Podcasts about Brown University

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Megan Kate Nelson on the western theater of the Civil War and the history of Yellowstone National Park. They discuss the reasoning for fighting in the western theater of the Civil War, location specifics, and various characters involved. They discuss the involvement of various Native American tribes, White Americans forcible removal of Native peoples, and how the Civil War was fought on various stages. They also talk about the difficult history of Yellowstone, President Grant's role in the reconstruction period, and how Yellowstone went from expedition to the first National Park. They discuss how one can have a well-rounded view of National Parks and many other topics.  Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer. She has a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa and has previously taught at Texas Tech University, Harvard University, and Brown University. Her main interest areas are on the Civil War, US West, and has been published in many major publications. She is the author of numerous books including The Three Cornered War of which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Saving Yellowstone. You can find her here. Twitter: @megankatenelson

Glenn Loury is a professor of economics and social sciences at Brown University, and a prominent podcaster and social critic who speaks and writes about race, inequality, and social policy. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Lambda: https://lambdalabs.com/lex – LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack – Coinbase: https://coinbase.com/lex to get $10 in free Bitcoin – ROKA: https://roka.com/ and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order – MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex to get 15% off EPISODE LINKS: Glenn's Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlennLoury Glenn's Substack: https://glennloury.substack.com Glenn's YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/GlennLouryShow The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (book): https://amzn.to/3N7jmz0 Race, Incarceration,

On today's episode of The Literary Life, Mitchell Kaplan is joined by Peter Balakian to discuss his latest poetry collection, No Sign, out now from University of Chicago Press. Peter Balakian is the author of Black Dog of Fate, winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir and a New York Times Notable Book, and June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. He holds a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University and teaches at Colgate University, where he is a Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Originally released as Ep 123. Danny Rubin is a screenwriter and playwright. He co-wrote with Harold Ramis the screenplay for Groundhog Day, for which the two received a BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay. He received a B.A. in biology from Brown University and a M.A. in radio, television, and film from Northwestern University. Danny has taught screenwriting at numerous universities and lectured on the topic at academic conferences since 1995. He was a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English at Harvard University.

Dr. Jennifer Friedman joins the PIN Podcast to tell us about her work as Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Director of Lifespan Center for International Health Research (CIHR). Feel free to connect with us: Guest: Dr. Jennifer Friedman Twitter: @PraziquantelP LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-friedman-2a087586/details/experience/ Interviewers: Ph.D. students, Kripa Rajagopalan, @Kripa_UsRaj; Elizabeth Centeno Tablante, @CentenoTablante; Masters student, Nidhi Shreshta, @nidhi__shreshta; and Postdoc, Dr. Samantha L. Huey, @slhuey; Cornell University's Division of Nutritional Sciences Program in International Nutrition, @Cornell_PIN; Theme music: Elena Cherchi, @elenacherchicom

Professor Thia Cooper of the Department of Religion at Gustavus on growing up poor and Pentecostal as the daughter of a single mom in New Hampshire, traveling to the Soviet Union at age 16 as it was breaking up, her study of international relations at Brown University, the questions that led her from there to graduate work in development studies and then liberation theology, her understanding of theology and its feminist and liberationist iterations, her books Queer and Indecent about the theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid and A Christian Guide to Liberating Desire, Sex, Partnership, Work, and Reproduction, and why studying religion and the liberal arts is important. Note: Some two months after this episode was recorded, Professor Cooper won Gustavus's Faculty Scholarship Award, announced on Honors Day, May 7, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Cooper!

What would happen if we switch from seeing problematic behaviors as a child being defiant and willfully uncooperative to seeing those behaviors as strategies to cope with anxiety and emotional dysregulation? Dr. Barry Prizant is here to show us what happens when we make that shift. In his recently updated and expanded book Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, Dr. Prizant presents seemingly problematic behaviors as part of a range of strategies to cope with a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming. Rather than curb these behaviors, it's better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer support that will lead to more desirable behavior and a better quality of life.  In this episode, Dr. Prizant explains how different behaviors appear to us as parents and educators, but what would happen if we take the time to find out why the behaviors are occurring. He also helps us take deep interests and reframe how we see them to expand learning and ultimately boost confidence and motivation.   Show Notes: [2:06] - Welcome to the show, Dr. Prizant! Karen highly recommends Dr. Prizant's book Uniquely Human. [3:26] - Books like Uniquely Human, humanize the experiences of those on the Autism spectrum. [4:50] - Dr. Prizant describes his background and in depth training. He looks through a developmental lens. [6:21] - For decades, parents have been wanting to understand the reason for a behavior but it is hard to understand if we don't ask them about their experience. [8:05] - We have to see a child's behavior as their way of coping with emotional dysregulation. [9:49] - When you justify a behavior or jump to conclusions, it gives you permission to not ask why. [10:38] - You have to find the underlying issue and find a solution rather than just trying to stop the behavior. [11:58] - Dr. Prizant's book is focused primarily on children with Autism, but these issues are seen in many others, too. [13:45] - Most often, we focus on things a child cannot do, but honoring a child's strengths is so crucial. [15:10] - Peaks could be characterized by intense interests. [16:48] - The most important thing is building trust. [17:57] - To demonstrate, Dr. Prizant shares a story about a child intensely interested in flags and about a child who was fascinated by calendars. [20:33] - What is the difference between an obsession and an enthusiasm? It's how we see the behavior. [22:06] - When we respect a child's interest, we build trust and expand their learning and engagement with others. [24:34] - We should show appreciation for a child's interest. Show your appreciation by engaging with them in their interest. [26:19] - Sometimes we can set special times for enthusiasms or integrate them into the day to day routines. [28:27] - The limitations are in our creativity in how we can see the possibilities of their interests. [30:36] - Dr. Prizant shares the story of a student who is hyperlexic. [32:46] - It is important to give every child the opportunity to shine with their unique strengths.   About Our Guest: Dr. Barry Prizant is a speech-language pathologist with close to 50 years experience as a researcher and international consultant for autistic individuals and their families. He is a Visiting Scholar at Brown University and Director, Childhood Communication Services. Publications include The SCERTS Model manuals, an educational approach implemented in more than a dozen countries, four books and 130 scholarly chapters and articles. Barry has presented more than 900 seminars and keynote addresses internationally, including two invited presentations at the UN for World Autism Awareness Day. He has received numerous honors for his career contributions. Connect with Barry Prizant, Ph.D., CCC-SLP: Uniquely Human Podcast Website  |  LinkedIn  |  Facebook  |  Twitter   Links and Related Resources: Episode 43: Building Social Competence and Enhancing Social Skills with Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson Episode 25: Raising Differently Wired Kids with Joy and Confidence with Debbie Reber Uniquely Human: Updated and Expanded: A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Barry Prizant, Ph.D.   Join our email list so that you can receive information about upcoming webinars - ChildNEXUS.com The Diverse Thinking Different Learning podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or legal advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Additionally, the views and opinions expressed by the host and guests are not considered treatment and do not necessarily reflect those of ChildNEXUS, Inc or the host, Dr. Karen Wilson.

The conversation this week is with Tim Kraska. Tim is a professor at MIT in their Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a Co-Founder at Einblick, where they are developing the first visual data computing platform based on six years of research at MIT and Brown University. Tim holds a Master of Information Technology from the University of Sydney, a postdoc in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in computer science from ETH Zurich.If you are interested in learning about how AI is being applied across multiple industries, be sure to join us at a future AppliedAI Monthly meetup and help support us so we can make future Emerging Technologies North non-profit events!Emerging Technologies NorthAppliedAI MeetupResources and Topics Mentioned in this EpisodeEinblickMIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence LaboratoryETH ZurichProgressive ApproximationJupyter Notebook‎Google ColabProject Hail Mary by Andy WeirAI for Everyone by Andrew NgEnjoy!Your host,Justin Grammens

