I learned that my good friend MM, the professor for whom I act as a teaching assistant (he has also been my clinical supervisor, fellow researcher, and all around great guy) was blacklisted back in the 1980's by James Dobson on his Focus on the Family radio show. Dobson called him out as heretic and not a Christian for supporting Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Ph.D. and her publications on gender roles and gender identity development. Heh, it makes me like him even more.
When you add that his brother got kicked out of Liberty University, I love the whole freakin' family. It helps that his 13 year-old son is the coolest kid on Earth, and his wife is amazing as well.
Also, I have this fantabulous Spirituality class that is a required course for the Psy.D. program. (How cool is that?) I have grown up in church, been a Christian for 12 years, and this is the first time I've been discipled in the spiritual disciplines, learned the major spiritual movements, and read such great works as The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces, Return of the Prodigal Son, and Embracing the Love of God, among others.
Our professor is this amazing scholar whose calling is clearly to be a man who pursues the spiritual disciplines and helps others to do so. He spends a couple hours at least in prayer or spiritual discipline every day, takes a good run every morning, and is an incredibly peaceful person to be around. There seems to be no hint of pride or arrogance in him.
This is why I was shocked (and INCREDIBLY encouraged) when he did allow a glimpse into his political leanings. We were discussing the Keswick movement *shudder*. And the major flaw of this movement is that there is absolutely no way to address corporate sin within its teachings. So eventhough your retirement money is invested somewhere in a corporation that does some evil things, there is no acknowledgement of that, or the fact that your bank probably uses your money for some type or another of ursury. So on and so forth...
My prof said something to the effect of:
Because of the implications of corporate sin, and because of the current president's preemptive stance toward a war based on these "weapons of mass destruction, which, of course, we're going to find any day now," that is soley for monetary gain, I haven't been able to vote for that candidate in the past two elections.
This just thrilled my soul that 1.) This prof is in the Christian Formation Department 2.) He said it in class 3.) I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Just when I had started to think that my own personal journey to this decision was only because I am a megalomaniac...
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3 comments:
Till We Have Faces is one of my all-time favorite C. S. Lewis books. So glad that you get to read it for class!
Aren't professors awesome? So many of my profs at OBU really inspired me and surprised me by the non-traditional, non-expected stances they would take on political and religious issues.
very cool...in Isaiah on monday, our prof. began ranting (? not sure that's a fair verb) about consumerism and how it's destroying faith/christianity and the world as well and if we are to prevent this we must create alternative communities because otherwise it's just too damned hard to avoid the culture. and then he lamented over his own personal "sins" of having a laptop, cell phone, etc--and i thought i was the only one who steeped in guilt over all the extras we have.
it is an interesting journey to say the least!
isn't it fun?
Nun, I was actually in the group that presented Till We Have Faces to the rest of the class. I loved the book, but feel like I need to read it five million more times to get it all.
Hipchickmama, Yeah, this learning this is fun. Even moreso, though, I"m finding it incredibly challenging and wonder what I'm supposed to do with the privelege of having all this educmacation. Seems like you're giving back by default in the ministry, it's harder to visualize what that will mean for me right now.... But it is a blast. And I love some of my profs.
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