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We (human beings) have a well-documented tendency to suffer from ‘belief polarization’ – that is, we get more extreme and entrenched in our views, whatever they are, the more time we spend with like-minded others. Precisely where we like to be the most. Can we stomach doing what it would take to resist the worst consequences of that tendency?

 

Our speaker, the Rev. Dr. Heather Anne Thiessen is a happily married, Bible-reading, Presbyterian Church-going, small fuel efficient car driving, still pretty much 2nd wave feminist and generally out white lesbian Hoosier mom. (In the words of one of my professors, “too theologically conservative, too socially liberal – that’s your whole problem in a nutshell.” If you call that a problem.) I used to teach religious studies to undergraduates at a small liberal arts college in Louisville, Kentucky. These days I help out from time to time at some Presbyterian churches around Southern Indiana.