Posts Tagged ‘ “Community” ’

Out of the basket

May 21st, 2011 10:51 am | By

Such a pity about Jim Wallis and Sojourners (if you like that sort of thing, at least).

But the rejection of so mild a political message, by a magazine whose editor has laboured mightily to establish himself as the face of the religious left, has sparked recrimination and soul searching among progressive people of faith in the US.

Maybe that’s because “progressive people of faith” care way too much about unity and cohesion and community among progressive people of faith and not nearly enough about free inquiry and principle and substantive issues and dissent. We ornery disputatious gnu atheists are the opposite. We’ll be a community of one if that’s what it takes.

Seriously, “progressive people of faith” do seem … Read the rest



Between different communities

Mar 17th, 2011 4:27 pm | By

I don’t see the benefit of interfaith whatsits. I don’t see why it’s Obama’s job to encourage them.

Since his inauguration, President Obama has emphasized interfaith cooperation and community service – “interfaith service” for short – as an important way to build understanding between different communities and contribute to the common good.

But if you don’t sort people into “different communities” in the first place, then you don’t need to build understanding between different communities, because people won’t be constantly seeing everyone as part of a different community. If you don’t keep insisting on this community-sorting project, you won’t entrench people in their communities and make them all prickly and defensive about their everlasting precious communities. That is, of … Read the rest