Sociologist George Yancey joins the show to discuss his new book Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism.

TRANSCRIPT

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Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think and I'm your host, Mark Moore

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and your co-host Rex Gurney

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Rex on the show today we have Dr. George Yancey, He's professor at the Institute for Studies of religion at Baylor University. He specializes in race and religion. And his new book is entitled Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Anti-racism.

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And I found it one of the most helpful books that I've read recently on this subject. And so I hope you enjoy the conversation with George

0:38

just excited to have you on the show to talk about your book. And and I really appreciate the approach you take in. In theology, I often find myself kind of looking for a middle ground between two extremes. And and so I'm always I always appreciate someone who takes an approach that wreck can see both sides maybe for what they are and seek a new path. And so I think this was really helpful for me as I was processing through. And I always love the work of a social scientists to that as you approach it, I just feel like you bring something that is so helpful for theologians and biblical scholars and others to, to look at kind of look at this kind of experiential data, along with the theological. as we as we kind of start, I'd love to love to clarify some terms for our listeners, in the sense of you're looking at this unifying alternative between colorblindness and anti racism. So maybe, maybe you start with colorblindness. How do you define colorblindness?

1:51

Yeah, so colorblindness is basically when you when you say you don't see race. So the way in which you try to deal with racism, as you say, Well, I don't see race. And that is you don't see race, and you can't treat people differently based on race. So it's pretty straightforward in that way. Some of the people who talk about it will say what's not, we know that you can totally ignore race by trying to minimize the way you treat people by race, and it should not be a factor in how you treat them, or whether or not you get a job or anything like that. So those are some of the more extreme ones as well. dormers completely, some of the more realistic ones said, Well, we really can't do that we do see rights, but we're just going to try not to act based upon

2:33

it, or what I hear a lot, it's like nobody was thinking about race until you brought the word up. Because I just don't think it's often an exercise in changing the subject I found but well, in a lot, you know,

2:47

it's yeah, the the, the, the will argue a color blindness perspective will say, you know, if you if you, you racialize this, and that's what caused the problems, right problem is people who bring race into the subject from their point of view, right?

3:04

Yeah, and I can, I mean, looking back at my experience, kind of growing up in the Midwest and 80s, early 90s. I often heard that argument or, you know, oh, these people maybe on the left are always trying to bring race into the conversation. Even as a kid I heard that and kind of heard maybe that that roots of, of colorblindness and, and in some ways on the surface. The idea sounds like

3:31

a reasonable position. It's certainly a Christian position, actually.

3:36

Yeah, you're going back to like, the 70s, the civil rights movement. And you know, it sounds a lot like that, right? A lot like, hey, why don't you just treat me the same as everyone else?

3:48

Yeah, but there's definitely a different tinge to it. I mean, even recently, a lot of lot of politicians, particularly on on the right, have been drawn to that King quote, of right, Judge me not on the color of my skin, but the content of my character. But it seems to they seem to use it to mask what's really going on, right, and kind of changing

Pastor Kevin J. Adams joins the show to chat about his new book, Living Under Water: Baptism as a Way of Life.

TRANSCRIPT

0:02

Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host, Mark Moore

0:05

and your co host, Rex Gurney.

0:06

And Rex. We're so excited to have a local pastor in the studio today, Kevin Adams here to talk about his new book on baptism.

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And it's rare that I have a published author that will come and knock on the door of my office to give me a copy of his book. Yeah, especially one that's published by earnings. And so I really appreciated that and really appreciate having him on the show today.

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Yeah, we're excited to have Kevin, he's the founding and senior pastor of granite springs church here in Lincoln. And his new book is entitled, living underwater baptism as a way of life. Enjoy the show. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

0:48

Well, this is my pleasure. I've heard about you guys international presence, and I'm just glad to be a small part of

0:55

it. Well, usually, when we have a guest that you know, is a nationally published author, we have to, you know, spend a lot of money to get them here, but you just live right down the street, and

1:07

we're happy to have you're in the States. You're in

1:11

a remote guest.

1:12

Yeah, it's very good gift.

1:14

That's right. And excited to dive into your book and a book on baptism. Which did you think you would ever write a book on baptism?

1:24

I never thought I'd write any books. Yeah. So and then to say one on baptism, it would seem very unlikely. Yeah.

1:31

How did how did the book come about? How?

