Skeptics and Doubters Bible Study Coming Soon to RLC
Do you want hard-hitting answers to tough questions?
posted over 12 years ago
Welcome, new students!
College offers many opportunities for personal growth beyond working toward a degree (or several, if you're so motivated). It brings people from vastly different backgrounds together into one place, allowing, under ideal circumstances, the free exchange of ideas. It is almost a guarantee that something you hear will cause you to think twice about something you believe, if not completely upending your entire worldview. It may even happen multiple times for some, until they settle into a more secure belief, whether it's the same as the one they had, or radically different.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have also gone through what was roughly a year of intense questioning of my previously held beliefs, and researched deeply into the apologetics (a Greek word meaning a reasoned defense of a belief) of several of the major worldviews in existence, before coming to the firm conclusion that a perspective that filters the world through the interpretive 'lens' of the Christian Bible is the correct belief to hold.
I am planning to make myself available twice-weekly in the Retriever Learning Center, the 24-hour study lounge to the right inside the Library lobby, for people to come and discuss matters of theology, philosophy, and politics with me. Come as a skeptic and see if I have reasonable answers to the questions you pose. Come as a doubter and see if I can help walk you through some parts of your period of questioning. Or come because you're curious to see what I have to say.
The structure of the meetings will be an informal walk-in basis, and the discussion can take the form of Rabbinical/Socratic dialogue (where I ask you questions to facilitate you thinking through the issues yourself) or a Presuppositionalist one (where I let you grill me as I provide answers to your specific questions). I will use the available computer for three purposes:
1. To validate the accuracy of something I say, so that you are not left thinking that what I have said is my own "baseless opinion."
2. To give you something to read [while I study for class in the mean time], because sometimes the answers to certain questions are answered excellently by an online article, and it would be better for you to read it in all its detail than to hear my summary of it (I have a conceptual memory; I remember main ideas very well but not details, so with highly technical answers, I will defer to the Internet).
3. To give you links, article names, names of organizations, or people, or youtube videos, for further personal study after the meeting is over.
If you can accept this model as a basic structure, then I highly encourage you to come check it out and see if a) you can learn something or b) if you can stump me.
In light of the fact that people don't always know off the top of their head what they want to discuss, I'm selecting specific topics for discussion for each day, and if you find one of them piquing your interest, you should come on by and judge for yourself how well I present the arguments for my position.
The first two days' topics, then, will be:
Day 1: Does the Bible condone slavery?
Day 2: Is it wrong for Christians to judge--and what is meant by 'judge?'
Believers are welcome, too. In fact, anyone is welcome, not just new students, so long as you don't heckle either me or anyone who has come to genuinely engage with me.
If you would like to RSVP, (unnecessary, but welcome) my email is below.
Note: a start date for the Bible Study has not been set yet.
College offers many opportunities for personal growth beyond working toward a degree (or several, if you're so motivated). It brings people from vastly different backgrounds together into one place, allowing, under ideal circumstances, the free exchange of ideas. It is almost a guarantee that something you hear will cause you to think twice about something you believe, if not completely upending your entire worldview. It may even happen multiple times for some, until they settle into a more secure belief, whether it's the same as the one they had, or radically different.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have also gone through what was roughly a year of intense questioning of my previously held beliefs, and researched deeply into the apologetics (a Greek word meaning a reasoned defense of a belief) of several of the major worldviews in existence, before coming to the firm conclusion that a perspective that filters the world through the interpretive 'lens' of the Christian Bible is the correct belief to hold.
I am planning to make myself available twice-weekly in the Retriever Learning Center, the 24-hour study lounge to the right inside the Library lobby, for people to come and discuss matters of theology, philosophy, and politics with me. Come as a skeptic and see if I have reasonable answers to the questions you pose. Come as a doubter and see if I can help walk you through some parts of your period of questioning. Or come because you're curious to see what I have to say.
The structure of the meetings will be an informal walk-in basis, and the discussion can take the form of Rabbinical/Socratic dialogue (where I ask you questions to facilitate you thinking through the issues yourself) or a Presuppositionalist one (where I let you grill me as I provide answers to your specific questions). I will use the available computer for three purposes:
1. To validate the accuracy of something I say, so that you are not left thinking that what I have said is my own "baseless opinion."
2. To give you something to read [while I study for class in the mean time], because sometimes the answers to certain questions are answered excellently by an online article, and it would be better for you to read it in all its detail than to hear my summary of it (I have a conceptual memory; I remember main ideas very well but not details, so with highly technical answers, I will defer to the Internet).
3. To give you links, article names, names of organizations, or people, or youtube videos, for further personal study after the meeting is over.
If you can accept this model as a basic structure, then I highly encourage you to come check it out and see if a) you can learn something or b) if you can stump me.
In light of the fact that people don't always know off the top of their head what they want to discuss, I'm selecting specific topics for discussion for each day, and if you find one of them piquing your interest, you should come on by and judge for yourself how well I present the arguments for my position.
The first two days' topics, then, will be:
Day 1: Does the Bible condone slavery?
Day 2: Is it wrong for Christians to judge--and what is meant by 'judge?'
Believers are welcome, too. In fact, anyone is welcome, not just new students, so long as you don't heckle either me or anyone who has come to genuinely engage with me.
If you would like to RSVP, (unnecessary, but welcome) my email is below.
Note: a start date for the Bible Study has not been set yet.
(edited over 12 years ago)
