Exemplifying Mutual Understanding, Mutual Trust and Mutual Learning
The root problem when public discourse is motivated by fear is that the conversation partners (CPs) never arrive at mutual understanding, mutual trust, and learning from each other, all three of which should characterize conversations about contentious issues regarding which the CPs have strong disagreements. Since we all believe we have good reasons for the […]
Loving Disagreement: Rejecting Fear, Hate and Demonization
Based on recent conversations with Rob Barrett, a dear friend of many years, I will soon start posting a sequence of new Musings on my website that I originally thought might constitute a new book, but I now envision posting as new Musings in order to reach the growing number of potential readers who are […]
On Being “Saved”
This Musing consists of three parts. Part 1, written by me (Harold Heie), reflects on my “conversion” experience at age 13, and my subsequent thoughts about whether that early experience comprises all of what it means to be “saved.” This first part is written from the perspective of a lay-person who is not a biblical […]
The Dangers of Top-Down Leadership and Benefits of Collaborative Leadership
In my last Musing (“If You are the ‘Boss,” How do you Lead”?), I presented a case for a collaborative approach to leadership, in sharp contrast to a top-down leadership style. The more in-depth analysis that follows includes my elaboration on these two styles of leadership. As in my last Musing, I will focus on […]
If You Are The “Boss,” How Do You Lead?
I use the word “boss” in a broad sense, as referring to anyone who has one or more persons who work under his/her leadership. My passionate belief about what I believe to be the primary skill needed to be an effective “boss” is deeply informed by the following foundational teaching from Parker Palmer, a renowned […]
Antiliberalism’s Last Hope, or Not
My experience is that attempts at conversations about the future of Democracy in America are significantly hampered by lack of clarity as to the meaning of two controversial words, “liberalism” and “antiliberalism.” Therefore, I first need to make clear what I believe those two words mean, drawing heavily on the splendid recent book by Robert […]
Recommendations to College Students Who Have Committed to Living Out Their Understanding of Christian Values
My last Musing (“Formulate Your Own Set of Christian Values”) proposed a broad view of God’s redemptive purposes for our world. It left some important questions unanswered, such as “how” one can “partner with God” toward the realization of these values, and, since no one Christian can focus on all of God’s redemptive purposes, how […]
Formulate Your Own Set of Christian Values
The values that I seek to foster on a daily basis reflect my understanding of God’s redemptive purposes on earth. I believe that as a “follower of Jesus,” I should seek to “partner with God” toward the realization of these purposes, which, in a manner that I cannot begin to comprehend, will be “fully realized” […]
Can I Always Give Jesus the Last Word?
My last Musing (“Seeing Through Partisan Politics or the Eyes of Jesus”) raised some important questions that were left unanswered; questions that beg for more in-depth analysis. What follows is a coherent set of four essays that provide this “deeper” analysis The first essay by Harold Heie poses and reflects on the overarching question posed […]
Seeing Through Partisan Politics or The Eyes of Jesus
For my new Musings into the near future, I will often follow a pattern of posting two back-to-back Musings that are inter-related. The first Musing will be directed primarily to users of social media; it will be relatively brief, using “popular language” that can easily and quickly digested. The follow-up Musing will be geared to […]
The Power of Love Taught and Lived Out by Jesus
Jesus was not spared the temptation to become all-powerful. Tim Alberta starts his thought-provoking book The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, by quoting the following words recorded in Luke 4:5-8 (KJ21): And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of […]
The Quest for Power
In our increasingly polarized and tribalistic culture, the desire to exert power over others is rampant. I point my readers to two examples. In the political realm, it appears that many politicians will do most anything to get elected to legislative office, or re-elected once in office. Why is that? It is my belief that […]
There is Hope for Evangelicals Returning to the Church
In the past 25 years, 40 million persons in America (15% of the USA population) who self-identify as “Evangelicals” have left the institutional church. Why is that? And is there a way to “bring them back?” In in their excellent book The Great Dechurching, Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P Burge, wrestle with […]
A Broad View of God’s Redemptive Purposes and your Role (and Mine) in Accomplishing those Purposes
In the pietistic Lutheran sub-culture into which I was born and raised, we were led to believe in a very narrow view of God’s Redemptive purposes: God only wishes to redeem individual persons. In 1972 I began to seriously question that narrow view of redemption during a sabbatical leave while teaching mathematics at The King’s […]
My Search for Truth
My desire to understand the truth about all aspects of our world is insatiable. After 40 years of serving as a teacher and academic administrator at four Christian liberal arts colleges, I formulated a description of higher education at its best in just three words: “Conversations Seeking Truth.” But the goal of uncovering the truth […]
Recent Comments