1:34

Yeah, so our church is always we have about maybe 30 Different denominational backgrounds, and we have maybe 12 to 15, or depending on the era, more countries of origin, birth places. So we're always looking for ways to bring people together in a way that doesn't dumb things down. So a few years ago, we spent a year in the Psalms, because if you're a Christian, who's orthodox or Catholic, or Protestant or Baptist or whatever, you're pro Psalms, and then we talked about a whole year of Scripture memory, like same thing, all those traditions, you said, Are you for scripture memory? Yes, we are. And then we looked around and said is what else is there? And we talked about baptism, I remember introducing this to our staff and say, I think we should spend a whole year talking about baptism. And they had this look of the fear of God. And we think that's a terrible idea. But we ended up doing it anyway. And it turned out to be quite a gift. So the book began with that, I'd say,

2:30

Yeah, that's great. So kind of birthed out of the local community. Yeah, right.

2:34

Speaking of local community, one of the one of the real joys of reading this book is, you know, I know that you have to like either lightly fictionalized or try to not make, you know, the campus that you're talking about, have a name with it, but we actually all know what their campus is. And we know half the people you're talking about, and that was actually fun to read about. Read about those those places. And those people? Oh, that's

2:59

great. Rex, it has stories from every era, and every continent, almost, I think, not Antarctica, but all the others. And it's fun to have a local feel as well.

3:09

When it was interesting, yeah. When I was reading, I could kind of feel I probably felt maybe the same way the staff was feeling when you brought that up, like, okay, yeah, it got me thinking of why. Why is baptisms such a divisive issue? Or why has it been a lightning rod? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Like, why do you think baptism in particular, has been something instead of bringing the church together, as in some in some times and some areas has actually torn the church apart?

3:40

Boy, that's a great question mark. And I can only give yo

Dr. Brad Harper, theology professor from Multnomah University, joins Mark and Rex to talk about his book which he co-wrote with his son, Drew, entitled Space at the Table: Conversations Between an Evangelical Theologian and His Gay Son.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think I'm your host Mark Moore

0:04

and your co-host Rex gurney.

0:05

And on the show today we have Dr. Brad Harper. He's a professor of theology and church history at Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon.

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Gotta be a good guy if he's a church history. Yeah, fellow

0:15

church history buff on the show. And he's here to talk with us about a book he co wrote with his son entitled space at the table conversations between an evangelical theologian and his gay son.

0:28

And I think the conversation we're about to have is not only interesting, but I think it's really important.

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Enjoy the show. Brad, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Really, really excited for you to be here. Sure, glad to be here. And in our booth, when we were talking before, made a connection that you've actually taken some classes from San Jose Bible college, which became William Jessup University,

1:03

right. A long, long time ago in 1977. You

1:07

remember the VLF. When I first started working, I was only at I guess, San Jose Christian College, which morphed out of San Jose Bible college for two years before we moved up here to Rocklin. And when I first stepped on the campus, the Old San Jose campus, I was like, this looks like an elementary school. This doesn't look like a college. If you remember that old campus. It looks like it was an old elementary school.

1:31

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The lockers and the whole

1:36

whatever the whole thing. Yeah. Still some of this dalje for that, though, since Yeah, we're, we're different animal appear more often have very different thing.

1:46

Yeah, that's right. And keep Guerlain and but it's nice to nice to make that connection that we have. I have someone that has some, some roots some tentacles with with William Jessup University, and just again, excited to have you on the show. And, and I recently, read your books based at the table book you did with your son Drew, man was just deeply moved by it. And I actually I listened to the audio version. So which I thought which I thought was powerful to hear you, Andrew both read your parts. And, and for Drew to be able to act out some of the language too, I thought that was it was it was really good and really engaging. And so I'd love for, for listeners to, to maybe just hear a little bit of your story and your journey as a family. And maybe starting with looking at about how old was drew when he started talking to you and your wife about his sexuality? And maybe what was your first reaction? And what have you learned since then?

