See previous post. This is what I said. At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City 2015, I was scheduled to present a workshop on Monday afternoon. On Sunday evening, I discovered that my workshop had been deleted from the Parliament app. Panicking, I ran down to the Parliament office in the Salt Palace, but it was Sunday evening; no one was there, except for one young volunteer. I explained the problem and he started making calls. Finally, he said he’d left a message for someone who could help, but we needed to wait for a callback. So, we waited and talked. The yo ..read more

Fifty years ago, my friend’s mother was in a bad car accident. She hung between life and death for several days. I remember begging God to heal her; I truly believed that God could do it. But she died. And I wondered.  Today, in the wake of the death of Rachel Held Evans, many people are wondering. On Facebook and other social media, I’m hearing the pain of those who had been praying so faithfully and diligently for her recovery. Some are expressing anger at God. Others are having a crisis of faith. And some are asking the question, “What’s the point of prayer?”  As painful as that q ..read more

How would you explain your understanding of God, the Divine, Higher Power, or however you understand that which is bigger than ourselves? Are you apophatic (the so-called ‘negative’ approach, which means emptying the mind of words and ideas about God) or cataphatic (the so-called ‘positive’ approach, that uses words, images, symbols, ideas for the Divine)? Are you a theist (for whom God refers to a being beyond the universe, another being in addition to the universe) or a panthentheist (for whom God does not refer to a being separate from the universe, but to a sacred presence all around us ..read more

I was very interested when I learned that the book club of my area’s interfaith organization was reading When One Religion Isn’t Enough: the Lives of Spiritually Fluid People by Duane R. Bidwell. I hadn’t heard of this book, even though it was published in 2018. But I was intrigued because in my book, The INTRAfaith Conversation, I have a chapter entitled “New Voices.” And one of those voices is “Hybrid Spirituality: Multiple Belonging.” In it I quoted Francis X. Clooney, SJ: The phenomenon of “multiple religious belonging” is now deeply engrained in American culture. We can no longer imagin ..read more

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. When last we met in January 2020, I was organizing a screening of Same God, the story of the Wheaton College professor who was removed from her tenured position because of her “embodied solidarity” with Muslims. But then . . . well, 2020 happened. And it felt like a whole lot of other issues took center stage. I pretty much decided to give up on promoting my book, blog, etc. When I got the notice that the Parliament of the World’s Religion would be on line this year and was soliciting proposals for workshops at this years online gathering, I decid ..read more

“Same God” – Embodied Solidarity Comes at a Price Back in 2016, I wrote two posts about Professor Larycia Hawkins, who was removed from her tenured position at Wheaton College because of her “embodied solidarity” with Muslims. Wheaton College: an Intra-faith Controversy The Professor Wore a Hijab in Solidarity – Then Lost Her Job: An INTRAfaith Case Study Then in 2018, I learned that there was a documentary about this intriguing story. So, of course, I wrote about that: Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God: More from Wheaton College Now, it’s here! “Same God” is b ..read more

  New Voices . . . is a chapter in my book, The INTRAfaith Conversation, in which I describe some of the groups now included in the interfaith scene. These groups include . . . Atheists and Humanists Since the book was published in 2015, there have been a lot of new developments. I was aware of the wide range of definitions for atheists and humanists when I wrote the book. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by the further exploration, expansion, and definition of these terms. I’m not much interested in the fundamentalist atheists, who are just as dogmatic as the rel ..read more

This past week, my denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), held its triennial  Churchwide Assembly. One of the main events was voting on the proposed policy statement: A Declaration of Inter-Religious Commitment. I’m proud to say that it passed 890-23.  That might have been due to the fabulous array of ecumenical and inter-religious guests! Watch the whole process here.   There was, however, one moment of concern from the intrafaith perspective. An amendment had been submitted calling a section of the policy statement “inconsistent ..read more

A lot happened at the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) last week. Some of it even made national news – and rightly so. What you might not have seen in the news, but which is a very big deal, is all the interfaith activity. One of the matters brought to the attention of the 927 voting members in attendance was the relationship between Lutherans and Jews. It has not always been a good one. Years ago, a co-worker who heard I was about to go off to the Lutheran seminary, exclaimed, “I hate Lutherans!” It turned out that her husband was Jewish and she’d ..read more

In virtually every workshop I’ve ever led about interfaith matters, someone asks the question: “What about when Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me?” Here is an audio version of the interview I did with Steve Kindle of Pastor to Pew a few years ago. We talk about my book, The INTRAfaith Conversation. But mostly it’s my take on John 14: 6 and how taking the intrafaith  question seriously is a necessity for today’s church.  You can also see the video here.     ..read more