User:Stephen Ewen
Who is Stephen Ewen?
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Life and worldview
I am a devoted Christian who is also devoted to world missions and social justice. My Protestant conservative theology is coupled with nonviolent radical social and political nonconformism.
By "radical" I more specifically mean that microcosms of alternative communities devoted to Christ, the gospel, and the Bible, should be created who are marked by
- Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional cliches, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.[1]
My Christian missiology is strongly informed by the ideas of the U.S. Center for World Mission, while I most identify with the home church movement, and some with the emerging church, mennonite, and liberation theology movements. However, I am comfortable amidst a considerably large array of Christian movements, so long as they adhere to the stipulates of the Nicene Creed.
As a way to organize social and economic activity and relations, I think anarcho-syndicalism is superior to hegemonic global capitalism.
Vocation
Vocationally, my life path to now is not unusual for an INFJ.
I am an international community development specialist and critical adult educationlist among impoverished and traditionally oppressed people groups. I teach interdisciplinary English, social sciences, literature, writing, special topics, and computers. The ideas of Paulo Freire and Ira Shor strongly inform my pedagogy. I have worked and/or researched within Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, and most recently the U.S.-Pacific island of Saipan.
Ever since my teen years I have been a skilled musician. I play bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, recorder, sing, have written songs, and play professionally whenever the rest of my life permits.
My "radio voice" has enabled me to do a few commercials recently.
Education
I will complete this December an M.Ed. in Adult Learning and Global Change from the University of British Columbia. Prior, I graduated highest in my class from the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University with concentrations in anthropology and political science. Before that, I earned my GED diploma and studied for one year at Youth With A Mission's (YWAM) University of the Nations. I am on sabbatical from work until 2007 and am currently debating whether to return to work at that time or study for a doctorate.
Family
Beyond Christ, the most important thing in life to me is my family.
I have been married for nearly 15 years and have three school-aged children, one of whom we homeschool. I met my wife while we were in YWAM. She is a missionary kid who was born in Bolivia to missionaries in the Grace Movement and is an over ten-year survivor of Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Best information indicates that I am of Jewish and English/Irish descent. During World War II, my Jewish biological mother hid in fear of Benito Mussolini within a Catholic Monastery. Amongst Catholic sisters, she converted to Christ, and along with a good number of other similarly-hiding Italian-Jews of the time, monestarians aided her to escape to the United States. I was born much later and, ironically, was adopted into a German family. I have never met any of my biological relatives.
Hobbies
Original and library-based academic study, and scholarly and creative writing, are my all-time favorite personal activities. Beyond this, I enjoy music, film, and theatre of many genres and eras; outdoor life including, fishing, camping, backpacking and hunting; and, ethnic cooking, computers (including Linux), and travel.
Contributions
I enjoy contributing because it allows me to expand my knowledge bases. While my contributions to date have been in relatively narrow areas, my interests are actually wide-ranging.
Major contributions
- Christian views on contraception
- Quiverfull
- Ex-Mormon (No, I am not an ex-Mormon)
- Politics of the Northern Mariana Islands
- Wake Island
- Cité Soleil (photos)
- Bluefish#Sport_fishing
Pages I have started and authored
What would I say to others?
- Cite while you write. Please! It takes probably five times more time for someone to come along and dig up citations for your work than for you to just cite while you write!
Talk
I welcome you to my talk page!