David Galston is the Executive Director of the Westar Institute and a founding member of the Seminar on God and the Human Future. Learn more here.
There was much concern and a little shock at the Westar Institute when we learned that Greg Gutfeld compared the Brett Kavanaugh hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee to the crucifixion of Jesus. Gutfeld is a Fox News host, so perhaps this is no surprise, but it remains sad.
Westar is about religious literacy. In response to “The Statement of Social Justice and the Gospel,” I accuse the authors of biblical illiteracy.
Worldview is the English word used to translate the nineteenth-century German use of the word, Weltanschauung. There are several ways to understand "worldview," depending on the discipline engaged. In the nineteenth-century, Wilhelm Dilthey linked a worldview to interpretation; we interpret the world the way we do because of the worldview we hold. In this basic [...]
Human beings are symbol makers, and as we grow up the first challenge in life is to learn how to use our most basic symbol system, which is language. Other animals and even plants use symbols in certain ways. Some plants, for example, can mimic insect eggs on their leaves to prevent insects from laying real [...]
The Westar Institute cannot condone using the Bible for pointed, political gain. Relying on selected and isolated Bible verses to justify separating children from parents in cruel and inhumane acts not only insults the Abrahamic faith traditions, it also turns the Bible into a 21st Century political manifesto. The Bible is full of politics that [...]
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