasions when I have wandered off into […]
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Independence Day
Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by […]
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Questions for Reflection and Discussion – Matthew 18 21-35
The Uniform Series text we’re studying for Sunday, July 1 is Matthew 18:21-35, the “parable of the unforgiving servant.” Here are some questions raised by the text that we might (or might not) find it useful to consider in class:
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Noticing Social Constructionism
Social constructionism is on my mind. In part because I’m working on the class that starts in May. I’ve learned from experience that it helps to explain, right from the start, that I come at things from a social constructionist point of view. College freshmen don’t necessarily share that perspective. And because I’ve learned recently […]
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More on “Tradition in Action”
Notes on Awake to the Moment1, “Tradition in Action” (69-104): The second chapter of Awake to the Moment discusses Christian “tradition” as a resource for constructive theology. What most readers probably think of as tradition, “sets of shared meanings and practices that repeat, or have continuity with, the past” poses both “problems and possibilities” for […]
Matters of Interpretation 