Land of the Pilgrim Pride
Land of the Pilgrim Pride My country tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From every mountain side, Let freedom ring As I ruminate over the lyrics of this melodious tone and the moments that inspired Samuel Francis Smith to etch [...]
Heath Mackenzie Reynolds: Why I am committed to building relationships with those from different religious and ethical traditions
Managing Director’s Note: beginning in the Spring of 2013, all Contributing Scholars will answer the following question as their first post: Why are you committed to building relationships with those from different religious or ethical traditions? I grew up in Spokane, Washington. There was an active Klan group centered just across the state line from [...]
From Lincoln to The Hunger Games: The Power of Story
I woke up clutching my bed frame, heart pounding, mind reeling – three nights in a row – when I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I could not escape this story, both novel and film, and wondered how it could change The United States. It was one of two striking stories of civil [...]
The Triple Goddess: The Crone and Closure at the Mouth of the Ganges
This is a story of transcendence, the culminating point in my India pilgrimage. I had sought active goddess worship and structured my travels according to themes of beginnings, manifestation, and transcendence. I had begun in the northeast, with the spiritual source of the sacred Ganges River, and later discovered youthful, dynamic goddess experiences in the [...]
Knowing the Religious Other
I am giving a talk this weekend (here) on employing sacramental mediation as a model for interfaith reconciliation, encounter, and learning. Interfaith encounter involves knowing the religious other. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments, penned under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, I make the attempt to apply his well-known epistemological distinction between objective and subjective [...]
‘American Idol’s’ Gurpreet Singh Sarin on Singing His Way Past Stereotypes
This interview originally appeared on The Daily Beast With more turban colors than a box of crayons, Gurpreet Singh Sarin is the brightest-looking participant in ‘American Idol’ this year. He tells us about the controversy over his appearance and how he started singing in a Potbelly Sandwich Shop. Channel surfing is a little different this [...]
Touching Turbans and Airport Security
This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post This afternoon, I was forced to let someone else touch my turban. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life. I attended a conference at Stanford University this weekend and was traveling back home to New York City by way of San Francisco International [...]
James Baldwin and the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church sits in the middle of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. During the heart of the Civil Rights movement, when Birmingham was known across the nation as “Bombingham,” marchers and protesters would assemble at the 16th Street Baptist Church, then walk across the street to Kelly Ingram Park, where they demonstrated against segregated [...]
V-Day: A Universal Love Story?
When Valentine’s Day rolls around each year, why do you celebrate? I was sitting in class the other day and I glanced over at a fellow student’s daily planner. She was looking at the following week and on the 14th there was a big headline which said: “GROSS.” Is it? I know why she thinks [...]
A New Supreme Pontiff and What It Means for Interreligious Dialogue
Just before noon on Monday in Rome, Italy, Pope Benedict XVI addressed assembled Cardinals of the Catholic Church. After serving nearly eight years as the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, [...]
Contributing Scholars
Allana TaylorAllana Taylor completed her Masters degree in Divinity at the University of Chicago in 2012 and is currently living in Norman, Oklahoma with her wonderful husband Kyle and their one-year old gift, Isaac. She served as the Communications intern for the Council for a Parliament of the World's religions in 2010-2011. In the fall of 2012 she was a participant in the Middle Prairie Institute for Religion and Public Life's, a non-partisan think tank, annual session. Though her academic interests focus on Islamic Law and the modern state, she has also done research on the intersection of law and culture and questions of institutional justice versus morality. She identifies as an atheist, but is committed to inter-religious engagement and dialogue and is determined to be part of that conversation.
Saumya Arya HaasSaumya Arya Haas, Executive Director of Headwaters/Delta Interfaith, advises local, national and international interfaith and social equity organizations including The New Orleans Healing Center. She is a Manbo Asogwe (Priestess of Vodou) and hereditary Hindu Pujarin, writes and lectures about religion, and is a part-time ALB (undergraduate) candidate in Religious Studies at Harvard University School of Extension Studies.
Drew StockstillDrew Stockstill is currently a senior at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA where he is completing his Master of Divinity. He works as a Presbyterian Campus Minister at Emory University and is a freelance writer for the Presbyterian Church (USA).