Do you remember Josh and Karlene’s request for atheist conversation partners that I posted a few months ago?
Elizabeth is a classmate of Josh and Karlene. She teamed up with Amy, one of the respondents to Josh and Karlene’s request, to do the same project Josh and Karlene were doing. I just interviewed Amy and Elizabeth over on our ebay atheist blog about how the project went. Go check it out!
05-21-2008 |
Comments OffAs I mentioned, I was at the Alban Institute yesterday for a one day Faith and Technology Conversation.
Anne Van Dusen did a wonderful job of organizing this event. There were about 25 of us: the Alban and Congregational Resource Guide staff and about 20 visitors. Two thirds of the visitors were from out of town. There were about the same number of men and women and the ages ranged from about 30 to 60. There were journalist/writers, priest/minister/pastors, technology professionals and researchers. The group felt diverse but there was no racial diversity – it was 100% white. I’m sure this was a ramification of who was there rather than there being any attempt to avoid racial diversity. But it would have added an interesting element had we not all been white.
Most of the people there were associated with mainline denominational forms of Christianity. Some as a personal vocation; some as writers/technology professionals/researchers whose work involves them with it. Andrea, the journalist taking notes to produce the guide based on yesterday is a former Christian who has converted to Islam, but I only knew that because someone mentioned it to me one on one on Monday evening. (And because she did mention ‘in my Mosque’ once) In one of the breaks I told Andrea I’d just heard Ingrid Mattson and was very impressed.
There were two evangelicals there: Read the rest of this entry »
04-30-2008 |
2 Comments »I met Josh and Karlene Clark at Off The Map Live last year. They’re good friends of Rachel, who co-hosts our Justice and Compassion blog.
Josh and Karlene asked if I’d post this request for them:
We are seminary students who have been given an assignment in one of our classes to have a series of conversations with others who do not share our Christian faith. The purpose of these conversations is NOT to convert anyone, but to practice talking about traditional elements of our Christian faith in ways that make sense, and even more importantly, listening to others about their beliefs and experiences. We are also interested in talking about the different assumptions atheists and Christians have about the “Christian message.” It is an exercise in friendly dialog across differences in belief, and for open, honest, and safe dialog together.
So we are asking for two conversation partners who would be willing to spend about an hour a week for the next 12 weeks talking on the phone or chatting online, who are not Christian and are interested in this type of friendly conversations with us.
Josh and Karlene
If you have questions about the assignment feel free to ask here.
Updated to add contact information: you can e-mail Karlene at singamiga(at)yahoo(dot)com and Josh at joshclark17(at)mail(dot)com
01-29-2008 |
6 Comments »Sarah posted this comment yesterday.
Hi, My name is Sarah and I was just today at a Lunch Q&A With Jim. I am in a catholic (Jesuit) highschool where i am the head of the christian non catholic section. I have many issues trying to promote christianity with my school board pushing me to be the head of Non-christians. I thought of starting a group at my school called Conversation not Conversion In which students can come together and talk. Jim told me to post my idea on here to receive feedback and perhaps help in being strong through my struggle of wanting to sit on the sidelines not in the spotlight.
11-11-2007 |
7 Comments »Here’s my response to a comment posted by Ronald on the blog entry Conversation or Declaration?
Hi Helen
A blog isn’t a real conversation, IMHO.
There is a certain amount of the communication in a blog that is subjectively inserted there by the predisposition’s (intelligence, wit, insight, intuition, stupidity, foolishness, etc) of the reader.
That happens in real-time conversations too, doesn’t it?
It’s not a real-time conversation. I don’t get to see you raise your eyebrows. You don’t see me fidget my legs or cross my arms. I don’t get to hear your voice inflections. You don’t get to look me in my eyes. I don’t get to ask questions to find out more information in real-time to clarify what you may mean or didn’t mean by what you said before I begin commenting. There is much more than a nuance missing that makes a blog woefully inadequate compared to a real conversation.
I like real-time best, but I think on-line can work too. What you’re saying about visual cues seems to imply that blind people can’t have ‘real’ conversations. I think they can – they adapt to not being able to see the other person. Can’t we do that online too? Read the rest of this entry »
07-18-2007 |
16 Comments »Elaine, who helps Jim with Off The Map administration, sent me a link about “Conversation Week” recently, which evidently is March 25-31.
I went to the Conversation Week website a couple of days ago expecting to find a list of events for this week. I didn’t find that, but was interested to see their list of guidelines for the conversations they want people to have:
I also like their list of ten suggested questions, which have a lot to do with MTWABP (making the world a better place). Even though I didn’t do anything to get officially involved in Conversation Week, maybe we can discuss one of their questions today in honor of it. Here’s one:
When do you feel most alive?
African American preacher and ethicist Howard Thurman said “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
03-26-2007 |
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