Toward a New Buddhist Story

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Is a new Buddhist story beginning to develop out of the interaction between Buddhism and the modern world? Both need such a new story.

Articles

The Futilitarian Heresy

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A heresy with regard to Christian hope has arisen. I will call it “futilitarianism,” having stolen that name from one of its adherents. Futilitarianism is a fairly sober and comforting faith. It allows its believers to be honest about the current crises without having to think through how a positive outcome might be strategized and accomplished.

Articles

Red Flags Round Pope Francis

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Like everyone else on earth, I wish the new pope well and I hope he truly emulates some of Francis of Assisi’s priorities of defending Mother Earth who is in so much peril, living simply (how one does that in a palace like the Vatican surrounded by an obsequious court is another question), speaking out on behalf of the poor, impoverished, sick, and neglected, and speaking out on those social and economic structures that institutionalize injustice. I also hope he cleans up the rat’s nest of corruption, pedophile cover-up, ego mania, and power-addicted prelates who run the curia that in turn runs the Vatican. Good luck and God’s Blessing!

Articles

For your Passover Seders or Easter Gatherings

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Both Passover and Easter have a message of liberation and hope for the downtrodden of the earth. Yet too often we fail to see the continuities between the original liberatory messages of these holidays and the contemporary need for liberation and resurrection of the dead parts of our consciousness. This is our first attempt to craft a Seder addressing the needs of the 99 percent.

Articles

The Religious Roots of the Minimum Wage

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Will raising the minimum wage put more money in the pockets of America’s working poor? Or will it have the opposite effect, throwing more poor people out of work? That’s the question we ask whenever anyone proposes a hike in the minimum wage, as President Obama did in his State of the Union Address. But it’s also the wrong question, diverting us from the biggest one of all: what are the rights that we share as human beings?

Articles

How the Papal Conclave Could Renew Religion: My Two Votes for Pope

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Because the Vatican is so sick and infested with evil spirits, it is time to admit that in its present configuration history has passed it by, the Holy Spirit has exited, and its usefulness has run out. But electing a person of genuine spiritual and ethical stature such as the Dalai Lama who also stands for global intelligence and peace and who calls compassion “my religion” would be a genuine act of humility and vision by the voting cardinals. It would also draw us nearer to the real teaching of Jesus and the person who Jesus was. Electing a non-westerner and a non-Christian who recognizes the spiritual genius of Jesus and the truth of the “Buddha Nature” or “Cosmic Christ” in all beings would refresh the move for interspirituality and interfaith that our planet needs so badly. (A bishop of Rome could be elected, hopefully by the people, who would live in that bishop’s place—the Lateran—and preside over the Roman flock meanwhile.) This creative and visionary act by the conclave would help turn the tide of history at this time when our species is in mortal danger of destroying itself by weaponry and wars and/or by continued ecological imperialism, destroying the very nest that feeds and nourishes us.

Articles

A City Where Justice Dwells

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Place matters. Even in this globalized, Internet era, I believe in making long-term commitments to specific places, and especially to the places where we live. Our communal social justice efforts should begin by choosing the places where we will make an impact.

Articles

Overcoming the Sexual and Religious Legacies of Slavery

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Because of the U.S. history of slavery, assumptions about the sexuality of African American women in the United States differ from those made about European American women. The sexual stereotype of enslaved women as licentious extends far back into history; modern racism extended it to all Black women and also used the myth of Black hypersexuality as a reason to enslave Black people.

2013

Introduction to the Justice in the City Section

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Geographical Borders and the Ethical and Political Boundaries of Responsibility

What would happen if we took seriously the biblical idea that we are responsible for the well-being of everyone who has passed through our city, even if only momentarily? In our me-first society—structured as it is by the capitalist imperative to “look out for number one”—our notion of responsibility for others is painfully limited. In the pages that follow, Aryeh Cohen envisions a new social justice ethos rooted in Rabbinic Judaism’s idea of accompaniment—the idea that we must personally care for all the people who enter our shared, common space. And we are delighted to print responses and critiques from a variety of thinkers and activists. This discussion implicitly challenges legal philosopher John Rawls’s conception of “justice as fairness” by introducing into Western legal thought the notion of justice as caring for other human beings.