Category: Challenges
On Taking a Selfie with Pope Francis
Recently I attended an audience with Pope Francis with the International Council of Christians and Jews. It was my second audience, as I had also gained access to the Vatican’s elaborate reception r... Read More
Sacred Moment of Presence
This summer I am working as a chaplain intern in a Clinical Pastoral Education program at a Catholic hospital in Indianapolis. This program is teaching me about many things. What I’m finding most in... Read More
Domestic ‘Terrorism’ Depends on the Perpetrator
In the past years our country has witnessed a wave of domestic terrorist acts mainly perpetrated by white supremacists and right-wing extremists; not Islamist terrorists. Just to highlight a few of th... Read More
Methodological Challenges to Measuring Transformation
When I set out on my dissertation research, my main question was whether and how interfaith dialogue functions to transform people. I had a hypothesis that people do interfaith dialogue because when d... Read More
Same-Sex Marriage and Slippery Slopes
In his dissent to the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts offers a familiar 'slippery slope' argument. Slippery slope arguments offer a very narrow picture... Read More
Choice and Safety: Required Ingredients for Interfaith Progress
Classic “contact theory” predicts that diverse societies automatically bring about tolerance. I argued against this idea here when I discussed how proximity generally exacerbates the anxiety of di... Read More
Generalizations Are Never Defensible. Or Is This an Indefensible Generalization?
Figuring out how to talk about religion, especially in boundary crossing contexts, can be a struggle. Isn’t that part of what we are trying to do at State of Formation–figure out the how of in... Read More
Interfaith Dialogue with Those Who Belong to Exclusivistic, Literalistic Religions
When I read Jenn Lindsay’s recent State of Formation blog post entitled “On Irreconcilable Differences: My Interreligious Dialogue with Mormon Missionaries” I was immediately intrigu... Read More