2:52

Yeah, you know, when Drew started talking to us about it, he was probably around around 13. Okay, so Middle School. Drew is 32. Now. So, you know, that was a while ago, almost 20 years ago, I would say. Now, it's not uncommon for LGBTQ kids in the in, wherever they were, whether they're in the church or not start talking their parenting earlier than that. We, it wasn't our first experience of thinking about drew in his gender identification sexuality, though, because as a little boy, from the time he was very, very young. Drew was kind of naturally attracted to things that social constructs tell us our girl stuff, you know, just, he just when he grew up, he really wasn't interested in sports, you know, or blowing things up or playing army, or whatever. He was interested in fashion, and art and opera. I mean, I remember taking them into to an opera when he was probably seven years old, and he was absolutely transfixed. He couldn't even believe how wonderful this was, you know, he loved writing poetry. By the time he was, you know, 19 years old, he was writi

Dr. Erin Ambrose joins the show again to chat with Mark and Rex about gender stereotypes in the church and the harm they cause.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Hey everyone, welcome into Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore,

0:05

and your co-host Rex gurney.

0:07

Rex, we're excited to have back on the show Dr. Erin Ambrose, one of our famous psychology profs,

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and we're going to be talking about something that's very, very important on multiple levels. And that is taken away.

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Yeah, that is gender and gender roles.

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And I didn't want to say that. So I'll let you get in trouble. But

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Right, right. No, we want to Yeah, we want to dive into this topic. And this is just a is just a bird's eye view of, particularly within the church of of Bibi, what is biblical masculinity look like? What is the biblical femininity? How have we been misrepresented in the past and caused caused HURT How, how can we understand the complexity of gender and specifically kind of gender role, gender stereotypes within the church, we hope you will be engaged in this really important conversation, and, and we looking for more episodes to come where we maybe take a deeper dive into some of these.

1:15

Well, hey, it's so good to have you back on the show. Dr. Eri Ambrose, thank you so much for joining us.

1:22

Thanks for having me.

1:24

And we're going to kind of tackle a little bit a little bit off the cuff on this topic. But I know it's when we say off the cuff. It's going to be built on probably years of research and study that we've all done and, and opinion and biblical research all of that. But we're gonna be talking about gender and gender roles. And I mean, this is, you know, this is a topic that's not only within the church, but within culture, trying to understand what gender is what gender roles and so we're not mean, it's a pretty broad, we're not gonna be able to cover everything. But it's interesting how this kind of came up for us. Now. Our listeners might not know this, but I don't know if Rex and I really know this. We have an Instagram account.

2:11

I didn't we had we had two years of posts on it. I had absolutely no idea. We had one.

2:16

Yeah, we even had one. That's great. Rex

2:19

is not in charge of our social media, right? And neither neither am I, we actually have a student, you know, student intern round calling him and associate, you know, Assistant Producer, Math Pad, wonderful student. And he's been on the show, he's kind of done a couple side bits for us. And he was going through Instagram, and he realized we had Yeah, right. So you're saying we had two years of backlog messages? No shows? I don't even want to know what like my actual Instagram probably has 15 years back logged messages. I'm like, There's messages on Instagram.

2:56

Is this your formal apology to

3:00

this is this is my formal apology to our to our listeners. And we're solving that problem by hiring hiring the young people, right to look at to look after social media. But in going through those backlogs. We had a couple like topic suggestions. Right? Why don't you talk about this kind? Yeah. And one of the suggestions was gender and gender role and such. And it is. Yeah, it really is. And I think, especially in this last couple years, with within the church with publications like Jesus and John Wayne making a biblical womanhood church called Tov, the Christianity Today podcast on the rise and fall of Maurice Hill, you know, with all of those, it just felt, I mean, this has always been something but I think there's been some clarity brought to the discussion that, you know, within the church, particularly evangelical church, we have a we have a gender problem, gender role problem. And, and so we'd love to just kind of, kind of talk about that, you know, talk about that, when we especially when the church maybe we'll kind of start there. We have these phrases thrown

Scholar Thomas E. Reynolds joins the show to talk about how disability is handled in the church and how the church can foster a more open and hospitable community.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00

Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host Mark Moore,

0:03

and your co-host Rex Gurney.

0:05

Rex on the show we have our actually our School of Theology's Annual Spring Lecturer is Dr. Thomas Reynolds. And he wrote a book called Vulnerable Communion, a theology of Disability and Hospitality.

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And personally, I'm looking forward to the lecture and looking forward to this conversation.

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As wonder conversation, he teaches Theology at Emmanuel College in Toronto, Canada. He's also a jazz pianist, and you went to undergrad in my hometown. So you'll hear a little bit more about that in the episode Hope you enjoy.

0:47

Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Glad to and excited to get into the topic. And, and part of this, you know, kind of we'll be talking to you because you're our annual spring lecture. And, and we have had to make that, you know, adjustment that will be virtual. Sorry for that.

