{"id":6427,"date":"2017-04-06T12:01:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T17:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/?p=6427"},"modified":"2017-04-06T12:02:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T17:02:05","slug":"faculty-in-their-own-words-dr-dan-epp-tiessen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/2017\/faculty-in-their-own-words-dr-dan-epp-tiessen\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty: In Their Own Words \u2013 Dr. Dan Epp-Tiessen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14Dr. Dan Epp-Tiessen, Associate Professor of Bible, has taught at CMU since 1998.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

What are you teaching right now that you’re most excited about?<\/b><\/p>\n

Creation, Environment, and the Bible<\/span><\/i>. Given the ecological challenges this planet faces, we as Christians have a unique opportunity to address those issues because our fundamental conviction is that God has created this amazing cosmos. If God has created this unbelievably beautiful, complex world, we of all people ought to love and care for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are you researching and writing?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been asked to write a Believers Church Bible Commentary on the book of Micah. I\u2019ve always loved the prophets. They tell it like it is in terms of naming the sins and shortcomings of God’s people, and yet they\u2019re also profoundly hopeful. The book of Micah brings together the importance of worship, the importance of a close relationship with God, and how the two should lead to a life of faithfulness and justice, and of caring for people in the community\u2014especially\u00a0the weaker and more vulnerable members of the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

What you are reading for enjoyment?<\/b><\/p>\n

In the last few years I\u2019ve been trying to read more about Indigenous-settler relations in this country. That\u2019s not always enjoyable, but I\u2019ve found it deeply, deeply meaningful. I think if we\u2019re going to live well in this country, it\u2019s one of the primary agenda items that we as a settler society need to face going forward.<\/p>\n

Where or how do students give you hope?<\/b><\/p>\n

For me the hope and encouragement from students come from when I see them get excited about the stuff we\u2019re talking about in class; when I see them get excited about particular biblical stories or biblical books or biblical passages and themes. They want their lives to be shaped by this stuff. They want to be people transformed by God\u2019s grace, transformed by the life of Jesus, and they want all of that to make a difference in their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you most long for in your work?<\/b><\/p>\n

That students come to love Jesus, that they become excited about\u2014and committed to\u2014the biblical story, and that somehow their lives are transformed and deepened because of the stuff we\u2019ve talked about, read, and studied in class. That\u2019s what I long for: to see our students grow in their relationship with God, grow in their commitment to the Christian faith, and become more mature, healthy human beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

What saying or motto inspires you?<\/b><\/p>\n

In the last few years I\u2019ve been drawn to a famous prayer by Augustine: \u201cYou have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.\u201d For me, that\u2019s a source of huge comfort and hope. It\u2019s also what I hope for my students: that they will come to experience themselves as beloved children of God and be deeply, deeply rooted in God.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Dan Epp-Tiessen, Associate Professor of Bible, has taught at CMU since 1998. What are you teaching right now that you’re most excited about? Creation, Environment, and the Bible. Given the ecological challenges this planet faces, we as Christians have a unique opportunity to address those issues because our fundamental conviction is that God has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[156,1],"tags":[861,818,406,386,173,814,75,863,862,864,792],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6429,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions\/6429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}