Gateway Podcast: Episode 108

You can listen to or watch Gateway Podcast Episode 108 here.

Discussion with Tim Sansbury from Knox Seminary

Briefly tell us about yourself and what you do at Knox. (0:10)

If people want to find out more about Knox, where should they go for information? (1:00)

Can you explain the phrase “anti-critical fundamentalism” for those who weren’t at the seminar? (2:50)

How do you address the way people were mandated to do certain things over the last year? You say just go ahead and mask to show love to others. I want to love others, however, what about the evil intent that many of us see in requiring masks on children when the data shows Covid has had very little harm on them? What about the harm to kids from this? Suicide rates are up, kids aren’t seeing their teachers faces or peers, problems with getting enough oxygen, anxiety are a few things that bother me. I believe it’s evil to tell children they’re super-spreaders and they need to protect the adults. I also believe there are some evil intentions to teach compliance this way. Some things are worth fighting for. Especially evils on children. Jesus said there’d be consequences for those harming children. (24:00)

For a class I took at Knox, you had us read Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. One of the things that I remember from the book (or discussions about the book) is the idea that when there’s a paradigm shift, it essentially takes a generation to die off before the new way of thinking takes over. It seems like paradigm shifts are happening much more rapidly — from modernism to post-modernism now to anti-critical fundamentalism — long before a generation dies out. How do you think this overlapping of worldviews is affecting us? (33:00)

From your talk at Presbytery: People are primarily thinking through a filter where society is a threat and want to do something to counter the threat. And you talk about church activities in society now being attractive. What kind of church activities are you talking about? Are there new activities that you think the church should be doing that it currently isn’t doing?(43:15)

Words declare meaning — words declare allegiances (often political allegiances). What would be some of the words that are now declarations of political allegiance? What are better options that we might consider using? Why not try and keep using the words, and their original meaning, instead of just giving (or what appears to be giving) into new meanings? Are there divisive/political topics (according to society) that pastors can’t be silent on? If so, can you give us some examples? (47:15)

How would you encourage anyone listening who feels the divisiveness of society and feels kind of stuck or hopeless about it? (56:45)