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works-that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others. Instead of thinking of the international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers lessons for leaders and analysts seeking to design new international governing arrangements to manage an array of pressing concerns ranging from US-China rivalry to climate change, and from nuclear proliferation to peacekeeping. A major contribution to international relations theory, this book promises to reshape our understanding of the forces driving change in world politics. Jeff D. Colgan is Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University and the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He is also author of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works-that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others. Instead of thinking of the international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers lessons for leaders and analysts seeking to design new international governing arrangements to manage an array of pressing concerns ranging from US-China rivalry to climate change, and from nuclear proliferation to peacekeeping. A major contribution to international relations theory, this book promises to reshape our understanding of the forces driving change in world politics. Jeff D. Colgan is Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University and the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He is also author of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works-that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others. Instead of thinking of the international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers lessons for leaders and analysts seeking to design new international governing arrangements to manage an array of pressing concerns ranging from US-China rivalry to climate change, and from nuclear proliferation to peacekeeping. A major contribution to international relations theory, this book promises to reshape our understanding of the forces driving change in world politics. Jeff D. Colgan is Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University and the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He is also author of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works-that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others. Instead of thinking of the international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers lessons for leaders and analysts seeking to design new international governing arrangements to manage an array of pressing concerns ranging from US-China rivalry to climate change, and from nuclear proliferation to peacekeeping. A major contribution to international relations theory, this book promises to reshape our understanding of the forces driving change in world politics. Jeff D. Colgan is Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University and the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. He is also author of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden. Gilmore details four generations of the Bearden family and grounds the reader in places formative to Bearden like North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. By centering Bearden's art, Gilmore mines the historical record and this artist's recollections which were at times conflicting, but nevertheless, shaped his creative imagination. This text weaves archival depth with visual art analysis, illuminating a richer understanding of this important twentieth-century artist and his work. Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. Candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter @NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Today's show focuses primarily on how Democrats used Abortion as a fundraising ploy but never cared to pass a law protecting it. Plus Ukraine, and the recent attack on Dave Chapelle. The Democrats had decades to pass a law making abortion legal. They didn't. Now Nancy Pelosi says she wants to pass that law, but at the same time supports anti abortion Democrats like Congressman Henry Cuellar. New evidence has emerged showing Joe Biden could have done more to stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Dave Chapelle was attacked by a homeless lunatic. Why was Chapelle's security team allowed to break the guy's arm and then stomp him in the face? Topics: Dave Chappelle physically attacked on stage; Federal Reserve raises interest rates; Stock Market tanks; Progressive Champion Nina Turner loses big in Ohio primary; Does Putin have cancer?; Is America helping Ukraine kill all those Russian generals?; Nancy Pelosi says she wants legislation that enshrines a woman's right to choose, so why is she endorsing Pro Life Congressman Henry Cuellar instead of Jessica Cisneros? Special Guest Bill Baird, America's leading advocate for reproductive rights. Because the David Feldman Show website is down, here is our invitation to Friday night's Office Hours: https://davidfeldmanshow.zoom.us/meet... Guests With Time Codes: (0:48) David Does the News (56:52) "Turtle" written and performed by Professor Mike Steinel (1:00:00) Professor Ivan Katchanovski (Political scientist, scholar of politics and conflict in Ukraine, and Professor of Political Studies, University of Ottawa) Professor Katchanovski is one of the leading scholars of Ukraine. He is the author of "Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova" and co-author of "Historical Dictionary of Ukraine" Did Biden do enough to stop Putin from invading Ukraine? Is Ukraine run by Nazis? Did Zelensky escalate the shelling of the Dunbas region before Putin invaded? Can Putin be brought to the negotiating table. (1:30:03) Professor Corey Brettschneider (Professor of political science at Brown University, visiting professor of Law at Fordham University) Professor Brettschneider is author of "The Oath And The Office: A Guide To The Constitution For Future Presidents" and editor of the six volume series Penguin Liberty, including "The Decisions and Dissents of Ruth Bader Ginsburg." The court's about to overturn Roe: The right to privacy; Did Trump's three Supreme Court nominees lie to Senators when asked about their position on Roe V. Wade?; What role did the Federalist Society play in the possible overturn of Roe V. Wade; Will abortion end up banned nationwide? (1:56:51) The Herschenfelds: Dr. Philip Herschenfeld (Freudian psychoanalyst), and Ethan Herschenfeld (his new comedy special "Thug, Thug Jew" is streaming on YouTube) Paranoia; Delusions of grandeur; The right's mental illness (2:30:32) Fred Stoller (Comedian and author of "Five Minutes to Kill: How the HBO Young Comedians Special Changed the Lives of 1989's Funniest Comics") Fred remembers Norm and Gilbert. Fred is author of "Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star, " "My Seinfeld Year," and "Five Minutes to Kill: How the HBO Young Comedians Special Changed the Lives of 1989's Funniest Comics," which is available now on Audible. (3:03:47) The Rev. Barry W. Lynn (Americans United for Separation of Church and State) w/ Bill Baird (Reproductive rights activist) Bill Baird is going into his 60th year fighting for reproductive rights. His U.S. Supreme Court case Baird v. Eisenstadt legalized birth control in 1972. Baird v. Bellotti One and Two gave minors the right to abortion without parental consent. A documentary is currently being filmed on his work. His biography will soon be complete. (3:59:45) The Professors And Mary Anne: Professors Mary Anne Cummings, Jonathan Bick, Ann Li, other PhDs TBD Read Ann Li: www.dailykos.com/user/annieli PLUS: ASMR for your eyeballs - Kitchen ASMR with Joe in Norway - Shop ASMR with Dave in PA - Kitten ASMR with Jimmy (5:12:37) Alan Minsky (executive director of Progressive Democrats of America) (5:39:55) Emil Guillermo (host of the PETA Podcast, and columnist for The Asian American Legal Defense And Education Fund)

“To move through trauma often means going back to what was too much. Often we need to be with someone who is with us saying ‘I'm here. You're safe. It's okay to feel it now.'” In this episode of the Mindspace podcast, Dr. Joe speaks with David Treleaven (davidtreleaven.com). David is a trauma professional, mindfulness teacher, and educator. He is also the author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe Healing. After struggling through symptoms of secondary trauma on a meditation retreat, he developed the Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (TSM) approach.TSM helps trauma survivors avoid the risks they face when practicing meditation. TSM has been taught to veterans, prisoners, healthcare professionals, first responders, and many others. Through workshops and online courses, David teaches mindfulness providers the tools of TSM, so that they can meet the needs of people struggling with trauma. More information on his online training can be found here: davidtreleaven.com/online-training David has worked with organizations like Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (developed by Google) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School by bringing them the tools and techniques of TSM to their staff and programs. He is also a visiting scholar at Brown University. He is the host of The Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Podcast. He has had guests on like Sharon Salzberg, Rick Hanson, and recently Dr. Joe Flanders! In this interview Joe and David explore: - Challenges with the definition of the word trauma - Is there such a thing as COVID trauma? - Why some people are more resilient in the face of difficult experiences - Neurobiological models of Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) Diagnosing PTS - Approaches to treating PTS - The implications of collective trauma from COVID-19

In this episode we talk to Dr Andrew Green, Chief of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery, University Orthopedics, Rhode Island Hospital and Director, the Brown University Shoulder and Elbow Fellowship. Tune in for insights on the biggest advances in shoulder care in the last 30 years, future innovation in shoulder care, and advice for aspiring leaders.

Enrollment is down for the first time in memory, and critics complain college is too expensive, too elitist, and too politicized. The economist Chris Paxson — who happens to be the president of Brown University — does not agree. (Part 3 of “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)

Dharma Dojo Lecture Series with Dr. Masaki Matsubara.  This series is called Dhammapada.  In the next eight episodes, Dr. Masaki Matsubara thoroughly examines quotes from the Dhammapada to understand how we can apply Buddhist wisdom into our lives. Masaki Matsubara earned a Ph.D. in Asian Religions from Cornell University.  He taught at the Department of Religious Studies at UC Berkeley and was the BDK Fellow at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University.  He is now a Visiting Scholar in the East Asia Program at Cornell and also a Visiting Lecture at the Contemplative Studies at Brown University.  Moreover, he serves as a Visiting Professor at Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo.  He is the abbot of the Zen Temple Butsumoji in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.  He currently resides in New York City.This lecture was recorded from the RKINA Dharma Dojo Lecture Series.www.rkina.org

Myrna Atalla talked about philanthropy in the Middle East and the work of Alfanar, London.Since 2010, Myrna Atalla has overseen Alfanar's growth and expansion. Prior to joining Alfanar, Atalla worked for the National Democratic Insititute for International Affairs (NDI) in Beirut, Lebanon from 2004 to 2008, managing its civil society strengthening partnerships. Atalla also engaged in regional initiatives, including women's candidate training and international election observation missions in Egypt, Jordan Morocco and Yemen. Atalla holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and a dual-degree Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University and the London School of Economics.Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna, afikra Edited by: Ramzi RammanTheme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/About the afikra Tijara:Tijara is an interview series focusing on the history of economics, business, and trade and how these three fields helped shape culture and life in the Arab world. The series will host business historians, economists, and businesspeople who have helped shape companies and economies of the region, while giving afikra's community a deeper understanding of the forces that have helped shape Arab economies. ‎Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience ‎on Zoom.‎ Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp   FollowYoutube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook - Twitter Support www.afikra.com/supportAbout afikra:‎afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity. Read more about us on  afikra.com

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, but more than two years into the pandemic, many teachers are struggling to find the light in a darkened tunnel. According to the National Education Association, a nationwide teacher shortage and widespread burnout have a significant number of teachers considering leaving the profession entirely. Recent cases have also underscored the ways in which both liberal and conservative leaning educators feel constrained by their districts. We speak with Prudence Carter, Professor of Sociology at Brown University about what this moment represents for teachers nationwide. For this story, The Takeaway also spoke with Rachel Stonecipher, a former teacher at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. After it was discovered that the school had removed "LGBTQ safe-space" stickers from classroom doors, Stonecipher and other teachers sent an email to administrators asking for an explanation. Shortly after, the Irving Independent School District placed Stonecipher on administrative leave.  Later, in April of 2022, the district declined to renew Stonecipher's contract, which she believes was, in part, done in response to her stand on the “safe-space" stickers.  The Takeaway reached out to the Irving Independent School District in response to this story and received a statement dated April 22 that reads in part: “[O]n April 18, 2022, the Irving ISD Board voted on both renewals and terminations...[t]hese Board votes impact contracts for the 2022-2023 school year. No teacher contracts were terminated with immediate effect.”   

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, but more than two years into the pandemic, many teachers are struggling to find the light in a darkened tunnel. According to the National Education Association, a nationwide teacher shortage and widespread burnout have a significant number of teachers considering leaving the profession entirely. Recent cases have also underscored the ways in which both liberal and conservative leaning educators feel constrained by their districts. We speak with Prudence Carter, Professor of Sociology at Brown University about what this moment represents for teachers nationwide. For this story, The Takeaway also spoke with Rachel Stonecipher, a former teacher at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. After it was discovered that the school had removed "LGBTQ safe-space" stickers from classroom doors, Stonecipher and other teachers sent an email to administrators asking for an explanation. Shortly after, the Irving Independent School District placed Stonecipher on administrative leave.  Later, in April of 2022, the district declined to renew Stonecipher's contract, which she believes was, in part, done in response to her stand on the “safe-space" stickers.  The Takeaway reached out to the Irving Independent School District in response to this story and received a statement dated April 22 that reads in part: “[O]n April 18, 2022, the Irving ISD Board voted on both renewals and terminations...[t]hese Board votes impact contracts for the 2022-2023 school year. No teacher contracts were terminated with immediate effect.”   