1:10

Yeah,

1:11

I know, that's no problem. We totally understand the the intricacies of international travel right now.

1:19

It's, yeah, if only I lived in Chicago still, then it would be real, but the thought of, you know, getting stuck for days, and I get away from home that long.

1:30

So how long have you been at trial?

1:34

Since 2007? Oh, wow. Okay, I moved here from taught at a small Catholic School. St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

1:42

I actually think I have heard of that. I don't know much about it. But to me, St. Norbert is around so

1:48

ya know, they're in the note with Ina, you know, tradition, and it's a great school. But part of that obvious attraction of Toronto was great resources for my son. And, you know, a big city. There were a lots of attractions of being here.

2:06

I actually found out and you know, this is like, super random, but that the Norbertine had actually have actually a, I don't know, a guesthouse or whatever they have in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is where I'm from, and they have taken over the parish that was right next to the elementary school that I went to when I was a kid Holy Rosary. And so it's just like a small world, I guess.

2:32

They do. Yeah, I can remember some of them going down to there for retreat there, basically. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

2:40

go ahead. Yeah. Well, speaking a small world. I was looking at your bio, Tom. And notice that you went to Taylor University. I did. Yep. And I was born and raised in Fairmount, Indiana.

2:54

Oh, my goodness around the corner.

2:57

My mom actually worked at Taylor, in the Provost Office, and then in the Education Office for from about the early 90s to early 2000s.

3:09

Wow, I would have missed her. Because I graduated and what was it 85? Seems like, that gives a sense of my age. Unfortunately, I haven't been here but

3:22

yeah. Yeah. And did you have connection to Indiana or

3:28

the youth ministers at my church growing up in Chicago both had graduated from there. And I went there on a youth retreat once. And I really liked the sense of community there. And I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, grew up, still trying to figure that out. And yeah, I love the place and it was that or Hope College looked at Hope College too, but because the connection with the youth ministers there and you know, I met lifelong friends at Taylor and musician friends that then we followed each other down to Nashville to play music for a while. And yeah, it was a great place. So it's heavy with Taylor,

4:07

is that how you ended up at Vanderbilt? Is that is that? Yep, I went there to pursue music

4:11

and and then Vanderbilt grade school was right there. So you know, I sort of did a not so easy task of navigating

Theologian Kelly Kapic joins us again to talk about our new book You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Welcome to Jessup tank. I'm your host Mark Moore,

0:04

and your co host, Rex Gurney.

0:06

nd Rex. We are so privileged to have back on the show, Kelly M Capic. He's a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he has actually taught there for 20 years, and he has a new book coming out called Your Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News.

0:26

I think you really enjoy this podcast, I know that I personally am getting a lot out of what he has to say in that book.

0:42

So excited to have you back on the show. This is time two. So you are definitely a friend of the show. Now your official status. We're, we're still Rex is going to be mad at me because we're still working on the t shirt friend of the show. It's only been three years since we've been trying to get the t shirt.

1:00

But well, we have an official paid minion now. So at least that's you know, that's that's somebody

1:05

closer. But excited, excited to have you on the show and excited to talk about your new book. You're only human how your limits reflect God's design and why that's good news. And I really appreciate it how you framed it through the idea of, of limits, because I think sometimes when we, when we talk about being human, it's we approach it more of how can we push past our limits? Right? How do we, how do we break this limit barrier? But I think you you did a really good job of kind of framing it like hey, your your limits actually show something about God and God's design and have something to teach us. So I'd love to kind of start there and and see, you know, why? Why are limits good? Right? And how do they kind of reflect God's design?

1:56

Yeah, I mean, it's, thanks for having me again. And I'm interested in this because I think, you know, I don't think this is what we talked about last time. But some years ago, I wrote a book on suffering through our family, we went, my wife had cancer and and since 2010, has dealt and still deals with chronic pain. And so reflecting on that through a book called embodied hope, and the importance of lament, and trying to be honest, both about how hard life can be and also how good God is. And not picking between those two is a big challenge for us. But having gone through that, I actually felt ready to finally write something I've been thinking about for decades. And that's this idea of the importance of being human. Because one of the things that became clear to me or even more clear, is that part of the reason we so struggled to understand lament and suffering in a in a holistic and more faithful way, is because we struggle to think about being human in faithful ways. And in particular, I think we confuse finitude and sin all the time. And I know finitude isn't a word a lot of people use, it sounds, you know, philosophical or abstract. Or they think of death. And it doesn't, it doesn't have to mean death. finitude, just as its basic meaning just means limited in, in space, time, knowledge, power, right, those kinds of limits. And once you put it that way, you realize, even even if there were no sin in this world, part of the definition of being a creature is you're here and not there. You know this and not that you can have this many relationships and not all relationships, right. And yet, I think we confuse finitude and sin all the time. So Christians constantly feel guilty for things I don't think they necessarily should. I'm a reformed theologian, if that means anything to your audience. So we're all about sin. I'm not I'm not trying to downplay sin. But having said that, I think you can go sideways. And this is January that we're recording this with everyone making new year's resolutions and stuff, which, you know, mayb

