MenuOver the past two weeks, there have been more comments on my blog, or prompted by my blog, than normal. Some of those comments represent real conversation, a relative rarity on social media. Thank you! At the seminary, we appreciate conversations and relevant arguments. I am using this blog post to mash together my responses […]
“There have been religions intimately linked to earthly governments, dominating men’s souls both by terror and by faith; but when a religion makes such an alliance, I am not afraid to say that is makes the same mistake as many might; it sacrifices the future for the present, and by gaining a power to which […]
Regular readers of this blog know I believe it is imperative for religious people to develop their capacities to relate politics and religion. Politics and religion share the cultural spaces and work of offering founding stories, defining belonging, setting moral order, and imagining what it would take to be a fully-empowered people. But politicians dealing […]
The pandemic highlights the worst and the best of humanity and of religion. Examples of the worst of humanity include selling personal protective equipment at World Series scalpers’ prices and manufacturing shoddy tests and ineffective sanitizers. Examples of the best of our species include medical teams “leaving it all on the field” to save lives, […]
The first movie I saw with my friends as a teen was Planet of the Apes. I will always remember my surprise at the final scene when Taylor completes his journey, falling to his knees in front of a buried Statue of Liberty, swearing, and condemning humanity for destroying the earth. That ending was a […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was written by the Rev. Heather Coates (and before the pandemic). Rev. Coates, ordained in the United Church of Christ, is currently serving out her call to ministry by teaching World Religions to middle school students. She received a masters degree in Theological Studies from Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and […]
Both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson embraced the U.S. as a new Promised Land—for white people. But in pitching designs for the Great Seal of the United States, they chose differently. Franklin chose a scene of conquest, the children of Israel triumphing over tyranny as the Red Sea swallowed Pharaoh’s forces. Jefferson chose a scene […]
In the study of religion, “myth” does not mean “untruth” or “false.” It is a word associated with the deep story in which a people live, the well-springs of a culture. One of the founding, and maybe the most powerful, myth of American life has been exceptionalism. That is the story of being a unique […]
“In the beginning was the relationship,” said a former colleague at Phillips. Not the individual, but the relationship is the fundamental building block of human life. Contemporary understandings of physics and biology largely share the same perspective: individual elements and entities are separate only for analytical purposes. In reality, relationships and community are of first-order […]
How many articles and studies detail the dangers and detriments of valuing quarterly profits over long-term investments? How many times have we, the American people, been warned that our sense of “the public,” “the common” is too thin? Or, in the colloquialism my late father repeated often in reference to society where taking is valued […]