Much attention has been paid recently in both scientific circles and in the media to a drug for weight loss newly approved by the FDA. A flurry of articles in the media hailed this drug as a breakthrough. This was prompted by the publication of a landmark article in the New England Journal of Medicine addressing the impact of this medication in a large clinical trial. Today's guest is one of the authors of that paper. Another flurry of media attention occurred as the drug became available, with news that supply couldn't keep up with demand. Dr. Thomas Wadden is the Albert J. Stunkard Professor and former Director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is one of the most highly regarded experts on treatments for obesity, having done some of the most important research on very low-calorie diets, a variety of medications, bariatric surgery, intervention in primary care settings, and more. Interview Summary   You and I grew up together in this profession, having spent some early years together working on treatments for obesity. You're one of the people in the field I admire most, both for the quality of your work and the breadth of your knowledge across various treatments for obesity. So let me begin by asking something regarding our former mentor, Albert Stunkard. So one of the most famous quotes of all time in our field came from Mickey Stunkard in 1959, no less, way before the field was really paying attention to obesity. He wrote that "most obese persons will not stay in treatment. Most will not lose weight. And of those who do lose weight most will regain it." There was a stark honesty to this, and it motivated Stunkard to help overweight people. So if we fast forward to today, do you think this is essentially still true?   Well, first, let me say that Dr. Stunkard's statement sounds somewhat critical. Today, we might say stigmatizing people with obesity. You know, they won't stay in treatment, they won't lose weight, they'll regain it. And Stunkard, as you know perhaps better than anybody, was an extremely compassionate, empathic person. To clarify that, he knew that the limitations to success were with the treatments available and not with the people who had obesity. So to answer your question, the first two parts of Stunkard's statement that people won't stay in treatment and people won't lose weight were probably no longer true by the early to mid-1980s. And pioneers like yourself showed that if you gave people a structured program of diet and physical activity, and most importantly, if you gave them behavioral strategies to improve their treatment adherence, then 80% of people would stay in treatment for 16 to 26 weeks. They'd lose an average of 6% to 10% of their weight. So what remained, however, and remains today, was that people have trouble maintaining the weight loss. And that's something that still challenges us.   Well, it's nice to start on that optimistic note with the hope that people will go into treatment. Let's talk about the drug. So what is the new drug, and how does it work?   Well, the new drug is called semaglutide. It comes in a dose of 2.4 milligrams and is injected subcutaneously once per week. The drug at the retail level is known as Wegovy. Some people will know about semaglutide for the management of type 2 diabetes. It is used at a dose of 1.0 milligrams and it's called Ozempic. So Ozempic was approved first many years ago. Now, semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist, and that's a mouthful. But glucagon-like peptide 1, GLP-1 for short, is a naturally occurring hormone that is released by the body when food, particularly carbohydrates, hits the stomach. GPL-1 is released by cells in the small intestine, and it does several important things. First, it signals the pancreas to release insulin to pick up the glucose that's coming in. And then it also slows gastric emptying, which as you know, leads to greater feelings of fullness. And then finally, these GLP-1 receptor agonists are hitting a part of the hypothalamus that stimulates fullness or what's known as satiation receptors, so people feel full earlier when they're eating and don't eat as much food. I think you may remember, Kelly, that naturally occurring GLP-1 has a very short life when it's released. It's active for about two to three minutes, so you have a temporary feeling of fullness. But these new drugs, semaglutide 2.4 milligrams, have a seven-day half-life. So people are feeling greater fullness and less hunger sort of around the clock, and as a result, they are just eating less. And to use your terms, they are less responsive to all the cues in the toxic food environment that are saying come on, it's time to eat more. It's time to have a large serving of ice cream or sugar-sweetened beverages, whatever it is. People don't seem to be as vulnerable to the toxic food environment.   I really appreciate that you've taken a pretty complex subject, namely the physiology of this drug, and made it come alive in terms that most of us can understand. So thanks for that. So before you talk about the weight losses that the drug produces, you mentioned that some treatments are producing weight loss of 5-6% of body weight. Can you place that in context for us? I mean, is that enough to produce medical benefits? Are the people losing weight happy with that degree of weight loss?   Sure, most individuals who go through a behavioral treatment program will lose about 7% to 8% of their weight on average. And those weight losses are associated with significant improvements in health. The landmark study in this area is the Diabetes Prevention Program published in 2002. People with pre-diabetes lost seven kilograms, about 7% of their weight, and they exercised 150 minutes per week. And those individuals with pre-diabetes reduced their risk of developing diabetes over 2.8 years by 58% compared to the control group. So that's a really important finding that modest weight loss, and modest physical activity prevents the development of type 2 diabetes. And weight loss is also going to improve blood pressure, and it can improve sleep apnea, so modest weight losses have benefits. But two things. First, larger weight losses have greater improvements in health. That's important to know. It's in a linear relationship there. The more you lose usually, the better the health improvements. And two, most people seeking to lose weight want to lose about 20% of their body weight. So if you're a 200-pound female, a 250-pound male, you want to lose 40 to 50 pounds, respectively. And so, larger weight losses are highly desired.   So how do you deal with that psychologically when somebody's goal is far beyond what treatment typically produces? Can people come around to the fact that the smaller weight losses are really good for me, and I've accomplished a lot even though I may not get to my goal?   Well, I always tell people, I know you want to lose 40 pounds. So let's start with the first 15 to 20. Let's focus on that because you have to go through 15 to 20 to get to 40, and let's see how you feel after you've lost the initial weight. And I can't promise you you're going to get to 40 pounds for potential genetic or biological reasons, but let's try to achieve what we can achieve and focus on larger weight loss. And many people are more satisfied than they'd imagined with a more modest or moderate weight loss, even though the dream is to lose more than that.   Okay, so back to the drug then. This big clinical trial you were involved with, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, can you quickly explain the trial and tell us what you found?   There were four big clinical trials of this medication that were presented to FDA for approval, but the seminal paper published in New England Journal treated about 1,961 participants. And everybody got lifestyle modification every month with a dietician for 15 to 20-minute visits. And then on top of that, half the participants got assigned semaglutide 2.4 milligrams, and the other half got a placebo. And they were followed for 16 months. And the reason it's a 16-month trial is that you have to introduce the drug slowly over four months to control gastrointestinal side effects. So as you start to take this drug, you're likely to experience a little bit of nausea. About 45% to 50% of people do so. So some patients, about 20%, will experience vomiting. Constipation and diarrhea also occur in response to the drug. So if you slowly introduce the drug, you can prevent some of those symptoms. And so it's not till four months that you're on the full dose of the drug, and that's why they run the trial for 16 months, so people have been on the drug for one year. And so what happens at the end of these 16 months is that the participants who get lifestyle light with placebo lose 2 1/2 percent of their weight. That's about what we'd expect. Those who get semaglutide, lose 15% of their body weight. So a remarkably robust weight loss. And when you break it down a little bit further, what happens is that 69% of the people on semaglutide are losing 10% or more of their weight. And then 50% are losing 15% or more of their weight. So that's a substantial loss. And this is something that I'd never seen in this kind of a trial. One-third have lost 20% of their body weight. And those weight losses are cumulative. So the 69% who lost 10% of their weight include the people who lost the 15% and 20% of their weight. But as you well know, those are substantial losses where the average loss is 15%, and that's achieved by 50% of the people. That is double what we get with our best behavioral treatment, and it's about double what you get with most weight loss drugs.   Yeah, that's pretty darn impressive to double the impact. I mean, most people will be excited with a a little bit of improvement. That's a lot of improvement. So certainly, we have to take note based on that. When you talked about the side effects, you were talking about the fairly immediate side effects of beginning to take the drug. And then it takes four months for people to get up to the full dose. Are there side effects that exist beyond those four months?   Well, most people will be through those gastrointestinal side effects within the four months. But, if you go out to 16 months, there will be a small percentage of people who have nausea, diarrhea, et cetera, throughout the trial. And you try to help those people with their side effects by doing things like chewing their food more thoroughly, eating smaller meals but more of them, and drinking more water. All of that can help them control their nausea if it's persistent. I think that the most serious side effect, Kelly, is that about 4% of people will develop gallstones or need to have a gallbladder removed. That is just a consequence of the large weight loss. Anytime you have large weight loss, whether it's from a very low calorie diet, from bariatric surgery, or these medications, you will find that a small percentage of people have gallstones and will need attention.   And what about the fact that people need to get this by injection? Are people able to do that okay, or is that a deterrent for people using it on a broad scale?   It's an excellent question. I can tell you that I have injected myself on several occasions just to see what it's like. You find a fat fold in the stomach and inject yourself. The needle is so small that you can't feel it. So once people try it, there's really very little hesitancy. I think certainly some people would think, "I don't want to be injecting myself with this thing," They may not even come in, but once you try it, there's no problem. And right now, there is an oral version of Ozempic. It's called Rybelsus. So it's the same medication for type 2 diabetes but in oral form rather than sub-q injection. And a trial is currently underway to see if we can make an oral version of semaglutide injectable drug, and I think that's going to prove acceptable. So that barrier should be eliminated over time.   So what happens if people stop taking the drug?   I think you know the answer. People who stop taking the medication are vulnerable to regaining their weight. And some people would say, well, that illustrates the drugs a failure because you take it and you lose weight, and you regain it, and you're no better off. But I am on a medication for high blood pressure and on a medication for high cholesterol. I can assure you that if I stop taking those medications, my cholesterol and blood pressure would go up. So this speaks to a very important issue which we have to look at obesity is probably a majority of persons as being a chronic health condition for which they're going to need long-term ongoing care and you would need to take these medications indefinitely just like I take my hypertensive or cholesterol medication indefinitely.   You know, the description of the cholesterol and blood pressure drugs is a great example. And I think this really speaks to the issue of obesity stigma, doesn't it? Because if you have these blood pressure, cholesterol drugs, and lots of others, if people are taking them and they're effective and then they stop taking them and then the medical condition comes back, it's even more evidence that a drug works. But in the case of some of these obesity drugs, people say, well, if you stop taking it and you regain the weight, it's proof the drug doesn't work. So how do you think that might be bound up with kind of general social attitudes about people with obesity?   It's such an important point. So persons with obesity are still stigmatized, as you, Rebecca Puhl, and many people have shown. And there's just so much unrelenting stigmatization of people saying, you know you should be able to control your weight by exercising more, cutting down on what you eat, push back from the table. You see, it's your problem, your shortcomings in self-control. So people with obesity are stigmatized. Similarly, obesity medications are stigmatized. Anytime I give a talk to physicians, I'll ask how many would consider prescribing an obesity medication? And only about 10% of hands go up at most. Then I'll ask, would you prescribe a drug for hypertension or cholesterol? Everybody's hand goes up, and I say, what's the difference here? And people invariably say, well, people should be able to control their eating and exercise with their willpower. And I say, well, it's an illness, it's a disease partly caused by this toxic food environment, so why are you treating that differently? You allow diabetes medications. That's caused by eating behavior to some extent. So I think you're correct. There's this profound stigmatization of people with obesity and of the medications. And I think that view is beginning to change. One of the most important things about this new medication semaglutide, and there'll be a new drug from Eli Lilly called tirzepatide, is that doctors, endocrinologists, and primary care physicians, are comfortable with these glucagon-like receptors because these are diabetes drugs that they prescribe. They're willing to prescribe that long-term. Now they may be willing to recognize obesity disease, which requires long-term treatment. They feel comfortable with the drug and that it's not going to have adverse side effects. So I hope this is a turning point in stigmatizing persons with obesity and obesity drugs.   Tom, how much does the drug cost, and is it covered by insurance? And what about people on Medicare and Medicaid?   This medication, if you go to your pharmacy and ask for it, I think is currently priced at about $1,300 per month. And so that is a very high barrier to the vast majority of people who would want to take this drug. It's possible, and I hope that the price will come down, but I haven't seen any indication of that. Some insurers and some employers cover the medication so that some people will benefit from it. But I think, as you know, Medicare and Medicaid do not cover any obesity medications at this time. There's a very important piece of legislation in the Senate and in the House called the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act, and part of that bill is to get Medicare to cover obesity medication. So even though they've got a terrific new medication, most people who would benefit from it, and particularly people of color who have higher rates of obesity, minority members, will have a very difficult time getting this drug to use it appropriately.   You mentioned that Eli Lilly may be coming out soon with a competitor drug. Do you think the competition will reduce the cost?   I would hope it would reduce the cost, but I can't say that I have any advanced knowledge of that or any assurance that that will happen. Eli Lilly has put a lot of money into producing their medication. Their medication tirzepatide looks like it will be as effective as semaglutide if not more effective by two or three percentage points. So I think probably the best bet for having a cost reduction is that another medication very similar in its mechanisms of action to semaglutide, it's called liraglutide 3.0 for obesity. It is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, it's just not as effective, it produces an 8% weight loss, it's going off patent, I believe in 2023 or '24 and when it goes off patent, I think that there will be generics to at least make that drug available at a very reasonable cost. I believe that that drug currently is at about $600 to $700 per month, but it should come down dramatically when it goes off-patent, and there are generics.   And for people who have health insurance, are insurers covering the drug?   A smattering of people are covering the drug. I don't think there's universal coverage. If you're under Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever your company may be, remarkably, the University of Pennsylvania is covering some of these medications, which I'm delighted to see. But you would have to check your insurance plan carefully. For people who do have coverage, there are coupons to get your costs down to as little as $25 a week. So it's really worth looking into. And I know that Novo Nordisk, which manufactures semaglutide, is trying to work with insurers to get more to pick up the coverage of the drug. Let's hope that they reach some insight that'd be important to reduce the cost of this drug to make it more available to people who really need it.   Let me ask a big picture question to end our conversation. So where does this drug fit in the broad scheme of various options for treatments for obesity and how would someone or their physician know if this medication would be a good option to pursue?   Sure, if we follow just the FDA guidance and the guidance of expert panels, this drug is appropriate for people who have a body mass index of 30. So you can go, and your doctor will measure your weight, calculate your height, and tell you what your BMI is. So at a BMI of 30, you're eligible for this drug if you've tried diet and exercise, which just about everybody will have, and you haven't been successful with that alone. I think that the drug is most appropriate for people with a body mass index of 30 or greater who have significant health complications, meaning they have type 2 diabetes or hypertension, or sleep apnea. If the drug's going to be limited in availability because of it's cost, I would try to get it to the people who have the most benefit in terms of improving their health. That's the primary reason to seek weight reduction, I think. Technically, to address your question, the drug's available to people with a body mass index of 27 who have a comorbid condition such as hypertension or type 2 diabetes. And if you've got a BMI of 30, you would like to get this drug to people who have the highest BMIs and have the greatest benefit to health. Those individuals with higher BMIs at 35 who have a comorbid condition are eligible for bariatric surgery, which is the most effective obesity treatment. If you look at the most popular surgical treatment right now, it's called sleeve gastrectomy, where you remove 75% of the stomach so you can't eat as much food, and it does have improvements in appetite-related hormones such as ghrelin, the hunger hormone. That is dramatically suppressed by the operation so people are less hungry, have less desire to eat. And so that operation produces about a 25% reduction in body weight in one year. And at three to five years, people still have 20% off. So a person who's got a BMI of 35 or more with a comorbid condition such as type 2 diabetes wants to talk with his or her physician and see if they might benefit from bariatric surgery. If the doctor and patient don't think that's the option, you would like to consider an obesity medication to help you just control your feelings of appetite, hunger, and satiation, to make it easier to eat a lower calorie diet, to make it easier to want to get out there in physical activity. So that is the big picture of the options: Diet and physical activity for people who have overweight and obesity without health conditions. And then you add medications for people at a BMI of 27, 30, or greater who have health complications. And then you add bariatric surgery when medications don't work.   Bio   Thomas A. Wadden, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders from 1993 to 2017 and was appointed in 2011 (through 2021) as the inaugural Albert J. Stunkard Professor in Psychiatry. He received his A.B. in 1975 from Brown University and his doctorate in clinical psychology in 1981 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wadden's principal research is on the treatment of obesity by methods that have included lifestyle modification, very-low-calorie diets, physical activity, medication, and surgery. He has also investigated the metabolic and psychosocial consequences of obesity and of intentional weight loss, the latter as represented by findings from the 16-year long Look AHEAD study. He has published over 500 scientific papers and book chapters and has co-edited seven books, the most recent of which is the Handbook of Obesity Treatment (with George A. Bray). His research has been supported for more than 35 years by grants from the National Institutes of Health.  

