The study is planned for 15 sessions, so ending in the end of January, but if we find that the conversation grows bigger than a single session can handle, we’ll extend it out.

Week 1 - Welcome to the Strange New World: The Self and the Social Imaginary

Week 2 - The Lie of Autonomy: Creature or Self-Creator?

Week 3 - Rousseau and the Inner Voice: What Makes Me Authentic?

Week 4 - Romanticism and Expressive Individualism: Feelings, Nature, and Society

Week 5 - Prometheus Unbound: Marx, Nietzsche, Wilde, and the Death of Moral Nature

Week 6 - Freud and the Sexualized Self: When Desire Becomes Identity

Week 7 - Sex, Marriage, Modesty, and the Sixth Commandment

Week 8 - Technology and the Plastic World: When "Can" Becomes "Should"

Week 9 - Institutions, Family, Authority, and Formation

Week 10 - Plastic Selves, Liquid Worlds: Recognition, Narrative, and Belonging

Week 11 - LGBTQ+: Identity, Victimhood, Tolerance, and Recognition

Week 12 - Male and Female: The Body, Gender, and Creaturely Gift

Week 13 - Life, Liberty, Happiness, and Human Worth

Week 14 - Strangers in a Strange New World: Christian Witness, Vocation, and the Church

Week 15 - The Christian Self: Baptized, Fed, Forgiven, and Raised

You can always bring your personal Bible if you’d like. No reading or purchase of the books is required, though could always be helpful.

Each week will provide the necessary background and focus on discussion and studying God’s Word.

Well, that’s a little up in the air as a topic. The plan currently is to move from this to an overview study of one of the books of the Bible. What’s your favorite? Or, what’s the book you want to know more about? Come to Bible Study and share that with everyone, and we’ll see what happens!

Several sessions in this study will address sensitive and deeply personal subjects, including sexuality, gender, family, abortion, disability, suffering, and end-of-life questions. These are not merely cultural or theological abstractions. They may touch the lives of people we love, experiences within our own families, or struggles and wounds that some participants have carried privately for many years.

For that reason, these conversations will be approached with both clarity and care. We will seek to speak faithfully about what Scripture teaches without turning anyone present—or anyone they love—into an example or an argument. No one will be expected to disclose personal experiences or explain situations within their family. Mockery, ridicule, and careless language have no place in these discussions.

Our purpose is not simply to win an argument about the culture around us. It is to learn to see our neighbors—and ourselves—as human beings created by God and as sinners for whom Christ died. Christian truth is therefore spoken in the context of repentance, vocation, compassion, and mercy. We will strive to speak clearly, listen carefully, and remember that difficult questions are often carried by real people with real wounds.