Christian Scientists think of angels as bright ideas. Angels are moments of clarity and expanded consciousness, moments of fresh vision and creativity, broadened perspective, and infusions of loving inspiration. Christian Scientists, who think of God as pure Mind, a divine principle of loving consciousness, see the intellect as a portal of revelation.

I come from a line of Christian Scientists, educated people devoted to the art of learning, whose hearts and imaginations are fed by…

(This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2)

OFFENSE

Jesus was most recently portrayed in celluloid form by a Portuguese model with great hair.…

(This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 here.)

AUTHORITY

There is another hot issue in a discussion about religion and the Bible: the question of who has authority over the telling of a narrative? How about The Bible miniseries on The History Channel? It’s a very confident little…

Humor; humor is difficult.

Religion; religion is difficult.

They can both be reassuring, and discomfiting. They can affix labels, or they can liberate. They can be subversive, or they can uplift the dominant paradigm. Both can be thrilling and boring. They can be unifying, or alienating. Religion and humor both aspire to help us live our lives a little better, more vitally, more happily, more freely; but both can be destructive, violent, petty, unintelligent, and disappointing.…

Last night I went to Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. I hoped to to see the black smoke of the papal conclave. I figured the dark puff would roil out from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel and the sorry crowd would disperse into the dusk.

I heard the smoke would disperse around 4:30pm so I arrived at the Piazza at 4:00, wrapped in a cheap plastic poncho and sheltered by a pink Hello Kitty umbrella in the spring storm. A crowd amassed, a burgeoning tower of Babel between the many…

I attended the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed by the preponderance of sacred fashion statements (the hats!), the number of New Age practitioners from the North American West Coast, and the ubiquity of the phrase “interfaith dialogue.” As former chair of the Union Theological Seminary Interfaith Caucus, a Contributing Scholar for State of Formation, and a member of an interfaith family, I am at times perplexed by the vagueness of this…

I attended the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed by the preponderance of sacred fashion statements (the hats!), the number of New Age practitioners from the North American West Coast, and the ubiquity of the phrase “interfaith dialogue.” As former chair of the Union Theological Seminary Interfaith Caucus, a Contributing Scholar for State of Formation, and a member of an interfaith family, I am at times perplexed by the vagueness of this…

I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted.

This is very true. I have lapsed in my public reflections about all things religious.

When I ask myself why I lapsed, my answers are either mundane or existential. You can guess the mundane ones: I’m too busy. I’m working on my PhD. I write and read all day long about religious things, and I don’t have…

I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted.

This is very true. I have lapsed in my public reflections about all things religious.

When I ask myself why I lapsed, my answers are either mundane or existential. You can guess the mundane ones: I’m too busy. I’m working on my PhD. I write and read all day long about religious things, and I don’t have…

I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted.

This is very true. I have lapsed in my public reflections about all things religious.

When I ask myself why I lapsed, my answers are either mundane or existential. You can guess the mundane ones: I’m too busy. I’m working on my PhD. I write and read all day long about religious things, and I don’t have…

I recently received an email from the fine editorial staff at State of Formation informing me that I am officially a lapsed contributor and my posting account might be deleted.

This is very true. I have lapsed in my public reflections about all things religious.

When I ask myself why I lapsed, my answers are either mundane or existential. You can guess the mundane ones: I’m too busy. I’m working on my PhD. I write and read all day long about religious things, and I don’t have…

I am in the process of articulating how I can be both Christian and Jewish without being a “Jew for Jesus.” Many people hail from a smattering of religious influences and heritages. The current model of religious identification has us choose one or none. But there has to be an intellectually credible, spiritually legitimate way of expressing a dual affiliation.

In the simplest terms I can conjure, I feel ritually, communally, aesthetically Jewish and, in my private heart, spiritually…

Here is a story about why deep thinking about religious pluralism doesn’t get you out of tight spots with actual people.

The scene: I am at a Starbucks in San Diego sipping my giant American coffee and dutifully researching the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. I mention this detail perhaps too loudly on my cell phone, and then something happens that ALWAYS happens when strangers hear that I study religion. This guy comes up to me and says, “I could not help but overhear that you…

I spent last week at Agape Centro Ecumenico, an ecumenical centre in Northern Italy with roots in the post-World War II peace movement. I attended last summer's conference series at Agape on Fundamentalism in Our Era, Body Theology, and The Ethics of Work and Voluntarism. Now I am a member of the planning committee for August 2011's summit on Violence in Our Era: Transforming a Culture of Violence into a Culture of Just…

I was once what adults called a picky eater. There were only certain colors I would eat. The beige family is the most reliable, and it also encompasses most bread-based breakfast foods (rainbow-colored food coloring foods are also safe). There were only certain textures I would eat: melted cheese and bread-based foods. Anything extreme, like a spice, a vinegar kick or overt fishiness was way out of the question. Unidentified animal part? Take a hike. The biggest offenders, crete certo,…

A few years ago I was going through a very hard time. I said to my father, “I just want my dignity back!” My father, a Navy survival instructor, replied, “Jenny, no one can take away your dignity! Even if you are hanging by your toes in a prisoner of war camp, your dignity is still yours! Nobody can take it away!”

This message of unassailable human dignity is expressed in Article 1 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity…

The first thing I noticed about the Western Wall is that everybody was crying.

I had been lost in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, and when I rounded the gate above the Wall (the Kotel) the first thing I saw was the sun bouncing off the Dome of the Rock, blinding me in the Shabbat noon light. The glow did not relent and I drew through the security gate, mesmerized, magnetized toward the surviving wall of the Second Temple of Rabbinic Judaism, left standing after the…

Today is the first full day in Israel. Jet lag woke me up at 5:45am and I grew restless waiting out the dawn in my twin bed, so I pulled on running shoes and trotted out into the indigo chill. The Sea of Galilee, black then silver then blue, reflected the slowly brightening sky as I traversed the quiet morning streets and found a muddy trail on a bluff overlooking the blustery sea.

There’s too much to a day in Israel to even record, remember, keep track of. Thus the crucial importance…

I arrived at Gate 6 in Terminal 3 at JFK an hour before departure to Tel Aviv. It was technically yesterday, but due to the flight and the travel I’ve only scraped together some shallow dozes, and the day has gone far past its expiration hour.

At the gate there were lots of Orthodox families, big fur hats, wigs, little boys and their daddies with matching peyes, awful sweaters, fringes, big black velvet toppings. My distaste surged. I reflected on the miserly hostility I feel…

I lived in Indonesia during the summer of 2010. When Indonesians meet someone new, they ask two questions: What is your name? and What is your religion?

I was startled one day when a wizened Indonesian grandmother pushed her way up to me and asked these two questions: “Nama Anda siapa? Apa agama Anda?” I told her my name was Jenn, but, as usual, I had no idea how to describe my religious affiliation. “Jewish” seemed complicated. Indonesia is a Muslim…