Adult Education
Sundays in September | 9:15 – 10:15 am | Lounge & via Zoom
Childcare will be provided.
September 13
Courtney Shea, NBC News Election Night Analyst, Senior Vice President at Ipsos, and a dedicated Bradley Hills member, will address how news organizations cover U.S. elections. She will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how major news organizations use exit polling to explain vote results on election night. She will also discuss how news organizations determine the winner of races while votes are still being counted.
September 20, 27, and October 4
Dr. R. Bruce Douglass (and close friend of Bradley Hills,) Director Emeritus, Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington and former Chair of the Department of Government at Georgetown University will be presenting a three-part series:
Reformed Political Thought in the “Postist” Era
In the aftermath of World War II, Reformed Protestants participated actively in the creation of a world that departed dramatically from the one they had previously known in a number of notable respects. The colonial empires the European powers had created in other parts of the world were successfully challenged and overcome, for example, and that created a whole new set of geopolitical dynamics. So did the rise of the new Communist “bloc” in Europe—and beyond. Not only did this lead to a military standoff that lasted for decades, but it also gave rise to a global ideological struggle that left few countries unaffected. As Europe recovered from the devastation the Great Depression and the war inflicted on it, moreover, it was not long before most of the affected nations achieved dynamic industrial economies that delivered unprecedented prosperity.
This economic “miracle” happened elsewhere in the industrialized world (including the USA) and once that happened, it was not long before the whole “developed” world began moving in a “post-industrial” direction. And with that came an ongoing series of changes in the way of life of those nations that over time distanced them ever further from the one the post-war generation had known. They departed so much from the way of life they had inherited, in fact, that there was even talk of the coming of a “post-modern” era.
These developments presented political challenges that were in some ways formidable as the ones the industrial era had brought. They prompted a rethinking of certain important themes in the Reformed political tradition by its adherents that brought yet another new chapter in its development. Though the figures who took part in this rethinking were inclined to build on the foundation laid by their industrial predecessors (such as Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr), it soon became evident that they needed to break fresh ground if they were to address the challenges of their own day effectively.
September 20 | Decolonization and the Rise of the “Third World”
September 27 | The Triumph of “Liberal” Democracy
October 4 | Secularization
Dr. Douglass never fails to enlighten and remind us about how our faith has addressed the challenges of the past and the similarities and differences to those of today.
Click to Join by Zoom
Meeting ID: 872 5427 9672 | Passcode: 505554
