Articles
War & Peace
Ersatz Security vs. Genuine Security
World culture has embraced war and violence. But to glorify war is to destroy ourselves, others, and the planet on which we live. We need to try every path that will lead to greater listening to the needs of other groups. We need to always be searching for agreement.
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Spiritual Progressive Analysis
Restorative Justice: The Long Struggle
Large, organized, collective interests are at odds with the future of restorative justice: unions of prison guards, economic benefits to communities from prisons, and then—perhaps the most difficult injustice of all—historical crimes whose legacies subject whole groups of people to continuing injustice.
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Spiritual Progressive Analysis
Beyond Frankl: Towards a Meaningful Life
While Frankl left us with a theory about meaning, it is hard to piece together any practice to help establish a sense of meaning in life. Is meaning given to us from God, or do we pretend to have some real purpose in life in order to make it through the day?
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Spirituality
Life Is A Master Class
We live as artists of Torah in a place that contemporary culture has no room for. In the self-identified Torah-world, Torah living is no longer an art; it’s a sublimation. The question to ask ourselves is “How are we living our lives?”
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Activism
Post-Election: Build Power, Act Strategically, and End the Rule of Concentrated Wealth
Now it is time to educate, organize and mobilize around a strategy that will build the power of people and put in place the kind of sustainable economy and participatory government we urgently need.
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Race
Stop-and-Frisk in New York and the Politics of Crime in America
To deny that race and class do not matter in contemporary America and its criminal justice system is to deny the most obvious political, scientific, and moral reality of our society.
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Spiritual Politics
Practical Curiosity and Democratic Leadership
Gary Dorrien claims that “Obama governs with deep caution, even timidity, as he pushes for risky things.” I disagree. What Dorrien sees as timidity, I see as genuinely democratic leadership in the face of formidable challenges—not only economic, environmental, and military crises, but also a resolutely recalcitrant Republican party and a deeply divided Democratic party, unable to muster agreement on the contours of financial regulation, economic stimulus or health care reform.
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Activism
God Sucks as a Campaign Manager
Like Robertson’s Coalition crusaders, we need to make it clear that when the election is over, no matter the outcome, we are not going away; that when we make a call to action, that the call is answered.
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US Politics
On The Obama Question: A Black Womanist Response
Feminist and black womanist reflection have long held that one’s personal experience always has political and universal implications. In light of this claim, the womanist lens that guides my approach to The Obama Question is especially intrigued by Gary Dorrien’s attempt to debunk and redirect racially politicized assumptions that undergird some progressive and leftist perspectives.
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Activism
Politics and the Limits of Religious Optimism
The manner in which the current political discourse in the United States is marred by shortsighted discussions of the “good” and the nature of morality capable of pushing the nation toward its better self is glaring. While neither seems willing to acknowledge this, both the religious Right and the religious Left have fallen short with respect to these ideological challenges.
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Spiritual Progressive Analysis
The Moral Priority of the Common Good
If Obama can re-establish the fundamental moral priority for the nation of the public or common good to what the founders originally held dear and what the biblical tradition teaches, he might have a fulcrum by which to pry the American moral spirit free from the prison into which the Tea Party and severely conservative Republicans have confined it.
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US Politics
Core Beliefs and Pragmatism in Obama’s Politics
President Obama is a political pragmatist and said so repeatedly throughout his 2008 campaign. Unfortunately, many of his supporters failed to understand the full meaning of that reality.
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US Politics
The Stoker and the Plugger
Stopping the tsunami requires every tool in our kit, even the choice of a timid and misguided plugger—whom we need to prod, push, and often militantly oppose—over the stoker. Plugging the leak opens up prospects that the people will mobilize rapidly from below and rebuild the levy while quieting the floodwaters.
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Spiritual Politics
Supporting Obama from the Left
As we confront the current election and the next four years, many progressives are reflecting upon how we reached this juncture and what role we should play moving forward. Given the partisan character of our country and the mixed results of the current administration, what are spiritual and religious progressives to do?
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Poetry
Above the Roofs of the Jewish Village
I and my imaginary lover hover above the roofs of the Jewish village. Above the courtyards, dairy barns, animal pens. Above the awnings of the chicken coops. Amid smells and clucking, cold air and wind muss her imaginary hair, soft, …
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