Allan Aubrey Boesak, With Foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Dare We Speak of Hope? Searching For A Language of Life in Faith and Politics. Reviewed by Travis Pickell

‘Hope’ has become something of a catchword in contemporary civic and political dis-course. In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama published The Audacity of Hope, his visionary manifesto, which was followed two years later by now-iconic presidential election campaign posters, boldly and simply proclaiming ‘HOPE’ to masses of American voters. Over the past decade, we have witnessed the powerful enthusiasm the promise of hope can bring to a civil society desperately longing for a hope-filled politics. Even so, there are those who would warn against an easy alliance between hope and politics. Some, we might call them ‘realists’, believe that political hope must be severely chastened. The realm of politics aims merely at forestalling the ‘worst-imaginable’ possibilities by attending to the ‘art of the possible’. Better not to raise your hopes too high. Others, rather cynically, claim that politics is an essentially hopeless endeavour, where deceit reigns in the acquisition of power, and where power, once possessed, corrupts its holder. Then there are political activists who fear that hope—especially religious hope—tends to distract believers from the hard work of politics, resulting in a disengaged and otherworldly quietism. For the realist, hope is dangerous. For the cynic, hope is naïve. For the activist, hope is an opiate

Tigers or Strawberries: Seizing the New Mission Opportunities Before Us for Church and Campus

T he context of my ministry is LIFE Adventist Church in Berkeley, California, a campus church near the University of California, Berkeley. I also provide leadership direction for Adventist Public Campus Ministry across the North American Division. This paper addresses the ministry challenge and opportunity for our mission forward following the COVID-19 Pandemic. For many churches and mission programs, the COVID-19 Pandemic was a huge interruption of their entire operation. In many ways, for us COVID-19 was more of a disruption rather than a complete interruption of ministry. This paper discusses the factors that contributed to the continuation of our ministry at LIFE Adventist Church, and also for other students attending non-Adventist college and university campuses across North America. It will include suggestions for moving forward at this time. The pandemic has opened numerous opportunities for ministry, including some right in front of us. Ways will be suggested to integrate these opportunities into a new strategic plan for advancing the Kingdom of God in our ministry context in this unique time

Joy In Choice: Cultivating A Choice-Centric Literacy Classroom In Upper Elementary

The research question addressed in this project is: How do teachers initiate and nurture joyful, personally meaningful opportunities for reading in the classroom? This project is an introductory website detailing how and why teachers can shift their reading block to make it a time in the day when students are making choices for themselves. In so doing, student motivation and joy for reading is at the forefront of the classroom (Gambrell, 2015). The intended audience is any upper elementary teacher looking to decenter the teacher’s voice during independent reading, but is of particular importance for teachers who already have an independent reading portion of their day upon which they would like to improve. The website is divided into five major parts: the rationale behind moving to a choice-driven model, initial set-up, implementation, maintenance, and blog. The design of the website draws upon the understandings of how learners intake multimedia information from the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2001). The overarching goal of the website is to empower teachers to recenter their literacy block around student book choice and teach through shared language rather than shared texts

Political Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology. By Joshua Hordern. Reviewed by Travis Pickell.

“Fire tends upwards, stone downwards. By their weight they are moved and seek their proper place ... My love is my weight: wherever I go my love is what brings me there” (Augustine, Confessions 13.9). Augustine long ago recognized that affections are an inescapable dimension of human existence. Why, then, have emotions and affections been so largely neglected, even opposed, in political philosophy? In Political Affections, Joshua Hordern, University Lecturer in Christian Ethics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Harris Manchester College, explores “the nature of affections, their role in morality, and their significance for political relations” (1). Hordern weaves together insights from political theory, biblical studies, Christian theology, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology in this wide-ranging investigation of affections’ role in human moral and political life

Come Hell or High Water? Scientific Progress and Ethics

There is a perception among some today that science is necessarily equated with progress because it is dedicated to advancing knowledge; but ethics is mostly about applying abstract ideals to questions whose answers should be clear to most people, and mostly just results leads to red tape and process-driven institutional review boards. If anything, for people who hold this view, the real purpose of “ethics” seems to be to impede science, progress and human flourishing

Achieving Foundation Accountability and Transparency: Lessons From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s \u3ci\u3eScorecard\u3c/i\u3e

