I’m only ten pages into Arundhati Roy’s 2016 book of essays, The End of Imagination, and I already have several asterisks and exclamation points in the margins. In the introduction, Roy reviews recent Indian political history to help set the tone for the essays that follow. The theme of India’s history is the “competing horror […]
Truth-telling through a comic frame
I somehow skipped the comic book/graphic novel stage during childhood, but encountered this mode of storytelling one summer afternoon in the stacks of a London university library. Since then, the comic book industry has enjoyed a popular renaissance, and both the theaters and the web streaming services are full of comic adaptations. Luke Cage is […]
Timely research: Who are our neighbors?
Learning to share the public space with those with whom we disagree; learning to overcome humanity’s abysmal record of religious wars, religious ethnic cleansing, and genocide-fueled religious bigotry—these have become some of the most urgent challenges of our time.” —Ganoune Diop, October 2016 Our friends at PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute, have published a research […]
![Spiritual betrayal on the part of one [religion] affects the faith of us all. —R. Abraham Heschel](https://mackenzian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/HeschelX.jpg)
Find your people
Remember the story of the little red hen? The little red hen asks for help with reaping and grinding wheat and making and baking bread, but there are no takers. “Who will help me bake the bread?” she asks her farm friends. “Not I,” they each tell her, and they leave her to complete each […]
A shield, not a sword
Aspiring clerical aristocrats debase the idea of religious freedom when they use it as a tool to seek exemptions from the generally applicable laws of the United States—particularly those that prohibit discrimination. Religious freedom and civil rights are complementary values and legal principles necessary to sustain and advance equality for all.” —Fred Clarkson, January 3, […]
Learning about character from Shakespeare
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet muses about the conflict between her family, the Capulets, and the family of her beloved, Romeo. The two families are feuding and she’s been trained to hate the name “Montague,” yet she’s still managed to fall in love with someone from that clan. Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore […]
