[This post is part of a conversation on the new book Being Different by Rajiv Malhotra, now featured at the Patheos Book Club.]   By Indrani Rampersad, PhD Senior Research Fellow (Hidden Cultures Project) The University of Trinidad & Tobago, Trinidad, W.I. As someone born into the Dharmic Traditions in the Caribbean where my ancestors have lived hundreds of years and where my internal and external space were bombarded by the oppressive presence of persons and institutions that were forcibly, selfishly, and... Read more

When Pastor Mike Slaughter invited friend Chuck Gutenson to interview for a position on the pastoral team at the mega-church Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, OH, he was completely unprepared for the concerns expressed by his church’s Leadership Board over Gutenson’s politics. (Gutenson was the COO at Sojourner’s Magazine and a politically left-leaning Evangelical.)  The word that immediately came to Slaughter’s mind during the energetic discussions surrounding Chuck’s interview was “hijacked.” The Board’s reaction, in his opinion, was... Read more

Mike Slaughter, Chuck Gutenson and Robert Jones could join Cirque de Soleil if the day job doesn’t work out. In Hijacked; Responding to the Partisan Church Divide, they show they can touch the ground with their feet and their heads at the same time. They bend over backward to the extreme to stay on course with their main premise that American Christianity, evangelicalism in particular, has become more defined by political affiliation than by Christian theology and a desire to... Read more

I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political Right. The hard Right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it. – Billy Graham, Parade Magazine, 1981 Billy Graham prophetically saw the fateful coupling of partisan politics and religious fundamentalism. When political strategists talk about religious communities, they speak of them as voting blocks—groups of persons who can be swayed by particular kinds of... Read more

[This post by Brad Hirschfield is part of a roundtable discussion on the new book Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism by Rajiv Malhotra, now featured at the Patheos Book Club.] Being Different is a bold attempt to harness the insights and inspiration of dharmic tradition which is almost always limited, at least in popular conception, to being about personal issues, and applies those insights and wisdom to larger social policy and perspective.  It is an attempt that... Read more

[This post is part of a roundtable discussion on the new book Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism by Rajiv Malhotra, now featured at the Patheos Book Club.] Rajiv Malhotra lays some of the most crucial insights of Indian philosophy on our front step in Being Different: A Challenge to Western Universalism. In the package we find an invitation to the practice of purva paksha (49), a dialectical hallmark of the Dharma traditions, which requires one to suspend her own... Read more

[This post by Dr. Rita Sherma is part of a roundtable discussion on the new book Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism by Rajiv Malhotra, now featured at the Patheos Book Club.] There is difference that matters and difference that really does not. In Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism, the author makes a case for the importance of not falling prey to the belief that the obliteration of all difference will lead to greater harmony... Read more

“The sheer range of religions represented led me to assume that they have few presuppositions in common. This assumption was supported by the fact that the main reason they meet is in order to learn about each other’s traditions.” Nate Gonzales, undergraduate student at the University of Southern California, made this astute observation in a paper he wrote about the USC student Interfaith Council, of which he’s an active member. (It might come as no surprise that he has been... Read more

By Crystal St. Marie Lewis Jo Saxton’s book, More Than Enchanting: Breaking Through Barriers to Influence Your World, offers some very beautiful faith-centered reflections about issues that affect modern Christian women. I appreciate that a large portion of her book is devoted to encouraging Christian women in leadership, especially in an age when conversations about a woman’s “place” in the world are regaining popularity in Christian discourse. (If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, please Google Mark Driscoll... Read more

What are some of the most life-giving words someone has spoken to you online? Choose words that release a life-giving fragrance and impress a beautiful image on the souls of others. #LiveSticky Read more