Brown University economist Mark Blyth sets the stage for Season 6 of On The Job by telling the story of how we got where we are today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brown University economist Mark Blyth sets the stage for Season 6 of "On The Job" by telling the story of how we got where we are today.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brown University economist Mark Blyth sets the stage for Season 6 of "On The Job" by telling the story of how we got where we are today.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this talk, astrobiologist Charles Lineweaver discusses the history of life on Earth and what we can deduce from our understanding of the universe about the existence and history of life elsewhere.  He recounts the ongoing discovery of large numbers of exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- and what we can learn from the varieties of planets that are being found.  He challenges us to think about what parts in the development of intelligent life on Earth would necessarily happen elsewhere and what parts might be unique to our planet. Charles Lineweaver is an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Research School of Earth Science. His research areas include exoplanetology (the statistical analysis of exoplanets and their habitability), cosmobiology (using our new knowledge of cosmology to constrain life in the Universe) and the study of cancer. He recently completed an online video course at: arewealone.us. Dr. Lineweaver earned a BA in history from the State University of New York at Binghamton, an MA in English from Brown University, a BS is physics from Ludwig Maximillian's University in Munich, and a PhD in physics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1994. 

Jessica Kim, co-founder/CEO of ianacare, graduate of Brown University with a MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, talks with Caregiver SOS on Air cohosts Tina Smith, Director of Caregiver Program Operations, WellMed Charitable Foundation and M.A. Social Gerontology, University of Central Missouri, and veteran broadcaster and attorney Ron Aaron, about an amazing innovative new app for caregivers helping them solve problems, and more. Check out www.ianacare.com. Cohost Carol Zernial on Special Assignment.

Ellie Pavlick, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brown University (