Jessup professor Derek Zahnd joins the show to talk about his recent book Hope for Unity and Diversity: How To Be A Christian Without Being A Jerk.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Everyone welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore

0:04

and your co host, Rex Gurney.

0:05

And Rex on the show. We have one of our own today, Professor Derek Zahnd. He is leader of our Master of Arts in Leadership and teaches with our theology and leadership division. And

0:16

I think he has the office like right next to you is He's right

0:19

next door, right? I can actually hear him through the wall. Sometimes he's here promo in his new book, which is hope for unity and diversity, how to be a Christian without being a jerk.

0:31

I think you'll enjoy the episode.

0:38

This is our first show of 2022. So Derek, thank you so much for joining us for this new year.

0:45

So glad to be here.

0:47

It's good. We're looking forward to a good year. Yeah. Good year, we've had a stream of not so good years. So I feel like you know, although don't they say things come in threes. So that's probably not sometimes. That's hope that's not true now. But as we, as we look at 2022, I was thinking this, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, as we begin has nothing to do with the book or the topic, but Well, I was thinking we're not, you know, we're not going to make it. But 2222 That sounds like a pretty magical time to be alive. I wonder if they're gonna really appreciate it. Like how, like, that has only happened, what, you know, 1111 I guess each of the numbers so on

1:31

2020? Did people like you know, appreciate that too? Or is it sort of the last year

1:36

2020? But you know what, I never thought of it in 2020.

1:40

I probably never thought of saying something about it. But I never thought of it that either.

1:45

Now I didn't even think about it. Because it was just like now 2020 Is, is kind of the year that didn't happen. Yeah, sort of feels like kind of a year that bypass and then 2021. But and kind of was it in the midst of that that kind of inspiration for the book?

2:04

Yeah, that's a great question. I think we've all been kind of watching the news and listen to friends and folks and just saw those things coming together and actually tied back to some work I'd done in a doctoral program years ago and felt like, Hey, I think there's some alignment here. So I just wanted to sort of explore it and see if this could line up into something meaningful.

2:26

Yeah, I think it's such a timely message. Right, this idea of hope for unity and diversity. It's not homogeny. Right. It's, it's unity within the midst of diversity. Right. But we also I think, at the beginning, we have to hone in on the subtitle, because it's the thing that grabs you the most right how to be a Christian without being a jerk.

2:48

And so my question with that Derek is, and I mean, there may be multiple answers to that is when and how did those two things become synonymous and a lot of people's minds? Because I know they are actually. So like, when did that happen to that sneak up on us? Or has that been brewing for a while? And you know, we obviously have at least a public relations problem with that if those two terms are synonymous? Yeah.

3:14

Isn't that something? Yeah, I think a lot of us came to Christ, looking at our own weaknesses, and sin and so forth, and encountering Jesus and thinking, This is awesome. I've been forgiven and equipped to serve and love. And I'm, I'm part of the good here, you know, and there was a time our culture might have agreed with that. And then, you know, although we worship, a God of love, increasingly, forces in our culture, saying, Hey, we don't always experience Christians is all that loving. Yeah. And so, you know, maybe in our grief is we've lost some cultural prominence. Sometimes maybe our behavior in the eyes of others has looked like the behavior

Sociologist Felicia Song from Westmont College joins the show to discuss her new book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore

0:04

and your co-host Rex Gurney.

0:05

We're excited to have Professor Felicia Song on the show. She's a cultural sociologist who studies the place of digital technologies in contemporary life at Westmont College.

