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Christian, Theist, Agnostic
Seeking Dialogue with Mutual Respect
This course will feature tools for conversation between people with different convictions. It will be useful to believers who want free and meaningful dialogue with those who do not share their faith. Our lives are populated with people who we value highly and who value us, but not our faith. They might say we don't understand or respect their doubt.
Most families have members with alternative convictions. Some Christians cannot understand or relate effectively with those who (a) believe in God but not in Jesus or (b) have difficulty believing in God at all. Some theists and agnostics are bewildered by Christians, and cannot grasp how they arrive at their convictions.
All healthy souls search for meaning and make value-driven decisions. They want self-respect and a life found credible by others. Many commit to causes larger than their own comfort. We have more (and less) in common than we know. We are like random tourists bumping elbows in the Sistine Chapel, while gazing up in private wonder. It is time we find ways to ask: Why are you here; and what are you seeing?

Sample Topics
Cross-conviction Dialogue
Beyond debate and defensiveness
Religious categories and faith-based language
Your "truth," my "truth" and the Truth
Common Ground Perspectives
Progressive revelation and our maturing God-concepts
The Christian debt to Jewish monotheism
Temperaments, skill-sets and spirituality
Impediments to Faith
Inoculations against religion: Familial, cultural, educational
Post-Enlightenment assumptions and I-Thou experience
Idolatry: The beguilement of lesser "gods" and competitive "devotions"
Family Matters
Your "god," my "god" and our children's religion
When young believers attend secular universities
Referred pain: When the issue-on-the-table isn't the issue
Honest Difficulties
Closed systems: Personality-cults, group-think and fundamentalism
False dichotomies: Science vs. religion; reason vs. faith; if God is good...
The uniqueness of Christianity in a room full of religions
Action Options
Excavating common foundations: A catalog of agreements
Humility and obedience: Honest intellectual impasse or willful disbelief?
Exercising the measure of faith you have (sometimes together)

About the Teacher

Dr. Arvin Engelson  No pastor has served longer at Saratoga Federated Church than Arvin - 27 years to date. He is gifted in his mastery of the scriptures and skilled at guiding souls into a deeper understanding of God, themselves, and those around them. His first career was as a counselor at public and private colleges. He has also taught graduate courses for Fuller Seminary. Trained in philosophy at Westmont College, and then in pastoral counseling and history of religion at Gordon Conwell, he went on to doctoral work at Princeton where he studied (in particular) formative and transformative life experiences from an interdisciplinary perspective. The integration of spiritual truths with the nitty-gritty of life is his expertise. "When I teach, my chief motivation is to offer perspectives and tools that equip people to live hopeful and useful lives. I am drawn to topics with practical, quality-of-life application. Healthy faith begets healthy persons, who leave others better off than they find them."

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