Heavenly father, we glorify you. We focus our full attention upon you right now. Help us remove any distractions, any worries, any anxiety and help us focus only on you. We glorify you often in our lives. You're just too small because we aren't glorifying you. We're glorifying things ourselves. We pray, remove all of that and help us focus on Jesus Christ on his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection. And because of all of everything he's done, we have access to the presence of God with a righteousness that is not our own. That's the prerequisite to be in the family of God to have a righteousness that is perfect. We thank you that when we repent of sin, believe in you, Jesus, you give us that righteousness as a gift. And we thank you, Holy Spirit that you are with us today. And I pray Holy Spirit, minister to us, minister to our souls. If there's any heartache or heartbreak, I pray today. Send healing and help us revel in this truth and help us go deeper into it. What does it mean that I'm justified by grace through faith? Holy Spirit ignite our hearts to then live out this incredible, incredible calling and identity. And we pray, all this in Christ holy name. Amen. So I'm walking down the street today on the way to church and I'm in the zone. If you know me, when I'm in the zone, I don't really notice anything else. I'm in the zone. And then these two ladies are walking in my direction and one of the ladies points at me and says, "That guy is definitely going to church." I broke lots of categories. I've seen the nice lady from the park. My wife knows her and she knows our daughters. And then she's with her friend. She's like, "That guy is a priest." And says, "You're a priest. Right?" And I was like, "Close enough. Priest, rabbi, pastor, whatever." I'm just telling people about God. And then her friend goes, "Where's your church?" And I said, "Mosaic Boston, right there on Beacon Street." She said, "Can I come?" I was like, "Of course you can come." And then I realized a lot of people don't go to church because no one's invited them. So it's just a reminder that we should be inviting people into the house of prayer. Today, the title of sermon is believing against hope in Romans 4:13 through 25. How are we saved by grace through faith? That's the only way we're saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But often we put too much of emphasis on our own faith because faith is how you grow in knowledge of God. We want our faith strength about how do you strengthen your faith? That's the question before us. Especially when everything is hopeless. I'll start with the quote by BB Warfield, tremendous theologian. He says, "The saving power of faith, resides thus not in itself, but in the almighty savior on whom it rests. It is not strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but that Christ saves through faith." Christ saves through faith. Faith is the instrument by which God saves us and by which we enter into a saving relationship with him. But faith is not our own. Saving faith is not our own. Saving faith is a gift from God. You can't muster saving faith. You can only ask. And when you ask, receive it with humility and exercise that faith. If we could muster our faith, if we're going to even muster an ounce of faith on our own, then we would still get credit a little bit for our salvation. But this is the beauty of Christianity. There is nothing. There is nothing that you can take credit for when it comes to being safe. Salvation is all grace. 100%. You can do absolutely nothing to save yourself. So that gets us into a position of incredible helplessness and hopelessness. I can't do a thing to save myself. And now we have ears to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. We can hear about grace. The context Paul has made clear, whenever any anyone got saved, or get saved, or will get saved, it's only by justification through faith. And he points to the example of Abraham. We talked about that last week. That Abraham, before he offered up Isaac on the altar, even before he obeyed God with circumcision, before all of that, God made him a promise that you will be blessed and I will send you a son. God made that promise. And Abraham believed the promise. And Genesis 15 says, "God counted righteousness to Abraham. Mercy did not eclipse justice. God saves us by satisfying his divine justice on the cross." So the today we're Romans 4:13 through 25. Would you look at the text with me. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. Not only to the adherent of the law, but also to one who shares the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. As it is written, I've made you the father of many nations. And the presence of the God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope, he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, "So shall you offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the bareness of Sarah's womb. No distress made him waiver earning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words, it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but four ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead, Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. This is the reading of God's holy inerrant, infallible, authoritative word may write these eternal truths upon our hearts. And usually at this point in the sermon, I say those three points, the frame of our time together are one, two, three. I have no points today. The reason why I do the points is number one. So you don't think I'm making stuff up on the fly. That actually did work during the week, which I do because I met a guy this week. He's like, "Oh, you're a pastor. So you only work one day a week." I said, "Actually, only 45 minutes. That's it." And he laughed, I laughed. We all laughed. I went home and cried. And then also I do the points, so you can track in your mind how much more do I need to pay attention? Like how much more brain energy. Just follow the verses. We're going to frame up our time with the verses, versus 13 through 25. Verse 13, would you look at the text. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So God made a promise to Abraham that he would be the heir of the world, and that promise wasn't just given to him, it was given to his progeny, his heirs, everyone that came after him. And earlier in the text, he said, "Everyone who believes Abraham is our father." He continues that same stream of thought here. So God goes to Abraham and he promises, "You're going to be the heir of the world." Heir of what? Heir of everything. What is an heir. An heir is someone who inherits something incredible. So if your grandfather, great uncle died and he was wealthy and he was generous, he includes you in the will. And then you get inheritance. I come from a family of immigrants. My parents came here with $700 in their pocket. My grandfather, who was the only grandparent I had when we immigrated, he came here with nothing. So he saved up over the course of years. And when he died, he had $6,000 in his bank and he wrote out a will. And he is like, "This is what I want you to do with the $6,000. I want you to make an album with pictures of me and my family. And I want you to give one of those albums to every single member of the family." That's a treasured inheritance I got from my grandfather. But if you grew up here and your family has been here for generations, perhaps there's inheritance coming. And that's exciting. We get excited about inheritance. But God promises Abraham and not just money. He promised him that you will inherit or your heirs will inherit everything. Obviously, the only true and proper heir of God the father is God the son. Jesus alone is worthy to inherit the kingdom that God has promised. But through the gift of faith, the righteousness that is imputed by faith, the righteousness of Christ, we're adopted into the family of God. And because we're adopted into the family of God, we're now sons and daughters of God the father with Jesus Christ as our older brother. So thanks to this adoption. Apart from this adoption, we're spiritual orphans. And not just spiritual orphans, we're not children of God, the father. Apart from Jesus Christ, you need to know this is important. Apart from Jesus Christ, you're not a child of God. Jesus makes it clear in the gospel of John that apart from faith in Christ, you are a child of Satan. So we need to believe in Jesus Christ, get the prerequisite righteousness to be adopted into the family of God the father. And when we are adopted, we become co-heirs of the world with Christ. Verse 5 of Matthew 5, this is the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus Christ said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. With the coming of the Messiah, the promise of a land in Canaan, God promised to Abraham, "You're going to get land in Canaan. That's the promised land." Jesus Christ comes and he said, "The meek shall inherit the earth.Canaan So the promise has been universalized to the entire earth and thus, the notion held by contemporary dispensationalist. Do you know what those are? Any Christian that has a lot of charts that loves charts, probably dispensationalist. Just out of nowhere they get a chart and they can timeline, and they can tell you when Jesus is coming back, et cetera, et cetera. The contemporary dispensation, they believe that Israel, because modern day Israel was established that that is the fulfillment of the promise that God gave to Abraham which isn't true. As we shall see, when we get to Romans 9 through 11, the return of the Jews to their Homeland, while in amazing act of God's providence, and perhaps it's related to the conversion that will come of Israel before the end of the age. But the land promise has nothing to do whatsoever with the promise given to Abraham when God made a covenant with him. So Paul follows the lead of the prophets. He follows the lead of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and he universalizes the promise to extend to the ends of the earth. Way, way beyond the original boundaries of the promised land, the Nile and Euphrates. So what does it mean that Christians, followers of God will inherit the earth. And here we want details. We want all the details, Lord. Give me some details. What kind of land am I getting an inheritance? Lord, can I have some waterfront property, in a very warm location? If you don't like the ocean, Lord, can I have some mountains? I've been living in the city for 13 years. I'm like, Lord, can I just have a parking spot? And when I inherit, whatever, can I just get a park? But we don't get details. It should be enough that God promises that when you believe in Jesus is great, you will live forever in the presence of God and you will inherit the world. My daughters when they were younger, I'd say, "Get in the car. We're going on a trip." And no questions, no questions ever, they're like, "Let's go. Let's go." And now that they're older, they're like, "I need a detailed itinerary. I need to know if this trip is worth it." This past week, our family got invited to go... My friend is a minister at Brown University, Athletes in Action, and they were doing a senior sendoff where he's like, "Can you come give them a charge?" And I gave them a charge. I said, "You're going to need to tremble before God's word." It was tremendous. I brought my daughters. I was like, "Little ladies, let's go. I want you to meet these college athlete, men and women. They're scholars. They're athletes. They're Christians. They work hard. They love the Lord. They've got a tremendous pain tolerance. They're doing great." And then my girls are like, "Well, who's going to be there? What kind of food are we going to have? Will there be any children? "And Milana is like, "Will there be any toys?" Because apparently when you're four and you go to someone else's house, all the toys are brand new. They're all brand new. And that's what we want. I'm like, "We're going to have fun. We're going to be together. We're going to make it..." And it was good. Details don't matter as much with the Lord. I promised you eternal life. I promised you an inheritance. The more important question isn't the details of the inheritance, the more important question is can I lose my inheritance or can I get more of the inheritance? Well, first, no, you can't lose the inheritance because the inheritance doesn't depend on your performance. The inheritance that God is offering isn't based on your perfection., It's based on the direction of your life. Are you following Jesus Christ? The moment you repent of your sins and you turn to Jesus Christ, you're justified by grace through faith. Now you are son, a daughter of God. You will get an inheritance. You can't lose that inheritance, but you can get more of that inheritance. And this is 1 Corinthians 3, one of the classic sermons ever preached at Mosaic. It's in the app. Pastor Andy Davis preached a sermon called how much heaven do you want? I go back to that sermon all the time. One of the most powerful. He's like, how much do you want? How much heaven do you want to inherit? And he talks about the capacity to experience the presence of God. That's expanded here in this life and the next life. Once that capacity expands, you get to experience more of God. So yes, it's only by faith that we're save. It's only by faith that we get an inheritance, but that faith needs to be authenticated with obedience or else it's not true faith. I say the direction of life, because I think of Christianity like this because Jesus Christ talked about this in the Sermon of the Mount. He said, "Look, the way that leads to destruction is broad, and there's a lot of people going down that path. But the way that leads to life is narrow. It's straight and narrow." So it's like you're going through life, going through life, going from broadened path. And the God just stops you. He stops you. He elects you. He saves you. He gives you the gift of faith, gift of repentance. All of a sudden you're sealed with the Holy Spirit and he turns you around. And that's what repentance is, a change of mind, change of heart, change of direction. And then he puts you on the straight and narrow and he says, "Follow me." He locks you into this path. Another way to think about it is I think about it like a rollercoaster. Like you were on a roller coaster going to hell. You were on that. And then God takes you off that ride. It's terrible. It feels like fun, but you're on hell. And then he puts you on the ride going straight to heaven. You sit down. He locks you in with grace. You can't get out. The teaching of grace and salvation. You can't get out. And if you want to get out, you should tell me, and then I'll point you to Hebrew 6 and Hebrews 10, which is like, "No, no, you don't want to get out." It locks you in. And on the rollercoaster, sometimes there are highs and you're like, "Christianity is the best. Jesus is coming back soon. People are getting saved. And then sometimes, the rollercoaster goes down and you're like, "Jesus, could you please come back? Got it ready. Ready to go." It's up and down. But the obedience needs to authenticate the faith. So Abraham gets saved by grace through faith. That's Genesis 15 and then comes the sign of the covenant, the sign of circumcision. And then in Genesis 22, he calls Abraham to sacrifice his son on the altar. We talked about that last week and then the angel of the Lord stops him and he says, "Now, I know that you fear the Lord." And then the angel continues the verse 15 of Genesis 22. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, "By myself, I have sworn." Why? Because there's nothing higher by which God can swear than by himself. "By myself I have sworn," declares the Lord, "because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son. I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that's in the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice." I thought it was by grace through faith? Yeah, it is by grace. That's how it starts. That's how you get justified. But then begins the hard work of sanctification of following God on a daily basis. And then God said, "Okay, you believed it was grace and now your faith is authenticated with your obedience." And Paul will elaborate more on this later in the letter. But for now, he wants to emphasize the heirs of Abraham and his seed do not receive the promise inheritance through the law. It's not through performance, but through faith. And it's not through performance because Abraham lived. God made that promise 430 years before the 10 commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Galatians 3:17 through 18. This is what I mean, the law, which came 430 years afterward does not know a covenant previously ratified by God. So as to make the promise void for if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. God promises Abraham and inheritance before the law. So it was all by faith. Abraham believes that he was justified by faith. And Paul's point is of course he wasn't justified by works. There was no law yet. In Galatians 2:16, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law, no one will be justified. He continues in verse 14 for if it is the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, plural, faith is null. And the promise is void. The way you're saying is you can't earn your inheritance by keeping the law. That's not how inheritance works. Why do you get inheritance from anybody? You didn't earn the inheritance. Someone else worked for years to get whatever the stuff that you're inheriting. You're only gifted it because you're part of the family or you were treated like family. So how do you become part of the family of God to make sure that you get this inheritance by keeping the law? No, of course not. Only by grasping onto the promise. God, you promised. God, you promised me that when I repented my sins and I believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior, you promise me that all my sins are forgiven. I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. I will live for eternity in the presence of God, and I get an inheritance. And God has given us this promise. All we have to do is believe in the promise. You mean there's nothing I can do to make myself righteous before God? No. Even if today you got this incredible resolve and you say, "You know what? I have sinned. I've sinned. And I feel a weight of my sin. All right, from here on out, the church inspired me today. From here on out, I will live a sinless life. No more sin. I will love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I will love my neighbor as myself. I will do it." See, the loving God part, it's easy because he is perfect. But then you go home and you're like, "I got to love God. I Got to love my neighbor. Got to love God. Got to love my neighbor." And then all of a sudden you realize, "Yeah, I have neighbors on every single side of me." And then they turn on their music and you're like, "I got to keep loving them." And then they start cooking and you're, "What's that smell?" And then you open the window because of the cooking, and then a smell of skunk begins to waft in. My daughter think it's a skunk because that's why I keep telling her. I was like, "That's skunk. There's a lot of skunks in Boston." They're just stories full of skunks all around us. You just got to keep low. You got to keep low then after you're like, "Yeah, I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow." Every good diet starts on a Monday. Every righteous path starts tomorrow. No, you can't. Even if you try, you can't, you can't, you can't. Why? Because the law brings wrath. That's verse 15. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. The law brings wrath. What does it mean? He means that the law does not affect salvation. It can't save you. It does not affect justification or forgiveness. If you trust in your keeping of the law in your performance, all you're doing is keeping up wrath for the day of judgment. But there is a law and we've all transgressed that law. If God didn't tell us how to live, we could live anywhere we want. We'd be autonomous. We'd be absolutely independent. We can define reality as we want to define reality. And that's how most Americans live. And that's why the wrath of God is being poured out. Even on this country, we're not free. There is a law. People think we're free. Dostoevsky said, "If there is no God, then all things are permissible." That's how most people live. I'm a law to myself. I'm a God of my own life. I'm lure to myself until things get hard, and then people start crying out to God. And once you start thinking about God, you're like, "Oh, maybe he does have obligations upon me that are written on my heart." There's no way. There's nothing we can do to justify for our sins. One of the things I've been noticing now that I'm a soccer dad, we have three practices and three games every week. It's a 20-hour commitment by the way. But my girls are tremendous at it. One of my girls scored three goals yesterday. She wasn't even trying. She wasn't even trying. Coach called her secret weapon. He said, "Protect the secret weapon." But one of the things I noticed with the parents, they're really good parents. They're really nice people. Really nice. I love meeting them. Really nice people. Just tremendous, tremendous people. And I invited this one guy to church and then he's like, "You're a pastor?" Oh, that's the guy that said, "You only work a day a week." So I invited him to church and he's like, "They let you be a pastor?" I was like, "For now. You should come." Such a good dad. Just a good dad. Had a little birthday party for his daughters and he invited all the kids cup. Just good. How can I tell this guy he's on his way to hell? I realized be being a good parent is not virtuous. That doesn't add any virtue. You're just doing the bare minimum. It's just expected of you that you're going to be a good parent. Just because you're human, it's not virtuous to be a good parent. No, the standard is so much higher. The standard is perfection. The standard is absolute untainted love. There is a law and we've transgressed that law. We've transgressed it with sins of commission. That's doing bad things. And sins of omission. That's not doing the good things that we know we're supposed to do. We failed to do them. We have debts accruing against us in God's economy. So we do pray to forgive us our debts. "Lord, forgive us our trespass and our transgressions. Lord, please forgive me because I know I deserve your wrath." And the wrath he's talking as punitive wrath. It's not corrective wrath. There's a difference. In Hebrews 12, there is a corrective wrath. God the father loves his children and when his children disobey, he does discipline us. That's Hebrews 12. And here he's talking about punitive wrath that God takes our law breaking personally. Because God is the law giver. When we sin, we're not sinning against some abstract norm or piece of legislation some people somewhere. Now, we're sitting against the law giver himself who is good and loving. And that's why you gave the law, and he wrote the law on our hearts. It's for our good. It's for human universal flourishing. So when we break that law, we break God's heart. And when we break God's heart, what we deserve in response is wrath. It's a personal affront against God every time we sin. That's why sin is so egregious. It's a personal attack against a great God, a holy God. A God who's been nothing but good and loving to us. And then the only time that he became a human, we mocked him and ridiculed him, scorned him and crucified him instead of glorifying him. Romans 4:16. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. Not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. He says, "That's why it depends on faith." In the reformation there's the five solas. Sola fide, that's one of them. That's only by faith we're saved. Sola gratia, only by grace. Solus Christus, only by the work of Christ. Our justification is by grace through faith only because of Christ. But why is it by justification by faith? Because it rests on the promise of grace. Since you didn't earn it, your salvation, you can't lose it. That's why he uses the word guarantee. Guaranteed to all his offspring. So if God saves you, that's a gift. And if you didn't earn it, if you receive the gift, you can't lose it. When God adopt someone into his family, you're adopted forever. God is a good father who never loses a child. Once saved, always saved because you're always persevering. You're always following. And look, this is what scripture teaches. And I grew up in a church that did not teach this. They were very Armenian. In that, they're like, "You know what? You never know." You ask anyone and they're like, "Hey, are you going to heaven today if you die?" And they're like, "I hope so." And that was kind of like the culture of the church where it's like... Before communion Sunday, I used to dread communion Sunday, because they're like, "If you sin this week, you don't take part in communion." I was like, "Sin this week? I sin this morning. I sin on the way to church. I love everyone like 100%. No, they're sin, they're sin, they're sin." That's the sanctification part. No, but the justification part, that's all the work of Christ. Therefore, we're saved for all eternity. The doctrine of assurance, of salvation, you can be sure. So this is a very important question. Today, are you sure that you are going to spend eternity with God? Are you sure? Do you have that assurance right now? Are you 100% sure? And if there any hesitation in your mind, you need to go back to the doctor and justification by grace through faith. I am not saved because of my performance. I'm saved because of Christ's performance. I believe in Christ therefore I'm justified by grace through faith. You can be sure. You should be sure. And then of course we're called to make our election sure, but our salvation doesn't depend on our obedience of the law. Because our righteousness depends on faith, rest on grace is guaranteed to everyone who follows in the footsteps of faith of Abraham. Everyone who shares in this faith that righteousness, alien righteous, not ours can be imputed, gifted to us because of Christ. Verse 17, "As it is written, I've made you the father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed. Who gives life to the dead and calls into existence to things that do not exist." Abraham here is called the father of many nation. So he is not just the father of Isaac. He's not just the father of his progeny. He's not just the father of the Jews. Abraham here is considered the father of anyone who trusts in the same promise that he embraced that there's a righteousness that can be counted to us from God. We're the seed of Abraham by faith in Christ. Abraham believed God. Abraham believed God and he got God's presence. That's what it says in verse 17. And the presence of God in whom he believed. So he got a promise from God and he got the presence of God. And that's the only thing he had to sustain him for 25 years. 25 years, from the day God promised him, "Hey, I'm going to give you a son." For 25 years he woke up, nothing. Woke up, nothing. God reaffirmed a few times. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But he believed, and he believed that God is a God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. God is a creator. He's the only creator. He's the creator who creates ex nihilo, something out of nothing. No one else can do that. Not even Satan. Satan can't create a thing. Satan counterfeits and he ruins everything else that God creates. So it's convenient that God can create something out of nothing, life out of death because of verse 18. In hope, he believed against hope. In hope, Abraham believed against hope that he should be the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be. So there's two hopes here and then there's a faith. In hope, he believed against hope. What's the hope that he's believing against? That's just normal hope. This is what normal people feel like that you wake up and you're like, "I could be negative or I could be positive. All right, I should be positive. I could be a pessimist or I could be an optimist. I want to be a glass half full kind of person, so I'm going to be an optimist today." It's natural. You muster it up, this hope and you... People say this all the time. I trust everything will work out. I think everything will work out for the good. And usually they say that because they look past at their track record in their life and they're like, "You know what, things have always kind of worked out, so I think they kind of work out." But if you study investment, you know that past results don't guarantee future performance. Everything could be great and everything could have been working out, and then you just die. Oh, it didn't work out. So there's normal hope and then there's a hope that goes beyond, a transcended hope. That's hope and faith together in hope he believed. And he believed against all of the evidence. All of the evidence that he is accruing about his circumstances. This point to the fact that God lied. And then he goes back to the promise of God, and he looks beyond his circumstances. This is why in prayer, it's so helpful to close your eyes. And by the way, in worship, it's so helpful to close your eyes. That's why you should memorize the worship songs. Every newsletter I sent out at the bottom of the newsletter is a list of all of the worship songs for Sunday. I'm telling you, worship could be so much more powerful if everyone just closed their eyes and sang the song as memorized. By the way, you can anytime just sing and you just glorify God. You can close your eyes. You can't see your circumstances. You just focus on God and then all of a sudden you're like, "My circumstances, aren't that important? My circumstances are not sovereign." God is sovereign. "My circumstances even when they're hopeless, even when they're helpless, they're not God." And I trust in the God for whom nothing is impossible. Do you believe that? Do you believe that for God, nothing is impossible. Nothing. And if you do, that changes everything. What is the hope that Abraham was beyond? He was beyond that humanly speaking, God's promise could have. If God came to Abraham when Abraham was in his 20s and like, "Hey man, you're going to have a kid." He's like, "You know what? I could see that. I could see that, Sarah. Yeah, we're still young." God comes to Abraham when he's 75. He's like, "You're going to have a kid." He's like, "Are you sure?" And he goes and tells his wife, Sarah, she's like, "I'm 65. We're going to have a kid?" And they believed, and then God waits another 25 years. So then Sarah is 90. Abraham is 100 and God is like, "Yep, you're going to have a kid". And then Abraham and Sarah hears... And Sarah, all she can do is she just laughs because the absurdity of it. She's like, "I'm 90. I'm going to have a kid at 90? That's crazy." She's like, "Abraham, you're in a wheelchair. What are you going to have a stroller? This is nuts. This is crazy. We're not going to..." Circumstances, no reason for hope. He's hopeless. He's helpless. But he continues to trust in God when humanly speaking hope had reached a limit. It hope he believed against hope. And this is the true faith, vibrant faith. A faith that saves. And the same way that Abraham was helpless, and the same way that his wife's womb, there was no life in it. And that same way, our souls are in need of resurrection. Our hearts are in need of resurrection. This is what the connection between Paul and Abraham. So what is true hope? What is this true faith? Well, it consists of three parts. First, you need the information. If you are going to get saved by grace through faith, what's the information about God that I need to know? You learn the information. God is holy. We have transgressed his law. There's a chasm between us. We are on our way to hell. Jesus Christ, the son of God, second person of the Trinity comes lives a perfect life, no sin, and then takes that moral record to the cross, pays our debt, absorbs the wrath of God for our transgression. He absorbs the curse that we deserve to extend to us the blessing that he earned. And then he dies. And because of resurrection from the dead, everything that he did and everything he taught is obviously true. God accepts his sacrifice. Now by grace through faith, we can be saved. That's the info. After the info, you need to ask, is it true? Is this true? Is it verifiable? And it is verifiable. These are all historic things that happened. Jesus Christ's historical figure. He had disciples. People knew him. 500 people saw the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It transformed world history like no event. We literally stopped time and all of a sudden started recounting. Your birthday is measured from his birthday. Obviously it's true. Now the question is, info is it true? Do I commit? Do I commit? Can I entrust myself to Jesus Christ? We're justified by faith and trusting in Christ alone for our salvation. Abraham didn't just believe in God. Even Satan believes in God. No, he entrusted himself to God. He knew the person of God. He knew that God doesn't lie. Faith isn't blind. It's just a different kind of sight. And he saw that this was true with the eyes of a soul. Faith isn't absurd. It's not foolishness. It's not baseless. Faith is ultimately trusting what is preeminently trustworthy and that's God in hope he believed against hope. Is it reasonable to believe in situations like this? No. Look at your situation. That's not reasonable to believe. You ever feel like that in your Christian walk? Is it reasonable to keep following Jesus? Especially when things get hard, especially when you suffer. Is it reasonable? For all intents and purposes Abraham's body was as good as dead. That's what it says in verse 19. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old or when he considered the bareness of Sarah's womb. Looked at himself, looked at his wife. All he saw was hopeless and he had to close his eyes and looked beyond. How could I possibly believe even the promise? Well, because of the promise giver. The promise giver is the promise keeper. Because he's God and God can't lie. It's against his nature. The only hopeless thing is the idea that the promise would not come to pass. And in Romans 4:20, I love this verse so much. No unbelief made him waiver. Concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. When doubt came, Abraham fought off the doubt with the promises of God. And not just with the promises of God, but the presence of God. How did he do that? How did he strengthen his faith? Tremendous question. How do you strengthen your faith? Through Bible study, helpful and necessary. Studying theology, helpful and necessary. Time and prayer, helpful and necessary. Worshiping God on your own, helpful and necessary. That's not what it says. He did not strengthen his faith by focusing on his faith because when you're focusing on your faith, you're focusing on yourself. And when you're focusing on yourself... That could be discouraging, especially when life is hard. No, that's not what he did. He didn't do any of that. When he felt most hopeless and most helpless, it says that he gave glory to God. He gave glory to God. "God, I glorify you for everything that you are and everything that you have done in the past and everything you will do in the future. God, I glorify you." You know what that means? That means you recognize God for who he is. He's the great God of the universe. You glorify him. And also the word assumes that there is a magnification that happens, where as you're glorifying God, he gets so much bigger. Your problems get so much smaller and that's why your faith grows. Glorify God when you're happy, but also glorify God when you're sad. That's what really grows faith. It's easy to glorify God when everything's tremendous. Isn't it? That's why I think in these churches where the pastors have their own airplanes, it's just kind of easier to believe and it's easier to preach because the guy is like, "Of course God loves me. Look at my plane. Does it anyone want to go for a trip. I'm going to Cancun on a mission trip this weekend." Of course, God loves me. Why wouldn't you want to become a Christian? You can be tremendous like me. Look at me. Look at my plane. That doesn't grow my faith. I mean, God gave me a plane. You know what grows my faith, when everything is terrible. Like humanly speaking. And when you're suffering. And when there is a despondent, a sadness of the soul and you can still say, "Praise be to God. Glory to God." That right there will grow your faith like nothing else. And this is absolutely biblical. This is a story of Job. He had nothing because he lost everything. God allows Satan to take his children and to take his wealth and to take his health. In Job 1:20 through 21, then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked, I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return?" The Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Does your theology allow for a verse like this? It has to. We all experience seasons like this. If not, you will. And then finally, he still had his health and then he lost his children, lost his wealth and then Satan is like, "Can I take his health?" And God is like, "Okay." And Job 2:9 through 10. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die." But he said to her, "You speak as one of foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God? And shall we not receive evil?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips. Can you say, "God, I glorify you" when you're experiencing evil? Well, that's the only way to have a faith that really saves and to exercise that faith. Romans 8:26 through 30, "Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." Have you ever prayed like that? Where you're in prayer and you're praying, and you're praying, you're out of words, but you know prayer isn't over. And all you can do is just groan. And you say to Holy Spirit, "Pray for me. Jesus, pray for me." As the Holy Spirit just begins to groan with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called. And those whom he called he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified in the past tense. It's all in the past tense. He justified, that's past tense. Sanctifies us. And then he's like glorification, this is in heaven. When we get the new body, completely no sin, no imperfections, just absolutely healthy. He's like, "Your glorification is so sure it's in the past tense." Faith grows just like Jesus said it would. If you have faith as tiny as the grain of a mustard seed, you can move mountains because it's not about the faith. It's about the object of your faith. That's why St. Paul wants to move. Yes, you're saved by grace through faith. You have faith in Christ, in Christ. All the focus is on Christ. And then with that faith, he exercised and Abraham believed and he obeyed, and he was strengthened in his faith, and he gave glory to God. Isaiah 46:38 says, "A voice says cry and I said, 'What shall I cry?' All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass Withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. God has given us his promises. We can trust in them. And he also offers us his presence and his presence by the power of the spirit is what in encourages and edifies, helps us persevere. Romans 4:22 through 25. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words, it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. There's so much in what he said. Jesus died for our trespasses, but he was raised for our justification. Because Christ was raised, he conquered this triumphal sign that Christ's death removes the curse of sin because his resurrection undoes the final consequences of sin, which is death. Christ's resurrection marks the dawn of the new creation because his resurrection reverses the curse. Yeah, we still die, but not really as Christians because it's just a transition. We will live forever with Christ. Abraham, by the way, didn't have the resurrection. He didn't have the Bible. He didn't have the Torah. He didn't have the Old testament. He didn't have the Hebrew scripture. He didn't have the prophets. He didn't have anything. And he also didn't have Christ. He didn't have the teaching of Christ. The life of Christ, the eyewitnesses who saw Christ. And he didn't know that Christ came back from the dead. All he had was faith in the God who imputed righteousness. But he did believe intuitively in the resurrection. Hebrews 11:17 through 19. "By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offing be named. He considered that God was able to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back." He's like, "Even if I make the ultimate sacrifice of sacrificing my son because God told me to, God can always raise him from the day he believed in a God who has that power." Last week, I did this thought experiment to talk about the scandal of grace. Justification of my grace through faith. The moment you believe in Christ, repent in your sin, and you're saved. And I asked the question, I said, "Who is the most evil man in the world that if we just sniped this guy, everything would get better." And most everyone agreed it was Putin. And then I was like, "What if Putin repents of his sin and trust in Jesus Christ? And it's true, it's genuine repentance. Could you call him brother?" A brother sent me a real example of something similar. So in 1946, there was a pastor from Missouri named, Henry Gerecke of the Lutheran Synod. He was an army chaplain. He served in the army. One of his sons died. Another one of his sons was injured. And then afterwards, after fighting, he was transitioned to army chaplain. He was sent to minister in the Nuremberg prisons during the trials. And he asked the army, "Hey, can I write about this?" And the army told him, "You got to wait five years." And then he wrote about this in an article called, "I Walked to the Gallows with Nazi Chiefs". It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in September 1st, 1951. He says, "It was the duty of the chaplain of Nuremberg prison to offer Christian comfort to Hitler's gang. Now, after five years under a bond of silence, I can tell my story of how many repented before the hangman's trap fell." In the beginning, he kind of explains what he wants to say and then he tells a story. He says, "I particularly want to emphasize that when stripped of all they had held important." So this is Nazi brass. This is the SS, like the top of the top he's ministering to. He said, "I particularly want to emphasize that when stripped of all that they had held important, and when offered the eternal verities, most of the 21 defendants were able to come to their moral senses and repent." This is what happened in Nuremberg prison. More than half of the Nazis there before going to the gallows or their long imprisonment and spawned out, ask God for forgiveness of their sins against him and against humanity. They did so in a spirit that convinced me that their repentance was genuine. I've had many years of experience as a prison chaplain do not believe I'm easily diluted by phony reformations at the 11th hour. And then he talks about when he was sent there, he had excuses. The Nazis took one of his sons. And then he finally said the following. He said, "The next few days, I prayed harder than I've ever had in my life. And slowly the men at Nuremberg became to me, just lost souls, whom I was being asked to help. If, as never before, I could hate the sin, but love the sinner, I'll go," he said. Early in the morning on October 16th, 1946, an hour past midnight, the first Nazi war criminal to be hanged at Nuremberg began his final walk to the scaffold. Accompanying him was the US Army chaplain who had been his spiritual counselor for the past year. After the prisoner climbed the steps and stood on the trap door, he was asked for his last words. I placed all my confidence in the lamb who made atonement for my sins. May God have mercy on my soul. And then turning to the chaplain, he added, "I'll see you again." With that, a hood was pulled over his face. The rope fixed around his neck and he dropped through the trap door into eternity. The prisoner was Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister in one of the highest profile Nazis to stand trial before the International Military Tribunal. That's all it takes to cry out, "Lord have mercy on my soul." Have mercy on my soul. If you're not yet a Christian, you're welcome today. We plead with you. Don't put it off. Today, pray this prayer. Cry out to God to save your soul. Put your trust in Jesus Christ. And the gift of faith will be given to you. The gift of repentance, the gift of justification, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of a guaranteed inheritance in heaven. It's a scandal of grace. Believe it and receive it. That said we're going to transition to holy communion. We celebrate holy communion once a month at Mosaic for whom is holy communion for repentant Christians, repentant children of God. If you are not a Christian, you're not sure where you are in your faith, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service instead meditate on the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if you do repent and trust in Jesus today, you're welcome to partake. And if you are a Christian, this is for repentant Christians. If there's any sin in your life that you haven't yet repented of, we welcome you to do that. And if you don't refrain, if you do, you're welcome to partake. If you haven't receive the bread and the cup, the elements, please raise your hand. And one of the ushers will give you one as I pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for grace. Jesus, we thank you for procuring salvation for us. You've suffered, Lord and today we remember your suffering. Holy Spirit, I pray that you prepare our hearts now and focus our attention on the cross of Jesus Christ dying for us. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Take off the top layer. Take the bread. And then the second layer. On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus Christ took the bread and after breaking it, he said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat and do this in remembrance of me." Then proceed to take the cup. He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Lord God, we glorify you. And Holy Spirit, lead us in glorifying God. Help us as we sing now as we worship. Help us cast off all our burdens, all our anxiety, all of our stress, cast it off from us to you and help us focus on you, on your greatness, on your majesty, on your preeminence, on your holiness, on your righteousness, on the perfection of your plans and your sovereignty. Now, help us sing with everything we got because you are worthy of all worship, of all praise, of all glory. And we pray all this in the name of the father, of the son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Judson Brandeis is an award winning urologist and sexual medicine expert, clinical researcher, physician educator, and a caring clinician and surgeon. A graduate of Brown University and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, with Urologic Surgery residency at UCLA and a post-doc fellowship at Harvard, today he specializes in the emerging field of sexual health and medicine. On this Episode: Dr. Judson Brandeis, MD | @judsonbrandeismd  Adam Jackson | @adam___jackson   THE BROTHERSHIP: Online Community and Mobile App | Experience online men's councils and workshops as well as weekly master classes led by Sacred Sons Facilitators. Join for 2 Weeks FREE Now! TRAININGS & EVENTS: EMX | SOUTHEAST | MAY 19 - 22 | The Embodied Masculine Experience is a 40 man initiatory event. Join us in Westminster, SC for 4 days of Connection, Confrontation, and Celebration with Sacred Sons regional Leadership. EMX | OREGON | MAY 26 - 29 | The Embodied Masculine Experience is a 40 man initiatory event. Join us in Dufur, OR for 4 days of Connection, Confrontation, and Celebration with Sacred Sons regional Leadership. EMX | AUSTIN | JUNE 9 - 12 | The Embodied Masculine Experience is a 40 man initiatory event. Join us in Austin, TX for 4 days of Connection, Confrontation, and Celebration with Sacred Sons regional Leadership. CONNECT: Shop | Sacred Sons Apparel & Merch Website | sacredsons.com   YouTube | Sacred Sons   Instagram | @sacredsons   Events Calendar | All upcoming Sacred Sons Trainings and Experiences! 

