Leadership Institute
About the Leadership Institute
Organizational Leadership
The Church & Society
Educational Leadership: The Bishop as Teacher
Spirituality & Personal Growth
The Church and Society
The College for Bishops Leadership Institute was established to provide educational resources for new bishops as well as trending informational resources for all bishops. The Church and Society focuses on the following specific topics:
New items are added on a monthly basis. To comment or suggest additional topics or resources, please use the feedback form located at the bottom of this page.
Science & Religion
Some Americans are skeptical about taking a Covid vaccine. Could religious leaders convince them?
As U.S. regulators prepare to approve at least two highly effective Covid-19 vaccines, questions remain about who will be given priority access, how the drugs will be distributed and, to the distress of some public health officials, whether enough of the population will be willing to take a vaccine. One group of people who could help encourage vaccination is faith leaders, who have the ability to reach communities that might otherwise be skeptical.
Eco-Anxiety: What Can We Do?
Almost 70% of Americans feel worried about climate change but less than half of Americans feel any social pressure or expectation to do something about the looming problems. So what can be done? The emerging field of eco-therapy is one response to this eco-anxiety, but we also need to turn eco-anxiety into eco-action.
20 Action Items to Start Taking Your Church towards Zero Waste
Church of the Nativity (Raleigh, NC) is working with partners to sponsor a website and blog of useful environmental resources for church congregations. This handout lists 20 action items that churches can use to responsibly reduce their carbon footprint. Find this and more at ZeroWasteChurch.org.
the science of awe
Awe experiences are self-transcendent. They shift our attention away from ourselves, make us feel like we are part of something greater than ourselves, and make us more generous toward others. But what is awe? What types of experiences are most likely to elicit feelings of awe? And what are the effects of awe? While philosophers and religious scholars have explored awe for centuries, it was largely ignored by psychologists until the early 2000s. Since then, there has been growing interest in exploring awe empirically. This has led to a number of fascinating discoveries about the nature of awe, while also raising many questions still to be explored.
How Genetics is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'
It can be argued that race is a “social construct,” a way of categorizing people that changes over time and across countries, and that human populations are remarkably similar to each other from a genetic point of view. Over the years this consensus has morphed into an orthodoxy that maintains that we should be anxious about any research into genetic differences among populations. However, recent genetic studies have demonstrated differences across populations not just in the genetic determinants of simple traits such as skin color, but also in more complex traits like bodily dimensions and susceptibility to diseases.
Scientists uncover St Columba's cell on Iona
Archaeologists say they have identified the remains of the cell of St Columba on the Scottish island of Iona. They have used radiocarbon dating to place samples of burned wood in the middle of Columba’s time there almost 1,500 years ago. The charred remains of a hut were excavated in 1957 but it has taken until now for science to accurately date them.
A scientist's new theory: Religion was key to human's social evolution
In humans’ mysterious journey to become intelligent, socializing creatures like no other in the animal world, one innovation played an essential role: religion. That’s the theory that a preeminent evolutionary scientist is setting out to prove. “You need something quite literally to stop everybody from killing everybody else out of just crossness,” said Robin Dunbar. “Somehow it’s clear that religions, all these doctrinal religions, create the sense that we’re all one family.”