Adult Education – Hope Church

Sundays during the school year from 9:40-10:40am in Commons

Adult Education opportunities are intended for spiritual formation through biblical study and critical examination of cultural, social, and moral issues from a Christian perspective. Click on the title of the session to access the video.

Fall 2026

October 18: Bystanders, Then and Now: Lessons from History The “bystander” question is one of the most haunting issues that emerged from the history of Nazi Germany. How we respond to injustice, violence, and the plight of other people is a challenge to human beings in every age, including our own. Bonhoeffer and Holocaust scholar Victoria Barnett explored this in her book Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust. During this webinar, Barnett will discuss what this means for us today and what we can learn from history.

Additional Resources: The Ecumenical Review – ‘Barmen, the Ecumenical Movement, and the Jews: The Missing Thesis’

Why Do People (Sometimes) Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion? two-part series. Isn’t religion supposed to encourage and inspire people to become better and to do good? In many cases, of course, it has! But there are still some powerful factors that increase the danger of religion and the likelihood of some religious people doing things that could be characterized as “bad.” In this course, Steve Hoogerwerf explores some of those factors.

October 11: Part Two We will continue to explore some of the factors that contribute to people doing bad things in the name of religion. These include the misuse of sacred texts, notions of Holy War, the idea that the end justifies the means, triumphalism, withdrawal from society and blind obedience to religious authority, and civil religion. We will also identify some ways to avoid these dangerous factors that sometimes encourage people to do bad things in the name of religion.
October 4: Part One What do we mean by religion and bad things? Is religion dangerous? We will explore several reasons why it might be dangerous, look at a few historical examples, and explore alternatives that can help maintain its positive function. Topics include the dangers of absolute truth and a monotheistic perspective, blind obedience to religious authority, building religious “walls” and religious exclusivism. We’ll look briefly at some historical examples and explore some antidotes to each of these potentially dangerous religious tendencies.

Money and Morality: Integrating Free Enterprise, Economic Justice, and Faith three-part series

September 27: A Christian Perspective on Poverty and the Welfare State This class, presented by Hope College professor of economics Steven McMullen, will offer a quick overview of poverty trends in the U.S. over the last 50 years, highlighting both the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain. Then, we will explore one way that Christians have thought about economic justice, examining some Reformed thinkers and Biblical texts. Finally, with that account of economic justice in mind, we will examine evidence about the effectiveness of two of our biggest welfare state programs.
September 20: Hope From the Dismal Science A call to care for the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized has motivated Christian social action for centuries. Noble intentions, however, even those derived from robust Christian thinking, sadly often do not yield desirable outcomes. Economics, as a primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive social science, can help us to understand and anticipate human behavior in response to policy and circumstance. Combined with Christian ethics, this understanding can complement a Christian vision for justice and mercy. As a case study, Neil Silveus, assistant professor of economics at Hope College, will discuss policies and their impact around incarceration in the United States. We will ask what well-intentioned policies have done and where the dismal science may point us toward hope.
September 13: The Economic Ways of Loving Jesus tells us that the second greatest commandment, so great that it is much like the first, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) If we take this call seriously and accept that love requires willing the good of another, then we must employ a hefty dose of prudence. Prudence-not to be confused with hesitancy or stinginess-is the virtue that we embody when we see the world as it is and respond accordingly. If we are to dare to call our other-serving actions love, we must concern ourselves, not just with good intentions, but also with the consequences of our actions. Facilitating actual good for others matters much more than how it feels or how it looks. Economics is a discipline dedicated to understanding the causes and the consequences of human action within the context of a created world and given human nature such that resources are limited relative to all the good things we can aspire to do. Time, talent, knowledge, energy, physical resources, and everything else we might consider an “input” to loving our neighbor well are finite in their availability, which is just one reason stewardship of all these resources is paramount when our objective is our neighbors’ wellbeing. Recognizing these limitations, but also appreciating human potential, economics is a tool that can be readily employed in prudential, another’s-good-seeking action. Sarah Estelle, Hope College professor of economics, will introduce some economically informed principles for loving our actual neighbors well, even while we know that every human person is worthy of our neighborliness.

Sundays during the school year from 9:40-10:40am in Commons

Fall 2026

Spring 2026

2025

Previous Adult Education Sessions