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 [...]
Boston: Meeting Hatred With Love
It strikes me as something of a cliché to start a blog with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. but nonetheless, here I go. I was reading a book on Sunday evening which cites King as imploring, “We must meet hate with love.” This was King’s astonishing, compassionate response to the bombing of his [...]
Pacem in Terris and Mercy Mild
With almost daily reminders that War is Coming, it gets hard to imagine an alternative. Over the last month our media has been banging the drums of war suggesting that Kim Jong-un is borderline psychotic and is ready, at any moment, to drop a bomb. With images of their prison camps, videos of their propaganda, [...]
Palingenesia: You Might be a Lord… But Here Comes the King
Have you heard about Snoop Dogg becoming Snoop Lion? Last year, Snoop Dogg announced his new persona starting with his own Reincarnation. He was no longer going to be the rabble-rousing gangster rapper, but a Rastafarian with a new message. Snoop Lion is here to spread the message of Love over Hate. Yeah, it seems [...]
#King: Who’s the Man with the Master Plan?
April 26th, 1992: there was a riot on the streets. Tell me, where were you? You were sitting home watching your TV… while I was participating in some anarchy. – Sublime – I had only just turned five years old some weeks before this. It was before I had entered kindergarten, which occurred the next [...]
#Martin: Do the Right Thing. Put on the Hood.
On 26 February, exactly one year ago today, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. February is a month dedicated to black history, black pride, and black liberation. It was chosen because it contains the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. This is an interesting point on first glance. Why is [...]
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 [...]
A Woman is Acquired
“A woman is acquired [in marriage] in three ways…by money, by document, or by intercourse.” This is how the first mishnah in the tractate Kiddushin begins. In just this sentence alone we gain a window into how women were seen in the world of the rabbis. As each subsequent generation—from the Talmudic sages of 600 CE to 20th century feminist scholars—probe this Mishnah, the meaning of this statement is investigated, challenged, and, ultimately, transformed.
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 [...]
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 [...]
Contributing Scholars
Jenn LindsayJenn Lindsay is a PhD student in Boston University's Division of Religious and Theological Studies, where she studies how religion affects personal relationships, particularly interreligious relationships. She earned her Masters Degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where her program focus was Interfaith Relations and she served as co-chair of the Interfaith Caucus and the student senate Minister of Fun. She hails from San Diego and worked for a decade in New York City as an independent musician and filmmaker.
Bryan ParysBryan Parys, M.F.A., is working on a memoir of faith and mortality called, "Wake, Sleeper." His work revolves around the idea that art is an attempt to recover what is lost. http://wakesleeper.wordpress.com/
Susan HarrisonI am a PhD candidate at the Toronto School of Theology - Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto. In addition to my current research in Christian Peace Theology and the Theology of Religions I teach, participate in and organize Interfaith dialogue events. I have an MDiv and a ThM in New Testament and have found leading Scriptural Reasoning groups a meaningful way of connecting with people, building community, and learning about how scripture shapes lives and gives meaning to people. I have served in different capacities as a pastor, chaplain and a cultural exchange program coordinator. Some of my writing includes "Interfaith friendship as a Bridge to Peace" in *Windows to World's Religions* (ed. Arvind Sharma), articles for the *Common Ground News* and I am one of the editor's and contributor's to the book *On Spirituality: Essays from the Third Shii Muslim Mennonite Christian Dialogue*.