The Journey Continues

I have some good news after having to put my goal on hold for a year that I have started my Masters of Divinity degree Iliff School of Theology. With a great assist from two of my classmates from West Point and the Humanist Chaplain of the University of Cincinnati, I was accepted as a full-time student while also working full-time. We are currently in the fifth week of the fall quarter which takes place on location in Denver Colorado where Iliff is located. There are several reasons why I applied specifically to Iliff but the most important is the combination of distance and on-site learning called the Journey Program. This is an intensive week of school work but also the first time that I am getting to meet my fellow first-year Journey classmates and two-course classmates. 

I am in two theological courses and the Journey Beginnings course. The two theological courses are Theological Education in the Digital Age and Identity, Power & Vocation in Community. As the second course title, you might be able to guess that this is also a progressive school. Iliff School of Theology is a very progressive United Methodist Church theological school that embraces social justice and the LGBTQ community. This is very attractive as a gay humanist in addition as I could not see attending conservative evangelical online schools like Liberty University or Fuller Theological Seminary. 
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I am only on my second day and I am the happiest I have been in a long time. I am really enjoying this journey, my instructors and my classmates even though I have already had a suggestion to read Lee Strobel’s A Case for Christ. As if someone who grew up as a Christian and investigated and researched those beliefs has not examined everything discussed in this book. A great breakdown of this book and whether he was an actual atheist when he wrote the book (hint: an investigative journalist only interviewed Conservative Christians for “evidence” against straw man arguments rather than interviewing people who would argue against the “evidence”) is this video playlist. 

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