Thursday, July 26, 2007, 11:08 AM - Friday Meetings
This Friday, we are in for a treat. John Acker will be speaking again
about the importance of building a good armory for the mind and spirit. He will be discussing the chapter called "Library as Armory" from White's "A Mind for God".
Before he starts at 7 PM, we will all sing three songs together.
TITLE: "Library as Armory"
SPEAKER: John Acker is a graduate student in English, and is currently
planning a dissertation on the use of Christian discourse in Hawthorne
and Melville. As anyone who has helped him move can attest, John owns
a lot of books.
SUMMERY: John's talk, entitled "The Library as Armory," applies the
idea of "thinking Christianly" to literary study. Focusing on the
difficulties of defining Christian literature and the complicated
relationship between literary and religious discourse, John argues
that serious engagement with literature both improves our
understanding of the Bible and equips us more effectively to engage
with the world of ideas around us.
DATE: Friday, July 27, 2007
TIME: 6:30 PM
LOCATION: Summit Methodist Church. For directions, please email me at Saul.Tentmaker@gmail.com.
We also typically go out to eat after the talk, and we welcome you to
join us.
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007, 01:41 PM
From Inside Higher Ed:
Johnson, 45, spent more than a dozen years teaching religion courses as an adjunct at Broward. He applied for several full-time faculty jobs but was passed over, he said, because of his religious beliefs. Johnson is an openly gay Roman Catholic who earned a master’s degree in divinity and graduated from a pontifical university in Rome. His lawsuit claims that Broward’s religion department favored evangelical Protestants in hiring, promotion and class assignments.
“Every time there was an opening, I applied,” he said. “I had expressed my interest in teaching full time, and I was more than qualified.”
This spring, a jury found that the college used Johnson’s religion as a “substantial motivating factor” in making course assignments. And earlier this month, a federal district court judge ruled that Johnson could recoup his legal fees.
The full article is here.
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007, 01:40 PM
From Phil Steiger's blog, Every Thought Captive:
It is my contention that Christianity, when it is full-blooded, is simultaneously reflexive, reasonable and faithful. The tools of reason and analysis are actually built into and intended to be used by the faith system of Christianity. If God has given us intellectual tools such as reason, and if all truth is God’s truth, the Christian has nothing to fear by examining all things in pursuit of their faith.
Read the whole post here.
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Friday, July 20, 2007, 05:24 PM - Articles
From ThinkChristian:
Is it true that going to college can be hazardous to your faith? That’s the popular belief among many Christians. But a new study published in June by the University of Texas at Austin (Losing My Religion: The Social Sources of Religious Decline in Early Adulthood) suggests that college attendance may actually be better for the religious faith of young adults than the alternatives.
The study looks at three measures of faith: religious service attendance, personal importance of religion, and disaffiliation from religion. It measures those three elements in teens and young adults and looks for changes between the two age groups.
The authors found that almost 63% of evangelical protestant young adults had a decline in religious service attendance when compared to their teen years, but less than 20% said religion was any less important to them, and only about 17% ditched their faith altogether.
Yes, church attendance dropped significantly, but 80% of young adults said their faith was as important to them as when they were teens.
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Monday, July 16, 2007, 04:28 PM - CGSA Events
Hello members of CGSA!
I hope the summer is coming along well, that you have been able to be
productive in work, with some time to relax and enjoy the weather on
the many nice days we've had.
CGSA is foremost a Christian group, and so we must uphold Christ's
proclamation, to love our neighbors. Last Sunday, my pastor talked
about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, how those who are the least
respected and acknowledged by society are primarily the ones
Christians have responsibility toward, to love and serve.
Weinland Park is a community in need. The average income of people who
live there is below poverty line. Crime of all sorts is rampant there,
being one of the highest rates in Columbus. The place is a home to
many single mothers. Some numbers (1990 census):
11% of residents own their own homes
Average family annual income: $18,613
Unmarried women head 25 percent of all households, while 41 percent of
all households have no vehicle access and 15 percent don't have a
phone. While the unemployment rate in Franklin County is 3.4 percent,
Weinland Park's is 9.6 percent.
Weinland Park is right at the doorstep of the community of the Ohio
State University. As responsible students, citizens, and especially as loving Christians, we have a responsibility to make a difference in Weinland Park. And we can. Already, large changes have been occurring in
Weinland Park. A Children's Center has been erected there recently,
there have been new housing developments, recently the Mayor visited a
local church in a large community-wide celebration. A big difference
to the community has been students coming to live in Weinland Park;
three active members of CGSA have residence there.
But there is still much to be done, and much that can be.
This summer in Weinland Park CGSA will be holding an all-day event
August 18. For those of you who have any skill in computers, or even
no skill, but like taking stuff apart, Free Geek has a bunch of
computers to be disassembled. The parts of the disassembled computers
that function well will eventually be reassembled (not by us) into
computers, and donated to the community. This is an important job
which requires virtually no technical skills.
But if computers cause shivers in your heart, and working on them is
simply impossible for you, please sign up for the Godman Guild. FOR
THOSE NOT WANTING TO TAKE COMPUTERS APART, but still want to help on
August 18, you can sign up to help with a community gathering that
will also be on August 18. Please let me know by e-mail by this
Wednesday, July 18, if you plan to do this!
For people working with Free Geek, or for those who would rather do
something different, we will all be meeting as a group for a community
gathering afterwards. There will be food and conversation.
Everyone is welcome, and strongly encouraged to attend and help out on
August 18.
Let's show Columbus that CGSA is a group that cares about the Weinland
Park community.
Paul Rimmer
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