Be sure to check out our new Swords and Plowshares series.

For three years, Table Talk has been one of MCC's major venues for interdisciplinary conversations about the ideas and challenges of our modern world. Our roots lie in the honored tradition of the faculty-student colloquium, a setting that allows both to enter an outside-the-classroom engagement as partners.

Now Table Talk is undergoing an exciting change in format, designed to allow the conversations to come to you.Beginning with the October topic, we will be presenting video roundtable discussions in which faculty and students from various disciplines approach a single theme. These roundtable conversations will be made available online and in DVD format for use in classrooms and other settings.

As always, each colloquium has a set of ground rules:

• Respect is absolute. All people must be treated with simple courtesy.
• Engagement is the critical goal: The position of the Center for Global Tolerance and Engagement is that we must learn to listen to others as a way for us to grow.
• Any position taken must always be open to reasoned challenge -- this means that "The Bible says" may be an acceptable appeal only if you are able to support why that appeal is logical.
• The moderator (Professor Tom Shoemaker) has the absolute right to recognize any person in the group who wants to speak at any time, and to stop conversations if they are getting out of hand.