Gender and Sexuality

Love Wins! Lessons from the Movement for Marriage Equality

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You only have to read Justice Kennedy’s decision to see how much the opinion is written in language of spiritual progressives rather than traditional liberal values. Kennedy focuses on the ideals of love, dignity, and a spiritual connection between two people who choose to enter into the sanctity of marriage. The decision is grounded in higher values than rights (although he inevitably rules that the Constitution gives them the right to marry): it is grounded in spiritual values.

Environment

Hoping for Rain- Biblical Understanding of Cosmic Order, Human’s Nature and Drought

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The earth belongs to God; maintaining the cosmic balance, the normal course of seasons and the flow of rain depends on following God’s laws! How dose this Biblical understanding is relevant to us today? How can Californians living in 2015 find meaning in old Leviticus? How can this Biblical understanding be of any relevance or inspiration to people of other faith traditions?

Culture

Weeding Roses in Kabul

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The APVs and their students face numerous challenges to their future security and survival. Yet bleak conditions don’t deter their resolve to move forward. I myself felt quite hopeful, especially while sitting in on a class about nonviolence.

Culture

NRA's Strategy of Blaming the Victims

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While LaPierre by implication blames the massacre at Sandy Hook on school officials for not having armed guards, Cotton places direct blame on the murdered pastor for his own death and the death of nine others.This strategy of blaming the victim is often used to reverse and thus deflect the argument by skewing the actual power dynamics and thereby attempting to misappropriate responsibility for the oppression from the dominant group and to those who are, in fact, most negatively impacted by the oppression.

Culture

The Cost of Cowardice (part one)

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While race is a constructed concept with its own history, it never-the-less goes to the heart of the myth of ontological, hereditary goodness. The courage required in this context is the courage to face the reality that none of us is good because goodness is inscribed in our very being. We are not good or bad because our ancestors were good or bad. We are good or bad according to the moral decisions we ourselves make. We cannot inherit moral rectitude.

Culture

The Path to Defeat Racism

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To uproot this racism at every level in which it manifests, we need a systematic program. As spiritual progressives, we start first with the need to grieve all the suffering that victims of racism have suffered throughout human history. Please take a moment to allow your grief to be expressed (yes, right now, but also later with other people as a prelude whenever you enter a discussion about racism). And then, move on to an action agenda such as we propose below.

Christianity

Terrorism in Charleston: It's About Racism, Stupid!

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What are the possible reasons why this young man drove approximately 2 hours from his home in Columbia, South Carolina to this particular house of worship carrying with him the pistol he purchased? All indications present in stark and glaring terms that his “mission” was not to kill Christians, per se. Rather, he was bent on killing black people, period!

Politics & Society

Trump Join Narratives of Hate over Immigration Battles

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Rather than characterizing immigration and migration issues as humanitarian concerns, the anti-immigration activists connect the narratives representing immigrants and migrants to our borders to the language of disease, crime, drugs, alien and lower forms of culture and life, of invading hoards, of barbarians at the gates who if allowed to enter will destroy the glorious civilization we have established among the lesser nations of the Earth.

Culture

In-Between “Racialized” Category of European-Heritage Jews

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While I and other European-heritage Jews clearly understand that we have been accorded white privilege vis-à-vis minoritized “racial” communities, we also understand the history and legacy of anti-Jewish persecution and, yes, how dominant groups have racialized us as well. And I believe at this point in history, individual Jews would answer the question, “What is my race?” in very different ways.