The year-long question of “God, Where Are You In Culture?” will continue to be answered at REDtalk on Friday, April 4 at 7 p.m. in Sutherland Auditorium.
The event is a communication studies department chapel co-sponsored with AS and offers chapel credit to attendees. Associated Students is providing Krispy Kreme doughnuts prior to the lectures.
REDtalk will be a series of 18-minute lectures delivered by four different speakers in response to the AS religious lecture’s theme question and is modeled after the popular online TED Talks.
A VARIETY OF TOPICS
Associated Students revealed today that Jordan Wagner, the executive director of Generosity Water, will be REDtalk’s featured keynote speaker.
Assistant professor of math and computer science Matthew Weathers, Talbot student Sarah Schwartz and 2012 Biola graduate Kyle Donn will each present short talks on different aspects of culture, said AS religious lectures chair Mark Nesbitt. Jamie Campbell, assistant professor of humanities and law for the Torrey Honors Institute, was also scheduled to speak but cancelled for personal reasons.
Weathers’ talk, “Technology, Culture, and Spirituality: Finding God and Each Other in Our Technological Culture,” will focus on being intentional about how and when technology is used. While technology can become consuming, the answer is not to cease using it altogether.
“Even a hundred years ago when electricity was coming to rural America … people were complaining, ‘Oh this electricity, we don’t get enough sleep. We stay up late and the telephone just promotes a bunch of gossip.’ Okay, but maybe learn to use the light switch or learn to hang up the phone,” Weathers said.
Donn’s talk, “Hermits and Harlots: The Church in Culture,” will tackle the difference between knowing God and knowing about God.
“At Biola, you get at least 30 units of Bible. You get stuffed down the gullet with Bible. But that has no bearing on whether you know God, which is actually really scary,” Donn said.
BIOLA ALUMNI TO TALK
Nesbitt asked Donn to speak at REDtalk after reading a blog post Donn wrote called “Sexy ‘Christianity.’” Donn said he will address the dangerous mindset of seeing missions and culture as an end instead of a way towards God.
“The world says being culturally relevant is the end, but for Christians being culturally relevant is just the means to getting the gospel ten miles further than we could if we weren’t,” Donn said.
Schwartz’s talk, titled “Faith and Feminism: Enemies, or Partners for the Kingdom?” will focus on the importance of feminism. Schwartz, a 2012 Biola graduate, has had negative responses from fellow students when discussing feminism, she said.
“I think that there’s a sincere misunderstanding of what it means to be a feminist,” Schwartz said. “I think if the Biola community could understand and … get past the stereotypes, the Biola community could do a lot of good in the world.”
