Tag: Violence
When an Olympic Ring Blinked
I am in love with the four Olympic rings. I am in love, in particular, with the one that did not open, last Friday, during the opening ceremonies in Sochi, Russia. That closed ring shows the incomplet... Read More
Why I will not apply for the Council on Foreign Relations’s “Religion and Foreign Policy Bulletin”
State of Formation recently announced that it would nominate its Contributing Scholars to be featured in the Council on Foreign Relation’s “Religion and Foreign Policy Bulletin.” This is a great... Read More
Finding Jesus at the Texas-Mexico Border
It was cold and windy on the last morning of our trip to the Rio Grande Valley. We sat at a wooden table toward the back of the restaurant, warming ourselves with coffee and eating breakfast tacos. Ci... Read More
Unrateable Terrors
I help teach a university course on The Holocaust in Historical Context. It is, it should be, impossible to remain unaffected by immersive study of Western Antisemitism and how religious, economic, po... Read More
Sikh Ethics and Political Engagement
Originally published with Tikkun; Co-written with Dr. Prabhjot Singh As members of an underrepresented community in modern America, we find ourselves in the midst of a double bind. On the one hand, we... Read More
What is our response to ‘Sexting, Shaming and Suicide?’
Some stories are difficult to make sense of. Take, for instance, one of the stories from the Bible from Judges 19. It is the story of a Levite traveling through the hill country of Ancient Israel, goi... Read More
Hate Hits Home: When My Friend Became a Target
Originally published on The Huffington Post Last night, I received the kind of phone call that everyone dreads: a close friend was hurt, and on his way to the hospital. But the news got worse, as I le... Read More
Lessons Learned while Teaching Buddhist Monks
Teaching Cambodian Buddhist monks is mostly the same as teaching Cambodian children. There are less discipline problems and the monks can’t play games—even educational ones. Also, because I am... Read More