Pagans in the Growing Interfaith Landscape
I attended Winston-Salem’s annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service the Sunday before Thanksgiving this year. Normally it occurs on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but apparently the consensus felt that were it to happen on a Sunday, more parishioners would be present, as most would not be traveling for the holiday. It seemed the idea was a good one, as about 250 of Winston-Salem’s finest turned out for the occasion. Last year was my first time going to such an event. I remember … [Read more...]
I wrote some time back about how it is imperative for me to be courteous to those who come to my door. This is part of my upbringing as well as a moral obligation stemming from my religious convictions. By and large, I see proselytization efforts as futile and mostly harmless, but the practice has certain assumptions at its core that can lead to behaviors and attitudes that can be quite harmful to those of us in the minority. The assumptions are as follows: There is one true way. Because … [Read more...]
Years ago, when I was in a Cooperation Circle of the United Religions Initiative, there was an interfaith-y poster of how religions across the spectrum of spirituality had their own version of The Golden Rule--Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You. There were very similar mottos from lots of different creeds but my spiritual tradition doesn't have a thing like that, not really. We harken back to the ancient laws of hospitality and that could sort of pass. But not really. We spend … [Read more...]
The book club here at Patheos provided me the opportunity to read and review a book entitled The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible and I leaped at the opportunity to check out a text published in North Atlantic Book's Sacred Activism series. Having read it, I found it to be more than a simple collection of words and pages; it's a disruptive phenomenon. And, like all disruptions, it takes time to fully understand them and their ramifications. Over the last few days as I … [Read more...]
It’s that time of year to give thanks. Thanks for all that has brought one to this point, thanks for all the places one can from here. I have a lot of thanks to give. I think back to January, 2008. I’d been back from Africa for just over a month, and was seriously spazzing on the inverse culture-shock I was having due to having acclimated to the African climate, and even though I grew up here in North Carolina, coming back here was doubly harder than GOING TO Africa. Being born and … [Read more...]
And just what is a sacred place? What do you see when you hear those words? Standing stones raised by ancient peoples upon a windy plain? Dark caverns where the ancient Mother was first honored? Towering pyramids? Ruined temples to forgotten deities? Perhaps you think of the dim vastness of a famous cathedral, candles flickering in front of the Torah, or images of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Or maybe the sacred is a small church on a village green, or the many-pillared splendor of a … [Read more...]
The military as an example of daily interfaith relations? Never having been a soldier, it had not occurred to me, but that’s one of the things I heard at a remarkable meeting this week at the U.S. Armed Forces Chaplains School and Center, here in Columbia, S.C., at Fort Jackson. The Chaplains School was hosting the annual meeting of Interfaith Partners of S.C., and “host” would be an understatement for the outstanding experience they provided. From the time I parked my car across the … [Read more...]
Two months ago I wrote a bit about Evangelism, touching on the tenets of reality in so much that Evangelism is what you make of it. Well, today I want to touch on the slim facet of reality called Proselytism. John Morehead of Religious Diplomacy shared an article from Sacred Tribes Journal (Vol 8, No 1, Fall 2013) of which Elmer Thiessen was interviewed on his book, The Ethics of Evangelism published by InterVarsity Press, wondering if it might serve as some kind of topic generator. After … [Read more...]
I was struggling with what to write this week, when an interfaith encounter came to my door. The gods work in obvious and unsubtle ways. And, as a side note, I'm a day late and a dollar short in posting this week. I had a thesis defense on Monday, so I hope you will all forgive me for the delay. I'm sure a lot of you have had similar experiences and have likely even devised a method of handling the door to door religion salespeople. I've heard a number of different ways of dealing with … [Read more...]
Little white country church, a beautiful Sunday afternoon, friends, cookies and punch on the picnic tables outside, a harpist and flautist playing a pleasant half-hour prelude - this was the scene that greeted me when I arrived at Clayton Memorial UU in Newberry, S.C. on October 20 for a panel discussion called “Interfaith Perspectives on Compassion.” My colleagues on the panel were Bishop Herman Yoos of the S.C. Synod of the ELCA (Lutheran) Church, Imam Omar Shaheed, Rabbi Jonathan Case, … [Read more...]
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