Focused Discussions (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Conspicuous Correlations : Counterculture, Christianity, and the Climate Crisis View Digital Media
Focused Discussion William Underland
This study introduces, defines, and elaborates on agrarian social critic and novelist Wendell Berry’s concept of “propriety” in hopes of forming an ethical foundation for Christianity’s involvement in climate action. I start with the observation that the practical demands imposed by the climate crisis were discerned and acted on by countercultural artists and thinkers long before the terms “global warming” and “climate change” first appeared and thus emerged from outside of the pragmatic context in which they are discussed today. From Fourier to Brook Farm to the hippie communes of the 1960s, certain ethical/spiritual stances concerning environmental stewardship have been taken—stances which conspicuously align with the social and political challenges imposed by climate change (living and eating locally, avoiding overconsumption, etc.)—and which predate the political issue of “climate change.” With this correlation in place, I argue that Berry’s understanding of “propriety” accounts for the correlation and in Christian terms, terms which are in a rare rhetorical position to impact hearts and minds and mobilize action in a demographic typically skeptical, if not totally dismissive, of the climate crisis.
Featured The Source of Creativity: The Inner-God as Knowledge Making View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Gil Dekel
I map out the creative journey that starts with inner observation, so called muse, and culminates with knowledge. I review peak-experiences, as described by visionary artists, looking at three steps: inner observation, elusive memory, and thought-making. I will then share a practical method that helps ‘capture’ self-knowledge by simplifying ideas into key-words and communicating them in a concise way.
The Role of Judaism and Torah Study in an Elementary School Student's Academic Performance at a Large Jewish Day School in the Southeast United States: The Role of Non Secular education and Torah Study in Orthodox Judaism View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Jared Bucker
This study investigates the characteristics of a Jewish day school in Miami, Florida. The school being investigated is the largest Jewish day school in the United States (outside of New York). The academic setting being investigated is an Orthodox Jewish day school focused on Hasidim (a branch of Orthodox Judaism) and academics. Students and teachers attitudes, opinions and beliefs will be collected to quantify and qualify the characteristics of the organization and its participants. The school being researched is over 50 years old and includes hundreds of teachers and thousands of students. It is hoped that the results of this research will offer greater insight into religious academic experience.
Death, Dying, and the Afterlife: The Spiritualization Thesis View Digital Media
Focused Discussion Heidi Rimke
This study provides a contemporary sociological overview of the place of the afterlife in late modernity. Examining literature emerging from the growing afterlife movement in Western society, the paper provides a sociological framework for studying the rise of popular theology or what I refer to as the spiritualization thesis of late modernity. This postmaterialist thesis argues that modern society is witnessing the rise of a post-secular spirituality rooted in various conceptions of the doctrine of the survival of consciousness after physical death, which are examined here. The study thus offers a theoretical framework to analyze the sociological significance of the growing popular and academic interest in the question of life after death.
