Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 3
(This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2) OFFENSE Jesus was most recently portrayed in celluloid form by a Portuguese model with great hair. I’m talking about The Bible, a miniseries broadcast on The History Channel. In it we learn that Jesus was gentle and strong; that Jews really [...]
Wandering Through the Desert: Sifting Through Our Past on our Way to Revelation
During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we cast our sins in to the desert, freeing ourselves from their oppressive burden, unshackling our hearts and minds so that we can begin the year anew. Six months later another new year arrives (Exodus 12:12). After a period of enslavement we find ourselves once again loosening our chains and opening our souls, ready to reencounter that which we cast away.
Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 1/3
Humor; humor is difficult. Religion; religion is difficult. They can both be reassuring, and discomfiting. They can affix labels, or they can liberate. They can be subversive, or they can uplift the dominant paradigm. Both can be thrilling and boring. They can be unifying, or alienating. Religion and humor both aspire to help us live [...]
Gavrielle Blank: My Commitment to Building Relationships with Others from Different Religious or Ethical Traditions
As a child growing up in Los Angeles, my friends and I were from all sorts of different backgrounds, religions, and traditions, and we accepted this diversity as normal and beautiful. We were fascinated by each other’s differences, and we loved and accepted each other as we were. Of course, I had no idea how [...]
What’s the Big Deal About Interfaith Marriage?
I attended the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed by the preponderance of sacred fashion statements (the hats!), the number of New Age practitioners from the North American West Coast, and the ubiquity of the phrase “interfaith dialogue.” As former chair of the Union Theological Seminary Interfaith Caucus, a [...]
Religion Is All About Sex?
The Freudian take on religion, that it is all about sex, or more precisely all about repressed sexual urges, is hardly new. Nevertheless, it was somewhat startling when renowned sociologist of religion Peter Berger returned to this trope last week on his The American Interest blog in an entry entitled “Religion As An Activity Engaged [...]
How Paul Tillich Helped Me Matter
I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted. This is very true. I have lapsed in my public reflections about all things religious. When I ask myself why I lapsed, my answers are [...]
Moving from Interfaith Dialogue to Multifaith Action
Next week, the international community will be marking World Interfaith Harmony Week designated by the United Nations to occur annually in the first full week of February where there will be a chance for the global community to promote harmony between all people and to establish a dialogue amongst the different faiths and religions in [...]
Recoding the Conflict: What Chanukah Has to Teach Us About How We Speak
When I was young, my dad used to tell us stories. The stories always involved two young children, a girl and a boy, adventurous analogues for my brother and me, who would be sent off by their parents to undertake great adventure. When the going got rough and the children couldn’t go on, they would [...]
Theology of the Body, Episode 2: The Gendering of Voices in a Mormon Sunday Choir
Like the master-signifier of reality, the hanging portrait of a prophet hovered in the air of a vacated instruction room, smiling with relief over a group of the elect youth of God’s Zion who had been selected by heavenly beings in heavenly places to live in the latter days of human history and to call [...]
Contributing Scholars
Joshua RatnerJosh Ratner is a 37 year-old rabbi in Connecticut. Josh is originally from San Diego,
California, and spent time working as an attorney for five years prior
to commencing rabbinical school. Josh presently lives in Woodbridge,
CT, with his wife (Elena) and three children (Dimitri, Elijah, and
Gabriella). Josh is particularly interested in sustainability and other environmental issues, particularly from an interfaith perspective.
Bilal HassamBilal Hassam is a trainee Doctor at the University of Nottingham concurrently studying a Masters in Inter-Religious Relations at De Montfort University, Leicester. He spent a year as a Faiths Act Fellow for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and the Interfaith Youth Core (Chicago) serving as an Inter-Religious Ambassador for the UN Millennium Development Goals; mobilising faith communities to work together in the fight against global poverty. He continues to be involved in a plethora of charitable and community organisations and initiatives across the UK and Europe and can be followed at twitter.com/bilalhassam
Tricia PethicTricia Pethic is an aspiring chaplain in Hartford Seminary’s Islamic chaplaincy program and holds a Master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies. She is currently interning at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, CT, providing spiritual counsel and education to female Muslim inmates.