Christianity

The Fast for a Moral Budget Goes Viral

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From the listserve at a Unitarian Universalist congregation today, a classic Tikkunish rumination, a discovery by a humanist that religious progressives (in this case our good friends at Sojourners) can be inspiring allies:
I find myself connecting to an evangelical Christian organization, Sojourners, even though I’m a died-in-the-wool humanist… because of their message and action around social justice. I subscribe to their magazine as well as their e-newsletter, SojoMail. This group has turned me around from feeling uncomfortable about their theological positions to very appreciative of their social justice positions. Right now they are in the midst of a fast so that they can focus in on what’s really important with our national “budget debate” and that we can turn towards a moral budget.

Culture

The Mathematics of Love and Forgiveness

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OK, so the actual article in the New Scientist is headlined “The mathematics of being nice” but I’m suspicious enough of what is, nonetheless, my favorite science mag to see that word “nice” as a slightly snide diminution of what the article actually says (as in a pandering to anti-religious sentiment, but, hey, they ran the article!). Here’s a quote from the interview with Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University:
So how do you see religion? I see the teachings of world religions as an analysis of human life and an attempt to help. They intend to promote unselfish behaviour, love and forgiveness. When you look at mathematical models for the evolution of cooperation you also find that winning strategies must be generous, hopeful and forgiving.

Culture

Why and When Conservatives Conserve the Progress Progressives Make

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I had a curious conversation with a conservative lately in which he claimed the US Constitution as a conservative document, while I objected that in the 1780s conservatives opposed it, since conservatives then were believers in monarchy and tradition. Yes, he conceded, but today it’s a conservative document. I suggested that this is what happens time and again, that the gains made by progressives of one era against the vehement opposition of conservatives, become the core items that conservatives defend in a later era. So perhaps it would behoove him as a conservative to get ahead of the curve by helping the progressives today! He wasn’t buying it, of course.

Politics & Society

Assange vs. Zuckerberg

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Yup, the pic’s been going around for a couple of months, googling tells me, with the quotes going back to a Saturday Night Live sketch before the Holidays, but maybe, like me, you haven’t seen it until now.

art

Can We Tell All Of Our Stories, One At A Time? Miral, The Movie

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[youtube: video=”b1yXZKkui8k”]
It will be most interesting to see how Americans respond to the new movie, Miral, by well-known painter and movie director Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). The movie opens tomorrow in New York and Los Angeles, and on April 1st in some other cities. Miral tells the story of several generations of Palestinian women from 1948. It is based on an autobiographical novel by the Palestinian-born, Italian TV journalist Rula Jebreal, who grew up in the Dar El-Tifl orphanage in East Jerusalem. The idea of a well-known Jewish artist telling a story from the Palestinian point of view has of course raised a ruckus.

General News

Communicating Across the Divides

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I have only just managed to read Peter Marmorek’s very interesting post “A Chaotic Journey” – about a Muslim who was once his student who has been condemned to life in prison for plotting a terror attack – and the vigorous discussion in the comments. (I only just got to it because we were fully occupied with preparing for our 25th anniversary celebration which happened beautifully Monday night). Reading the post and comments now, I see it is a genuine discussion between people of very different outlooks of the kind that I have always hoped would happen on Tikkun Daily (and that often has). But it’s also one that I would like to think is only in its beginning stages. Whether we can move into more productive stages on these kinds of discussions is unclear to me: I don’t have much skill at doing so myself and feel in truth that few of us do.

General News

Apology for the website being down today (a very strange day)

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We do apologize that the Tikkun website was down for several hours today. We were at first told it was a cyber attack, but it wasn’t clear whether it was on us or on our provider, a Japanese company. Eventually it appeared this company was being besieged on the phone by many customers, preventing us from getting through; when we did, they restarted our server and all was well. That’s all I know so far, and hope we were just one among many affected by the Japanese devastation and not the objects of a targeted attack on Tikkun. We had two genuine such attacks today.

General News

Rabbi Michael Lerner: A Quarter Century Devoted to Repairing the World

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Today Truthout has done that rather unusual thing: given a leader of the religious left a lot of space to tell their story. As that’s the Tikkun story, as told by Rabbi Michael Lerner, I am particularly happy about it. Asked what Tikkun’s successes and failures have been, Michael responded in part:
Our greatest achievement has been to legitimate – in the Jewish world and increasingly in liberal and progressive circles – the idea that there should be a middle path that involves support for both Israel and Palestine and critique of both Israel and Palestine. That critique must include the way both peoples are responsible for the current mess, at the same time recognizing the vast disproportion in power and Israel’s consequent preponderant responsibility to create a politically and economically viable Palestinian state. This position has earned Tikkun a reputation in the Jewish world establishment as self-hating, etcetera, even though we support the existence of the state of Israel and see this as the best way for Israel to embody its own values.

General News

Our Thanks To All On Our 25th Anniversary

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A San Francisco Bay Area web magazine editor called me this morning to offer congratulations on Tikkun’s 25th Anniversary, and also on my letter to the editor about it that she saw published in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning (below). Before Jo Ellen Kaiser edited Zeek she was the longest serving editor at Tikkun, so I said she deserved the congratulations more than I did. Indeed all of our past staff are included in our gratitude today. And all those who have written for us. You may not realize that no one who writes in Tikkun gets paid: that’s nothing we are proud of, in fact we are ashamed to say it and wish that we knew how to be a better-funded organization; but still we are amazed and filled with gratitude that so many people do want to write for Tikkun out of passion, love and whatever other reasons.

General News

Our Beautiful New Website

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For the last six months we have been designing and constructing a new website for Tikkun magazine and it went live late on Saturday night. Do check it out here and through the “Tikkun Main Site” link above. In his Welcome to Our New Website Michael Lerner writes:
Tikkun magazine is a voice for all who seek to build what we call the “Caring Society – caring for each other, caring for the earth.” We are a voice for all who refuse to accept that environmental destruction, wars, poverty, oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, hatred or fear of Jews, or despair are inevitable. We are the voice of those who refuse to be “realistic” and who instead are engaged in the struggle (a long-term struggle to be sure) to build a world of love and kindness; generosity; compassion; repentance and forgiveness; ethical and ecological sensitivity and responsibility; and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe.