Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Grounded in Faith, Formed in Community
At Pittsburgh Seminary, we seek to participate in God’s ongoing mission in the world by seeing and getting to know people as our neighbors. Challenged by Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan and inspired by (Mister) Fred Rogers ’62, who sang, “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,” I am writing…
On Aug. 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was found dead in Money, Miss. He had been brutally beaten and lynched after accusations he had whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family’s grocery store. Years later, Bryant admitted to fabricating the accusation entirely. The men who murdered Till were found not guilty, but…
Do neighbors matter? When we think about our social lives and wellbeing, our minds typically go first to the people closest to us: family, close friends, romantic partners. But what I’ve come to realize is the importance of “weak ties,” a term coined by Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Weak ties are casual acquaintances, people we…