I interviewed Don Beisswenger who is a retired professor of theology at Vanderbilt University. \u00a0 He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is extremely active with various projects to help the homeless (and others on the margins) in that city. \u00a0 He said he taught about “practical theology” at Vanderbilt which, in part, means connecting the gospel message with the present in quite tangible ways. \u00a0 And Jesus was forever talking about helping the poor and so, well, that’s what professor Beisswenger does. \u00a0 Besides his extensive work in the city, professor Beisswenger also established the Penual Retreat Center in nearby rural Ashland City, Tennessee. \u00a0 It’s a retreat center, with a twist. \u00a0 He offers free getaways for the homeless — who are often perpetually trapped in the city. \u00a0 What’s more, if they want, the homeless can also work around the retreat center grounds during their stay \u00a0 — for pay. \u00a0 Note: \u00a0 Professor Beisswenger added that the prevailing climate in society is one of “charity” toward the poor. \u00a0 And he finds that tremendously one dimensional. \u00a0 That is, he said we should be looking at the systems that are keeping the poor, poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I interviewed Don Beisswenger who is a retired professor of theology at Vanderbilt University. \u00a0 He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is extremely active with various projects to help the homeless (and others on the margins) in that city. …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}