Why This Gay Jew Will Be A Liturgist in Church This Sunday

For the last 30 years, Christians across this country have worked doggedly to fling the church doors wide open to LGBTQQI people. The unabridged, unapologetic Gospel of the Jewish carpenter, executed because he dared to speak out against injustice and stood up for the poor, rings loudly in thousands of churches across this country. It is a message of love and absolute acceptance, with doors flung wide open proclaiming that all are welcome, and cursed be the one who puts up a stumbling block to the children trying to reach him.

A Sikh and Hindu chai chat over progressive action and social justice

Now that we’ve sipped our chai and eaten our samosas…Let’s put aside our grievances, respect our differences and celebrate our shared spiritual progressivism to make the change we wish to see in the world. We take heart in our progressive scriptures and the leaders who championed social justice long before it was called social justice.

The Tikkun Passover Seder Supplement

We understand God in part as the Transformative Power of the Universe – the force that makes possible the transformation from that which is to that which ought to be, the force that permeates every ounce of Being and unites all in one transcendent and imminent reality. And you are welcome at our Seder even if you think all of this makes no sense and there is no God.

Easter Lilies

Unlike the little girl in Earle, who had never met an atheist or a Jew or a Greek Orthodox or a Catholic or even an Episcopalian or a Lutheran, I have fallen in love with at least one of each of them in my adult life. I observed how their faiths—practicing or not—had molded their hearts in compassion and the circle of my understanding grew wide and my spirit began to throw off the bonds of exclusivity.

Religious Humanism: What Was Old is New Again

The wholesale abandonment of organized religions by Millennials does not mean that the generation has abandoned social commitments. As many as seven in ten consider themselves social activists. Not merely socially aware—social activists. They are a generation that puts their values into action.

Tribute to Karen McCarthy Brown: Author of Mama LoLa or the Book that Kept Me in Grad School

Well, there was this book, Mama Lola, about a Vodou priestess in Brooklyn. Did I know the author? No I did not. The subject was close to home. We had inherited responsibilities that have been overstretched by migration. It’s not something that we talk about. Maybe after your dissertation on Jamaica, you’ll write another book on your family’s story. In the meantime was there enough interest in this work to bring her to campus? Mere thoughts of that someday became inspiration enough to help me keep my eyes on the prize.

Another Kind of Spiritual Practice

It’s easy to think of spiritual practice as something separate from ordinary life: the time one spends on a meditation cushion or chanting prayers. But for me the most powerful spiritual practices are things I seldom put in that category. Is facilitating a discussion a spiritual practice?