Progressive Revival

In a post called Sarah Palin’s rogue Christianity, Sally Quinn asks some hard questions of Sarah Palin intended to point out the inconsistencies of her faith commitments. I haven’t read the book but reading these questions makes me think of the hard test that faith puts on all of our lives.   Unsolved paradoxes lead us to poignant places where…

During the last few days, Psalm 109:8, a Bible verse in the form of a “prayer for Obama,” has topped the Google trends chart:  “May his days be few; may another take his office.”  Evidently, a bumper sticker emblazoned with this verse has popped up in various parts of the country.  It is a sort…

These Thanksgiving Day Prayers are three of my favorites: For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) O God, we thank you for this earth, our home; For the wide sky and…

Obama’s Council on Faith Based Partnerships has fallen off the map – and we need them back.   Nothing exemplifies the sad lack of contribution of this much hailed diverse group of religious leaders than the current impasse on Health Care with the Stupak Abortion amendment.  Even before President Obama took office he was assembling a…

a great series at Open Left by diarist dreaminonempty has been chronicling the future decline and fall of the Republican Party on the basis of demographic trends, ethnic and religious. The post on religious trends had a extensive section on how muslim voting trends, which have been much more volatile in response to policy than…

Updates on yesterday’s blog about the fight between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the DC City Council: According to the Washington Post, the DC city council has responded to the Catholic Archdiocese by “digging in its heels” on gay marriage.  The Council tried to reach a compromise but now doubts that it is possible. Local…

This morning’s Washington Post made me choke on my coffee:  “Catholic Church Gives D.C. Ultimatum.”  The Catholic Archdiocese is playing political hardball by threatening to cut off social services to the city’s poor–including the homeless, the hungry, the sick, and children–if D.C. expands gay and lesbian civil rights and recognizes same-sex marriage. That’s right.  The…

As the nation observed the killing of John Muhammad last night (Live with Larry King!) I gathered with a small group of students, seminarians, and a Roman Catholic Priest to meet Rev. Caroll Pickett, who was the chaplain for prisoners about to be executed in Texas.  We watched the documentary At the Death House Door: …

Rev. Donna Schaper is the Senior Pastor at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City.     William James in his marvelous book, THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, speaks of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism as the transition of the brocaded, artistic, colorful Baroque to one man in a black suit carrying a…

Immediately after it became known that the shooter at Fort Hood was South Asian and had a Muslim sounding name the condemnations came in from every major Islamic organization in America. In my inbox I got emails from Daisy Khan and Feisal Rauf, Eboo Patel, Shahed Amanullah and others expressing, on behalf of their religion,…

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