social standing reflection

Our class is very diverse. We have many people who were raised in a Christian church, and those of us who did grow up in a Church have different religious experiences, but many people who were not or are now questioning their religious upbringing. This, I am sure will make for deep, personal discussions I am hoping to grow from other people’s perspectives. Religion and religiosity are both sliding scales. This means that people are not either religious, or they are not and practicing or they are not. In this class there are many different people in many different places on these scales. Hopefully this too will provide for interesting conversation. We (off course) have very different life stories, which will also make for interesting discussions. I hope that we, as a class can be open minded and listen to each other and learn from each other.

Many people identify as being white and being middle class.  Hopefully, there will be many different perspectives for us to read regarding race and class. As a class, it will be important to gain insight into these perspectives.

I noticed that many of us have been influenced by teachers, and some of us have been influenced by our peers. It is important that we are influenced by other people and can be open minded. It is important to learn from people around us. It is interesting that many of us of had teachers and peers influence us. It is also important to realize that we have been influenced by other people, and that their views may affect our views.

Our political views are also widely different. Many people identified as being a Republican, a few identified as a Democrat and many did not identify at all. This level of diversity will also provide for interesting conversation. Many people stated that their political views do not influence their reading of the bible. However, how you read the Bible does influence your political beliefs. If you interpret specific “laws” of the Bible as being absolutely true, then you will vote for people who agree with your “truths” (the quotations in this case just indicate that not all truths are the same, not that they are not truths for you).

We are a very different group of people. We have very different perspectives and very different readings of the bible. We also have very different levels of religiosity and varying types of religion.  We have different political stances. This class will hopefully be full of very good conversations, where many of us can learn and grow together.