MSI Press Blog

  Sufism, often called Islamic mysticism , is the heart of Islam’s spiritual tradition — a way of seeking direct experience of the Divine beyond ritual and doctrine. 🌿 Early Roots Emergence: Began in the 8th–9th centuries CE, as some Muslims sought deeper spiritual meaning amid growing materialism in the early caliphates. Name origin: The word Sufi likely comes from ṣūf (Arabic for “wool”), referring to the simple wool garments worn by early ascetics. Influence: Inspired by Qur’anic teachings on purity, love, and remembrance of God ( dhikr ). Early figures: Hasan al‑Basri, Rabia al‑Adawiyya, and Junayd of Baghdad emphasized humility, love, and inner purification. 🔥 The Inner Path Goal: Union with God through love, remembrance, and self‑transcendence. Core practices: Dhikr — rhythmic repetition of divine names. Sama — listening to music or poetry to awaken the heart. Fana — “annihilation” of the ego in divine presence. Ethos: Sufism teaches that the heart, not the intel...

  Jennifer Fulwiler didn’t find God in a moment of emotion or crisis. She found Him through logic — through the steady, rational process of asking questions and following truth wherever it led. Raised in an atheist home, Jennifer approached faith as a skeptic and a thinker. Her conversion began not with a vision, but with a conclusion: that the world made more sense if God existed. She once wrote that this logical foundation gave her confidence — that reason would sustain her even through moments of doubt. And yet, her faith was never abstract. It was lived in the most tangible way possible — amid the joyful chaos of raising six children. Her blog, Conversion Diary , chronicled those early years with humor and honesty. One unforgettable photo showed what she found one morning: a doll, face‑down on a leather chair, lying in a puddle of pee. Real life, unfiltered — and somehow, sacred. Jennifer’s transformation reminds us that faith doesn’t always arrive through thunder or tears. Som...

  Cultural relativism asks us to understand behavior within its own cultural logic before judging it through ours. It’s a discipline of perception — a way of seeing that suspends moral reflex long enough to ask, What does this mean here? But when we apply that lens to leadership, we discover something more complex: not all values are equally flexible. Some bend; others hold. And that tension between transforming and conforming values is where cultural relativism becomes personal. Relativism Meets the Individual Cultural relativism operates at the level of interpretation. Conforming and transforming values operate at the level of identity. When leaders move across cultures, they don’t just interpret difference — they inhabit it. They must decide which parts of themselves can adapt and which must remain intact. Cultural relativism helps them understand others; value discernment helps them understand themselves. Together, they form a kind of moral bilingualism. Conforming Values...

  1. The Shared Foundation Both Jews and Christians revere the same ancient writings — the sacred texts of Israel. But they organize, interpret, and frame them differently. So the question isn’t what the texts are, but how they are understood. 2. The Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh) In Judaism, the Hebrew Scriptures are called the Tanakh , an acronym formed from three sections: Torah — “Instruction” or “Law” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) Nevi’im — “Prophets” (Joshua, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others) Ketuvim — “Writings” (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Chronicles, and others) The Tanakh is written primarily in Hebrew (with some Aramaic) and arranged to emphasize covenant and continuity — the story of Israel’s relationship with God. 3. The Old Testament Christians inherited these same texts but read them through the lens of Christ’s coming . The term Old Testament reflects that relationship: it is the “old covenant” preceding the “new.” Key differences: Order and grouping:...