Dan Lawton is a mindfulness instructor and writer, with a specific interest in the adverse effects of meditation practice. Dan is a certified instructor in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) through Brown University and spent four years teaching meditation in New Orleans. Dan spent a decade practicing meditation, primarily in the Vipassana and Western Insight traditions and completed roughly 15 silent retreats. He now mentors other meditators struggling with adverse experiences through the organization, Cheetah House. Before teaching meditation, Dan worked as a newspaper reporter in California and Louisiana. He has written about his own adverse experiences from meditation at: www.danlawton.substack.com In this second half of their two-part conversation, Dan explains the unique way western Buddhism intermingles with science, academia, and government by presenting mindfulness practices as secular and rational despite its religious claims and dogmatic history. Together Rachel and Dan break down the defensiveness of the mindfulness communities, pointing out the common reactions people have when their faith is questioned. Dan explains how he has restructured his mindfulness teachings with the more complete knowledge he has of the dangers of intense practice. Before You Go: Rachel explains the importance of not surrendering to any particular practice but rather remaining open to them while observing the risks and ensuring safeguards are in place to reduce the chances of negative impacts. More info on Dan here: https://nolamindfulness.com/ More about Dan's work with Cheetah House Here: http://www.cheetahhouse.org Thanks to all of our newest Patreon supporters: Amelia Brunner, Jon Butler, Ashley Moose and 4MileCircus !!! To help support the show monthly and get bonus episodes, shirts, and tote bags, please visit: www.patreon.com/indoctrination Prefer to support the IndoctriNation show with a one-time donation? Use this link: http://www.paypal.me/indoctrination You can help the show for free by leaving a rating on Spotify or Apple/ iTunes. It really helps the visibility of the show!