· The purpose of this article is to help foundations in their accountability and transparency efforts by sharing lessons from one foundation’s journey to develop a scorecard. · A commitment to funding and sharing the results from rigorous evaluations set the tone for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) accountability. · The Scorecard is a powerful tool for RWJF to set goals, track organizational effectiveness, and motivate responses to shortcomings. · Foundations can tailor their scorecard to include what best serves their needs. · With its Scorecard, RWJF found that comparative and quantitative measures are the most powerful forces to motivate change. · Setting targets motivates staff to focus their efforts on certain areas and make improvements

Thou Hast Given Me a Body : Theological Anthropology And the Virtual Chruch

Introduction There is no denying the absolutely revolutionary effect of digital and Internet technology on society in the twenty-first century. For many people, the Internet provides an instant connection to friends, family, colleagues, workstations, entertainment media, and other valuable (or completely trivial) information. As a result, the world is becoming more networked, opportunities for entrepreneurial growth are more widespread, and the speed and efficiency of everyday life is increasing rapidly.2 Add blistering growth in digital Smartphone technology, which effectively turns every mobile phone into a web-connected personal computer, and one can easily see that “connectivity” is quickly becoming the new norm—and a key societal value. Many churches, for which “connection” between people is also a key value, are attempting to harness the power of these new technologies in innovative and exciting ways. Some Christians view the Internet as an invaluable tool for evangelism, teaching, community building and pastoral care. There are even some who advocate the formation of standalone virtual congregations: churches whose primary (or only) mode of meeting together is through the medium of the Internet. And yet, despite this optimistic embrace of the virtual world by some, the ambiguous nature of technological advancement also necessitates critical theological reflection. As noted by a study on “virtual Christianity” sponsored by the World Council of Churches, “being too quick to employ new technologies may lead to the divine message being shaped or even substituted by a human medium.”3 This essay will analyze potential opportunities and dangers presented by the phenomenon of Virtual Churches (VCs). The main contention of this essay is that the VC phenomenon conveys a truncated, anti-biblical anthropology, ultimately undermining the very gospel it is trying to share. Toward that end, 2 will outline what is meant by VC—including aspects such as the nature of cyberspace, digital representations of the self (avatars) and worship as practiced by some online communities today. §3 will attempt to disrupt the idea of a morally neutral technological medium. Following Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism “The medium is the message,”4 it will show how technological media, regardless of apparently “sanctified” content, affect human society and psychology through implicit assumptions about what is important, normal, or even possible. §4 will then make the case for the importance of an embodied, Augustinian theological anthropology. Finally §5 will show how, by virtue of the “message” conveyed through its very “medium,” the VC movement is incompatible with such an anthropology. This essay will conclude with a call for a more critical engagement of the Church with the Internet—engagement because the Church is commanded to take the gospel into all the world (Matt 28:19), “and that includes cyberspace;”5 critical because “that society never existed in East or West, ancient time or modern, [one might add virtual or embodied] which could absorb the word of Christ painlessly into its system.”

Glen Pettigrove, Forgiveness and Love. Reviewed by Travis Pickell.

Hannah Arendt famously called forgiveness ‘redemption from the predicament of irreversibility—of being unable to undo what one has done’ (The Human Condition, p. 212). Because right action is not always easy to discern, and when discerned not always easy to enact, we are all likely to be repeatedly in need of forgiveness—of extending it and receiving it. Forgiveness, then, would seem to play an enormously important role in sustaining relations among people, at both the individual and the societal levels—a truth reflected in recent philosophical interest in the concept, and in attempts to bring forgive-ness to bear in the political realm (e.g. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission). In this helpful volume, Glen Pettigrove, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, carefully elucidates ‘the nature of forgive-ness, the conditions that make it possible, and the norms by which it is governed’ (p. xiii). In doing so, he makes a compelling case that forgiveness is a more diverse concept than is typically acknowledged in philosophical literature, and, therefore, can be an appropriate action in a wider range of circumstances than is sometimes allowed

180° Symposium 2022 Focus Group—Practitioners

Participants: Ricardo Bain (Pastor, Maranatha SDA Church), Steve Case (President, Involve Youth), Benji Ferguson (Youth Pastor, Carmichael SDA Church), Akram Kahn (Business Manager, Center for Youth Evangelism), Myoung Kwon (Pastor, Waukesha SDA Church)