Religion

In this space in the last month, colleagues from different traditions have written about positive actions one may take in these times that are so challenging. They have expressed a moral urgency regarding our nation’s military moves and threats against other nations, and the...

A couple of weeks ago, if you saw a gray pickup heading out of town toward Highway 152, loaded down with furniture and looking more like a U-Haul truck than a pickup, that was me.  Like all parents of college-age children, it’s that time of...

Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement—is Judaism’s most solemn holy day, but its enduring power lies not in sadness. It lies in the radical proposition that human beings can stop, take account and begin again. Observed on the 10th day after the beginning of the Jewish...

In the autumn of 2018, eleven people were brutally massacred during Shabbat services at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, shattering our collective sense of safety. The trauma reverberated far beyond Pennsylvania, reaching directly into the Jewish souls of Morgan Hill, Gilroy and...

The last time I wrote this column, I argued that “faith at its best does not teach us to fear our neighbors. It teaches us to see them.” I’ve been thinking about that word—see—quite a bit lately.  More precisely, I’ve been wondering: What is the difference...

Dozens of clergy and more than 100 community members gathered Aug. 30 outside the site of a proposed federal immigration detention facility on Holsclaw Road near Gilroy, launching what organizers say will be a monthly series of interfaith prayer vigils opposing the project. The vigil,...

We live in a culture obsessed with safety. We soften the post before sending it. We stay quiet to keep the peace. Silence, we've decided, is safe.  I'm not so sure anymore. It's just a quieter cost—the friendship that cools because you never said the...

How has your faith changed your life? Or has it?  In my daily Bible reading, I came across this nugget: “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey...

Today I share with you a recent letter to the entire membership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from our Presiding Bishop, The Rev. Yehiel Curry. He addresses the debate about recent trends in our country to champion particular religious beliefs and divide our...

The United States recently celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The authors and signers announced that they were no longer subject to the king of England. They declared they were independent.  I want to mention another word; interdependence. We...