Meet Megan Ranney, M.D., MPH:Megan Ranney, M.D., MPH is the Academic Dean of the School of Public Health and the founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health at Brown University. She is co-founder and Senior Strategic Advisor to the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine at the Aspen Institute. Dr. Ranney is also an emergency physician, researcher, and contributor to media outlets including MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She received a Bachelors in the History of Science from Harvard University, and received her medical degree from Columbia University. Key Insights:Megan Ranney, M.D., MPH is a practicing emergency physician, researcher, and advocate for innovative approaches to health.Relationships. Dr. Ranney's network of peers provide practical advice as well as social support. She also has mentors and sponsors who have helped create career opportunities for her. Building relationships and friendships are fundamental to career development and career enjoyment. (6:56)Finding Common Ground. Dr. Ranney works with controversial topics. She points out that generally people agree on goals, but disagree on the strategy. A way to build sustainable, community-based solutions is to take away the judgement, focus on the shared goal, and find paths to solutions that converge across stakeholders. (26:26)Balance. Dr. Ranney describes that during different points in her life she was either more focused on her home and family, or prioritized career goals and leaned on her support system. This is okay. Accept that the flux is part of life, and ensure that over the long-run you feel balanced. (30:12)This episode is hosted by Ceci Connolly. She is a member of the Advisory Council for Her Story and President and CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans.Relevant Links:Learn more about Dr. RanneyFollow Dr. Ranney on Twitter

