(The following is a transcript of the speech I delivered Tuesday in Frederick, Maryland at a Candlelight Vigil for Pulse Victims in Orlando.) President Obama, in his “Second Inaugural Address,” said: “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” In that speech, we heard our nation’s highest elected official “name-check... Read more

As a teenager, when I went to events with my theologically conservative youth group, there were often t-shirts for sale with anti-science slogans like, “I believe in the big bang. God spoke and bang it was.” There was an orientation toward protecting the past: a perception that all the paradigm-shifting religious events had already happened thousands of years ago, and that our role was to defend our belief in those miraculous occasions against emerging understandings which saw these ancient stories... Read more

Slate’s Political Gabfest – one of my favorite weekly podcasts for a few years now that becomes all- the-more-interesting in a presidential election season. “Voted ‘Favorite Political Podcast’ by iTunes Listeners. The Gabfest, featuring Slate’s Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz, is the kind of informal and irreverent discussion Washington journalists have after hours over drinks.” FiveThirtyEight Elections – my new favorite weekly political podcast from the “data wizards” at 538, headed by Nate Silver. Slate’s Trumpcast – the new “essential listening” podcast... Read more

Memorial Day has sometimes become merely a three-day holiday weekend, symbolically marking the beginning of the summer vacation season. But the original intent of Memorial Day is an annual time to honor and remember all who have died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces—not to be confused with Veterans Day in November, which honors all military veterans. For me, Memorial Day includes remembering my great-uncle Wilber, who was killed in action during World War II. And when I think... Read more

I was excited to see that the renown feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter had published a new biography of Julia Ward Howe. If this post piques your interest, I highly recommend the book. To begin with an overview that trances the competing priorities that Julia Ward Howe struggled to balance throughout her life, she: had six children, learned six languages, and published six books.… Born [in 1819], three days after Queen Victoria, she was sometimes called the Queen of America…. When she... Read more

Historically, one of the weaknesses of liberal religious traditions has been a naïve optimism. In rejecting the extreme pessimism of many orthodox religious traditions (a belief in “Original Sin,” the “total depravity” of human beings, and the corrupt nature of the world and society), many progressives  overestimated the perfectibility of human nature, the possibility of building utopian societies, and the inevitability of progress “onward and upward forever.” Whereas many orthodox religious traditions have overestimated “evil” as literally real, liberal religious... Read more

A few years ago, a park ranger was leading an environmental awareness tour for a group  that I was a part of that included a visit to the county landfill. The part of her talk I remember most vividly was that, “We are deceiving ourselves whenever we think we are throwing something away in the trash. There is no ‘away.’” We can try to throw something away from us into the trash can, but there are impacts on the environment from... Read more

We do not know the exact date when William Shakespeare was born. Our first record is of his christening on April 26, 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon in England. There is a certain appealing symmetry in the speculation that he was born three days before his christening, which would mean that the day of his birth coincided with the day of his death, exactly 52 years later on April 23, 1616. This month we are approaching the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.... Read more