Pastor Rick Warren’s invocation, along with President Obama’s inaugural address about which I already wrote, set the stage for a new kind of public religion in this country. It is both more inclusive and simultaneously proud of particularity than anything we may have seen before. For starters, Rick Warren was introduced as Dr. Rick Warren,…

The comments on yesterday’s post about the deadly effects of Biblical literalism promted me to write the following response the interesting question raised there. For me, the whole point of the Akeidah (Binding of Isaac) story – found in Genesis 22, is that it is possible to combine the readiness to commit the act of…

Leilani and Dale Neuman stood by as their diabetic daughter slipped into sickness, then acute illness and finally death from diabetic ketoacidosis. As followers of an online faith community called Unleavened Bread Ministries, which rejects medicine, they did nothing as their little girl died of an entirely treatable condition. Tell me these people should not…

Three rabbis are slated to offer prayers at a January 21st National Cathedral service to be held as part of Barack Obama’s inauguration. Is this a good thing, or not? Is it more complicated for the Reform participant, Rabbi David Saperstein, whose movement has consistently argued for a solid wall of separation between church and…

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