0:17

And I noticed by looking at my phone, that we actually had the podcast this morning, so I'm here. And otherwise I wouldn't be,

0:23

hey, yeah, technology did play a good role in our lives today. And it got us here. Her new book is restless devices, recovering personhood, presents in place in the digital age. It's such an important look at the role of technology in our lives, and how we can be more intentional, and how technology can have a proper place in our lives. So enjoy the show, I hope you're kind of challenged to look at how technology how you use technology, and how you can maybe better use it moving forward.

1:04

We are really so excited that you joined us for the show. It's such an invitation welcome. And it's such an important important topic, especially as we're in kind of the holiday season. And there's maybe a lot new get new gadgetry that is in our houses. And, and and I think you know, as we kind of start, I wanted to start with full full disclosure, that we are recording this in a room full of electronic devices, and obviously recording a podcast that utilizing. But I think it's so important for us to, especially in the digital age, to understand the role in the place of technology in our lives, because it's just kind of here. And we often maybe approach it without thinking about that, without thinking about its role and how it's just now become a normal part of our lives. And, and all of us on the show kind of have gone through the transition from less technology to more technology, we can we can all remember a time when we didn't have a phone in our pockets that had GPS on it. But we had we had Mapquest printed out in our cars.

2:23

Or you have to give people directions and write write it down and have them get lost.

2:29

Yeah, and I appreciated your intro, Felicia, just kind of talking about your own family and your own. You know, you called yourself a late adopter. How was your kind of you and your family's relationship to technology been?

2:47

Yeah, um, so I, I'm just not the kind of person that keeps up with the latest update the latest phone or the latest anything. That's kind of just a personality feature, I guess.

3:04

And and so the rest of my family is though I'm always learning from them, which is, which is great. And

3:18

but when it comes to what kinds of technologies we actually end up acquiring in our household. You know, I think the most thought and conversations have gone into our children's, we have two children, our children's technologies and the devices that they may either have access to, or come to be owners of themselves. And then you know, just like most folks who think about the if, and I don't even know if that they think about it, but that are just in trying to be intentional about the place of technology and mass media in their lives. You know, we talk about what kinds of streaming entertainment we want to, you know, invest in and what kinds of devices we will all choose to engage in. And so like I say, in the book, we haven't drawn a hard line on keeping the text out of the house. And arguably, I think when you don't draw the hard line and you say, Okay, well we're gonna have tablets and laptops and smartphones and we're gonna have the Netflix and the Apple TV and, and the, the YouTube that it streams through the television, right? Like once you let all that in, then it makes for a lot of decisions that you have to make right all the time. Right. And

One of Jessup's beloved Psychology professors, Melanie Trowbridge, joins Mark and Rex to examine the growing mental health crisis among young adults and how the Church needs to respond.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00

Everyone welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore

0:03

and your co-host Rex Gurney

0:05

Rex on the show today, we are privileged to have one of our very own professors, Melanie Trowbridge, an Associate Professor of Psychology here to talk about mental health, mental health in the church, mental health on on college campuses, with our students and our families.

0:20

Her office is just down the hall from me, and it's a it's a healthier place around our offices for heavy Melanie in our suite.

0:27

Yes, and we know you're going to really enjoy the show and get so much out of it. Thanks for listening. And we're just happy to have you on the show. Melanie? Well, I'm happy to be here to talk about such an important topic. And one that, you know, we've had a couple of hard years, you know, I mean, every generation has hard years. But I think we can look back at the last two years and see tough years. And we also kind of see a rise in maybe an awareness of mental health concerns, or I'm hoping Yes, yeah. And definitely, I'd love to kind of as we begin the conversation, kind of look maybe at the kind of current statistics and get a picture of mental health with young adults college age, you know, and and particularly talking today about how can the church talk about this subject?

1:25

Or how can we talk about it a little bit? Yeah. Hello.

1:29

I'm all in anytime. There's a good discussion, healthy discussion on mental health count me in? All right. Good stuff.

1:35

That's why you're here today. Yeah. Good.

1:36

Good. Glad to be here. Yeah, we'd

1:38

love to, we'd love to just kind of hear some of the research you've been looking at and statistics and go from there.

