Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/emancipatory-spirituality/page/17/)
The online exclusives below are freely accessible articles that are part of an ongoing special series associated with Tikkun’s Fall 2013 print issue, Identity Politics, Class Politics, and Spiritual Politics: How Do We Build World-Transforming Coalitions? Many of our most provocative articles on this topic appeared in that print issue, which is only accessible to subscribers.
Same-sex relationships. Abortion. Contraception. All three are under attack by religious conservatives who say biblical teachings are on their side. The Bible says little, if anything, about the politically charged issues…and what it does say runs counter to their right-wing assumptions.
In my work, care has emerged as the connective tissue to encompass all identities and enable us to transcend to the level of values, ethics, even spirituality. We must become a nation that values care—a caring America.
Books by Richard Rohr, Reza Aslan, Naomi Alderman, and David P. Gushee.
As religious people, we face our lives head on, knowing that our time is short here. And so we live with a little fire and intensity, fierceness and reverence.
To really transform our society and liberate ourselves from the capitalist ethos and transnational corporate rule that structure all of our lives, we need to listen harder and learn from those on the left who have found ways to combine identity politics with class politics and a call for a deep spiritual transformation of our society.
What actions can the pope take that might bring me back to the church? He could start by removing every bishop and cardinal tarnished by the sex abuse scandal and showing mercy, caring, and generosity toward every child abused by clergy—even if such a policy impoverishes the church. He could focus on cultivating the moral conscience that good citizenship requires without making common cause with a strident, social conservatism that rejects reason and reconciliation. He could reinvigorate concern for the poor, the sick, and the elderly, provide education to those left out of secular systems, cultivate local communities, and ordain women. He could make the church a moral exemplar.
A teacher is not one person. A teacher is the many voices he speaks and the quicksilver changes among them: the things he says to administrators and the things he says to parents; the things he says to ninth graders and the very different things he says to juniors; the farce and praise and kowtowing and congratulation, all those necessary notes across the register of human speech. We are whatever we are saying.
Figuring large in the mystical understanding of Rosh Hashanah is a daring kabbalistic concept—the nesira, the removal of the investment of inner presence in all the worlds on Rosh Hashanah night, to be returned renewed with all the illuminations and energy for the coming year at the time of the shofar blowing the next morning.
Alabama’s HB 56 criminalizes the ability of faithful people to provide sanctuary, transportation to needed services, and the basic care that the despicable Samaritan offered to one injured by society. This law needs to be repealed (not sections reinstated), so people of faith can bring everyone out of the shadows and truly be whole and upright living in the noonday light of love.
Comprehensive immigration reform is about the right thing to do. To really see how the Bible looks at the issue of immigration, and how we should deal with the 11 million undocumented immigrants that reside in our country, one must continue reading Romans 13, which states, “ … owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
The rabbinic arm of the Reform movement has emphasized the importance of collective bargaining for decades. So why have so many recent Reform conferences taken place at union-boycotted hotels?
What defines a prophet? Is it a moral compulsion to speak the truth, no matter the consequences? A look back across history uncovers misguided prophets, prophets of evil, and some true prophetic personalities.
If “sabbath, sunshine, and sexual intercourse” offer a foretaste of the world-that-is-coming, as the Talmud suggests, then could the Burning Man festival be understood as a taste of this messianic future?