2 Thessalonians 2.13-14 (NLT) - “As for us, we can’t help but thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. We are always thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation-a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and through your belief in the truth. He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“‘What you really need is Jesus. How can you know Jesus?…God can forgive you for any terrible thing you have done, because when he died for us, he took our guilt upon himself. Jesus said that we must become like little children. We must humble ourselves… Pride is the only thing separating us from this loving Father.’

The audience had by now become very quiet.

‘I’m now going to ask you to do something very brave… If you need to know Jesus… come up here on the stage with all your friends watching and kneel with me.’

I sank to my knees on the stage, and sixty young people literally fought their way through the crowd to join me there. People near the front were trying to block their way to the stage, but these courageous kids battled through.

They echoed my prayer to all those listening… ‘Jesus, I need a new heart. Forgive me for the bad things I have done.’ I noticed tears well up in Russell’s eyes as the young man who had spat on him knelt to receive Christ.

Many of those on the stage were broken and sobbing as they made their decision to follow Jesus. ‘From this night on you will never be the same…’”. (David Pierce, Rock Priest, p. 19)

What a joy and privilege to witness people experiencing God’s salvation in their lives. Let us thank the Lord for each person… each person so loved by the Lord! As we tell the Good News to our friends, may the Lord call them to salvation… so that we may gladly say to them, “Now you too can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

-JP

Racist and anti-Semitic slurs and drawings were found throughout the Information Technology and Engineering Building around noon on Saturday, Jan. 14. Multiple surfaces in the building, along with posters and fliers, were covered with hate-speech and symbols directed at the Jewish faith.

According to UMBC Deputy Chief of Police Paul Dillon, the most common word used by the perpetrator was “Jew,” however he added that, “There were also some Stars of David that were frequently used throughout [the building], ‘jew propaganda’ was another term used and [that] there was one reverse swastika drawn.”

Many of the defiled posters and fliers contained pictures of faculty members on them. It is currently unclear whether any of these members were intentionally targeted, seeing as both people of Jewish and non-Jewish faith were included in the act of defamation.

The UMBC Police Department categorized the incident as a “hate crime.” Dillon explained, “What makes something a hate crime is you have to have a crime, which in this case was destruction of property and then we have to determine if the motivation was a bias against a certain group.” Many of the depictions were drawn in permanent marker.

There were no cameras in the area where the incident occurred.

President Freeman Hrabowski released a campus-wide email on Jan. 18, alerting students that “racist language and imagery had been found in the ITE Building.” He added that “our community views racist and discriminatory language, imagery and actions as deeply harmful and counter to our values.”

Senior Richard Elliott said that Hrabowski’s email “was the original source of the story for the overwhelming majority of the student body. The school understandably wants privacy on certain things, but I believe students and staff have a right to information on situations like this to help avoid these situations in the future.”

He added that the reaction on social media was one of “total confusion” and that several students had asked him what happened, to which he responded with a puzzled look and a promise to “let them know as soon as [he] could.”

A similar anti-Semitic crime took place last semester on Sep. 4, when a Patapsco Hall residential assistant of Jewish descent had swastika symbols placed in the suggestion box on her door. When asked if the Police Department perceives the two events to be related in any way, Dillon replied that it does not.

The post Racist and religious hate crime in ITE Building appeared first on The Retriever.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently announced funding for highly competitive grants in 43 states around the country to support a range of humanities-based research and programs.

Whitney Schwab, assistant professor of philosophy, won a prestigious fellowship to research the origins of philosophical study of knowledge in the Western tradition. His project will involve writing a book manuscript to examine his central argument that thinkers didn’t start focusing on the concept of knowledge until the Stoics, succeeding Plato and Aristotle.

“The Stoics attempt to determine the conditions that must be met for someone to have a well-formed belief, and the state they claim one is in when he or she has a well-formed belief is katalêpsis,” explained Schwab. “In examining what threshold a belief has to cross to count as katalêpsis, the Stoics are engaging in a project much more similar to modern day attempts to characterize knowledge than anything we find prior to the Stoics.”

Schwab’s grant is funded for one year beginning in August. His ultimate goal is to produce a book, as well as, likely, articles that result from the research.

“It is certainly very flattering to receive this award early in my career,” explains Schwab. “It is also very encouraging. Over the course of completing a long-term project, a lot of doubt can creep in about the value of the work. So, the fellowship provides a lot of motivation to keep working.”

Schwab’s fellowship is part of $16.3 million in funding for humanities research ranging from a preservation grant for Xavier University of Louisiana to protect its special collections which include one of the few remaining original copies of the first anthology of African-American poetry published in the United States to the study of Kurdish nationalism by Southern Methodist University.

“The humanities help us study our past, understand our present, and prepare for our future,” said NEH Chair William D. Adams in a news release announcing the awards. “The National Endowment for the Humanities is proud to support projects that will benefit all Americans and remind us of our shared human experience.”

Schwab’s research focuses on ancient philosophy with specific interests in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Read more about his work on the philosophy department website.

Header image: Students study outside of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.