Ok OP, you have one week to make this place more interesting.


Go.

We thought we would give the thread a few days to develop comments and questions that we can respond to in the weeks ahead.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, most of the formed questions are related to who are we and why are we here. As mentioned in the OP, we planned to create a separate thread in the near future to lay much of that out, but we will begin posting the answer's to those questions in this thread tomorrow.


There are also some topics on theology embedded in the form of comments as well. We will take those and try to create a framework for discussions on those topics, but we will propose some alternative topics as well. I think the way we answer some of the comments about issues like inerrancy of scripture, abortion, age of the earth, etc. will give you an idea of our approach to dialogue on these issues.

We think you might be pleasantly surprised at our approach. As much as we like the idea of becoming robot overlords, we don't have the desire, time or technology....or do we

Guys, I think we are jumping the shark here a bit...

Let's all calm down and get some serious questions answered first by our new robot overlords so that we can properly attune our perspectives to receiving their transmitssions.

Question #1: IF you were being executed via a firing squad, and you were offered a smoke; what type of smoke would you choose. A) cigarette B)cigar c) pipe d) joint e) none of the above

Question #2: what type of beer do you drink and why

Question #3: Star Wars or Star Trek-- defend your answer

Question #4: is it really greater to give than to receive? Why?

Question #5: Cowboys or Texans, Rangers or Astros, Cubs or cardinals, Spurs or Mavericks or rockettes

Question #6: is there a day better than Taco Tuesday?



Thanks in advance for helping us garner perspective!

You forgot to ask for the correct answer to Life, The Universe, And Everything.

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The Novum Institute is a newly created theological education, research, and consulting institution - a theological think tank.

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What exactly is a think tank? I always got the impression that think tanks were funded by insanely rich or powerful people to push agendas for mass consumption. Think Warren Buffett buying green energy and then funding eco-friendly think tanks to promote alternative energy and planet-wellness. Also, most the people I've known in my life that wanted to work in think tanks were all very intelligent and very lazy. I always figured it was so they wouldn't have to work a real job.

So maybe you can educate my ignorance. Who funds you and why? What do you do to justify your think tank's existence? Is this a full time gig for y'all or a passion project?

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The definition of a think tank is an organization or entity whose products and/or services are education, research, and consulting. Think tanks around the world often have various niche areas of research and expertise; public policy, economics, business and finance, medical, engineering, etc. Ours is theology.

What typically separates a think tank's research and work from a university environment, for example, is its independence. When it comes to Judeo-Christian theology, our goal is to draw upon the research and wisdom of a network of scholars, artists, and marketplace professionals that come from nearly all Judeo-Christian denominational backgrounds, both Catholic and Protestant. However, in order to be effective in our mission Novum will not operate in a Judeo-Christian bubble. As an organization we have a vested interest to engage and actually have meaningful relationships with scholars, artists, and marketplace professionals that have backgrounds in other religions or no religion, or at least no affiliations with religion.

Our starting point as an organization is Judeo-Christian theology. This applies to the education resources we develop, research, and consulting services offered to customers. Novum customers have been and will be individuals, churches, nonprofits, and for-profit companies. We have a particular interest in developing products and services for use within the academy, the arts, and the marketplace. Designing many of our resources for those that exist within the "Creative Economy". Which is almost everyone, especially most everyone on this board.

We do not have any "insanely rich funders like Warren Buffett", but if you know anyone interested in talking to us, we certainly are happy to talk with philanthropists that might have an interest in investing in what we do.

Novum was created as a hybrid organization, although we are a 501 c3 tax exempt organization that is supported by tax-deductible donations, Novum also offers products and services for a fee like any normal consulting organization would do as a regular business, so we are also supported by fees for services. To be candid, our largest donated gift over our entire existence is $10,000. That is not a large gift within this realm, so hopefully that gives you an idea that we are not funded by a small group of wealthy people with a specific agenda.

Mark and I became fast friends about 4 years ago, he and I both had two slightly different ideas for separate organizations, after many hours, days, weeks, and months of talking and sharing, we determined that our two ideas would work well as one single organization. As with any decent partnership, separately we have many shortcomings, together they are minimized.

Start-up organizations are hard in general. Creating a Judeo-Christian based theological research, education, and consulting organization takes a lot of dedication and sacrifice, just like any start-up business takes. Mark and I were both willing to do it and in order to be successful neither of us nor anyone we hire can be lazy. A certain level of Intelligence is required, although a heavy dose of humility is as well.

Novum Institute is what Mark and I do full-time and we are passionate about what we do and why we do it. Thank you for asking!

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Also, like some people have said, why are you sponsoring this?

