FROM THE PANEL
Richard J. Mouw has served as president of Fuller Theological Seminary since 1993, after four years as provost and senior vice president. A philosopher, scholar, and author, the “On Faith” panelist has been recognized as an important voice among reform-oriented evangelicals.
Mouw, who earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago, has a broad record of publication with 16 books, including Consulting the Faithful, and Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport and his articles have appeared in more than 50 journals and magazines. Currently he serves on the editorial board of Books and Culture as is a regular columnist on “Beliefnet.” Mouw has served on many councils and boards, including the Commission on Accreditation for the Association of Theological Schools (as chair) and the Council on Civil Society. He currently serves on advisory boards for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, the International Justice Mission, and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy.
We struggle to fill our celebrations with food and toys, only to discover that such things do not satisfy the deeper hungers.
The Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the director of the Hispanic/Latino Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center of Continuing Education. The "On Faith" panelist received his M.Div. from New Brunswick Theological Seminary and is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He and his wife, Jeanette, co-pastor the multicultural Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City. He serves on the board of Sojourners and is a member of the Latino Leadership Circle. Gabriel has been called one of the emerging voices of Latino evangelicals. He also serves as a member of the Equal Employment Advisory Commission for the state of New Jersey. Salguero has a two-year-old son and enjoys basketball and reading.
The faith, religion, age, gender of that generous organ donor were not at the center of my gratitude. Rather, that she or he gave the greatest gift, "life."
An ordained United Church of Christ and American Baptist minister, "On Faith" panelist Dr. Willis E. Elliott has been a pastor, teacher, lecturer, administrator, consultant (to Newsweek for 38 years), church executive, and the author of six books. His five earned degrees in religion include a PhD, University of Chicago, where he was divinity research librarian. He taught in colleges, seminaries, & universities--including the University of Hawaii, where he taught "The World's Great Religions" and "Religion and the Meaning of Existence." At the 1966 Triennium of the National Council of Churches, he was the interlocutor with Billy Graham.
The Archangel gives you just the children you need.
Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is founding co-director with her husband Peter Steinfels of Fordham University 's Center on Religion and Culture, which is dedicated to fostering dialogue on challenges posed to contemporary culture by religious faith. The "On Faith" panelist, who is Fordham's journalist-in-residence, was editor of Commonweal , an independent biweekly journal of Catholic political, religious and literary opinion for 15 years. She also co-directed "American Catholics in the Public Square," a three-year Commonweal Foundation project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Steinfels has written about a variety of subjects ranging from the politics of Serbia to the politics of the Saatchi Collection. She has published articles on childcare, family issues, bioethics, religion and politics, and foreign and domestic policy. She is the author of Who's Minding the Children? The History and Politics of Day Care in America (1974).
The tension and unhappiness of family gatherings can be avoided by not inviting the family! Or if family has to be there, make sure friends and neighbors out-number them.
As editor of the Catholic weekly magazine "America" (americamagazine.org), Rev. Thomas J. Reese promoted discussion on current issues facing the Catholic Church and the world. The "On Faith" panelist is author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. Father Reese is frequently quoted as an expert on Catholic issues. He is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, where he is working on religion and politics. Besides his theological training as a Jesuit priest, he has a doctorate in political science from the University of California Berkeley. He once worked as a lobbyist for tax reform.
Part of the problem is that we have very high expectations of our families. They are supposed to be perfect, and when we are hurt by a family member we feel especially betrayed.
Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason," to be published in February by Pantheon. She began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post, and has been a contributor to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers for more than 25 years on topics including law, religion, medicine, aging, women's rights, political dissent in the Soviet Union and Russian literature. Jacoby has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Jacoby’s other books include Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (2004); Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past. She is working on a book about the relationship between American anti-intellectualism and political polarization, to be published by Pantheon in 2008. Her photo is by Chris Ramir.
Thanksgiving, I should note, is most Americans' favorite holiday precisely because it transcends ethnic and religious distinctions
Born in 1934 in Durban, South Africa, Arun Gandhi is the fifth grandson of India’s legendary leader, Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi. He is co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, now at the University of Rochester in New York. He is a regular participant in Renaissance Weekend deliberations with President Clinton and other Rhodes Scholars. He worked for 30 years as a journalist for The Times of India. He is the author of several books, including "A Patch of White" (1949) and "The Forgotten Woman: The Untold Story of Kastur, the Wife of Mahatma Gandhi," which he wrote with his late wife Sunanda.
Gandhi said "Materialism and morality have an inverse relationship. When one increases the other decreases." I believe we are witnessing this phenomenon now.
Syndicated political columnist and “On Faith” panelist Cal Thomas has a twice-weekly column that appears in over 500 newspapers around the world. A graduate of American University, Thomas is a veteran of broadcast and print journalism. He has worked for NBC, CNBC, PBS television, and the Fox News Channel where he currently appears on the weekly media critique show, “Fox News Watch.” Thomas has authored ten books, including Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?, A Freedom Dream, Public Persons and Private Lives, Book Burning, Liberals for Lunch, Occupied Territory, The Death of Ethics in America, Uncommon Sense and Things That Matter Most. His latest was The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas. In 1995, Thomas was honored with a Cable Ace Award nomination for Best Interview Program. Other awards include a George Foster Peabody team reporting award, and awards from both the Associated Press and United Press International. Common Ground, which Thomas writes for USA Today, offers insightful discussion of contentious social issues with his friend and political counterpart, Bob Beckel. The two are working together on a book to be published in 2007.
Families with difficult dynamics might consider preparing and formally signing a "Holiday peace treaty."
Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the
University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the
Divinity School, for 35 years, and where the
Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. For a decade prior to entering academia, the “On Faith” panelist served parishes in the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago as an ordained Lutheran pastor. Marty is the author of more than 50
books including
Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (1970), for which he won the National Book Award. His additional honors include the National Humanities Medal, the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Chicago Alumni Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal of the Association of Theological Schools, and the Order of Lincoln Medallion (Illinois’ top honor). Marty has served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association. He also has served on two U.S. Presidential Commissions and was director of the
Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the
Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago. He is Senior Regent of
St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
Most holidays have some sort of religious cast--even "civil" holidays tend to. Those rooted in particular religious traditions are most likely to induce tension.