First Visit and Nussbaum Readings

On Tuesday I had my first visit to First Presbyterian Church with Pastor Achtemeier. From my conversations with Pastor Achtemeier I learned that she and her parish currently have little involvement in the Washington neighborhood and are looking to improve relations in the future and become better Christian stewards. Pastor Achtemeier stated that the service role of Lindsey and I will be primarily to help the parish in building better relations with the community. Pastor Achtemeier showed me a map that showed where the various parish members live. In total there are about three members of church who live in the downtown area, the rest of the church members seem to, for the most part be from the area west of Dubuque and various surrounding areas, with a couple even being from East Dubuque. The church itself is small with a very round design with the pulpit and sanctuary in a corner and the pews surrounding it. The design of the church surprised me a bit, especially in how it seemed so different from the Catholic churches I’ve seen.

To me, the term “liberal arts” means a way of education in the ways of thinking. The term, “liberal arts,” to me implies an approach to learning that takes a very broad approach, a way that fosters the use of techniques rather that the memorization of technical vocabulary. I feel that liberal arts education is very undervalued in a society that stresses specialization and gives little room for modern renaissance men and women. However, I feel that it is one of the most useful sources of creative and critical thinking in society. It creates thinking minds that remain unbound by traditional definitions and boundaries, minds that will someday think up new ways of doing things rather than remain stuck in old (though mastered) techniques. Martha Nussbaum’s definition of liberal arts deals mostly with the way in which it fosters logical thinking and reasoning, especially through the study and use of philosophy. For her, the best liberal arts colleges and universities have mandatory requirements in philosophy in order to build a base of critical thinking that can reflect upon itself and improve itself as it develops. Her position differs from many others in that she feels that we should seek to develop a critical way of thinking and questioning rather than passively accepting information. Her thinking can seem a bit dangerous to those who fear what the use of reason and questioning can do to the traditional sources of authority, who have classically taught based upon such authority rather than the use of reason and critical thinking. In the service world, liberal arts can help prepare people for service by giving them the ability to critically and creative come up with solutions to the various problems in the world. It is, after all, the act of problem solving that, at least to me, seems to be the root of all service. Bad plans, even with lots of man power can do very little compared with good, efficient planning and well organized man power.