Ned Rosch is a co-founder of the Portland chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. He says that advocating for justice for the Palestinians has made him more Jewish than ever. He talks to me, personally, about his own awakening, liberating and painful, and the rift in the Jewish community as they struggle over the meaning of Israel, and the deep challenge facing Israel of what it will be, a true democracy or an apartheid state.
The program is undergoing a name change. Religion For Life is now Progressive Spirit. It has the same focus on education, spirituality, and social justice, but with a new name! This week, I continue my series, Islam 101: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor. Manar Allatar is a Ph. D. student at Portland State University in the School of the Environment. She volunteers with youth at her mosque, Masjed As-Saber, and speaks with me about Islam and the empowerment of women, Islam and youth, and addressing Isla...
This is part five of my series, "Islam 101: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor." I continue the conversation with Paul Kamolnick. (See Part One). Paul Kamolnick is a professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at East Tennessee State University. He writes monographs for the US Army War College. His latest monograph will be available for free download in the Spring of 2016. It is entitled The Al-Qa'ida Organization and the Islamic State Organization: History, Doctrine, Modus Operandi, and th...
This is part four of my series, "Islam 101: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor." One of the ways to combat Islamophobia is to be clear about the differences between Muslims and violent psychopaths who use religion as a cover for their terrorism. Paul Kamolnick is a professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at East Tennessee State University. He specializes in Classical Social Theory, Contemporary Social Theory, Political Islam, Counterterrorism, and the Al Qua'ida and Islamic State Organi...
Harris Zafar (Twitter) is the National Spokesperson and Director of Youth Outreach for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. He lives in Portland and is a member of the Portland Rizwan Mosque. He has been on national media talking about Islam, human rights, pluralism, and freedom of religion. Harris is the author of Demystifying Islam: Tackling the Tough Questions. He is my third guest in my series, “Islam 101: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor.”
In the second in my series, "Islam 101: Meet Your Muslim Neighbor" I speak with Joseph Lumbard. He is the General Editor of The Study Qur'an: A New Translation and Commentary. Dr. Lumbard is a professor at the American University of Sharjah in the Department of Arabic and Translation Studies. He was born and raised in Washington D.C. and brought up in the Episcopal Church. He converted to Islam when a student at George Washington University. He has published many articles and books on Islamic ph...
With the increase in instances of Islamophobia and certain presidential candidates calling for "a ban on all Muslim travel to the U.S.," it is long past time to get to know our neighbors. For the next several weeks I am presenting a series, "Meet Your Muslim Neighbor." Ali Houdroge is one of the founding members of the Islamic Center of Portland at the corner of Denney Road and Hall Boulevard in Beaverton. Mr. Houdroge was born in Lebanon and attended Portland Community College and Portland Stat...
They went into the wilderness to discover religion. What is it all about? Why are people religious? The adventure is recounted in Dr. Tom Boyd's, Lusting For Infinity: A Spiritual Odyssey. Dr. Boyd is professor emeritus of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Oklahoma. Reading Lusting For Infinity is like hanging out with your favorite professor and talking about all the great, honest, and real stuff you never have time for in class. An important book for those with inquisitive ...
John Van Hagen is a licensed psychologist with 30 years experience in a variety of clinical, training, and teaching positions. In his book Rescuing Religion: How Faith Can Survive Its Encounter With Science, he offers a way to retain a connection to biblical stories even if the characters never existed and the events never happened. We can go behind the texts to discover the struggles the authors of these texts faced. We find they connect with our own.
Steve McIntosh is a leader in the integral philosophy movement and is president of the social policy foundation The Institute for Cultural Evolution. Steve is the author of Evolution's Purpose and Integral Consciousness and he speaks to me about his latest book, The Presence of the Infinite: The Spiritual Experience of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. Food for thought for an evolving faith.
Robin Meyers has been the senior pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City for over thirty years. He has a strong voice for social justice and has pulled no punches criticizing forms of Christianity co-opted by the religious right. His books include Saving Jesus From the Church, The Underground Church, and Why the Christian Right is Wrong. He returns to Religion For Life to discuss his latest book, Spiritual Defiance: Building A Beloved Community of Resistance. Based on his Beec...
Following her last book, Christianity After Religion, religious scholar, Diana Butler Bass, returns to Religion For Life to ask, "Where is God?" The answer that many of the "spiritual but not religious" are discovering is that God is in the world of nature and human relationships. Her latest book, Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution weaves personal experience and analysis to point to signs of this theological shift.
Rodney Wilson teaches school at a community college in Missouri. He was the first openly-gay K-12 public school teacher in Missouri and founded LGBT History Month (October). He has a master's degree in religion and history and he turned his master's thesis into a book, Killing God: Christian Fundamentalism and the Rise of Atheism. In it he analyzes the responses of 1,600 people who left religion for atheism. He found four primary factors that contributed to their "deconversion." You may resonate...
Twenty-five percent of all the people incarcerated in the world are in America's prisons. 60% of those are people of color. America is a "carceral state." Taking on "Lockdown America" a triad of "police violence, mass incarceration and the death penalty" Mark Lewis Taylor, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written a second edition to The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. Taylor finds in the symbol, "The Executed Go...
