A Baha’i Prayer for Divine Assistance
Dispel my grief by Thy bounty and Thy generosity, O God, my God, and banish mine anguish through Thy sovereignty and Thy might. Thou seest me, O my god, with my face set towards Thee at a time when sorrows have compassed me on every side. I implore Thee, O Thou Who art the Lord [...]
It’s Just a Cartoon. Right?
Listening to National Public Radio while you’re driving can be hazardous. Once again I almost drove off the road. The reporter was talking about a fourteen year old girl in Pakistan, hunted down and shot by the Pakistani Taliban for the offense of going to school. I was enraged. In spite of myself, all manner [...]
Black, White, East, West
Article first published as Black, White, East, West on Blogcritics. On April 23, 1912, a religious leader from the Middle East addressed a multiracial audience at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington D.C. He praised the promise embodied in that multicolored assemblage, an American dream not measured in money. He spent most of [...]
The Beginning of Men
Article first published as The Beginning of Men on Blogcritics. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin In the spirit of the apocalyptic zeitgeist of our time, we have been put on [...]
“I Don’t See Race.”
Article first published as “I Don’t See Race” on Blogcritics. Once upon a time there was a man on a quest to solve the world’s problems. He heard that there was a person who could solve even the thorniest dilemmas and sought him out. He finally found this Great Problem Solver and the conversation went [...]
What is the Face of Racism?
“White supremacy is the greatest danger we as Americans face as a source of domestic terrorism, and one of the least recognized,” writes Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite at the Washington Post’s On Faith Blog. Since Wade Michael Page massacred Sikhs and tried to murder a police officer in Wisconcin, you’ve probably learned more than you care [...]
Faith, Race, and Terror
Article first published as Faith, Race, and Terror on Blogcritics. It’s mourning in America again. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that the blood of the innocent cries forever. We join our cries with the blood spilt in a Sikh sanctuary last Sunday. As a Black American, I cannot contemplate this tragedy without contemplating the legacy of [...]
Brown Like Her
Article first published as Brown Like Her on Blogcritics “More,” said my son as I listed as many “brown” people as I could think of. Grammy, Pappa, Aunties (including one adopted from India), his day care provider, a boy he likes to play with on our street. His thirst for knowing who in his world [...]
Faith in Space
When it comes to believing that Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi-horror classic Alien is one of the best movies of its kind ever, I have discovered that I am not alone in the universe. I have also discovered that finding his new, not-quite-a-prequel Prometheus really annoying is also a shared experience. Among its most annoying attributes [...]
Brown Like Me
Salon.com has an interesting piece by Clara Germani about growing up Mexican American. Her story features a tragicomic moment of self-mutilation: When I was 10, I showed up at the breakfast table one morning with the sandpapery scabs of an experiment-gone-wrong on my face. I’d tried to engineer rosy cheeks by scouring with a wash [...]
Phillipe Copeland
Phillipe Copeland is a Baha'i, a doctoral candidate in social work, a dedicated blogger, a husband and a father.
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Contributing Scholars
Leslie HilgemanLeslie Hilgeman is a fifth-year student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, to be ordained as a rabbi in June 2013. She also serves as student rabbi of Congregation Am Haskalah of Allentown/Bethlehem, PA. Since joining rabbinical school, her passion for inter-religious engagement has led her into inter-seminary workshops and classrooms, organizing inter-seminary student programs, internship work at the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia, social-justice delegations to four countries, interfaith prayer and blessing circles, conferences and occasional blogging. Previous to her rabbinical studies, Leslie held a 15-year career as a foreign correspondent and editor, mostly covering business and technology in Latin America & the Caribbean.
Andrew SchwartzI am a 3rd year M.Div student at Union Theological Seminary in NYC. I am focusing primarily on interfaith studies and social ethics, studying how the two fields intersect with environmental justice.
Robyn Henderson-EspinozaSelf-identified as a Christian Agnostic and QueerMestizo (of Mexican & Anglo heritage), Robyn is a Ph.D Student at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology, Denver, CO focussing on Social Ethics with an primary interest in ethics in the US Borderlands. Robyn uses queer theories, Critical Chican@ Studies, and queer epistemologies to consider Ethics.