The Supreme Court recently made three momentous decisions on Affirmative Action, the forgiveness of student debts for college education and religious freedom. The media and internet have been flooded with differing positions as to the validity of these decisions. I will now add to that abundance by presenting my position on the religious freedom case.[1] […]
What does it mean to follow Jesus? Highly regarded representatives from twelve Christian traditions told us how those within their traditions answer that all-important question in the twelve-month conversation that I recently hosted on this website (which you can access at the bottom of this Home Page). But what did I learn from this conversation? […]
I recently added an icon to the top bar of my website, titled “Other Models,” which identifies excellent initiatives that seek to foster loving and respectful conversations among persons having strong disagreements that nicely complement the approach that is modeled on this website. One of these complementary initiatives is the “Grad & Faculty Roundtable” program, […]
There are other excellent initiatives that seek to foster loving and respectful conversations among persons who have strong disagreements that complement the approach that is modeled on this website. To read a brief description of some of these initiatives, go to a new icon on the top of my Home page, titled “Other Models.” David […]
As teenagers at Fifty-Ninth Street church in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn who had made a commitment to following Jesus, we used to flock to Saturday night church rallies, particularly attracted to announced sermon topics like “How to Find the Will of God for Your Life.” An underlying assumption behind such sermons seemed to […]
The following Musing presents an adaptation of the highlights of chapter 8 on my “Let’s Talk” book, titled “Followers of Jesus Creating Inclusive Conversations Within Churches.” What follows is informed by both my successes and colossal failures in my attempts for more than a decade to orchestrate loving and respectful conversations among persons who have […]
Test blanket post
It is not difficult for persons who has received academic training in such fields as Christian history, theology, or religious studies to lose their focus on the fundamental purpose of scripture itself—to come to know God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3). The Apostle Paul expressed such a concern in his second letter to the Corinthians: […]
Dear Sarah, Thank you for your informative contribution to our ongoing conversation. You are probably aware of the fascinating ways John Wesley is linked with Eastern Orthodoxy, but some of our conversation partners may not be aware of these connections. First of all, while John Wesley loved all the Church Fathers of the first four […]
MODERATOR REPORT ON THE COMPLETED TRUMP CONVERSATION: AGGREEMENTS AND DISAGREEMENTS, UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, ADVICE FOR REPLICATING THIS EXPERIMENT
The complexities and nuances of our recently concluded conversation about “President Trump and Visions for America” are such that no two people will take-away the same set of conclusions. Therefore, what follows is my attempt to make coherent sense of it all. Although I draw deeply from the perspectives presented by all my conversation partners, I take full responsibility for the conclusions I present below.
I present my report in three sections: My perceptions of areas of agreement and disagreement that emerged from our series of conversations; my perception of questions that remain unanswered and beg for ongoing conversation; and my advice for those readers who wish to replicate this experiment in political discourse that draws heavily on what worked well and what did not work well (the beautiful and the ugly) in our conversation as well as my other past attempts to orchestrate respectful conversations among those Christians having strong disagreements. My ultimate hope is that the positive results that emerged from this conversation will inspire many readers to go out and do likewise in their respective spheres of influence.
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