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I had a young parishioner who had come to New York from her native Maylasia to work in a successful internet startup. She had a new MBA and internet smarts. She could use the degree at home, but she had to leave to capitalize on her internet talent. The reason: her native country was trying to hold on to the monopoly on truth.
If you’re religious, Thanksgiving is religious. If you’re not. it’s not. And it ill behooves someone like me to tell non-believers what to celebrate.
In pure theological terms, Christianity and Islam have a lot in common. We share sacred texts, a received revelation that God is One, and a passion (variously embodied) to share our faith with others.
There ought to be an oath for parents and pastors like the oath doctors take, based on Hippocrates: “Make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm.” I’m a parent and pastor, and I should know.
It’s either wishful thinking or willful error to say America is “a Christian nation.” Worse, those who make that claim raise the suspicion that they trying to gain some public advantage for their faith.
If there is another place on this planet where we are required to be more spiritually sensitive and achingly careful than Israel and Palestine, I don’t know where it is.
My faith doesn’t just come from verses in a book. It comes from people with the authority of lived experience.
Universal rights might be the place we should begin. My understanding of Christianity is that its contribution has been to go beyond—and in many cases has given up—its own specific privileges in the larger cause of advancing the rights of all.
The Question: What can Pope Benedict XVI say and do to repair the growing rifts between the Vatican, the clergy and the laity in America?
There is the well-demonstrated truth about communication: we usually hear better when we are overhearing than when directly addressed.
Every faith community I know of, including my own, has painful, internal disagreements, so I can hardly presume to advise the leader of another community. But the Pope himself has observed this week that his U.S. visit comes at a time that is “a crossroads for the church and for humanity as a whole.”
I think he’s right, and in that spirit a few comments about religious leadership might be in order.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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