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Holding Up a Mirror to my Students, And Myself
My practice at the end of my first class of the semester is to see if students want to ask me any questions. A young woman asked me, after my answering the question about alma maters and degrees, including my ThM in Old Testament, “So, did you ever think about becoming a pastor?” It was refreshing to hear such a forthright question, to which I answered, “Yes, I did consider becoming a pastor but discovered that I loved teaching.”
Other questions followed but she and a friend stayed behind after class ended to thank me for my answer, then added, “I am not religious, but I am a spiritual person.” Listening to my culture, I was not surprised by her admission. I had heard it before. What struck me about the conversation was her honest declaration. It was good to hear a student so well articulate her belief, and I thanked her for it
The brief conversation made me think again about how everyone believes something. Claims are staked on those beliefs. My job, as a professor, is to hold a mirror up to myself and my students, asking each one of us to be honest about those beliefs. We may not agree with each other. In the pluralistic public sphere, the freedom of belief is imperative in America. To appreciate others’ points of view without necessarily capitulating ours is important. My responsibility in the public university is not to change students. My job is to make sure they have had an opportunity to consider all sides of an issue before taking upon themselves the responsibility to own their belief. And today, I introduce my students to Thomas Sowell.
Published in Education
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I read this in another book, one that ostensibly predates but does not contradict the Bible, and yet predicts the Bible. I know you know which I mean.
Laughing, ruefully, Out Loud.
In chances to read almost everything on demand, and discuss almost everything, and answer almost anything we’re asked about what we vaguely remember reading, we have suddenly unimaginable riches.
Who knew what a cost, what frustration, what new unsatisfiable requirements, this would bring?
Max,
Could you make it so I could mark this as “unread”, like we can do on email? I really want to read it when I can concentrate on it, which I can’t do now.
(Just kidding! I know the answer. I am just teasing you. But I don’t blame you. I am just making fun of us ridiculous Customers.)
Mark, here’s a hint. The rebellious angels who did not keep their place, were allowed to come down and mate with human women whom they found comely (Jude 6: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”). And these women bore the nephilim: half-human, half-angelic beings, the giants of renown. but God cursed them that when they die, their spirits would wander the earth in thirst. If this is true, then it is reasonable that demons (as opposed to fallen angels) are the disembodied spirits of the nephilim (at least in part, or maybe solely); and this is why they want to inhabit living bodies, whether human or pigs.
This is also drawn from Genesis 6:9: “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” The word generations is — or can be — taken to refer to his human bloodline not being corrupted with nephilim ancestry. And this is taken to be one of the reasons God decided to kill of all humanity with the flood.
And there is this in 2 Peter 2:4: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;” This is weak, but consistent.