Peter Steinberger is the Robert H. and Blanche Day Ellis Professor of Political Science and Humanities at Reed College in Portland. His area of expertise is political philosophy. But he ventured into a book about the concept of God. It is called The Problem With God: Why Atheists, True Believers, and Even Agnostics Must All Be Wrong. We talk about why it is meaningless to talk about God. There is no such idea. Curious?
Joseph Baker is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at East Tennessee State University. His latest book, American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems, co-authored with Buster G. Smith, explores the rise of secularity in the United States. Why are more and more people identifying as "non-religious" and what are the forces shaping this change? Religion and secularism from a sociological point of view.
Mary Pflum Peterson is an Emmy Award winning producer for Good Morning America. She is a driven, highly successful television professional and former reporter for CNN. Her childhood, however, was complicated. Her mother suffered an emotional breakdown and took solace in hoarding, filling the house with "treasures." The bond that held mother and daughter was symbolized by the white dresses that marked important milestones in their lives. She tells her powerful and important story in White Dresses...
Eric Elnes is a minister in the United Church of Christ at Countryside Community Church in Omaha, Nebraska and author of Gifts of the Dark Wood: Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics (and Other Wanderers). He is also the author of The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity. He hosts a webcast called Darkwood Brew. He spoke with me about seven gifts we find in the Dark Wood of our lives.
Val Webb is a theologian and scientist from Australia. She is the author of nine books including her latest Testing Tradition and Liberating Theology: Finding Your Own Voice. She returns to Religion For Life to speak with me about the importance of being critical of theological creeds and finding your path.
Jeffrey Robbins is Chair and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of eight books. He is a Westar Fellow and a member of the new "God and the Human Future" Seminar. He along with Thomas Sheehan will be at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon, November 6-7 to discuss God, Christianity, and the Human Future. In this candid conversation, Dr. Robbins talks about the "problem of God" and his upcoming book,...
Martin Winiecki is the coordinator of the Institute for Global Peace Work in Tamera, Portugal. Terra Nova is a movement, a school, a community, and a vision for a world at peace. He speaks with me about the community and the book he helped translate from German by Dr. Dieter Duhm called Terra Nova: Global Revolution and the Healing of Love. Martin is on a nationwide tour to promote this vision of holistic "system change – environmental stewardship; establishing new paradigms for love, sexuality,...
Jerry Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. He specializes in understanding the origin of species. In addition to numerous scientific papers and his scholarly book in his field, Speciation, he is the author of the popular book, Why Evolution Is True. His most recent effort to communicate to popular audiences about science is his latest book, Faith Vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible.
Peter Watson is an intellectual historian and the author of fifteen books on the history of ideas. His latest book is The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God. He traces the history of atheism from Nietzsche to Dawkins. His book is a fascinating tour of poets, artists, philosophers, and others who have sought meaning in the midst of life without God.
Ryan Bell, a former Seventh Day Adventist Pastor, tried an experiment. What would life be like if he spent a year without God? He blogged about his adventure at Year Without God. He talks about that year, what he is doing now, and his new podcast, Life After God. Ryan is the third in my three-part series on pastors who have left the ministry and the church's beliefs behind.
In the second of my three-part series on ex-ministers, I speak with Pat Green. When the ministry ended for Pat due to his commitment to same-gender marriage, he left the church and scrambled to find work. He ended up driving a taxi in the Chicago area. That is where his ministry became real. He blogged about his experience and has just finished a book, Night Moves: An Ex-Preacher's Journey to Hell in a Taxi.
My conversation with David Hayward of Naked Pastor kicks off a three-part series on ex-preachers, preachers who have left their careers in organized religion. Pat Green left the ministry and now drives a taxi. Ryan Bell took a year off from God and stayed there. David Hayward facilitates an on-line community called The Lasting Supper. He also is a blogger, cartoonist, and author of five books including Without a Vision My People Prosper, The Liberation of Sophia, The Art of Coming out, Naked Pas...
Gretta Vosper, a minister in the United Church of Canada, and pastor of West Hill United Church in Toronto, Ontario, is under fire from her denomination. Like many clergy, myself included, she doesn't believe in a supernatural, interventionist god, or a god called God. She is an atheist. She calls herself that. She has been one for a long time. Now, officials want to review her credentials for ministry which is a first for this denomination. She returns to Religion For Life to tell her story and...
One of the most interesting (and entertaining) scholars with two Ph. D.'s, Robert M. Price, talks with me about three books: The Historical Bejeezus: What A Long Strange Quest It Has Been, The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul, and Preaching Deconstruction: Sermons Employing the Deconstructive Philosophy of Jacques Derrida and The Death of God Theology of Thomas J. J. Altizer. The question is: how critical can you go? Taking critical methods of interpreting scripture a...
The murder of Trayvon Martin clinched the deal for Kelly Brown Douglas, Episcopal priest, and professor of religion at Goucher College. She decided she had to write a book about America's racism. She had to write about what it means to be a mother of a black male child in America. Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God defines a "kairos" moment for America. It is the time to name and dismantle the stand your ground culture.
He has been called "the most radical theologian in the world." Don Cupitt is a philosopher of religion and a former priest in the Church of England. He has written 50 books. His latest is Creative Faith: Religion As A Way of Worldmaking. He is the founder of the Sea of Faith Network. His philosophy in short? "He rejects all ideas of gaining salvation by escaping from this world of ours. "All this is all there is" he says and he now sees true religion in terms of joy in life and an active attempt...
