Six months of Adult Education class recordings. Contact the church office for earlier classes.
October 2019
Exodus: Wilderness Formation
Do a deep dive into Exodus. Read the stories, remember the events, and revisit the characters that are formative to our faith. Each week Drs. Anne Stewart and Jacqueline Lapsley will lead us through a section of the text and help us learn how and why God takes a group of wandering refugees and forms them into the people of God. Pastor Dave Davis will be preaching in worship on texts from these same passages during this series. See: Sermon Journal
October 20 | Jacq Lapsley
Commandment as Covenant (Exodus 19-24)
October 13 | Jacq Lapsley
Lost and Found in the Wilderness (Exodus 16-18)
The Visual Effects of Parting of the Red Sea (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4H5tjx2Zpg
October 6 | Anne Stewart
From Call to Crossing (Exodus 1-15)
September 2019
September 29 | Sarah Steward, Ria Smit, Ross Wishnick, with Holley Barreto, moderator
‘Til All God’s Children are Fed – The Purpose and Practice of the Hunger Offering
Nassau Presbyterian Church has a decades-long tradition of collecting a freewill offering on the last Sunday of the month to alleviate hunger in our neighborhood, country, and around the world. As Pastor Dave Davis frequently affirms, we are committed to continuing this practice “until all God’s children are fed.”
Come meet three representatives of local and international organizations who benefit from this long-standing commitment. Get to know their communities. Learn about their mission. Support their work.
This panel discussion will be moderated by Elder and food-justice advocate, Holley Barreto, and will include time for questions.
September 8 | Nate Stucky
Food. Faith. Bread. Wine.
Does God care what we eat? Does God care how we eat? Do we think of God when eating? Should we? Though food runs like a thread through Scripture, we may or may not typically put God and food in the same conversation. What happens when we do? In this session, we’ll begin finding out.
Ted Talk: The Art & Craft of Bread, Peter Reinhart
August 2019
August 25 | Azing Chin
Reflections on a Year as a Young Adult Volunteer
Hear from Azing Chin, a child of Nassau Church, about her year of service as a Young Adult Volunteer with the PC(USA). Len Scales will interview Azing about her experience, and we will consider together how Young Adults lead the Church in doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God.
You can read the blog that Azing kept over her year of service here: https://azingcyav.wordpress.com/
August 4 | Cecelia Hodges, Noel Werner & Friends
Before Thy Throne of Grace: A Celebration of Spirituals and Poetry
Come enjoy the liberating power and uplift of African-American spirituals, interspersed with readings from a classic of American poetry, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, by James Weldon Johnson. Best known as the author of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” Johnson was also an author, educator, lawyer, poet, diplomat, newspaper columnist, songwriter and civil rights activist. In 1927, he wrote and published God’s Trombones as a tribute to the old-time preachers he had heard in his childhood. Noel has paired dramatic readings of the poems by Cecelia Hodges with spirituals which we will sing together in response to hearing these engaging and inspiring verses.
JULY 2019
July 28 | Keith Whittington
Are We in a Constitutional Crisis?
American political rhetoric is increasingly filled with cries of constitutional crisis. What does constitutional crisis even mean, and how would we know if we were in one? When does political dysfunction, disagreement and scandal signal more fundamental problems with the constitutional order, and what are the dangers of declaring a crisis prematurely?
July 14 | Larry Stratton
Storm Center Report: Ethical Reflections on the US Supreme Court’s 2018-19 Term
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed that the U.S. Supreme Court is a “storm center” of political controversy. This session will focus on several of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions including: census questions about citizenship; the constitutional status of religious symbols on public memorials; gerrymandering of legislative districts; out-of-state wine purchases; double jeopardy in state and federal prosecutions; and other critical cases.
July 7 | Rhodri Lewis
Shakespeare and the Bible
Writing before the publication of the King James Version of the Bible, William Shakespeare relied for the most part on the Geneva Bible. Rather than turning to scripture as a source of truth or meaning as earlier dramatists did, we find him treating scripture like any other source. Come learn how Shakespeare explores the tensions about the authority of scripture that dominated so much of public life in the century after Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses.
JUNE 2019
June 30 | Paul Rorem
An Introduction to St. Augustine’s Confessions
The Confessions of St. Augustine, one of the most influential books of the Christian tradition, recalls important events of the author’s life, including: life with his devoutly Christian mother in rural 4th century Algeria; his struggles with human desires, his eventual renunciation of secular ambitions and marriage; and the recovery of his Christian faith.
June 16 | Eileen Reeves
Galileo on Science and Scripture
In 1615 Galileo Galilei’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Cristina argued for the compatibility of science and scripture, or at least for the relative autonomy of each body of knowledge. Come learn more about Galileo’s treatise and discuss the various ways in which the relationship of science and scripture is treated in the present day.
MAY 2019
May 12 | Karlfried Froehlich
Bewildered Survival: Growing Up in Post-War Germany
Growing up in Germany, Karlfried lived through the years of Hitler seizing power, experienced the pressure of the Nazi educational system, the initial war years with their German military triumphs but then, of course, the bitter years of retreat and defeat. As a teenager during the misery of the post-war years, he wrestled with the existential questions we all ask: What is the purpose of suffering? And how does a survivor find meaning in having survived? Come hear how his faith played a major role in his struggle to cope.
