Patheos Hits the Public Square

I am strangely remiss and should have announced this last week, but I will plead family issues and a kid with pneumonia as reasonable distractions that made me forget to tell you about Patheos’ latest feature: The Public Square.

The Patheos Public Square is meant to be a gathering place, where people of various faiths can come together — apart from blogs and echo chambers — to dialogue on pressing issues of the day and how faith perspectives can or should influence them, and to explore provocative questions. Currently, riffing a little on Robert Bellah, a group of panelists are addressing whether America Need a “Civil Religion”.

I daresay America has already become one, and that Ameridolatry has its proponents across all spectrums, but you’ll want to go read the assembled panel, which is being added to. Coming up on the horizon will be future pieces on Ethics and Government Secrecy, Faith in the Workplace, The Future of Religious Liberty — these are all important and connected issues, and I hope we begin to see lots of Catholic voices being added to the mix, particularly as tensions increase between churches and government that used to manage mutually beneficial cooperation.

With that growing tension in mind, it will be particularly interesting to see who says what when we get to the Life and Legacy of Rev. Billy Graham, in the future.

Check it out and let me know what you think — I’d love some feedback, and even a sense of what Catholic voices you might like to see invited into these discussions!