Here are student summaries of fall 2024 MCJD dialogical surveys with members of the First A.M.E. Zion congregation. Click on any title for details, then return to see all titles.
Environmental Priorities from a Religious Perspective
Event: First AME ZionInterviewer: Randall
Whom did you interview?
Debbie lives in Portland, and works as a travel agent in Washington state. She was also one of the speakers that came into our class the Monday before.
How did your EcoTypes and SDG priorities compare?During our talk, we actually agreed on a lot of the questions on the survey. I interviewed Debbie with one other classmate, and at least two of us agreed on most of the questions. One major aspect Debbie focused on was that nature is pure, and untouched nature is much more beautiful and spiritually fulfilling than things like gardens or parks. She also very much cared about individual responsibility, and thought that the best way to make positive change is for everyone to make an effort individually to improve the world. The question we agreed most on was the Science axis; we all thought that science is the best way to methodically find the truth about environmental issues, rather than other sources of facts. Even though we agreed on a lot of the axes, Debbie’s EcoType was Small Green Steps, which was the opposite of both mine and my classmate’s EcoType, Social Justice. For our SDG priorities, Debbie prioritized the first four, no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, and quality education, because she thought that having all four of those is necessary for the rest to occur, and for people to be able to care about the other global priorities. I agreed with this, though I prioritized number sixteen, peace justice, and strong institutions, which was Debbie’s fifth choice.
What larger MCJD lessons did you learn?As we went through the survey, even when we disagreed on the questions, we had similar reasons for answering the way we did. For example, we disagreed on the Ecosystems axis, but mainly because I was looking at ecosystems in the short term, while Debbie was looking at them on a longer scale. We both agreed about what ecosystems do, but interpreted the same question in two different ways. Besides some disagreements about what nature means spiritually, or in a religious context, we agreed about the problems facing the environment and possible solutions. We received opposing EcoTypes, and prioritized different things, but still agreed on the vast majority of the questions, even if we saw them in different ways.