Posts by Kelly Figueroa-Ray

Open Letter to Seema Jilani: A Small Step Toward Taking Responsibility for White Privilege

Now, not all undergraduate students are receptive to hearing about white privilege, but for those who are, their experience is not unlike the experience of the pilgrims in the Christian story of Pentecost… On that day in Jerusalem when “each one heard them speaking in the native language of each,” and had no choice to but to recognize themselves in “the other” and listen to them speak.

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5 Things the Church Can Learn From Women’s Roller Derby

In a world where girls and young women are bombarded by the media’s portrayal of the perfect body — where eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem characterize young women’s lives — there also exists Women’s Roller Derby.

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Freedom in a Religious State?: An Inter-Abrahamic Reflection

I hope this inter-Abrahamic refection serves to complicate our stance on some very touchy topics… to humanize them just a bit… and to realize that at the base of the most difficult conflicts are real people with real desires to struggle and strive so as to be at peace when we encounter the divine.

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My “Call to Action” for the United Methodist Church

A.k.a. “Why I will never join a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Church again”

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On the Cutting-Edge of Interfaith Work: An Open Thank You Letter to the Sultan of Oman

The barriers to authentic interfaith relationships are great. But I write to let you know that Oman’s investment in the CIP Summer School is possibly one of the most promising experiments in interfaith work.

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Getting Stuck in Clay: An Interfaith Reflection

This post was originally published on Huffington Post Religion. This is my first trip to Europe. I’ve had the chance to rent a bike and tour around the beautiful English countryside that surrounds Madingly, a small town (there is only a few homes, a pub, town hall and a church) right outside of Cambridge, England. [...]

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“Are you a good Muslim or a bad Muslim?”

The fact that this question could be asked OUT LOUD to a GUEST of a Christian Church demonstrates a deep and pervasive understanding, in the status quo culture of the United States, that expressions of Islamophobia are not taboo, but actually to be expected.

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The World Is Their Parish: Can The United Methodist Church Survive?

This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post Religion. In a post this week, Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources of the General Board of Discipleship — a national organization of the United Methodist Church charged with helping local churches by “equipping world changing disciples” — asked what “missional Methodists” should do in the face [...]

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Come… read my sacred texts as if they were yours…

In an earlier post, I offered a reflection on the types of inter-religious encounters that, although often well intentioned, tend to be reductive and ultimately unhelpful in the development of inter-religious dialogue. This does not mean I have given up on the such dialogue, on the contrary I believe it is one of the most [...]

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Blessed are…

As a privileged person, I appreciate the challenge to give up power and participate in the blessed life promised by the Beatitudes. Gohn gives me hope, that yes, I too have a place in the Reign of God if I choose to be shaped by the teachings of Jesus.
But what about those people who do not have a choice?
What about those who are made to give up power or are reminded of their powerlessness on daily basis?
Homosexuals whose spirits are broken by bullying… Undocumented Immigrants mourning the disintegrated dead bodies of their loved ones in the desert… Egyptian Citizens cut-off from communicating with the world to silence their voice… Young Women working themselves to death in sweatshops for non-living wages to support their families…

It seems to me that it is for such as these that Jesus speaks these words.

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