The Intercollegiate Sailing Association Inclusivity, Diversity, and Equity Task Force - otherwise known as ICSA TIDE - is dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive sailing community. Four of its student-athlete leaders – Lily Allen, University of Michigan; Preston Anderson, Bowdoin College; Michelle Lahrkamp, Stanford University; and Emi Ruth, Brown University – join us to discuss the experiences of women and athletes of color in this majority-white sport, the barriers they need to break to overcome the sport's perception of privilege and exclusivity and how they and TIDE are seeking to make the sport more inclusive at all levels.

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It's almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children's success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis (MIT Press, 2022), Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality. Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today's socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need programs inspired by Medicare—call them Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to become an interest group that can wield its political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society's unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform. Nate Hilger is a Harvard and Stanford-trained economist who has worked as a professor of economics at Brown University and an economist and data scientist in Silicon Valley. While in academia he was a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and continues to hold an affiliation with the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown. In 2020 he served as a lead policy consultant on early childhood and non-K12 child development issues for Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign. His academic research on child development and inequality has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics and other leading peer-reviewed journals, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major media outlets. He lives with his wife and son in Redwood City, California. Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new Master's program in Applied Economics focused on the digital economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It's almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children's success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis (MIT Press, 2022), Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality. Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today's socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need programs inspired by Medicare—call them Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to become an interest group that can wield its political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society's unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform. Nate Hilger is a Harvard and Stanford-trained economist who has worked as a professor of economics at Brown University and an economist and data scientist in Silicon Valley. While in academia he was a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and continues to hold an affiliation with the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown. In 2020 he served as a lead policy consultant on early childhood and non-K12 child development issues for Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign. His academic research on child development and inequality has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics and other leading peer-reviewed journals, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major media outlets. He lives with his wife and son in Redwood City, California. Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new Master's program in Applied Economics focused on the digital economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology