Category: Popular Culture
Should Civil and Church Marriage be Separated?
Some Christians have responded to the court's recent ruling in favor of same-sex marriage by calling for Christians to totally separate 'civil' marriage from 'church' marriage. But this position is to... Read More
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
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
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
What Is the Unity of “Unity in Diversity”?
Notwithstanding the prizing of diversity, there IS some unified bottom line to interfaith dialogue. Nonviolent behavior is the basis for “unity in diversity.” Behavior is a category about which a... Read More
Romantic Distance vs. Vexing Proximity: the difficulty of real up-close interfaith encounters
My research on interreligious dialogue and engagement has reinforced an old cliché: absence makes the heart grow fonder. When two people are distant from each other, it is easy to idealize each other... Read More
On Irreconcilable Differences: My Interreligious Dialogue with Mormon Missionaries
Since I’m conducting field research on interfaith dialogue in Rome, I thought it would be an important part of my participant-observation to embark upon a dialogue. I met some Mormon sisters conduct... Read More
There and Back Again: An Observation on the Rise of the Nones
If you’re a practicing Christian, regardless of your particular affiliation or denomination, chances are you’ve probably heard about the latest Pew Forum Data on America’s Changing Religious Lan... Read More