The programme
Three courses, 39 sessions, an exercise at the end of every one. Browse the sessions below; open one to read it.
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Course One
The Design, and Why It Fits Us
Week One: The Third Door
1The Two Doors and the Thirdthe lived apologetic; Deuteronomy 4:5-8; election for the outsider; the four moves.2Who This Is Forthe wounded, the loyal, the leaders; systems before villains; why good people resist good designs.3This Is Your Wisdomwhat the Bible means by wisdom; the wisdom of the nations; where the two part ways; the glory of God to conceal a thing.Week Two: What the Design Actually Says
4Mandated, Modelled, Freesix criteria for sorting the New Testament's practices.5The Inventorythe assembly's purpose is edification, not worship; the nine mandated items.Week Three: Grace Perfects Nature
6The Prediction the Doctrine MakesAquinas on nature, the four causes, form, and privation.7The Creature the Design Assumesbelonging, self-determination, attachment, and the communal relationship.Week Four: Good Ground
8The Soil and the Seedthe parable of the soils as a lesson about environment; formation and habit.9The Room Itselfsociopetal and sociofugal space; affordances; the size convergence.Week Five: Genuine Love
10What Love Requires Structurallythe three levels of cost; safety; pluralistic ignorance; Matthew 18 as protocol.11The Honour Inversion1 Corinthians 12:22-25; status generalization; the household and the ecosystem.12ExcursusThe God Who Looks at the Poor -- the whole-Bible case, and Acts 6 as the inversion applied to office and money.Week Six: The Healing Environment
13The Therapeutic Communitywhat a healing community is and is not; casual is not flat.14A Training Locus, Not a WardHebrews 5:11-6:12 read whole; healing is for deployment.Course Two
The Captivity: How the Family Became a Business
Week One: How Institutions Bend
15The Bending Principleisomorphism; 1 Samuel 8 and a king like all the nations; Romans 12:2.16The Five Stagesthe whole arc previewed; every culture bends it.Week Two: Greece
17When the Question Changedhousehold to school; disciple to student; the philosophers' question.18The Cost of the Vocabularythe centre of gravity, the criteria of competence, the test of belonging.Week Three: Rome
19Constantine and the Basilicathe courtroom, the vestments, kleros and laos.20The Government Formdiocese and canon law; every ingathering imports gods.21ExcursusThe Government Jesus Brought -- why a religion that becomes a state cannot stay clean.Week Four: Europe
22Christendombaptism as civic registration; nobody chooses; assurance anxiety as structure.23What Territorial Religion Doeswhen everyone is a Christian the word describes nothing.Week Five: America
24The Religious Marketdisestablishment, the upstarts, revival as technique.25The Inner Workingsthe market's incentives and the factory's form; the self-made man and the plural you.Week Six: The Natural Environment
26The Housethe texts, the arc, warmth over rigor, and the psychology of household formation.27The Repurposed BuildingBasil's Basiliad; a building justified by Tuesday.Course Three
What Now: Recovery Without Coercion
Week One: The Engine
28No Wonder You Cannot Believethe honour economy; John 5:44; the receipt; Diotrephes.29What the Church Is Built Onprayer, teaching, good works; the subtraction test.Week Two: The Spectator
30How the Room Made SpectatorsEphesians 4:11-12; social loafing; active learning.31Systems, Metrics and Passive Christianityleverage points; Goodhart's law; the Theranos case.Week Three: Leadership
32Pluralityfour arguments; Asch's ally made permanent; the overrule test.33Who Seeks Poweremergence against effectiveness; Gideon and the ephod.Week Four: Money
34The Four Categoriessettled elder, itinerant, dependent, family mutuality; the weakest joint named.35What Payment Doesthe working elder; crowding out; the common purse.Week Five: Presence and Good Works
36The Church Present Nowherethe commuter church; good works as evidence that must be seen.37Seek the Peace of the CityJeremiah 29; collective efficacy; the contact conditions.Week Six: Recovery
38Teach Before Touchno instrument for compelling the will; the circle; the little church within the church.39Subtraction, Resistance, and the Person Doing Thisthe change calculus; the twelve-month plan; go set the table.