Blogs

Roger Nam I remember meeting Griffin Huber on the first day of the Fall 2012 semester in my undergraduate New Testament Intro class. Like many students, he took the class both because he was eager to study the Bible and because it fulfilled a general education requirement. He would successfully...

Jennifer Harvey, PhD Associate Professor of Religion Drake University blog: livingformations.com “The asceticism of teaching is the willingness to teach the students you have rather than the students you wish you had.” The rigor and conviction of Patricia O’Connell Killen’s claim about teaching as a practice has impacted my approach to the classroom more than anything else in the ten years I’ve been working at this difficult craft. A teaching practice of being there, in a spirit of willingness, regardless of who shows up, is a challenge. I suspect I don’t have to convince you of this. Who among us...

Song-Chong Lee, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Philosophy University of Findlay Due to the racial and religious homogeneity of my institution, which is predominantly white and Christian (the University of Findlay, in rural Ohio), I have unconsciously focused on issues of greatest concern to my students, especially in the beginning of my teaching career – and this has not included race. This is ironic, for I myself am a native born Korean transplanted to the American Midwest. It was not until I taught my Islam course in 2013 that I found this approach deficient. That semester I had...

Today, theological school deans are under greater pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theological curriculum offered by their schools. Pity the new dean who needs to learn the esoteric language of higher education that is now embedded in theological...

Kate Blanchard Am I the only one who didn’t learn to read until graduate school, or possibly until I started teaching? A convergence of things brought me to this realization. My current institution’s most recent alumni magazine included a feature on our New Media Studies program. It started only two..

Fumitaka Matsuoka, Ph.D. Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theology Emeritus Pacific School of Religion The Ferguson story reminds me of the “Rashomon Effect,” named for late Japanese movie director Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon. In the film a crime witnessed by four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways. The Rashomon Effect is contradictory and often has opposing interpretations of the same event by different people. The heart of the matter in the Rashomon Effect is the question of truth and truth-telling. Whose understanding of the truth matters most? In light of the recent killing of Michael Brown, an African.

HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Ph.D. Lydia Gruchy Professor of Pastoral Studies St. Andrew’s College (Saskatoon) I am on sabbatical this year. When the shooting in Ferguson occurred, it got me thinking about the last course I was teaching before I went on sabbatical. I pulled out the syllabus and began taking notes on this event as a “living document.” As a practical theologian, “the situation” is a primary document from which to read and upon which to reflect. It can be used to make sense and meaning of the reality that is unfolding. The course is called, “Race, Colonialism, Canadian Identities, and...

Eric D. Barreto I really don’t intend to undercut the title of this series of blogs. I promise I don’t. But what happens when the classroom doesn’t have a front where the eager students sit ready to learn or a back where more laid-back students lean away from us? What...

Kenneth Ngwa, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible Drew Theological School In my “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible” syllabus, a couple of sessions are reserved for the Exodus story: its claims about liberation; the use of official “war gear” against civilians; the dread of nightfall; legislative debates; witness accounts to the sights and sounds of violence; the importance of memory, etc. “After” Ferguson, teaching this biblical story almost sounds too convenient. Yet, engaging race and racism is like solving a math equation: long division with remainders. The burden of structural racism is not just its deadly power,...

Dean J. Johnson, Ph.D. Peace & Conflict Studies Assistant Professor of Philosophy West Chester University of Pennsylvania Silence, guilt and fear are obstacles to justice and democracy. My white brothers and sisters, we have often let the fear of breaking the rules of certain types of discourse trap us. Too often we let fear immobilize us and we remain silent. Let’s take for example the fear of talking and teaching about race as a white person. We believe the discourse of whiteness that says racism and the struggle for racial justice are not white problems and/or that whites are...