1:45

Yeah. So it's good to have research that is along a continuum that's been chronic and stable in that chronic way, we have had an uptick. But let's just talk about some of the pervasive statistic that's still in play today. You mentioned our college aged students. And I, interestingly enough, bring that into the classroom, and use our classroom, as indicative of the world at large, especially the United States, but really globally. And so I say, hey, all of you. If we're going to experience a major mental health disorder sometime in our lifetime, how many of us are going to experience that? And you know, I get all kinds of statistics, and we land on upwards of 50% of us. So that's the rule. It's not the exception. It's the rule. So if we're going to experience a major mental health disorder, which 50% of us are, what are we going to do about that? And in any particular year, 25 of us, 25% of us are experiencing a major mental health disorder. Right. So let's back it up a little bit. If we're talking about emerging adults, adolescents, you know, and that's my passion, right? And I'm an adult psychiatrists, but I'm also a child and adolescent psychiatrist, very passionate about that, because 75% of our major mental health disorders occur before the age of 25. Right? We can get a handle on that, right, before we get into adulthood. Oh, my goodness, how much better off?

3:19

No, no, when we're talking Melanie, about mental health? Well, what's the spectrum that we're talking about? Because I think that gets confusing for people. It's like, well, I woke up today, and I have a little, you know, anxiety about this meeting. This is qualify, you know, am I am I, you know, sort of in the same, you know, bowl of or salad of mental health issues as someone who's bipolar. Yeah. So what exactly are we talking about?

3:43

And that's interesting, because, you know, I think all of us 100% of us can capture and empathize and feel signs and symptoms of mental health issues, right. None of us are di

Mark and Rex discuss the importance and beauty of the Advent season as well as the significance of the structure of the Church year. This episode is a wonderful way to thoughtfully begin the Holiday season and and excellent frame for the coming year.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00

Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore

0:03

and your co-host Rex gurney.

0:05

Rex today on the show, we're going to talk about the Advent seasons one of my favorite seasons of the year. And we really just want to help people understand what admin is, and what maybe the church the greater church calendar is, and how we can help our spiritual life.

0:19

I think you'll enjoy this conversation.

0:27

Well, Rex, we're actually into one of my favorite seasons of the year, or a couple days into Advent. And we'll just wanted to kind of take maybe the show to talk about what is Advent? For one because many people who grew up in the kind of Evangelical community maybe not have celebrated Advent or I think recently, I feel like more and more, there's been a change that's been happening, but when I was a kid we never heard about and not not Advent, not Lent, not anything, right. And so that I think it'll Yeah, it'll it'll flow the conversation from Advent into a greater kind of church year church calendar, because that's something that is kind of missing from least in a formal sense from the evangelical community. But I think something that in my own life has become really important and kind of creates a really important rhythm. For the year I know, yourself to the church year has kind of created a rhythm that maybe we didn't have growing up, right. It's been something good to kind of ground, our Christian life on our spiritual life on and something to shape the year. But yeah, just love to talk about Advent. What is Advent? And maybe we can just start there.

1:41

Well, since the Christian year actually starts with advent. Yeah, we're actually like, this is sort of our New Year's podcast. That's right. Let's go our students sometimes. It's a trick question. But there's a point behind the trick questions, the teaching moment. I'm trying right now it looks like so windows, did you know that there's actually a church calendar, and then historically, churches have celebrated something called the Christian year? So when does that start? So students will say, January the first, right, yeah, no, actually, we're, you know, depending on when I asked the question, we're already deep into it. And so, you know, it's a teaching moment. And I found that many of our students even still, you think that in 2021, that, you know, the word would have gotten out, but many of the folks I talked to still have never heard of the Christian year, right. And are skittish about Advent. And so yes, yeah, yeah. It's

2:33

really interesting. I can even joke a community, some of some of these more liturgical, more formal views of the church here of Advent are still kind of approached, we're talking about the more but they're approached with a little bit of skepticism. Now, Advent. So you're saying Advent starts the church here. It always begins on Advent. Advent is always four Sundays out from Christmas,

2:57

right? So it's sort of movable, it's not the same. Same date, not same date, sudden, every time, not the same

3:02

day. And so you just gotta go for Sunday's out. And that's the first Sunday of Advent. You have four Sundays. And then if Christmas Eve happens on a Sunday, then that that Sunday is the last Sunday of Advent. So it's kind of like a combo there.

3:19

And then if Christmas itself happens on a Sunday, you cancel churches, and

3:22

that is how God intended allocate one. Okay, even, you know, this year is kind of interesting, because Christmas is on a Saturday. So Sunday is the 26th. And it's like, okay, well, we just had service on Christmas Eve,

3:36

from heaven forbid, we had to, like, co