Good News In A World Of Bad News with Jason Mahn

"When I'm at the correctional facility, it's hard to know who's the teacher and who's the student. One inmate, convicted of murder at age fifteen, had never been involved in gang activity or violence. One year prior to his crime, he was shot eight times outside his house and a police officer, instead of rushing to his aide was standing over him, as he was bleeding on the ground saying, "you see what you gangbangers get?", presupposing that he deserved this, that this was just punishment. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. This police officer assumed he was involved in this violence and a year later he was and being tried as an adult for murder. The inmate is one of the wisest, most compassionate mentors of men in the prison and of me."Jason A. Mahn is a professor of religion and director of the Presidential Center for Faith and Learning at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. He teaches about God, interfaith cooperation, environmental ethics, social justice, vocation, and religious responses to suffering at Augustana, and also frequently speaks at churches and within Lutheran higher education circles. He has authored or edited four books, including Becoming a Christian in Christendom: Radical Discipleship and the Way of the Cross in America's “Christian” Culture (Fortress, 2016) and Radical Lutherans/Lutheran Radicals (Cascade, 2017). One of Jason's deep joys is to teach “Creator, Creation, and Calling” to Augustana students at Holden Village during “J-Term” and join them in building igloos, skiing, and stoking the furnace called Dante. Another joy is to return in the summer with his spouse, Rev. Laura Evans Mahn, and their two sons, Asa and Gabe, to teach, hike, laugh, and practice living well.To learn more about Holden Village, visit: http://www.holdenvillage.org or to listen to more audio recordings visit: http://audio.holdenvillage.org. The Holden Village Podcast is accessible through Apple iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeart Radio, and most podcast apps. For questions and inquiries, contact [email protected].