Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
Facilitators: Carolyn Yoder, Reta Finger and Rick Yoder
Spring Quarter 2015
Objectives: Using Marcus Borg’s Book, Convictions and active learning methods:
- To examine and reflect on our own memories, conversions and convictions about the Bible and faith
- To talk honesty about what is often the unspoken elephant in the room: our concerns, cognitive dissonance and doubts
- To provide a framework to better understand the roots of the turmoil in the Christian church today and the Mennonite church
- To nurture (in Borg’s words) “passionate believers today”
| Date | Content | Facilitators | Handouts and Support Materials |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 1 | Introduction | All | First class (overview) |
| March 8 | Context matters | Rick | |
| March 16 | Faith is a journey | Carolyn | |
| March 22 | God is real and a mystery | Reta | |
| March 29 | Salvation is more about this life than an afterlife | Rick | |
| April 12 | Jesus is the norm of the Bible | Reta | |
| April 19 | The Bible can be true without being literally true | Carolyn | |
| April 26 | Jesus' death on the cross matters, but not because he paid for our sins | Reta | |
| May 3 | The Bible is political | Reta | |
| May 10 | God is passionate about justice and the poor | Rick | |
| May 17 | Christians are called to peace and nonviolence | Carolyn | |
| May 24 | To love is to love like God | Rick | |
| May 31 | Wrap up | All |
To get a copy of the book:
The paperback edition is entitled Convictions: Manifesto for a Progressive Christianity and is available on Amazon.
The electronic edition is also available on Amazon.
The hardback copy is entitled Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most and recently was still available at our local Barnes and Noble. On Amazon it is back ordered and takes a couple weeks to come in.