Culture

Sacred Activism: A Meditation on Inner Transformation

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As our world becomes increasing ideologically polarized, bridging the gap between beliefs is equally crucial and difficult. Shaikh Kabir Helminski proposes that society takes up a new perspective that “recognizes the limitations of all religious beliefs, but without discarding the core values of spirituality [and] recognizes how much the secular world sacrifices to the idols of consumerism and materialism. But it respects secularism for not imposing a single interpretation of belief upon society and for allowing the freedom to choose one’s own lifestyle.”

Christianity

Canonize Junipero Serra? Really?

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This canonization is a scandal. WHY is the pope making so profound a mistake? Why create a patron saint for colonizers and racists in the year 2015? Why not instead take the occasion of his visit to the United States to do an about-face and canonize those thousands of native peoples who died at the hands of misguided, badly theologically trained, servants of the Empire?

Christianity

For the Sake of Heaven

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Rev. Pinckney of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church led a church founded by men who gave their lives for this principle: better to risk death than abandon your people. Like those men, Rev. Pinckney took his fire pan and stood between all of us and the terrible plague that threatens to engulf us still.

Christianity

Stop the Canonization of Friar Serra, Patron Saint of Colonizers and Racists!

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Why, why, why in 2015 canonize someone who represents such bad theology and bad intercultural values, utterly lacking the respect and humility that lie at the foundation of interfaith work and beliefs and values? No one who has passed Psychology 101 can believe in a masochistic treatment of one’s body in the name of a Creator God any longer, and no one who believes in a God of Justice can possibly subscribe to sadistic treatment of people of other faith traditions or no faith tradition. Sadism is not a virtue.

Environment

Jewish Beliefs About GMOs

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Consistent with the principle that anything not expressly prohibited by God is permitted, Jewish law, or halacha, generally takes a permissive position on GMO food. But just because halacha doesn’t expressly prohibit GMO food, doesn’t mean it’s entirely silent on the issue.

Politics & Society

Fear and Learning in Kabul

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The APVs (Afghan Peace Volunteers) are running an alternative school for kids in Kabul, which, by making the poorest children in Kabul literate, gives them better opportunities. After getting to know about 20 families whose children work in the streets as the family’s breadwinner, the APVs devised a plan through which each family receives a monthly sack of rice and large container of oil to offset the family’s financial loss for sending their children to informal classes at the APV center and preparing to enroll them in school. Through continued outreach among Afghanistan’s troubled ethnicities, APV members now include 80 children in the school and hope to serve 100 children soon.

Inter-Culturalism

Thinking About Open Borders

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In this article, Antoine Pécoud argues that it’s time to start recognizing the “normality and legitimacy of human mobility” by entertaining the prospect of opening borders. Considering the inevitability of human migration and accompanying problems, aiming efforts at stopping migration both reinforces the arbitrary social imbalances associated with one’s place of birth and is relying on increasingly disturbing methods of border control.

Inter-Culturalism

Color Me?

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Only recently, in a sort of “the emperor has no clothes” moment, I realized that if my lab coat is white there surely must be a more accurate word to describe the color of my skin. I realized that, in fact, I’d never actually seen a white person. Upon further reflection, I also realized that I’d seen people in varying shades of brown but had never actually seen a black person.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Reclaiming the Language of Jewish Identity

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I want to criticise Israel not to do down the tribe but to stay loyal to it. I want to uphold the values and teaching that I think of as mine by birth and by upbringing. I’m not boycotting Jews or Judaism when I make the case for a radical change in our attitude to the Palestinian people. Rather I am upholding all I see as worthwhile, eternal and universal from my Jewish heritage and history.