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I will take this part of your question. As Novum's resident scholar, Mark and his team will take on the other questions and statements in your post soon.

There are several reasons why we are sponsoring this Forum.

1) Like any business sponsoring any of the other forums, we desire to market ourselves as an organization and company.

2) We are a knowledge based organization with the intent to build knowledge, research, and competencies around theology, philosophy, science, art, business, and education. Essentially every discipline that creates the world we live, work, and play in today. Some sociologists are calling it the "Creative Age" or "Information/Knowledge Age".

3) One of the principals of Novum(me!) is a proud second generation Fightin' Texas Aggie. I love my alma mater. Part of who I am and what I do was shaped in Aggieland. Bringing what I've helped create back to my alma mater is meaningful and fun for me.

4) Mark and I like to talk about a lot of things, but college football and theology rank pretty high. We are both huge college football fans. He grew up in the SEC "heartland". And we actually became great friends just as the Ags entered the SEC with JFF and Mark's world(for a brief moment) seemingly began to close in on him. However, I was there to comfort him and let him know that Aggies are not such bad people, for the most part we are gracious in victory and in defeat.

5) In TexAgs we found a multimedia channel that provides a fun mixture of theology and football between its popular forums covering all things college football with a forum that offers discussion on Religion and Philosophy.

6) Our values as an organization are innovation, contextualization, and collaboration. We felt like sponsoring a forum like this as our first foray into marketing and market research was an innovative approach. There is a lot you can learn about context in the midst of this environment. Bringing the growing network of Novum scholars into this environment with us provides a unique opportunity for all of us to collaborate together.

7) While marketing ourselves like any other business is important and necessary. Novum's primary motivation is to serve. We think we are creating an organization that can potentially serve the R&P community by bringing wonderful scholars into the community to discuss topics that are of interest in the areas of religion and philosophy with forays into science and the arts as they interrelate and even work together in unison. Mark and I are not experts and knowledgeable about everything. In fact, we venture to guess there is a lot of incredible knowledge and expertise already in this forum. Our aim is to create meaningful dialogue on issues of religion and philosophy, bringing along guest scholars that often know more than we do about certain subjects, including guests that do not believe the same things we do theologically. We think it will be fun for us and for you. That's our hypothesis anyway.

Thanks for the great answer to a not delicate question!

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Can you post a sort of introduction with an outline of y'all's general beliefs and views on controversial subjects (homosexuality, abortion, the age of the earth, innerency of scripture, the efficacy of prayer, invincible ignorance etc...)? I'm not trying to quiz y'all or open up a can of worms, I just think it would be helpful to know the beliefs of our new robot overlords. Also, like some people have said, why are you sponsoring this?

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As an organization the starting point for all of our work is that the Bible is true. In my opinion interpreting the Bible is a difficult task, which means that as an organization we do not have official stances on many of these controversial topics. Those who work for the organization and are part of the larger community that join us in our work differ in our conclusions and we can even differ on how each of us comes to our individual conclusions on controversial topics (I'm sensing that a couple good conversations could come from questions surrounding hermeneutics and epistemology in this forum. Am I right?). As an organization, we value these diverse opinions and the dialogue that it creates as we sharpen one another's thinking and pursue truth.

In light of this organizational reality, I offer what is probably a very unsatisfying answer: we aren't going to list out our conclusions to controversial topics. We aren't going to do this for at least two reasons.

1. As an organization, we don't have hard and fast conclusions on some of these issues. Instead of parsing out the ones where we do and the ones where we do not, we want to enter into and foster meaningful dialogue about these topics across a very broad spectrum, not force a particular agenda.

2. As conversations move along you will be able to sense where we stand individually and maybe even organizationally on these issues. Along the way you'll be able to find out if it is worth taking us seriously.

I'll also use this space to talk about the sort of dialogue we hope to encourage here. I think if we approach our dialogue rightly, our conversations will not be limited to gaining a better grasp on truth in the world. I think our conversations can also unveil goodness and beauty through community as we treat one another with the respect humans are due, even through this technological medium. For my money, C. S. Lewis has provided some of the best language for the way we as humans should approach one another in everything we do, including dialogue. The following is from his essay, "Weight of Glory."

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There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

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This is our hope in all our interactions with y'all in this forum, and it is our hope to shape this sort of dialogue throughout the R&P forum, to the degree that it is possible.

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Your website indicates that you want to put the Christian faith back in academia, among other things. What do y'all believe is the correct role of faith in academia? This article defines the problem you want to address, and then references a desire to have the church community involved in students' academic pursuits, but what does that really mean? Free Christian tutoring?

http://www.novumi.org/blog/2015/12/16/unearthing-the-biblical-story-in-higher-education

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Good question! We recently put up another blog post that includes some more specifics regarding the faith/academia conversation. It's definitely a different sort of post, coming at it from a different angle, but may help begin to answer your question.

You can check it out here.

Follow up with some questions and we can continue to dive deeper into what we mean.

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As an organization the starting point for all of our work is that the Bible is true

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This means a million different things to billion different people.

Can you at least give a little background. Are you a protestant or catholic organization? Are you affiliated/sponsored by a particular church/denomination?

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As an organization the starting point for all of our work is that the Bible is true

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This means a million different things to billion different people.

Can you at least give a little background. Are you a protestant or catholic organization? Are you affiliated/sponsored by a particular church/denomination?

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My post above actually answers most of this question in perhaps a slightly different way. Novum is a 501c3 that operates independently from any church or denomination. However, our Board of Trustees and Advisors will include members of both Protestant and Catholic churches. Mark and I are both from Protestant traditions and attend Non-denominational Protestant churches. Both of us are very comfortable collaborating with Protestants and Catholics across the spectrum of theological belief.

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have either of you posted on texags under a different username? if so, what were they? for example, kline, or winags, or notafraid, or tophat?

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nm

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have either of you posted on texags under a different username? if so, what were they? for example, kline, or winags, or notafraid, or tophat?

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I am new to the TexAgs forum, never posted in here before. Sounds like some interesting stories behind those names, though . . .

They are trying to put a label on you immediately.

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Meek sock confirmed.

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That clarifies a lot, thank you.

I just don't see how being a Christian relates to most activities and occupations, besides trying to be Christlike in your interactions with others. When you ask your son what he learned about God in math class, what is he supposed to say? He memorized a multiplication table. The only thing he's learning about life, the universe, and everything is 7*6.

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I apologize for the delay in responding. The ol' computer crashed, but I've got things up and running again.

This is a great question! The significance 7*6 or what 7*6 means for life, the universe, and everything depends on the interpretive frameworks that we bring to the table. These frameworks play a role in the questions we ask and therefore the answers we receive from the data.

The hypothetical question to my son concerning what he learned about God through math rises out of an interpretive framework that I bring to the table. The way that I understand the Bible, part of my interpretive framework is that all things are through Christ and for Christ. To paraphrase the famous words of Abraham Kuyper, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ does not declare that it is his. This would include the domain of our intellect, study, and understanding the world. Math is a means by which we use our intellect to understand our world. Within the framework through which I interpret the world, then, studying math is one way to offer one's work (which is good) back to God in worship and to understand a bit more who he is and what he is doing.

It seems that you have adopted a framework in which math has nothing to do with being a Christian, or at the very least being a Christian has nothing to do with math in and of itself.

The far more interesting conversation that rises out of this discussion, I think, is to discuss why we have adopted the frameworks we have. Sounds like an intriguing new thread perhaps . . .

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Meek sock confirmed.

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Not sure what this means. Another old username perhaps? Clue me in . . .

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You are probably not meek though. Probably.

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Haha! I suppose only time will tell.

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Meek is an atheist poster ...

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You know, when I first read this, I read "atheist pastor", and for some reason it made complete sense.

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Guys, I think we are jumping the shark here a bit...

Let's all calm down and get some serious questions answered first by our new robot overlords so that we can properly attune our perspectives to receiving their transmitssions.

Question #1: IF you were being executed via a firing squad, and you were offered a smoke; what type of smoke would you choose. A) cigarette B)cigar c) pipe d) joint e) none of the above

Question #2: what type of beer do you drink and why

Question #3: Star Wars or Star Trek-- defend your answer

Question #4: is it really greater to give than to receive? Why?

Question #5: Cowboys or Texans, Rangers or Astros, Cubs or cardinals, Spurs or Mavericks or rockettes

Question #6: is there a day better than Taco Tuesday?



Thanks in advance for helping us garner perspective!

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Any answers?

#1 Partagas Serie D
#2 Shiner Bock (First Beer I ever tasted, I just can't quite her)
#3 Star Wars - Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi(That's all that needs to be said....ok ROJ Leia as well)
#4 Give - Under certain circumstances it creates humility and takes sacrifice
#5 Not a big follower of pro sports anymore but....
- Cowboys-I was a child when Landry roamed the sidelines. Somehow that still helps me forget Jerry
- Rangers-almost a toss up.
- Spurs -closest professional sports team were I grew up. Love Robinson-Duncan legacy on sports.
#6 No- I wish it was celebrated in as many places in Texas as it is in Southern Cal.

Excellent! Welcome to R&P.

Please put on some nikes, shave your head, grab a purple sheet and help yourself to the kool-aide!