Grad Student Post: Greg Jones

With the fall chill descending, I’m reminded yet again of the importance of seasons.  For most of us, graduate school is a season, quite like fall with so many exciting aspects (like bright leaves, football games, and homecoming gatherings), but it is also a time of introspection and oftentimes some brutally difficult work.
This semester I’ve been grappling quite a bit with racism and other inequalities.  I’ve been hung up on figuring out what a Redeemed United States might really look like.  In the midst of a tumultuous political campaign, I think even more about the Americans we spend our lives educating.  How can I, with my limited knowledge and relatively small “mission field” effect change in a useful way?
During my drive to the school this morning I spent some time in prayer and conversation with God about Truth.  I don’t mean to be too philosophical or amorphous, but really it is Truth that we seek in our research and Truth we hope to express in our classrooms.  As I shake my head at the inequalities that surround us, particularly in America’s past and present, I cannot help but think how much bigger Christ is.  He is a better leader in all things, politics included.  He witnessed with perfect vision the various systematic forms of subjugation that upset and wrench my heart so powerfully.  It is my job, I think, to make sure that I help students understand how to recognize the wrong in those situations.

Grace and Peace,
Greg Jones, Kent State University

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