Religion Dispatches
…hrough the gate leading to the water, one must punch in a combination pass code. The town’s elegantly manicured gardens belie its state’s housing market collapse. But just outside of town, realtors advertise “Free Foreclosure Lists!” Sitting along a commons of lush grass, an attractive young couple casually dressed in designer sunglasses, khakis, and expensive sandals led a group of fair-haired children in prayer. The young blond woman urged the c…
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…f public rhetoric on personal and communal change. We must teach and learn better ways of talking with one another in order to repair the world and reconcile diverse groups of people. To repeat Emilie Townes’ powerful question: When we talk in public, “what is the society we are trying to create?” Rules of Engagement: Promoting “Public Safety” When I speak to my fellow Christians, urging public engagement, I stress that the goal is not to invade t…
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…ese kinds of passages. In so doing, an even greater chasm has been created between Jewish and Christian theological expression. Christians who connect the Good News with God being in Jesus need to set their gaze upon the embarrassing, naked weakness that haunts his final words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I’m convinced the Good News, in our current context, has no connection to truisms like “God is mighty,” or “God is in control.” J….
Read More…nation and the world thinks of the events of 1964 in Philadelphia in historical terms and the deaths of these dedicated young men as a pivotal event in a great national movement. Of course, this is true—but it is not the whole truth. For fundamentally this was a human tragedy. Your presence here today underscores that. Three mothers’ sons died here on June 21, 1964. Sons, brothers, a father, a husband—young men who had been nurtured by loving fam…
Read More…es I grew up around. (Never mind America’s long national history with sexualized bondage in the form of slavery.) And what about secret paganistic societies with odd behind-closed-doors rituals? That too is classic Americana—just as American as the Freemasons. What really breaks the good Christian folks code of conduct is not engaging in questionable behavior but rather exposing the indiscretions of other good Christian folks, especially after the…
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…a new and vital dictionary that has had long lasting influences on the American populace. In the “Introduction” to his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, the polyglot, erudite Webster examines the “Origin of Language,” beginning with a synopsis of how God gave a divine decree to Adam to name the animals. In other words, the origin of language begins with Adam. Moreover, Webster hoped his dictionary would be a “useful instrument for…
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…es of experience being religious, such that my worldview is irrevocably American Protestant. And I have had more years of religious education than I care to count, including a Master of Divinity degree and a doctorate in Christian ethics. I think and talk about religion for a living, and I also read religious/spiritual materials, usually Buddhist, in my free time. I am married to an ordained pastor, we baptized our child when he was born, and we h…
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…ershadow the long shadow of apartheid. President Zuma sees 2010 as South Africa’s most significant year since 1994, the year apartheid ended. This could be the case. A tilted economy remains in South Africa (as in the entire globalized economy), setting in unreasonable and unnecessary suffering, but hope remains. These are Mandela’s children. A new cultural memory is building to replace the old. This could be the time for the beautiful game to sho…
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…e advocates called for in the country. After Peña Nieto announced he would promote a constitutional reform to recognize gay marriage throughout the country, as well as amendments to the Federal Civil Code to allow homosexual adoption, more than 1,000 organizations joined together to form the National Front for the Family (FNF). Heading up this front are the National Union of Parents, Family Network, ConFamilia, CitizenGo, HazteOir, Dilo Bien, and…
Read More…of history but perhaps he doesn’t recall that from the very beginning, America had many different sects, many different religions, that part of our founding principle was that we would be a nation of religious tolerance. Also, without question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Chr…
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