Topic: Culture and Society
“I don’t see how you can have a relationship with God that doesn’t involve a state of receptivity—and a receptivity to lots of stuff, because God does show up in all kinds of odd ways.” More
Black and white religious leaders in Ferguson, Missouri, are trying to help their divided community heal. “Here is an opportunity, a living laboratory by which we try intentionally to work toward that beloved community that Dr. King invited us to,” … More
As the movie opens today (January 9) in theaters around the country amidst controversy over its portrayal of former president Lyndon Johnson, we speak with director Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo, the actor who portrays Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., about what it means to them to tell the story of the historic 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. More
How do interfaith couples decide which faith their children should adopt? “We both wanted to keep our own religions and our own identity for ourselves, so we knew from the beginning that we didn’t want our children to be just one of our faiths,” says Amy Schombs, who is Jewish and whose husband is a Christian. More
The new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, set to be rebuilt at the World Trade Center, will be a national shrine and will include a nondenominational bereavement center. “Next to the place where the most tragic thing that has ever happened on American soil,” says Father Evagoras Constantinides of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, “it needs to be a place to offer, to welcome, to open, and to accept all sorts of people.” More
We set the stage for the October 5 opening of the Vatican’s two-week discussion and debate, called by Pope Francis, on the church and the pastoral challenges of contemporary family life, including topics such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, annulments, and cohabitation. More
“There are several prominent pulpits in which women are now coming into those jobs, and it’s an indication society is shifting in many different ways,” says the Reverend Amy Butler, first female senior pastor of the Riverside Church in Manhattan. “Women are increasingly moving into leadership roles in other parts of our society, and it’s time for that to happen in the church.” More
“We are at the point in institutional church where we don’t know what the future is going to look like. I hope at the Riverside Church we can create a community of people who allow for innovation and for exploration.” More
“The three pulpits that are historically important in mainline Protestantism have women senior pastors now is a very big deal,” observes scholar and author Diana Butler Bass. “It is hard to imagine as recently as even 20 years ago that women would have achieved that level of leadership. It signals a change in American Protestantism.” More
“Jesus matters so much because of the incarnation,” says Edward Blum, a history professor at San Diego State University and co-author of “The Color of Christ.” “If God takes a particular body with particular hair length and particular eye color, then perhaps that says something about the value of that body.” More