THE AUTHOR

Andrew Tatusko is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (1999, 2000) from which he earned an M.Div. and Th.M. There he focused on philosophical theology, philosophy of education, and postmodern theory. From there he was a senior instructional designer at Seton Hall University where he worked on initiatives to integrate technology into teaching and learning. Currently he is the program activity director for a Title III grant to integrate technology into teaching, learning, retention and advising at Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, PA.

He currently lives in Duncansville, PA with wife Brenna, sons Alexander and Evan, Stella (Rhodesian Ridgeback mix) and Sophie (Rhodesian Ridgeback) and two cats Digit and Kit Kat. Drew has published articles on postmodern theory, theology, and education. He is working on his dissertation in an effort to complete the Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership, Management and Policy at Seton Hall University. The focus of the dissertation in on the influence of theological tradition on policy development in religiously-affiliated higher education since the 1970’s.

He also played drums with a band called Green Marie which put out its first CD before Drew left in the summer of 2006. Drew is now taking a break from playing music to work on healing from Lyme disease which he contracted from a tick while planting trees in the backyard in July 2007. He also needs to finish that dreaded dissertation project at some point while still eligible.

Drew went to Colonel Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville, MD and went to Westiminster College in New Wilimington PA with B.A. in Religious Studies.

THE POINT

Dear Reader,

When I started this blog thing, I had no clue what it was going to be other than some place for me to write down unformed and protean thoughts at random. After doing this for some time, I think I have an understanding of where I am coming from. It is a place not only on the margins of what is often considered theologically normative, but always more or less off-center from orthodoxy. That is to say, I have a relationship to what is usually considered to be Confessional or orthodox Christian thought, but there is always a centrifugal force that pushes me out from its center. I have a hard time accepting anything on the basis of an arbitrary authority alone and any authority requires some sweat equity to have sway or be justified in itself.

It just so happens that a lot of what is orthodox or confessional does not sit well with many of the conditions of our world. Since our world changes, our doctrines about what we believe and assert about reality should change as well. Rather than make experience conform to abstract laws and rules, I prefer to change the rules to bring them to bear in a more developmental relationship to experience. See: Piaget’s understanding of cognitive development.

This is only natural. Our ideas should co-mingle with our experiences and change as they adapt or the future seems to look rather bleak to me. I don’t think that it is wise to simply relativize this or that idea to experience; but I also don’t think that we ought to de-value or marginalize experience at the expense of our doctrinal statements. Both need to work in harmony somehow and our ideas will improve out of that necessary tension that we create between what is the case and what ought to be the case. But to do that we have to accept that we are going to change and adapt as well. This seems to be the lynchpin and I would like to see that pin removed from the workings of our psychological, social, and cognitive development through hard questions and fruitful discussion.

A lot of what I do here asks pragmatic questions kind of like: If this is the case, what then? What does it mean for human living? What does it look like if we do it? How can we take control of this and make something out of it? I like thought experiments that push these boundaries out from the edges of analytical thought. I hope readers can push them with me just to see what we get. One post of mine is a prime example of this and others follow suit to varying degrees. I like to do this often with humor, irony, and a taste of sarcasm to help the medicine go down. This is all to point out the absurd in order to improve our thinking about things.

I thought of a show that I used to catch on PBS called “Alive from Off-Center“. I recalled a piece by Laurie Anderson on the show from the mid-1980’s. It was always trippy and kind of freakish for me, but it always drew me in. I thought about all of my meanderings in postmodernity and all things equally repellent and attractive to both the liberal and the conservative and thought this was a catchy little title to go on… So here it is…

I look forward to our dialogue together.

Peace,
Drew

The views represented on this blog are the author’s alone and not representative of any of the author’s organizational and institutional affiliations.